The national trauma of the last few weeks during which riots overwhelmed several cities of England but spreading beyond, has left us bewildered, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. They tell of whole sectors of the community who are alienated and antagonized to the point of violence, in the pretext of immigration and multicultural issues but in…

The General Election was called and somehow the power in the land passed from its politicians and government into the hands of the media, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It is now the journalists, editors, presenters, commentators and pollsters who were making the running as each party, its leaders and manifestoes are held up to examination,…

The date 3 September 1989 still rings bells with me, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It is not just that it was 50 years since the declaration of war by the British Government on Nazi Germany, but it was also the day when the first non-dictatorial regime had come to office in Poland since 1939. The…

I suppose that it is unavoidable to compare Easter with Christmas, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Christmas is in deep winter, when our nights are dark and the weather is cold. Our images are of snow-clad landscapes and city scenes. And then the story is definitely a family story: a mother having a baby, in hard…

I suppose that one of the most intriguing paradoxes of our time is the sense of self, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. We definitely live in a time of seeking to achieve and fulfil ourselves, to deepen our sense of our identity, achieve our ambitions and to live full and meaningful lives. Yet this set of…

It must have been developing for some time, but it is now getting faster and faster, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. No, this is not about HS2 – another costly rail project for the Home Counties. More, it is the inversion of reality. Truth does not exist – except as perceived and promoted by certain interest…

This autumn seems to be beset by despondency, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It is not just the posturing and point-scoring that we get during the political conference season. In part it may be the feeling that national agendas are being driven by political and cultural extremes, which gain currency by being deaf to all questions…

This is a strange time, when the news is full of personal and national tragedy, the sporting calendar continues apace and the national mood is either elated of sunk in depression, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Not being particularly sporting myself, most of its content passes me by and those sports that do interest me are…

I can’t help finding feeling profoundly confused, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. On one hand, all sense of personal responsibility, never mind regulation, seems to be wholly rejected and each of us is to be the arbiter of our own lifestyles, priorities, morality and of course, spiritual life. The theme here is that I should be…

I keep finding that there is something slightly discordant in the life of faith, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. We attend church and worship God. We greet one another and we contribute to the church collection. We take part in the life of the church and in assisting its activities. Much of this take place in…

At one time matters of faith and science were presented as being wholly opposed to one another, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Faith was a conversation with God whose existence was unprovable, and so unreasonable. Science was a conversation with the observable world and universe and so was wholly reasonable, free of any taint of superstition….

One of the most misunderstood words around today must be ‘Apocalyptic’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It has been fashionable for some years now. The film about the war in Vietnam, ‘Apocalypse Now’ dealt with a dysfunctional mission to deal with a rogue officer. There is a full genre of fiction dealing with a ‘post-apocalyptic’ world…

We will all have noted the European Championship success of the English women’s football team and I would heartily congratulate them, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Not being a particular enthusiast for athletics and ball-based sports, I am inclined to leave it at that. But there is one aspect that makes me think a little more…

Writing these notes near the end of Eastertide, I am now looking towards the Ascension of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. They are linked in that first of all the church was celebrating the ascension of Jesus to His place in heaven where He would be accessible to all believers…

I suppose that the astonishment we feel at the Russian invasion of Ukraine is matched most closely by the progressive collapse of the Iron Curtain during the autumn of 1989, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Every month another East European country shrugged off the communist straightjacket and emerged blinking into a new era of choice and…

We have all felt the sense of uncertainty in these days, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Apart from the threat of war in Ukraine – and the question of just how far it would be restricted to that country, there is the rising cost of living in this country and of course the effects of Brexit…

In writing this we are looking forward to Advent and Christmas, writes Rev Sydney Maitland, when we celebrate God’s action in entering the human race, first of all as a baby, but later to be seen as the Messiah, the Anointed One, Prince of Peace, saviour of the world. But the present time is very…

It was once a common response to any kind of annoyance or disturbance that ‘There should be a law against it’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. The strange thing is that these days, there probably is. Any perceived insult, any critical comment, any expression of dissent outside the norms of progressive opinion, and there is a…

Waiting can be extremely tedious, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Waiting for a bus, an appointment, a letter or just for the rain to stop. It is a pastime immersed in incredible boredom, unless relieved by having something to read or to think about. But then there is another kind of waiting, such as in a…

The plea goes up for justice – and that ‘our claim is just’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. The cynic might say that nobody openly makes a claim that they know to be unjust and even WW2 began with Hitler’s demand for the restoration of the Danzig corridor to German control as if it had been…

We have just resumed our worship in church after a lockdown of some three months, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. For some of us it has been tedious as we are denied the company of friends and the pursuit of out of home activities. But in coming together again there is that sense of regathering, renewal,…

It is really strange seeing the signs of springtime appearing while the life of the church and much of the city has been stilled, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Conditions in almost all aspects of life are still highly unpredictable, in terms of the weather, progress of the Covid pandemic, the restarting of our national life,…