ClearWords

In the beginning -- there was just God. And the Voice of God said, "Let there be light". Suddenly, the darkness was pierced by the brightest, whitest, most searing eruption of light that could ever be imagined; closely followed by the loudest, deepest and most violent explosion that could ever qualify to be described as sound. At that moment, in an unspeakably vast cavity of space whose existence had never before been seen or imagined -- where before, there was nothing -- an immense weight of something sprang into being. From the place of the Voice, an endless cloud of matter exploded, its perimeter racing outwards at the speed of light; filling the enormous emptiness, driven outward by the very Breath of God. Time passed. Whether seconds or aeons no-one can tell, for time itself was still young. There was no way to record its passing; no-one to measure it. The cloud grew and grew, the matter expanded and cooled. The light dimmed -- but was not extinguished. Clouds of gas for...

It turns out that a teenager who killed seven students and one adult at a school in Finland claimed his inspiration came from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Describing himself as "a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist”, Pekka Eric Auvinen declared, "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection." A pretty shocking interpretation, but it’s by no means the first time Darwin ’s theory has been taken to that kind of extreme. It was Darwin's cousin Francis Dalton who developed the idea of eugenics – the genetic improvement of the human race by selective breeding. This led directly to the Nazi doctrine of Aryan supremacy and all its offshoots; their attempts to breed a 'super-race' of people in human stud farms, the forced sterilization of at least two million people, and ultimately, the holocaust. The fact is that if y...

Churches today are losing young people like never before. This is obviously a very positive trend, which needs to be sustained for as long as possible. Young people are noisy, and far too full of energy and enthusiasm. They speak their mind, play loud music and keep wanting to change things. As far as possible, it is better to keep them right away. Here are a few tips for doing just that. 1. Never change anything. Your church has been the same for tens, maybe hundreds of years. Young people are a threat to that. If you give them an inch they will take a mile, so don’t allow the slightest change. If possible, hedge everything around with layers of bureaucracy, like deacons, committees and church meetings, to make sure change is virtually impossible. 2. Turn down the PA. Young people like to feel music, not just hear it. They also worry what other people think of them, and after years of exposure to programs like The X Factor, they may be paranoid about what they sound like....

I learned just recently - and it came as no surprise - that 60% of 25-35 year-olds feel unfulfilled at work; and 90% of 30-40 year-olds want to leave conventional business jobs for something more satisfying*. Being what's commonly know as a 'baby boomer', I grew up in a period of ever-increasing wealth and ever-extending choice. For most of my generation, gaining financial security and acquiring material possessions became the major goals in life. However, having once achieved those things, we somehow found that they failed to satisfy the deepest needs that we felt inside. If you are in your teens or twenties today, you probably either grew up with financial security and take it for granted; or you have looked at the rising costs of housing, pensions and healthcare and concluded that financial security is beyond your reach. You are one of the generation that seeks fulfilment in 'experiences'. I predict that this will prove to be an equally fruitless and unsatisfying...

I remember a preacher once saying that experience is not necessarily a good teacher – it’s a hard teacher. Well this year, I learned something the hard way. When we moved to our present home, the garden was a blank canvas. That’s to say there was nothing much in it except concrete, grass and weeds. Remembering that nice Mr Titchmarsh’s advice on the tele, to ‘spend little on the plants and a lot on the soil’, I bought some compost and went round filching cuttings from various shrubs I saw that took my fancy. Ten years on, many of those small cuttings had grown into thundering great triffids that were taking over the garden. Pruning them was taking hours, and generating dozens of bags of green waste for the dump. So this year I decided enough was enough. I dug out the most uncontrollable ones and got rid of them. A lesson in life About halfway through digging out some particularly stubborn roots, I realised I was learning a lesson in life. In our personal lives, our families, churches, ...