I can’t remember when I was first aware of ‘being alive’ or when I first started to think about life and death. I suppose I was quite young. It is part of our shared human experience that we all think about such things. In the Bible, the apostle James raises the question, ‘What is your life?’ (James 4:14, ESV). He answers his own question and says we are like mist, here for a little while and then vanishing from sight. Life is short and uncertain...

At the risk of stirring up some ire, let me mention a football gripe. Football supporters will be all too aware of the great controversy about the use of Video Assistant Referees who are using video technology to look for and to adjudicate on incidents during a match. It's proving contentious, with the calling of offsides and handballs being particularly controversial interventions. Without divulging my own football allegiance, suffice to say that the team I support has recently been on the receiving end of some highly controversial VAR decisions...

Regrettably, once again we are having to close our doors and not hold services at the church building. The Government have again included 'places of worship' in their list of venues that cannot be open for gatherings during this new lockdown. It is regrettable because we have followed all the guidelines to make our meetings 'Covid-secure', which ought to ensure it is 'safe' to be here. It is regrettable too because church services are meant for our good. However, we respect the Government's decision, we hope the closure will not be for long and we are well placed to respond...

That we 'get an extra hour' when the clocks go back at the end of October seems to me to be scant consolation for the fact that the evenings feel suddenly so much longer and the day so much shorter. And we are still nearly two months from the shortest day. I don't like it when we have to put the clocks back. Sometimes, though, we really wish we could put the clocks back for reasons other than the end of British Summer Time. Life passes by and you feel that sense of where has it gone and wish you could turn the dial the other way and get some of that time back again.

I wish it would 'just go away' but it won't. It dawned on me very early in this pandemic that, much as I didn't like the thought, we were going to have to live with this for a very long time. I'm not a virologist or epidemiologist or any other sort of expert in the field of infectious diseases, but I do understand enough to realise that viruses persist and don't simply disappear overnight. I can't help but think that we ought to be willing to learn a useful lesson from this...