Not strangers but pilgrims
May 19 2015 Vraiment, cela peut paraître bizarre, mais j’ai entendu dire que le plus long des pèlerinages est celui qui vous emmène… « depuis le cerveau… jusqu’au cœur ! » [1] Ten years ago, my Savoyard friend Pierre Angleys set out from his home in Veigy-Foncenex, just across the border from Geneva, to walk 1,896 km to …
In memoriam
May 15 2015On Tuesday this week, I presented the following report at the AGM of the Friends of St Andrew’s, Jerusalem, in St Cuthbert’s Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh.[1] Friends of St Andrew’s AGM Minister’s report, April 16 2015 Kiss me, Hardy? Well, perhaps not. One of the first events I attended since arriving in Jerusalem …
States of Palestine
March 30 2015 I got off the plane in Ben Gurion last September to begin a new life as minister of St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem. With characteristic Irish insouciance, I planned to spend the first month settling in before getting on with the job. Now I realize I’ll still be settling in when …
A hand and a name
January 29 2015 I first visited Jerusalem in March 1992. I’d just become convener of the Middle East and North Africa committee of the Board of World Mission and Unity, not long before the Kirk divided the board – an irony that seemed lost on most people – and as a reward I had been …
Good news in a bad way
December 5 2014 In Bethlehem in December 2009, an ecumenical group of indigenous Christians launched Kairos Palestine: A moment of truth – a word of faith and hope from the heart of Palestinian suffering. To mark the fifth anniversary of the launch, an international conference was held in Bethlehem this week, under the title Life …
People of the four winds
November 8 2014 I’ve just come back from a service of remembrance at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Mount Scopus. The service was unusual in two ways. We remembered the beginning as well as the end of the Great War; we also rededicated the mosaic that lines the Memorial Chapel. Laid in 1927 as …
Render to Caesar
October 22 2014 Kristen Brown is a United Methodist minister based in the Tantur Institute in Jerusalem as a liaison for her church. She is also associated with St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, where she shares in leading worship (she likes this almost as much as I do). Last week, we were driving a friend …
People are hurting here
October 13 2014 At the beginning of September the Rev. Páraic Réamonn became the minister of St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem. Below, he reflects on his first weeks in the Holy Land. He plans to blog regularly from Jerusalem. In May this year, I reached retirement age. At the end of June, I stopped …