Premier Radio Thought on peace of mind

It may be you lack peace of mind.

Perhaps it’s due to an illness giving grief to your body that disturbs your whole being.

Or an upset in relationships, a concern about something you have to account for, or a thing ahead you’re just getting your head around.

Lack of peace is a tell tale sign we need to interpret because God desires we live in his peace even if that goes beyond our understanding.

I find when my peace is disturbed over a number of days it challenges me as to how surrendered my life is to God. 

Very often lack of peace links to anger about the way things are, inability to change those things and most significant of all, lack of submission to God.

I don’t know about you but I begin each day submitting it overall to God so it's given to be God’s day lived through me. Like any resolve it needs sticking at. Giving your life to God is something that needs repeating. It's also something basic to Christian worship where, at the eucharist, we regularly offer ourselves to God with Christ.

Inner turmoil when it comes is an invitation to seek attention for body, mind or spirit. Sometimes that attention is as simple as an act of faith in God as God of your life through rough and smooth. 

Take, Lord, and receive all that I am: my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire life. Dispose of me according to your will. All I need is your love and your grace. That is enough for me. Amen.

Premier Radio Thought on Joy 9th October 2017

The more you want God, the more he comes real to you.

Abide in me as I abide in you Jesus says in John 15 so that my joy may be in you.

I find there’s a battle for attention inside of me between myself and Jesus Christ - and when I’m looking away from myself to the Lord it’s a joy. Elsewhere in the Bible it says ‘in the Lord’s presence there is fullness of joy’.

There’s no greater aid to evangelism than joy: quiet, infectious joy, expressed in a smile.

God is beyond words. In Jesus Christ God comes to live in us by his Spirit. Reading his word, receiving Holy Communion, engaging with fellow believers - all these reinforce what Paul calls in Colossians 1:27 Christ in me, the hope of glory.

The Saints are famous for their smiles - I remember Mother Teresa’s infectious smile on TV to this day - smiles that are an overflowing from the heart where Christ is dwelling.

I want to be a Saint - don’t you? I mean, there’ll be nothing sadder ultimately than to miss the mark when it comes to unending friendship with God!

It's not what we have been or are that matters so much as what we would be.

Would you be a friend of God? The more you want God, the more he’ll make himself real to you.

Abide in me as I abide in you Jesus says so that my joy may be in you.

So be it, Lord Jesus - your joy be my strength this day!

https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast

Thought on St James broadcast on Premier Radio 25th July 2017

Friendship is central to Christianity.

St James, whose Feast we keep today, was a close friend of Jesus. After they first set eyes on one another by Lake Galilee Jesus and James kept close. He's there with Peter and John at key moments in the Gospel like the Lord's Transfiguration and his Agony in Gethsemane Garden. James witnessed his Lord's resurrection. Anointed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost he became the first Apostle to die for Jesus.

Such was their friendship.

I want to take a leaf out of James's book for I too am a friend of Jesus. I want to give time to him, to be with him, to know the power of his resurrection, the anointing of his Spirit, and, if needs be, give everything for him.

I want to bring other friends into friendship with Jesus.

It was different for James. He knew Jesus in the flesh. We know Jesus in the Spirit. He lights our spirits through the words of Scripture. The gift Jesus gave James of his body and blood at the Last Supper is ours day by day at the eucharist. By the Holy Spirit we keep friendship with Jesus who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

James wasn't a perfect friend of Jesus and nor am I. He was proud and ambitious for himself and so am I. He was lazy, sleeping when Jesus had asked him to pray, and I'm like that too

Jesus, though, proved faithful Friend to James - as he does to all who look into his Face and gain sight, day by day, of his faithful, radiant goodness.

I'm Canon John Twisleton living in Haywards Heath, West Sussex

Horsted Keynes Rector Giles Moore illuminates village life in 17th Century Sussex

One of the privileges of being Rector of Horsted Keynes has been involvement with St Giles rich history in partnership with Ann Govas, David & Sally Lamb, Hylda Rawlings, Caroline Rich (St Giles Archivist)  and the late Bob Sellens. Highlights over my 8 years have been Ann Govas’s publications, the Macmillan evening (2012), Archbishop Robert Leighton commemoration (2015) and publication of my own History of St Giles Church, Horsted Keynes (2015).

On 1^st December 2016 we packed the Giles Moore Room in the Martindale to engage there appropriately with our 44^th Rector Giles Moore who served here 1655-1679. It was tremendous to have with us 98 year old Hylda Rawlings, founder and now President of Danehill Parish Historical Society. Hylda spoke both about Giles Moore and her close friend Ruth Bird (1899-1987) who edited his Journal for publication by Sussex Record Society in 1971. Previously part of Moore’s Day Book featured in Rector Frank Eardley’s parish history of 1939. It was Rector Mark Hill-Tout (1984-1989) who persuaded Ruth to make ‘a complete, correct and scholarly transcription of the Day Book’. To Ruth Bird’s sorrow and that of many other people a large chunk of the Day Book dealing with Moore’s visits to local farms was omitted in the published Journal. Though valuable as part of Horsted Keynes history it was deemed of less interest to general readers. Perhaps that omission will be remedied some time soon.

Of the Day Book former villager and Land of Hope and Glory author Arthur Benson writes: ‘There can be few volumes in England which give so minute an account of the life of a country parson in the seventeenth century…an interesting commentary on the conditions of social life then prevailing. The Rev. Giles (or Aegidius) was obviously a convinced Royalist, though, like the Vicar of Bray, he subordinated his principles to his livelihood. He was certainly a man of peace as we see him in his day-book, a considerable student, and interested in agricultural operations’.

Moore first preached in St Giles on 1^st February 1655 a few years after the execution of King Charles 1 (1649) and lived through the Restoration of King Charles II (1660). His Royalist tendencies come out in Latin quotes in his Journal which he thought Cromwell’s men wouldn’t be able to read! He was married to Susan, formerly a widow. They had no children but took into their home Giles’ infant niece Martha nicknamed ‘Matt’ who often rode pillion behind him on his horse. It took three or four days to ride to London. Goods ordered there were delivered by Pony Pack to ‘The Red Lion’, Danehill now called ‘The White House’ on the east side of the A275 in the centre of Danehill Village.  Hylda, who lives just down the road, pictured Rector Giles with Matt sitting behind him, riding down the steep hill to Danehill from Horsted Keynes to collect goods delivered from London at ‘The Red Lion’.

In my History of St Giles I provide this selection from the Day Book: ‘On 10^th March 1658 Moore writes ‘dyed my servant John Dawes whom I buryed… next to the Ewe tree’. The funeral cost £2. Several yew trees remain in the churchyard today. On 7^th February 1660, he records just less than £2 for his arrest of William Field and ‘carrying him to the Jayle’. On 3^rd November 1660, following the Restoration of the Church of England he ‘bought at London a Common Prayer Booke’. On 14^th May 1663, he paid about £2 at the Tiger in Lindfield ‘for a dinner for 12 persons’.  On 21^st April 1669, he bought ‘a Levitical sillke girdle’ and later pays 3s (15p) ‘for making a cassack’. On 24^th July 1667, he bought a bible commentary, accounts of the burning of London and coronation of Pope Clement costing just over £1. ‘Winter 1674 was the Hedge adjoining to the Churchyard newly cut’ for 7s 6d or 37p. On 25^th July 1679, he pays 6d (2p) ‘To Ned Waters for shaving my head’.

Moore’s Journal ends ‘would that I had kept a strict account of my daily shortcomings even as I kept an account of my expenses’. The parish register records, ‘Mr Giles Moore, minister of this parish, was buryed the 3d of October, 1679’. May he rest in the peace of Christ - with all my predecessors!