Thursday 4 September 2025 Notes from Small Islands 4: Paradiplomacy Proverbs 16: 20-24 Those who are attentive to a matter will prosper, and happy are those who trust in the Lord.The wise of heart is called perceptive, and pleasant speech increases persuasiveness.Wisdom is a fountain of life to one who has it, but folly is the punishment of […]
URC Daily Devotion for 3 9 2025
Notes from Small Islands 3: Selling Cold Islands Psalm 139: 7 – 10 O where can I go from your spirit,or where can I flee from your face?If I climb the heavens, you are there.If I lie in the grave, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawnand dwell at the sea’s […]
URC Daily Devotion for 2 9 2025
Notes from Small Islands 2: Integration, Autonomy, Sovereignty? Lamentations 1: 1 – 3 How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;among […]
URC Daily Devotion for 1 9 2025
Notes from Small Islands 1: Rejoicing in the small St Matthew 13: 31 – 32 Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest […]
Notes from Small Islands
Notes from Small Islands Dear Friends, I hope you found last week’s series inspired by the poetry of RS Thomas useful and interesting. I think Ruth Whitehead, Susan Durber, and Michael Hopkins did well to draw such insights from a poet who was both brilliant and complex. We turn now, for the next two weeks, […]
URC Daily Devotions 30 August 2025
“The Answer” Not darkness but twilightIn which even the bestof minds must make its waynow. And slowly the questionsoccur, vague but formidablefor all that. We pass our handsover their surface like blindmen feeling for the mechanismthat will swing them aside. Theyyield, but only to reformas new problems; and onedoes not even do thatbut towers immovablebefore […]
URC Daily Devotions 29 August 2025
The Moon in Lleyn The last quarter of the moonof Jesus gives wayto the dark; the serpentdigests the egg. Hereon my knees in this stonechurch, that is full onlyof the silent congregationof shadows and the sea’ssound, it is easy to believeYeats was right. Just as thoughchoirs had not sung, shellshave swallowed them; the tide lapsat […]
URC Daily Devotions 28 August 2025
You have no name.We have wrestled with you allday, and now night approaches,the darkness from which we emergedseeking; and anonymousyou withdraw, leaving us nursingour bruises, our dislocations. For the failure of languagethere is no redress. The physiciststell us your size, the chemiststhe ingredients of yourthinking. But who you aredoes not appear, nor whyon the innocent […]
Worship Notes over the next two months
Worship Notes for September and October Dear Friends, As you know we provide notes to help those lead worship prepare. September’s material has been on the website for some time and October’s has been up for a week or so; we’re nearly ready with November’s. You can find the material by going to urc.org.uk then […]
URC Daily Devotion 26 August 2025
Marged Was she planned?Or is this one of life’sthrow-offs? Small, taken from schoolyoung: put to ministerto a widowed mother, who keepsher simple, she feeds the hens,speaks their language, is oneof them, quick, easilyfrightened, with sharpeyes, ears. When I havebeen there, she keeps her perchon my mind. I wouldstroke her feathers, quietenher, say: ‘Life islike this.’ […]