These Lively Oracles

  When I was a child bicycles were a rarity. Not many kids had them. I used to see old men cycle to work on their old black bicycles with the thumb operated bell and the lights that worked from a dynamo. The lights faded and brightened according to the speed they were riding at. Then one year, everyone got a bicycle for Christmas. I didn’t. We got other great stuff. But during the springtime as the lighter nights came in all the kids were cycling around the streets of the neighbourhood. Then one night my dad came home from work with a bicycle. It was awful. It was of the old type that I watched the older men cycle to work in. It was terrible. My heart dropped. My dad found it laying around at his workplace. It had been laying there for years. It would have been a 1940’s type bicycle with a little dynamo fitted that you had to twist in against the wheel to make it work. It needed new tyres and plenty of oil to free up the stiffened bearings. It looked terrible when s...

Many, many years ago when I was a teenager I used to have to walk along a certain road to get to work. It was a winding, twisty road about half a mile long. And it was uphill all the way to the top. Every morning and evening I walked that road in spring, summer and winter and in all kinds of weather. But my favourite abiding memory of walking that road was that on springtime mornings I could hear a cuckoo calling out. I never saw the thing as it was nested high up in trees on the other side of the road. But on many mornings I could hear its call so shrill and clear as I walked by. Everyone in the vicinity could hear it. Amongst all the varied birdsong this one rang out so distinctively clear. Although I haven’t walked along that road in many years, at that time of my life I would have walked it several times a day, almost every day. But of all my memories of travelling that road it is the morning call of the cuckoo that I remember most. For some reason it very recently came...

During several of my recent bible studies I have become increasingly aware of an ancient document. The “Codex Sinaiticus”.   I had come across references to it many times before but I had never given it much more than a scant thought. Because firstly, it was a very ancient manuscript and secondly, it was written in an ancient and archaic language that I wouldn’t understand. So, what was the point of looking? I decided to leave it to the experts. Now! Let’s skip over to mid-2024 when my wife and I had planned a short holiday to the City of London. We love that city and have visited it many times. At some point in my previous studies I had found out that this ancient document could be seen on display in the British Library in London. So, I decided that it was worth a visit. But before I went I began to read a bit more earnestly into the artifact to see just exactly what it was I was looking at. And what I discovered made me take my thinking of it far more seriously than I had...

On my visits to some churches a lot of the older buildings have church towers and spires. And on top of these buildings there is sometimes a weathervane. It’s a little metal plate and it turns to show which direction the wind is blowing from at any given time. You can see them at the highest point of some older churches and they are usually just a simple pointer arrow or sometimes the metal plate is cut into a shape to symbolise something from the local christian community. Some churches will have a weathervane shaped like a ship or boat. But I have seen a few that are shaped like a cockerel or rooster. And this is a very, very significant symbol since it is taken directly from the Bible. Historically speaking the symbol of the cockerel is used as a warning. And when used in conjunction with a weathervane it means to be aware of the wind direction. The symbol refers to when Peter denied Christ during the week of Jesus' trials.... Matthew Ch26 (71) Then he [Peter] went ...