Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

 Click here for audio I was amused to hear the true story last October of a passerby who spotted a bunch of suspicious youths on the roof of a church in Norwich. You may know that a lot of lead has been stolen from church roofs, even in our local area, and so the passerby decided to contact Norfolk police to seek to get the bunch of nogooders up on the roof arrested. However, it was a case of mistaken identity. The people on the roof weren’t dodgy teenagers, but the Bishop of Norwich, Graham Usher, who was there on church business with the vicar of the church inspecting the new solar panels that the church had installed, to seek to bring their carbon footprint to net zero. Bishop Graham tweeted that he was rather flattered to be mistaken for a youth, and was able to share the good news story of a church seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, like some of our local churches have done. It made me think a bit about Easter. Jesus himself had many cases of mistaken identity. ...

 Audio here and video footage here .  Well I saw an astonishing video on my news feed today, with the headline “Watch moment man is swallowed by humpback whale”. You can see it for yourself on the BBC website [1] . It’s quite astonishing. Adrián Simancas was out kayaking with his father, Dall, on the Patagonian coast off Chile, when he felt like something was lifting him, something too strong to be a wave. Next he felt something blue and white passing close to his face. He didn’t understand what was happening as he got submerged down into the water as a slimy texture brushed his face. Fortunately for Adrian, it was a Humpback whale which actually has a very narrow throat, so the whale which may just have been motivated by curiosity spat out the kayak and its kayaker within a couple of seconds. All of this was recorded by Adrian’s father Dall, and Adrian lived to tell the tale. Adrian says he felt he received a second chance in life when he was spat out, and said that the...

 Click here to listen to audio. Welcome to Thought for the Day. For you listeners, today is Friday 31 st Jan, but if you can think back exactly a week to last Friday, that’s now for me. I’m recording this little thought for the day as right now Storm Eowyn batters the British Isles on Friday morning 24 th January.   And as I look out of the window, it’s blowing a hooley. I had to ring my neighbour to tell him his garden furniture was ripped, and the headlines on the BBC read “Danger to life warnings as ‘once in a generation’ Storm Eowyn batters UK and Ireland”, and a gust of 114mph has just been recorded in Ireland. Nobody can stop the wind. Railways have been closed, planes have been rerouted, solid walls have been blown down, less solid structures and some roof tiles don’t have a chance. We’re so used to thinking that we can control events, our weekend plans, our TV choices, our home décor, but the wind reminds us how limited we are, and how sometimes we need to hunker...

 Click here for recording... Welcome to Thought for the Day. Well tomorrow will be the last day of 2024. I wonder how it went for you? Maybe you had a memorable family gathering to look back on, or a great holiday, or moved home like we did. Maybe you had a change in your job or your relationships, or a new family member arrived. Certainly, internationally, it’s been quite a year… Our July elections in the UK that saw a massive Labour landslide, and a new MP for Huntingdon. And as well as the re-election of Donald Trump (who himself narrowly escaped an assassination in July), there have been elections in Iran, Mexico, Bangladesh to name a few. There has been the resignation of the Archbishop of   Canterbury. There have been hurricanes and storms, There have been earthquakes in Japan, Taiwan and Vanuatu. There’s been the ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Myanmar. And of course the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, as well as martial law in Sout...

 Click here for audio... Welcome to Thought for the Day. I wonder what makes you feel like Christmas is really nearly here? Is it wrapping up the Christmas parcels? Is it watching your favourite Christmas movie? Or is it treating yourself to a tiramisu latte from Caffe Nero’s   new festive range? For me I feel like Christmas has all but arrived when I hear the carol singing. I just love carol singing. Some folk from a few churches were out and about last night in the streets of Hartford, and last Sunday we as a church had our Christmas carol service at Christ Church Huntingdon. Perhaps the reason I love carols is because one of the traditions at my Grandad’s house where we used to spend Christmas as children was listening in to the festival of 9 lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge. Maybe that’s one of your traditions too. Christmas isn’t about the commercialism and shopping. It’s not even first of all about the presents or time with loved ones, though that...

  Click here for audio  Click here for touch tone noises! Welcome to Thought for the Day. Now it was on this day in history 61 years ago that the touch tone phone was rolled out in the USA. If you have no idea about what I’m talking about let me explain. You know that thing you have in your pocket for checking facebook, texting your mum and buying your groceries. It’s called a mobile phone right? Well you probably remember those things called landlines, and some of you may still have one. Going right back in history (and I can remember these, and many of the listeners will be able to as well) phones used to have a big dial on them that you would rotate round to get the right number. The mechanism inside would send the right number of pulses down the line to connect you to the right person. But on this day in November 1963 the touch tone phone was produced. Instead of a pulse, at the push of a button you got sounds like this . You might just remember them from your dia...

  Click here for audio.  Welcome to Thought for the Day. Thanks so much for listening. Well our hearts go out to the residents in Brampton who have been affected by flooding in the last few weeks. According to the BBC news website, one woman who has been living in Brampton for 20 years says she has never seen it so badly affected. Her garden was a third underwater and there’s raw sewage pouring down the driveway. There can’t be many things more upsetting than seeing your home when it doesn’t feel like a home. There’s something about your home which is supposed to be a haven, an oasis, a place of refuge and comfort not of deluge or disaster. As the saying goes, “an Englishman’s home is his castle”. So to have it invaded by anything- thieves, moths or flood is just not what it’s supposed to be. The Bible talks about a heavenly home after death for those who follow Jesus. We call it heaven, or the new heaven and earth. It’s not for good people, because there are none ...