Mercy

'Beg God to be merciful to you...' Malachi 1:9

I have a splitting headache.

Skies

'Praise him, skies above' Psalm 148:4

There`s a tradition in Japan to watch the sunrise on New Year`s Day. Christians do the same sometimes on Easter Sunday. It`s worth doing, any day.

Healing

'He heals the brokenhearted' Psalm 147:3

I don`t trust my doctor.

Attacked

'they are attacked...' Zechariah 10:2

I was punched in the head this morning by someone I once regarded as my best friend.

Lies

'Their mouths are full of lies' Psalm 144:11

The local Buddhist cult flogging its calenders even on Christmas Day. By the way, 2010 doesn`t refer to the birth of Buddha, Nichiren or Ikeda but to the birth of Christ.

Alone

'You alone are holy' Revelation 15:4

Just in time for Christmas, I met a beautiful baby boy yesterday. Every birth is a kind of miracle, but Jesus is the only baby to grow up totally holy- the rest of us, even Buddha himself, all fall way short. That is why God had to be born human.

I hope you and your loved ones have a lovely Christmas this year, and every year.

Angel

'The angel who had been talking with me' Zechariah 4:1

Today`s Christmas angel is the man at the local 2nd hand book store who let me have an expensive British dictionary for one of my students at a fraction of the cover price.

How

'Four things I don`t understand:

how an eagle glides through the sky,

how a snake slithers on a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

how a man loves a woman. Proverbs 30:18-19

She was in my class at middle school. I bought a newspaper from her every weekend for my dad at the shop where she had a Saturday job. 24 years too late by the wonder of the internet I finally get the courage to talk to her.

Much

'they did not love their lives so much...' Revelation 12:11

I can`t say I`m much in love with my job. I just quit.

Warm?

'You put on clothes but cannot keep warm' Haggai 1:6

As I sit here typing this, I am wearing a coat, a hat, thermal undies (sorry, too much information?)

and as the evening wears on I will probably be thinking about using my gloves. Gee I love Japanese houses this time of year, so nice and toasty...

Still

''[Jerusalem]`s prophets are arrogant liars seeking their own gain.

Its priests defile the Temple by defying God`s instructions.

But the LORD is still there in the city,

and he does no wrong.'' Zephaniah 3:4-5

Can you see a description of 21st century Protestants and Catholics in these words? I can.

Justice

'there is no justice in the courts' Habakkuk 1:4

'It`s the same the whole world over;

Ain`t it all a _____ing shame?

It`s the rich that gets the pleasure

It`s the poor that gets the blame.'

(Traditional British lyric)

More

More lives are lost to suicide in Japan than to violent crime in the USA.

Depths

'The LORD does whatever pleases him

throughout all heaven and earth,

and on the seas and in their depths.' Psalm 135:6

I am not a scientist- I don`t lose data if it is inconvenient. But God knows far more about the globe and about warmth than we will ever know.

Let me...

'Let me die! I`d be better off dead.' Jonah 4:3

I follow a daily reading pattern, not just verses chosen at random. Today we have Jonah, one of my favorite prophets, struggling with depression. You may feel this is all just coincidence, but it happens far too often for that and so it shows God totally understands. Why don`t you read the chapters yourself and see what God is saying to you?

Shame

'You will be filled with shame and be destroyed forever.' Obadiah 1:10

Three types of pills and I still want to die.

Fight

'An angry person starts fights...' Proverbs 29:22

I am going to have to go back on the pills. I can`t be like this.

Appointed

'The people have appointed kings without my consent..' Hosea 8:4

I can`t believe the new Episcopalian assistant Bishop of LA was chosen by God- this is why so many of my brothers and sisters are leaving our denomination...

Faithfulness

'There is no faithfulness' Hosea 4:1

There is an extremely honest portrait of a marriage in the New York Times today by Elizabeth Weil. Although the complexities of a long term relationship are grist for a writer`s mill I feel unable to be completely candid here, out of loyalty to my wife. I guess that is partly why so many people choose to write fiction.

Suffice to say that although I have not physically cheated on my wife for several years, mentally I am all over the place.

Place

'Keep away from anything that might take God`s place in your hearts' 1 John 5:21

In between carols and Christmas songs I usually find it interesting around now to find out what songs are regarded as the best of the year. This year Beyonce`s 'Halo' is nominated for a Grammy. While hardly unusual in using Christian imagery to describe romantic love- a theme going at least as far back as Fred Astaire`s 'Cheek to Cheek' in 1935 - I find it revealing that these kinds of songs still strike a major chord with secular society. I believe many of us are often guilty of expecting human love to be more than it can ever realistically be.

Love

'Love one another' 1 John 4:7

Met a guy in a bookstore today who is really into The Smiths, a Manchester band I really like myself. I just know that if I could only speak his language, we could have probably talked for hours about shared interests in obscure britpop. But there is always that language barrier...

Of course God wants us to also love people we have nothing whatsoever in common with...

Truth

'I will reveal the truth' Daniel 11:2

If a patient on your ward gives you a gift of the equivalent of over 30 pounds sterling, are you going to treat him exactly the same as a patient who gives you nothing?

War

'War and its miseries are decreed...' Daniel 9:26

It`s just unbearable to watch all those beautiful young people at West Point be told 30,000 of them and their peers may never return... Obviously Obama knows a lot more than me about the Middle East these days but doesn`t history tell us nobody ever wins in Afganistan? If the Norwegians gave him the Nobel Peace Prize to try to pressure him into not making this kind of decision they failed. I don`t think militant Islam can be defeated with conventional weapons...