A sad man

I was sitting in Wick, Caithness, as I wrote this column. I have visited this area several times over the years. Like many places, it is a beautiful part of the world on sunny days, and today the sun is shining, making everything very pleasant.

One of my reasons for visiting this part of the world is to give talks on the book of Jeremiah, which is part of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Jeremiah wrote roughly 2,600 years ago and was a Jewish prophet tasked with informing his fellow compatriots that their ethics were deeply flawed. He warned that if things did not change, they were heading for disaster. Additionally, he had a message for the surrounding nations, which were characterised by greed, pride, and evil practices such as child sacrifice.

I have been struck by how people reacted to Jeremiah's message and how similar their reactions are to my own responses when I hear something I don't want to accept. I believe that the Bible is God's message to humanity, and the truth contained within its pages calls for a personal response from me.

Communication

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

Looking back, I can see it’s several weeks, two months in fact, since I wrote any news bulletins or blogs from here, so on this mid-summer’s day while the sun is behind some clouds, I thought it was a good opportunity to write again. But what can I write about this time? 

You’ll see that I’ve dropped the “Coronavirus” name from the title of my bulletin now – more in hope than in realism because it’s only too obvious that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s good to see how vaccines are making a difference, and most of us have now had our two doses, but infections are still a real danger to society as this horrible virus itself fights for its survival. In the UK we might yet see a third wave coming our way as we watch crowds mixing in several places without any attention to “social distancing”.