I have just had a phone conversation with my son Tom who is a first year student at the University of Chicago. He was contemplating his future and he was thinking that he would like to be a writer living in the beautiful Welsh countryside. He had a wonderful vacation/holiday there a few years ago [...]

Filed under: Anglo-USA, Christianity, My teenage years, Student life, following God, marriage by sian
2 Comments »
 Email This Post

In England, growing up, I enjoyed the wheat harvest when the wheat turned from green to golden yellow. Now in California I enjoy seeing the bright oranges contrasting with the dark green of the leaves. We have a few fruit trees in our yard but we are really bad gardeners and we fail to give [...]

Filed under: Anglo-USA, Bible, Christianity, Church, My teenage years, Student life, following God, radical Christian life by sian
No Comments »
 Email This Post

Attached to my lap top is a bright red phone. It is a Skype phone which is a very affordable way of calling relatives who live in England. It has now become the least expensive way of keeping in touch with our son, Tom, at the University of Chicago. If we both use Skype neither [...]

Filed under: Bible, Christianity, New Media, Student life, following God, forgiveness, prayer, repentance, teenagers by sian
No Comments »
 Email This Post

Our son, Tom, is now beginning a new life at the University of Chicago. I am surprised that as his mother, I feel at peace about this transition.
I had the opportunity to visit the college and to enjoy the green and leafy quads; and old buildings, at least by Californian standards. It reminded me of [...]

Filed under: Bible, Children, Church, Student life, faith, prayer, teaching the Bible, worry by sian
No Comments »
 Email This Post

A few days ago I wrote about starting college in the early eighties. My best experiences at college were conversations about the meaning of life, why we were here and how we could make the world a better place.
We studied various political thinkers including Marx and we read George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four”, wondering whether [...]

Filed under: Anglo-USA, Bible, Cambridge, Christianity, My teenage years, Student life, money, war by sian
No Comments »
 Email This Post

When I was a new Christian I was selective about which parts of the Bible I would apply to my life. Part of the problem was that I had not read much of the Bible and although I had heard many good sermons, every aspect of life had not been addressed in the short time [...]

Filed under: Anglo-USA, Cambridge, Christianity, My teenage years, Student life by sian
2 Comments »
 Email This Post

Most people who lived in England when I was a kid considered that they were Christians. Many of us went through the ritual of church and were satisfied that that was enough. Once I had acknowledged that everyone is by nature wretched and mean and not at all ready to go to Heaven, I [...]

Filed under: Anglo-USA, Cambridge, Christianity, Church, My teenage years, Student life by sian
4 Comments »
 Email This Post