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Saturday marks the International Day for Monuments and Sites (who knew??), which, at first glance, sounds like it’s about buildings. But for many clergy, it raises a much more complex question. Stepping into a parish with a significant heritage building is never just about stone and structure. It’s about inheritance: history, expectation, identity. Buildings like these carry meaning far beyond their walls — for the congregation, the community and parish, and sometimes the wid

For the first time in many years, Lent  and Ramadan  are unfolding side by side. Two traditions. Two histories. Two different calendars. And yet the practices at their heart are strikingly similar. Both invite people into a season of restraint and reflection. Both include fasting. Both encourage prayer, generosity, and attention to those in need. Both ask a simple but searching question: what truly matters? In Christianity, Lent prepares the way toward Easter through repentan

One reality of my new season is spending a lot of time drinking coffee. Coffee with old friends. Coffee with new introductions. And coffee with people others think I might like to meet. Including, earlier this week,  Mark Prisk FRICS  – former MP, minister, businessman. On paper, we look an unlikely pairing: a former Conservative MP and a former inner-city parish priest: different tribes; different pathways; different instincts, perhaps. And yet we discovered surprising cross

Anyone who writes, designs, or builds things knows that the real work doesn’t happen in the first draft. It happens later — in the cutting, the refining, the decisions about what no longer belongs. The final draft isn’t thinner because there was less to say, but because someone chose clarity over accumulation. Editing isn’t retreat. It’s intention. It’s the deliberate act of deciding what deserves space, energy, and attention now. It requires judgement to recognise what still

(generated by ChatGPT) The Feast of Candlemas, 2 February, is the quiet hinge of the Christian year. At forty days old, Jesus is taken to the Temple and, with that, our Christmas celebration ends. There, Mary and Joseph are met by Simeon and Anna who have each spent a lifetime of prayerful waiting and attentive watchfulness. The thing about Candlemas is that it's a festival about recognition not activity; about noticing what is present not creating something new. It's a far

There is a huge variety of coaching out there, and I’m often asked, “What kind of coach are you?” It’s a fair question. Coaching can mean many things: challenge or containment, structure or space, performance or reflection. Indeed, it could be said that the word itself no longer tells you very much about what the encounter will actually be like. At the same time, there’s a wider cultural shift back toward apprenticeship and accreditation. In professions where trust matters, w

Surprisingly regularly I have a conversation with someone who quietly admits they’re standing between two possible lives. One is familiar, steady, and pays the bills. The other feels truer, but also riskier, as if stepping toward it might loosen something they’ve held tight for years. The amazing novel 'The Kite Runner' describes why loosening your grip can help a kite fly higher and freer. The real courage isn’t in controlling the kite, but in facing what is tugging inside y

The podcast conversation I had with Claire Pedrick about coaching and Advent went live this week. Clare and I explored how coaching often mirrors the Christian season of Advent – not through candles or countdowns, but through its quiet discipline of “being with”  while something new is forming. Advent begins not with certainty but with attentiveness. In the podcast, Clare describes coaching as “the being with and the bearing witness,” a line that keeps returning to me. Leader

At the British Library’s Secret Maps  exhibition, I was intrigued to see charts and maps that were never intended for display. Some were painstakingly accurate, even if not to scale; others were filled with guesswork, dotted with imagined coastlines or warnings about dangers no one had ever verified. Each map revealed something of the meaning for its maker — their hopes, fears, ambitions and assumptions — even when the geography was uncertain and the cartography undisciplined

what does success look like for you

Running late for an 11.00 appointment, I got into the car at quarter to twelve. But the car clock said 10:45. If the car was right, I’d be fine. It wasn't — but no-one seemed to mind! Perhaps the car has anticipated the clocks 'going back' this weekend. We say we “gain” an hour, but nothing really changes — the same sky, the same sun, just a subtle shift in how we mark it. Yet it feels generous: as if time has given us permission to pause. In coaching, we often talk about pe

The trees don’t rush their letting go. They surrender leaf by leaf, trusting what’s underneath. We call it decay, but it’s also preparation — a quiet turning toward renewal. In coaching, clients often describe feeling “stuck,” as though something has gone wrong. But sometimes what we label stuckness is simply autumn: the slowing down before fresh growth, the pause that makes space for what’s next. What if slowing down isn’t failure, but wisdom dressed in amber and gold? This

As Diwali approaches, homes are swept clean, lamps polished, and windows opened to welcome the divine. It’s a festival of light — but also of clearing. In coaching conversations, there is a similar discipline: before insight happens, we make space. We're often carrying too much — plans, noise, old patterns — and somewhere in an unhurried pause, something begins to crack. And (as has often been said) it's the crack that lets in the light. However, light alone doesn’t change mu

Forgiveness isn’t a soft option—it’s the doorway to new beginnings. In Jewish tradition at Rosh Hashanah (which was celebrated last week), people reach out to one another to seek pardon before the new year begins. For Jews relationships matter: reconciliation with one another comes before reconciliation with God. Are there overlaps here with coaching? Can we move forward before we have named what holds us back? What would shift if you offered forgiveness, or asked for it, tod