Here’s the text for the 2 March 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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We moved to the UK ten years ago. From Chicago—where I’d spent my adult life and had a close group of friends—to Birmingham, where I knew precisely no one, and couldn’t even understand the accents!

Up to that point, most of my friendships had been forged because we’d been through something big together. We’d survived university or got sober or started a church from scratch. When you undergo something tough-and-beautiful with people, true friendship can emerge.

Lots of these rites-of-passage, though, happen in the first half of life. So when I arrived in Brum, aged 40, there wasn’t a natural stage-of-life experience to hook into. I felt disconnected, sometimes isolated. Making friends isn’t straightforward at any age, but it’s even trickier as we get older.

So I decided to join a running club. I’m a long-time runner, but still I worried: Would I fit in? Would I be slower than everyone else? Did I really want to sweat and stink around people I’d never met?

But I went anyway, and the Birmingham Swifts welcomed me on a run and even invited me to the pub afterwards. Because of them, I’ll forever associate Brummie and Black Country accents with laughter and kindness.

The Swifts had designed something ingenious to make sure no one got left-behind. They didn’t separate us into “fast” and “slow” groups. Instead, we ran at different paces – but along the route there were several connection points. When you reached one, you’d turn around and run back to the last person, and then circle back ahead again. Only when everyone made it to the connection point did we run the next leg. You ran at your own pace – but still with everyone else.

Because of that wise, inclusive approach, I made new friends. Not through a dramatic rite-of-passage, but through ordinary conversations, shared streets and sweat. I found real friendship with real people. Which is, I believe, what we’re all after. Way beyond counting likes on social-media, we want to know others – and be known – in detail.

Sometimes people imagine God as a distant cosmic force – benevolent but aloof, unknowable.

Jesus teaches us something quite different: “I no longer call you servants,” he says to his followers, “I call you friends.” Jesus shows me the God who actually likes us, because he knows what it is to be us, sweating and stinking and celebrating along the tough-and-beautiful course of life. A God who is knowable, who makes us her friends. And so always turns back for us, so nobody – absolutely nobody – is left behind.