Month: May 2026

“We all share God’s good name”– a BBC Pause for Thought

/ Trey Hall / Leave a comment

Here’s the text for the 11 May 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

_______________________________

You know the old jokes that begin: “So, a priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar”?

Well, last year, I experienced something much better than that: a group of twenty actual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith leaders. We met regularly at Windsor Castle, brought together by the Faith in Leadership Programme.

We gathered to learn, to read each others’ scriptures together, and to treasure our differences. The hope was that we’d become better leaders – maybe even better humans – able to transform conflict and help heal our country.

Our conversations were always deep and challenging, but there was also so much laughter that, over time, we became friends.

The formal programme has now ended, but we stay in touch and occasionally meet up in different places: in Rome for a papal audience, at an iftar to break the Ramadan fast.

And last Monday, for dinner in Golders Green – the epicentre of Jewish life in Britain – where, just the week before, two Jewish people were stabbed in a violent expression of the rising antisemitism in our country.

Our group discussed writing a statement to condemn the attacks, which many have done and is so important. But someone said: let’s meet up and have a meal instead. A sign of friendship and solidarity in the midst of hatred.

And so we did. Jews, Muslims, Christians – together. We listened. We lamented. We had delicious Kosher shawarma. It probably didn’t change anything structurally, but it did feel like healing: this ordinary act of resistance and hope.

After dinner we walked along the high street, which was dotted with celebrations for a special day in the Jewish calendar. People lit bonfires and sang and danced and prayed. There was so much joy breaking into a season of so much sorrow – and it was moving to behold.

This week across Britain, several marches and protests are planned. Some, I believe, mean to be acts of great care and good conscience. Others, I fear, may leave our communities more frightened and divided than before.

As a Christian, I listen to what the Bible repeats again and again and again: that every person, every people, every family comes from one parent, God. We all share God’s good name and are meant to share life together. In big, national ways, yes – but also in small personal ways, like friends, eating together, around a table.

My prayer for our country this week and always is that our actions move us away from division towards belonging; away from hostility towards hope; away from death, into life.

“Jesus the Mother Swan”– a BBC Pause for Thought

/ Trey Hall / Leave a comment

Here’s the text for the 7 May 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

________________________________

A bit of gossip for you. There’s a couple in our neighborhood that everybody’s been talking about lately.

A pair of swans in the local pond.

Last year, very sadly, they lost all their children to avian flu. So this year we’ve really been rooting for them.

In March they built their nest under a little bridge. And eventually there was one perfect egg – but the next day it was gone, stolen perhaps by a fox. But the next day there was another egg – and from then on, Mama Swan hunkered down and never left her nest.

Cycling to work, I’d stop to greet her, or out for a jog. Others did, too: kids on the way to school, tourists, locals. Eventually the council had to put up barriers to give her some peace from her fans.

Last Wednesday evening, I noticed her posture had changed: her wings spread out like feathery canopies. I wondered, I waited, and when she shuffled, I saw them: four babies, another one pecking through, and four still-unhatched eggs.

“Oh, my goodness!” I said outloud. Someone stopped, I pointed, and soon a clutch of us were there on the bridge, lost in wonder. And doing something English strangers don’t usually do: talking with each other.

One woman – we realised we lived on the same street. “Hey, we’re neighbors!” she said. A teenager stopped, temporarily transfixed. A security guard came over with tears in his eyes.

The next morning, they were all there: nine babies and two proud parents. I told my fellow swan-fan-onlookers something I’d learned from Sir David Attenborough: Swans lay eggs on different days, but the baby cygnets coordinate through their eggshell barriers to hatch together on the same day.

“Wow!” said a woman on her phone. “My mum in Swansea says to tell that swan, she’s a star!”

In the Bible, Jesus says: How often I’ve wanted to gather you like a mother hen gathers her children under her wings.

We live in a vulnerable and fragile world – and the danger we face is real. Foxes need to raise their babies, too. It’s nature. And sadly, we’re never short of human tyrants who unnaturally thrive on violence and domination.

According to Jesus, God is not a tyrant, but a mother swan – who doesn’t guarantee us safety but definitely promises us love. God who, I believe, gathers cygnets and humans under her wings, reminding us that we’re not strangers, but neighbours. That we belong not only to God but to each other, and all creation.

_______________________________________