Month: June 2026

“Parallel human activities”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 29 June 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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We live on an old London dock, and when it’s hot, I take our Labrador, Iris, down the stone steps to the water’s edge. And as soon as I unclip her collar, she leaps in and glides to the centre, looking back at me until I throw the ball … so she can retrieve the ball, scramble back up the stairs, drop the ball, shake herself off – and jump right back in again.

Over and over. She could swim forever, and it’s a joy for me to watch her experience so much joy.

And I’m not the only one watching. Runners stop running. Cyclists stop cycling. Parents with kids stop walking. All, just to watch Iris swim.

And then something else happens. British reserve melts away and people start talking to me:

“Oh, she’s gorgeous.”

“We thought she was a seal!”

“She’s in her element, isn’t she?”

One couple even went home, changed into their swimsuits, and came back and jumped in with her.

And the conversations often move deeper. Strangers who are talking to me start talking with each other. Like proper talking, like beneath the surface-level talking, for twenty-or-thirty minutes, people dive into discussion, all while watching a happy dog swim.

A colleague recently showed me a video by comedian Jazz Emu: about what he calls “parallel man activities”. It’s hilarious. And really moving, too: about how loads of us men – but not just men – find that looking someone in the eyes can make real conversation harder, not easier. But if we stand side-by-side – parallel – and look at something else – a football match, a sunset on the horizon, a Labrador in the dock – well, suddenly, the words come more freely.

In the Bible, many of Jesus’s conversations with people are “parallel human activities”. Walking beside each other, noticing ordinary things, and somehow, in that shared direction of vision, deeper truths emerge.

Some of my biggest “ahas” in life have happened just like that. With a friend on a drive or on a run, not staring at each other but watching the path ahead. Sometimes, when I stop trying so hard to connect, I find myself drawn closer to others. And to God, who, in my experience, is already there right beside me, sharing the view.

“God is so proud of you”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 22 June 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

It’s Pride Month, y’all, and I’ll bet if you ask any friend or family member who’s lesbian or gay or bisexual or trans, they will be able to describe, in detail, the point in their life – not necessarily when they came out to others – but the point when they woke up themselves to that beautiful dimension of their humanity.

Me, I was nineteen-years-old, sitting in my car, waiting for the green light at the intersection of Mendenhall and Poplar Avenue, in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Windows down, a heavenly summer day, and a song by my favourite band came on the radio. I’d heard it 100 times before, but that day, the lyrics broke through, and I heard God say, “Trey, baby, you’re gay.”

It’s something I’d stumbled around at a hidden level, an ashamed level, for a long time – but that day, the windows came down. A spiritual awakening, a sense God was proud of me.

The year before, I’d had an unexpected divine encounter – and I’d made a conscious decision to follow Jesus wherever he might lead. When I started reading the Bible seriously for the first time, I read Jesus’s promise. “You will know the truth” he says, “and the truth will set you free”. And a year later, on that heavenly day in my car, through the music on the radio, I believe Jesus kept his word.

To be consciously LGBTQ involves learning at a very deep level to be radically honest. It’s one of the many gifts of being queer. Now, I’m definitely not saying that we queer folks are more honest than any of you lovely straight folks. Maybe just that we’ve had to fight a bit harder for the truth, and so it feels extremely precious.

A Methodist church I used to pastor marched every year in the Pride Parade, and we handed out Gospel postcards that said things like: “Gay or straight, you are loved”; “God likes you”.

But my favourite postcard said “God is proud of you”. People would receive that message and smile the biggest smiles, sometimes even start to cry. Hugs often ensued, and many blessings.

I have to say, y’all: I love being gay. Thank you, Jesus, for making me gay.

But whether you’re gay or straight or lesbian or trans or bi: as we are all on the human journey of being honest and true, I believe God is so proud of you.

“From comparison to communion”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 15 June 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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I was on the train earlier this year coming back from an event I’d been speaking at, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Some of that was a perfectly healthy, “job-well-done” feeling. But most of it, if I’m honest, was more in the vein of “Aren’t I a wonder to behold?” You know, your basic self-centeredness with a dollop of semi-skimmed egomania.

And you know how, on a train, when the light shifts outside, the windows inside can become mirrors? Well, that happened. There I was – feeling wonderfully self-absorbed – and the window suddenly turned into a mirror, and I caught a glimpse of myself. There was my rapidly-retreating hairline, the widening pores on my nose. And my mood shunted dramatically from pride to insecure vanity.

So I tried to remedy that with a bit of internal self-cheerleading: “Oh, but Trey, you’ve still got it: you’ve got lovely eyes”.

But then I noticed around my eyes a flock of crow’s feet. And another voice entered: “Why are you looking so worn? You should exercise more. You should eat cleaner, hydrate, buy a serum. Actually, you deserve more than that: a spa day, some new clothes will make you feel better. Treat yourself!”

This dramatic fleet of thoughts – judgement and charm, egomania and inferiority – took only about 15 seconds but left me depleted.

But then the light outside changed again. And as instantly as the window had become a mirror, it became a window again. And I wasn’t scanning myself anymore; I was gazing into the landscape outside of me. There was a park, and people walking on the paths, and kids playing, and dogs running. And the trees, and the sun beginning to set, and just life everywhere.

In a flash, I was relieved from the paralysis of praising myself or picking myself apart. This wave of peace washed into me from outside, and I was moved from comparison into communion.

The Christian theologian St. Augustine says that we all experience the temptation to turn inwards on ourselves. We become so curved inwards, so warped inwards, that we get trapped in our own reflection – and stuck thinking we’re the centre of the universe.

Personally, I don’t think God is all that interested in showing us a better version of ourselves in the mirror. But instead, I believe, God offers us the simple freedom of being turned outwards again: towards others, towards God even, and back into the real life surrounding us everywhere.