Here’s the text for the 27 April 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

________________________________________

I’m a decent preacher – I don’t generally put people to sleep – but a few times in 25 years of sermons, I have unintentionally provoked someone to walk out.

Once when I accidentally cussed in the pulpit.

Once during LGBTQ Pride when I joked that God loves straight folks, too – not just the gays – and that despite loads of evidence to the contrary, it is possible to be both heterosexual and Christian.

But I was really surprised when someone quite dramatically stormed out after I suggested that Christians should embrace the biblical practice of confession: to regularly come clean with a trusted friend or pastor about how we’ve screwed up.

After the service, I approached the offended person and said: “Did something hit a nerve?”

They said: “Oh yeah, when you told me I had to tell my sins to someone other than God”.

I felt tempted to respond: “Would you like to confess something to me now?”

But I did not say that. Because I know personally how scary and unappealing confession sounds.

I got sober through The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Step Four suggests we write down a moral inventory of our entire life. Then Step Five suggests we read that inventory out loud, admitting “to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

When I first heard that, I thought: Uh-uh. No way.

But I have come to believe: that if we haven’t shared the honest truth with another person, we probably haven’t really told God – and we certainly haven’t accepted it ourselves.

On my podcast, Spill the Spirituality, I recently chatted with Harry Clark, Traitors winner. His new documentary follows his rediscovery of faith, including his attempt to meet up with the Pope at the Vatican. (Spoiler: he did!)

But Harry told me his most transformational spiritual experience wasn’t meeting Pope Leo, but going to confession for the first time as an adult – describing his mess, in detail, in the loving presence of another person.

I get that. In my Fifth Step, I had a lot to confess. It was very painful, but my deepest feeling was relief, even joy. The person I shared it with said: “Well done. You have now joined the human race”.

Which reminded me of Jesus’s words after receiving confessions. He says: “Take heart, friend.” “Go in peace.”

When I feel the temptation to walk out on the truth, may God help me to stay put, take heart, and practise the difficult freedom of being human.

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.

_________________________________________

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.

Here’s the text for the 16 February 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

_________________________________________________________

My husband Jonathan and I have very different food obsessions. His is cheese. If there’s Cheddar in the fridge, or Brie or Emmenthaler – it doesn’t matter the type, really – if it’s cheese, it calls to him. It whispers savory-nothings into his stomach.

Me? Cheese doesn’t woo me that much. But bring any kind of deep-fried, ultra-processed junk-food into my house, and good luck finding it later. Once that bag of snacks is open, I am powerless over its pull.

At least what Jonathan craves is actual food. The stuff I crave is basically a sludge of extruded starch paste, held together by salt and artificial fats. Totally fabricated, no nutritional value – and God do I love it.

In Copenhagen once, I noticed in a corner-shop that junk-snacks were displayed in a section marked “Not-Food”. That was the actual sign on the shelf: “Not-Food”. At least the Danes are honest: “Everything for sale here is edible, but it’s not really food.”

The season of Lent begins this week – an annual spring-cleaning of the soul, when, for 40 days, Christians experiment with abstaining from something that we regularly depend on for a fix. Some substance or habit or attitude we use for a hit of dopamine, like chocolate or shopping or porn or self-righteousness or social media. Something we use to change the way we feel, even if that thing ends up draining the life from us.

Compared to our Muslim siblings who, during Ramadan, fast completely from sun-up to sun-down, Lent is somewhat less involved, but it’s still not easy. Abstaining from just one simple thing can bring us right up against the deeper reason we’re tempted by it.

It was Lent in 2009 when I finally admitted I was powerless over alcohol and drugs. It was so painful to admit, but it was also such a relief. And with God’s help, it led to me stopping for good, and eventually, amazingly, to the craving itself being removed.

In the Bible, Jesus describes feeling tempted himself, which is also a huge relief to me. If the Son of God can be honest about his own temptations, then I can admit mine, too.

I believe the goal of true spirituality is not to heroically strengthen our willpower for an anxious life of compulsive avoidance, but to learn to let go of our fixes and relax more fully into God. To leave the “Not Food” aisle of our lives to get a taste for freedom and what’s really real.

Here’s the text for the 9 February 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

_______________________________

I got on the train recently during morning rush-hour — packed with hundreds of humans, my face pressed up against the doors. And at the next station, a young couple pushed on. There was absolutely no room; they shouldn’t’ve crammed in, but of course, they did. We’ve all been there — I get it.

But now we were extremely close. My face, maybe two inches from their faces. I could smell their eyebrows. I could see right into their pores. It was so uncomfortable, I closed my eyes. They started talking, I could feel their breathing.

And then, for the rest of my journey, they made out. They made out intensely. As if they were going on honeymoon rather than to work.

I could not believe it. It was so ridiculous I started laughing. Two inches from their lips, I started laughing — but that didn’t stop them. Finally, I escaped, at my station, and I did not say, “Y’all. Get a room!

I did say, with my acquired British sarcasm, “Thank you so much for sharing your morning with me.” The woman replied, totally sincere, “Oh, you’re welcome.”

If that couple’s listening: happy early Valentine’s Day. Long live your young love.

To be honest, though, their sloppy-snogging made me feel like a prude. Then I felt guilty for feeling like a prude and fulfilling that old stereotype that all religious people are buttoned-up, embarrassed by passion.

And not just religious people. There’s a stereotype that English people in general are constitutionally-averse to any kind of emotion – sexual, spiritual, political. “Keep it private”, people say. “Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve”.

One of my favorite images of Jesus is an icon where he exposes his heart – he opens up his chest to show it on fire with love. Maybe you’ve seen one in a church or museum. Jesus doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve, he hands it over to us, I believe. He’s offering himself to the world – as a brother, as a father, as a mother, as a lover. As a true friend, available now in flesh-and-blood.

The Christian theologian St Augustine wrote: In our heart of hearts, God is closer to us than we are to our self.

I love that. I believe that. A God so embarrassingly loving that she comes closer to us than our own breathing. So extravagantly generous that he hands over his heart to expand our hearts – on crowded trains, in cramped lives – so we can learn to love as God loves.

Here’s the text for the 29 September 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Sara Cox on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

My friend Kimberly is one of my best mates in the whole world. But we didn’t start out that way. We met 30 years ago in theology college — also known as ‘vicar school’ — and immediately got off to a rocky start. We were both committed Christians, of course, but I was a lefty, she was a righty, and ‘never the twain shall meet’.

We also had serious personality differences. She was a sorority girl: popular, fiercely-intelligent, super-confident. I was confident too (also known as egotistical) but saw myself as more “cutting-edge”. I had long hair. I wore earrings, a big wooden cross around my neck, and t-shirts with messages like “No one knew I was a lesbian until now”.

Our competition and mutual-suspicion were thinly-veiled. Classic rival stuff, which came to a head one day when I told Kimberly I was one of two final candidates for a youth-worker job at a local church. She grimaced and said: “What do you know? I’m the other candidate.”

And then came the twist – the church hired us both, asked us to share the job. At first, we didn’t love it. But over the next two years, something unexpected happened. Our disagreements and resentments slowly melted into respect. And then into true, abiding friendship.

Thirty years later, we’ve never lived in the same city again and we now live in different countries. But emotionally we’re so near: we talk and text, we holiday together, we’ve written the other’s dating profiles in the past, officiated at each other’s weddings. Her boys are our God-children. We’ve been friends for so long that Kimberly knows the depths of me as well as (maybe better than) my husband.

Because of our friendship, our philosophies and theologies have grown – they’re less reactive, healthier, more mature. But more importantly we’ve realised that one of most beautiful things that faith makes possible is deep friendship in which we’re loved well and known in detail, across difference.

That feels so important – especially these days, when it’s easy to get locked-up in echo-chambers and view the other as an eternal opponent or enemy.

For me, though, it’s not only about friendship with each other, with other human-beings: it’s also about friendship with God.

Someone in my 12-step-recovery-meeting recently said: “It’s not that God is unknowable: it’s that God is infinitely knowable. Like a friend.”

I love that. In my opinion, God’s mystery isn’t about being distant or unknowable.

God’s mystery is simply that there is so much of God to know.

Not far-off, but endlessly-discoverable – like Kimberly, like a dear, unexpected friend.

Here’s the text for the 15 September 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Sara Cox on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I am a shameless eavesdropper. Partly because I’ve got good hearing. Partly because I’m just plain nosey. But mostly because I’m genuinely interested in human beings. We are fascinating creatures.

And you can learn so much about us just by listening to what’s happening around you.

For example, I ran by a woman in Greenwich the other day, and I heard her say into her phone: “Why, Linda, why? Why did we let that happen, Linda?” (I thought, Lord, we’ve all been Linda).

Another day last week, two guys were getting off the train, and one said to the other: “They’re all being idiots! Every last one of them. And that’s exactly what I explained to Helen in one of my many emails”. God bless Helen. We’ve all been there, too.

Listening to people isn’t just a hobby of mine, it’s a calling. It’s what makes me a decent evangelist. Now I know – “evangelist” is a weird word with a complicated history. I remember walking in a Gay Pride parade in uni and being yelled at by so-called evangelists with Bible-verse placards, screeching that we would burn in hell.

For me, being an evangelist is the exact opposite of that kind of spiritual abuse. It’s listening for the good in the world, the kindness in people, the light shimmering through. When I notice those things and speak about those things, I can feel God moving.

In August I was at the Edinburgh Fringe interviewing stand-up-comics for my podcast, and I joined a group of Methodist evangelists at the Festival. Together we rolled a sofa-on-wheels up and down the Royal Mile and invited strangers to sit down and share a time when they were lost in wonder.

I thought we’d get a few extraverted-takers, but all week long, hundreds of people queued-up to be listened to, to sit down and tell stories – of falling in love, hearing music, losing a child or parent, seeing stars and signs and sensing the spirituality running through everything.

It was a sofa of miracles and I could have stayed there forever.

At one point, an elderly woman walked by. She was clearly caught up in the energy of the crowds, the thousands of Festival pilgrims. And I heard her whisper to herself: “My God! Everyone’s here.” I’m so glad I was eavesdropping, because honestly, that might be the best definition of heaven I’ve ever heard.

“My God! Everyone’s here!” In my opinion, that old woman was a true evangelist: listening for and speaking out the joy of human life and the goodness of God.

Here’s the text for the 7 April 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I’m lucky to live just a few steps from the Thames Path – which for me, as a runner, is absolute heaven. Most days I unwind by covering some mileage between Tower Bridge and Greenwich.  

My favourite runs are when the tide’s out: when the edges of the riverbed are uncovered. I love watching people search the shore for treasure.  

It reminds me of childhood beach holidays, when I’d watch ordinary-explorers scanning their metal-detectors over the sand. I’d wonder what they expected to find – old pirate’s gold finally washed ashore? I’d only ever dug up bottle-tops and beer-cans. 

But on the shore of the Thames, a stone-turned-over could reveal actual treasure: a Victorian fork, a medieval ring, a rooftile from the Great Fire, maybe even a Roman jewel. Scavenging remnants from this river even has a special name. Mudlarking: scouring the debris and dirt for a glint of glory. 

I believe human-beings are spiritual mudlarkers. Religious or not, we’re on an elemental search: for hope in the midst of despair, rest in weariness, guidance in uncertainty. Maybe we still haven’t found what we’re looking for; maybe we’re not even sure what we’re looking for.  

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone finds – and then sells everything to buy that field. 

I get that, because I’m a mudlarker: scanning my spiritual-metal-detector over the ground of life, in search of that invaluable Something More. I feel like St Augustine, who prayed “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless ‘til they find their rest in you.” His prayer’s been a treasure for me since I found it in dusty book, 1600 years old.

My husband and I just finished a wonderful BBC series called Detectorists. Written and directed by MacKenzie Crook, who stars alongside Toby Jones, it’s television gold. Each episode opens with a lyric sung by Johnny Flynn: “Will you search the loamy earth for me, climb through the briar and bramble? I will be your treasure: I’m waiting for you”. 

Sometimes, I think, we’re in spiritual-search-mode: we’re actively looking for wisdom, for God, for treasure, and that’s important. But when I hear Jesus and Johnny Flynn – I remember that we’re not only searchers; in my opinion we’re also the treasure being searched for.

And I believe God, the Great Mudlarker, has already found us. And has sold everything God has so we can feel the earthly, heavenly joy of being found.