writing

“Switching on Radio2 Christmas” – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 1 December 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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A few years ago, I went to a concert. Not pop music or rock – but organ. Can I admit that on Radio2? I love Bruce Springsteen, Belinda Carlisle, but I also get giddy for some J.S. Bach.

The concert was at Christmastime in an old church. Candles, stained glass, and the first song was so beautiful I could actually feel it passing through my body, slowing my heart beat, relaxing my soul – one of those rare moments when all is calm, all is bright.

After the last chord from the organ, the sound was just echoing through us. We were holding our breath, savoring the reverb. And then, in that gorgeous stillness, we heard: ARRHH-ARRHH-ARRHH.

From the street outside, a car alarm – a blaring, old-school car alarm. The audience laughed and the organist played on, but in the quiet movements, you could still hear it. We sang a carol; there it was: it wasn’t stopping till it drained the car-battery. The music was glorious, but that alarm clashed hard.

For me, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. School nativities and human cheer, searching for stars in a midnight clear. So I’m thrilled that we’re switching on Radio2 Christmas today. Come on, Mariah! All I want for Christmas is you.

But amidst all that joy and cheer, alarms are still sounding: children in poverty, unending war. Grief, money trouble, mental health struggles. One Christmas, my own depression was so deep, I couldn’t sing a note.

And it’s tempting to drown out those alarms with festive noise, to numb ourselves and pretend we don’t hear them. But many Christmas carols invite us to do the exact opposite: to tune our ears to the suffering, to remember peace and kindness aren’t just feelings – they’re a way of life.

In the Bible, those alarms? They’re called prophets. They cry out for justice because none of us are okay until we all are.

At the end of that concert, the organist sat down for an encore. We waited, in silence—well, except for ARRHH-ARRHH-ARRHH. But the organist listened to that alarm – and then he wove it into something extraordinary. He improvised a whole new song around it, adding harmony and transforming it into something strangely-beautiful.

This season, Radio2 family, can we do the same? And try to hold the joy and pain together, the discord of the world and the harmony, so we can really hear that promised miracle song: O Holy Night, when every soul feels it worth – and all oppression shall cease.

Beyond relentless positivity – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 30 June 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Sara Cox on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I’m embarrassed to confess that I’m a sucker for those twee internet personality quizzes. From  “Harry Potter’s Hogwarts-House-Sorter” to “Which Friends Character Are You?” to “Discover Your Inner Canine” – it’s fun to consider, from a playful angle, how we show up in the world.

Apparently, I am Gryffindor for my determination, Ross for my studiousness, and a crossbreed dog for my adaptability and enigmatic mystery. Sure.

These quizzes – and more serious personality tests – usually offer a list of our strengths: empathy, for example, creativity, focus, intelligence. It’s nothing new, really. The Bible has its own ancient list of virtues: joy, peace, patience, gentleness.

I believe we human beings are miracles. But sometimes I get weary of the relentless positivity through which we see ourselves. Americans are famous for this – “you’re awesome, you’re amazing!” But Brits do it, too: “Darling, you’re perfect.” This endless affirmation… it’s exhausting.

I mean, it’s great to celebrate our strengths, but in my opinion, that’s not the whole truth of us.

I went to a funeral once where someone I knew as loving but very difficult was eulogized as a flawless saint. I whispered to my husband: “At my funeral, please tell the preacher to say: ‘Trey was a lovely guy, and he could be a control freak and jackass sometimes. Can I get an Amen?’” And the people who love me would laugh out-loud and shout: “Amen, preacher!”

Christianity, in addition to its list of virtues, also has a list of deadly sins: arrogance, for example, envy, wrath, greed. This list has sometimes been misused to shame people, but I’ve come to experience it as a way into freedom. It helps me look honestly at myself – to admit: “yeah, I really struggle with arrogance; God I find envy really tricky”. When I name that, with the help of friends, and a God who loves me through and through, I feel an inner acceptance. The joy not of being perfect, but of being human. And I feel an invitation to see others that way, too.

That process – fpr me, in Church and in Alcoholics Anonymous – continues to be a transforming gift.

My friend Kimberly says life would be better, families would be healthier, global politics would be more peaceful, if we could all admit, in detail, what we actually struggle with. To tell the fuller truth about ourselves – the beautiful parts, and the busted ones, too — in search of a life together that’s not perfect but vulnerably free and lovingly real.

Take me to the river – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 23 June 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

When I visit a place that’s new to me, I like to explore it by walking ­– or running ­– along its water: the lochs of the Scottish Highlands, the reservoirs of the Elan Valley, Birmingham’s canals, the dykes of the Fens.

There’s something about the flow of water that tells the story of the land – what’s come before, what’s on the horizon. And it helps me get my bearings.

Maybe that’s why rivers show up in so many songs – Springsteen’s “The River”; Joni Mitchell’s, too; Tina Turner “rolling on the river”; Al Green asking to be taken to it. Water moves us – literally and spiritually.

I remember walking along the Thames in London once, near Blackfriars Bridge. A friend pointed out some bubbles rising in the currents near a metal grate. “That,” he said, “is the end of the River Fleet.”

The Fleet? I’d never heard of it. But it turns out that the Thames isn’t the only river in town. London is laced with hidden rivers – the Tyburn, the Walbrook, the Effra – all flowing underground, culverted into tunnels and pipes as the city has grown. You can’t see them, but they’re still there, moving quietly beneath the surface.

My spiritual searching as a Christian has helped me discover the hidden rivers in my own life. Buried beneath the noise of my anxiety, the concrete of my to-do list, the performance of my social-media feeds, there is a deeper stream. Something truer that I’ve forgotten, or concealed, or been told to hide. But still there, still flowing.

The nature writer Robert Macfarlane says a river is alive – “a gathering that seeks the sea”.

And the Gospel of Jesus says: “Out of human hearts will flow rivers of living water.” Real, spiritual rivers that, I believe, run through every single human being. Elemental currents that are in us – sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden – but never contained by us. We don’t own them so much as we partake of them. They flow through us. Their source and their destination is Something-More-Than-Us, Whom I call “God”.

So when I feel stuck or dry, lifeless or anxious, I meditate. I pray. I take a walk or a run. Or better yet, a swim. And I try to trace the river’s path through me, to feel its flow of freedom beneath my surface. And to trust, even when I can’t feel it or see it, that God is still moving. Alive, flowing, sacred in me and in everything.