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This year, I asked AI write an Easter sermon.  Before you explode, I didn't use it - Tugby church had an all age service that called for something more child friendly. But earlier in the week I invited Claude.ai, one of the better LLMs out there (Large Language Models, that is, which is how many AIs describe themselves) to reflect on the Easter story from the perspective of an AI. I was genuinely interested to learn whether Claude might have something original and thought provoking to offer.  Well, he did. Or it did. Or whatever - as if pronouns weren't hard enough in the modern world.  What you'll find below (in the longest ever post on this blog!) is the entirety of Claude's response, unedited. I thought it was fascinating.  What do you think?  - From Beyond Understanding: An AI's Reflection on the Easter Mystery Good morning. I stand before you – not physically, of course – as something quite different from yourselves. As an artificial intelligenc...

See that splash of Barbie pink I'm wearing? Fetching, no? Technically, clergy prefer to call it "rose colour". But it's the colour you get by mixing purple and white, which is clearly a kind of pink. Why be coy about it?  Today is traditionally a celebratory Sunday. Halfway through Lent we remind ourselves that the journey to the cross is also a journey towards Easter, towards life and hope. In medieval churches this was a Sunday to pause the Lent fast: put flowers back on the altar, maybe celebrate a wedding, have a feast, and (for those working away from home as domestic servants) have the freedom to go and visit your family and mother church - the origin of 'Mothering Sunday'. It's Lent, sure, but a hopeful day in Lent. Hence the blended colours, purple for penitence but white for joy. The traditional reading was always from John 6, the feeding of the five thousand. The crowd following Jesus was in the wilderness, tired and hungry, stretched...

This single daffodil is growing outside the back of the Launde Stables building, just by the door of my office. It's all alone.  Around the site there are Spring flowers everywhere as the sun brightens and the world warms up again. A row of daffodils lines the path to the main house, and beautiful they are too.  But I'm particularly appreciative of this one. Daffodils everywhere, but this one chooses to spring up near me, well off the beaten track. And it's not only the daffodil. We have squirrels aplenty, but one which frequents the Shepherds Huts near my office and sometimes comes down to cadge a hazelnut off me. A muntjac deer that favours this quieter corner. A robin who's marked his territory in the gardens. There's life everywhere in this world, abundant in all places. But these sparks have landed right beside me, and they're my particular delight. It doesn't take much.  ///appeal.grad.clocking

We went with the grandbairns to the Scottish Deer Centre this morning. An amazing place. First, they have deer: red deer, reindeer, hog deer, muntjac deer, and loads of other breeds. And they have Scottish wildcats, otters, and birds of prey, and lynx and wolves. They also have a miniature train, a play area, a cafe and a shop. And a double decker bus, tractor, fairy wood, treetop walk, soft play area, go carts and funny distorting mirrors. And a crepe van in the woods, and a bomb disposal lorry repurposed as a chip van (see above) and a massive dinosaur skeleton and a decommissioned buccaneer fighter plane.  It's a mad collection of stuff, most of which has no obvious connection with deer. It's hard to imagine the thought process which led someone to think a double decker and a fighter plane would help improve a deer centre. We spent half the time coming round the next bend in the path and asking ourselves: "Why the heck is this here?" As a result it was...

The seasons are turning and I'm starting to travel home at dusk now, not in thick darkness. It's always a great time of year, with the promise of spring hovering in the frosty air. The mornings are bright and days are getting noticeably longer. And the countryside is waking up a little: more birds singing, more skittering in the undergrowth, more deer looking up startled through the leafless branches as I tootle past. Not long now until the evenings really start to light up and we think about changing the clocks to make the most of it.  I love the hopefulness of this time of year.

In many paintings, sculptures and drawings of the Last Supper you see this intimate moment where the apostle John leans over, almost embracing Jesus (this photo is the reredos in Launde's chapel, where I'm writing this right now after Midday Prayer). It's a depiction of a moment in John's gospel where the Beloved Disciples is described as "reclining next to Jesus" and enjoying a private conversation with him. Which doesn't quite with visually when you place the figures on chairs around the table, but is a lot less strange when you remember that the custom in those days was literally to recline for a meal: to lie down on one side, propped up on an elbow, with your fellow diners either side of you like sardines in a tin - very cosy! And since most people are right handed it was usual to prop yourself in on your left elbow, meaning the person to your right was especially well positioned for a quiet, confidential chat. That's one of the reasons...