In this episode, I sit with the tension of a noisy world where headlines shout of violence while quieter stories of goodness slip by almost unnoticed. I reflect on Malachi’s image of God as a careful refiner, Luke’s tender scene of Elizabeth and Zechariah naming John, and the meaning of “God is gracious” in a bruised but still breathing world. I weave in stories of a blind pitmaster in Dallas, a Secret Santa in Idaho, and communities in India restoring hundreds of lakes, to explore how holy discomfort and restored tenderness can make our hearts able to hold water again. I end in prayer, asking to be gently shown the next small step on God’s path.

In this episode, I sit with the jarring contrast of a news bulletin: the death of a nine‑year‑old girl alongside a story of derelict land in Chicago being turned into flower farms. I reflect on Zephaniah’s fierce warning and tender promise, and on Jesus’ parable of the two sons who say very different things and yet reveal themselves by what they actually do. I share a memory of Arthur, an old miner who came to chapel in dusty boots, and explore how real repentance looks like small, embodied yeses. I end by inviting you to notice just one place today where you might quietly, concretely turn up.

Today I sit at the kitchen table with the kettle on, watching a sky that can’t decide between bright or brooding, and thinking about how “partly cloudy” fits both our weather and our world. With flu wards under strain and budgets tightening again, I turn to Mary’s hurried visit to Elizabeth and the quiet miracle that happens in an ordinary doorway. I reflect on Immanuel, God-with-us, showing up in small acts of brother-and-sister kindness: in hospitals, supermarkets, and at the kitchen table. I remember my mother’s instinct to put the kettle on whenever there was a “knock in the wind”, and I wonder how each of us might gently warm one small corner of the world today.