New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses 
ScienceDaily, May 2008
Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. 
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The feast of Epiphany unfortunately is often somewhat neglected and overshadowed by the bigger celebration of Christmas. Like most other people I love Christmas, but I think Epiphany also has a lot of power when it comes to actually living the Christian life.
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At Christmas – and at of all times of the year – we need reminding, believers and unbelievers alike, of what sort of difference can be made to the world because of that birth in Bethlehem. Not only can be made, but is made.

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As soon as November comes to an end many people ask each other the same question: “What are you doing for Christmas?” This sounds to me very much like the question people usually ask in February, enquiring about any discipline chosen for Lent. In a way there is a relationship here, since the season of Advent is as much a journey as Lent. Is this the advent of a legion of aid organizations asking to support their cause? Or are Christians hoping for something more?
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November is the time when we remember those who have died. Beginning with All Saints Day the Church recalls all the Holy Men and Women who have followed Christ and died a long time ago. On All Souls Day those near to us, who have gone to heaven before us, are celebrated; memories may crop up, perhaps pain we thought we had left behind catches us and hits us where we least expect it. We miss them still and always will remember them. How can we ever live without them? We manage, but certainly life will never be the same again.
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September is the season of gathering food, but here at St Matthew's we are in the centre of the city – far removed from the cycle of agricultural life. It still makes sense, though, to think about what we gather in life, and how this affects our own and other people’s lives.
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    “St Matthew’s is on fire.”  My friend’s short phone message made my world spin. My children were in the church school. I bolted from my office near Trafalgar Square and ran into Whitehall. No buses. It seemed hours before I reached Great Peter Street.
   
    Then, what a relief! All the children had been taken to safety in the Victorian washhouse then in St Anne’s Street. My nursery class daughter was excited – a policeman had carried her down Old Pye Street; but my infant son was left – as I was – with a respect, bordering on terror, for fire.
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Everyday life is based on promises. Our paper currency bears the words, ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of …’ Contracts, whether for a top job or dry cleaning a jacket are binding agreements and we are rightly angry if they are not honoured or have ambiguous small print. Children take promises very seriously so we should not make them carelessly or lightly to them. The Old Testament is the story of God’s promise to his chosen people, symbolised in the rainbow, and how he stayed faithful to them through their times of infidelity to him.
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I have been searching in my mind for the roots of my firm (and still - despite it all - fervent) desire for the Increase of Christian Unity. So, I have returned to my boyhood when it nearly happened - as far as the Church of England and Roman Catholics were concerned.
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Meeting at St. Matthew’s and piling our bags into a mini-bus in the middle of a grey Friday felt rather too like a school trip, with Father Peter at the helm to make sure all were present and correct and that we all had our meal vouchers tucked away safely. There was also the same sense of excitement: at going away with a new group of people, to a new place for most of us, and at bunking off work early.
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