Malcolm Guite will lead this year's Lent course, focussing on George Herbert's poetry as a way of walking with him and with one another in the steps of Christ. Feb 24th: George Herbert, priest and poet; Mar 3rd: Heaven in Ordinarie: Herbert's way of being; Mar 10th: The Wine Press and the Olive Press; Mar 17th: Redemption: George Herbert on Good Friday; Mar 24th: Easter Wings: Herbert on Christ's Resurrection.

Rich liturgy, contemporary music, and sermons on difficult issues: Jan 26th: Being Goth and Christian (Fraser Watts); Feb 9th: tba (Sara Ball); Feb 23rd: Hard and Soft Sins (Fraser Watts); Mar 9th: Four living creatures (lion); Mar 23rd: Four living creatures (man).

This term the holistic spirituality group will consider 'rites and rituals', led by Malcolm Guite (Jan 31st; Feb 14th and 28th; Mar 14th and 28th).

Matthew Owen has been appointed St Edward's first 'student pastor'. He graduated in theology last summer, and is currently working as a research assistant. We will pray a blessing on his ministry on Jan 17th, and he will preach at 5.00pm that day. This term he will be organizing another student discussion group on science and religion, and a student prayer group. He would be pleased to hear from any students at St Edward's not already in contact with him.

For several years we have presented candidates for confirmation at Ely Cathedral on Easter Eve. Anyone considering confirmation this Easter, even if you have not made a definite decision, should contact Fraser as soon as possible.

St Edwards' new House Group in Cambridge meets weekly. For further information contact Stephen Davies. New members are welcome.

The LGBT group has an informal meeting on Sundays at 6.30pm to explore issues about sexual orientation from a Christian perspective; for details contact Chris. On Monday 1st February at 7.30 there will be a reflective ecumenical service helping to launch Cambridge's activities for LGBT History month.

The student group meets in the Lloyd Room in Christ's College, this term focussing on psychology and religion; for details contact Matt. Feb 1st: God and the brain (Alasdair Cole); Feb 15th: Is God a projection? (Fraser Watts); Mar 1st: tba.

Every disaster is a revelation. Sudden extremity, deprivation, or fear uncovers for us what is in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. So it is with this latest appalling blow in the long tragedy of Haiti; the hidden layers of who we are have been stripped bare for all to see, and what is revealed is worthy of both praise and lamentation. We are often told that we are a greedy selfish broken society, but within hours of the earthquake being reported, ordinary people in the UK had given millions. So it seems that for many people the fearful self-concern was only a surface, skin deep; underneath still beat the heart of hidden generosity, the compassion and overflowing love which is the image of God in us all.

But if generous hearts were unveiled then so were predatory instincts, deep in individuals and organisations. In Haiti itself crowds of victims scrabbling in the ruins to help their fellow victims were falling prey to gangs of looters and robbers ready to exploit the vulnerable wounded. Likewise hundreds of well motivated individuals who work or volunteer for NGOs; doctors, nurses, firemen, were being flown to the scene of devastation only to find that their efforts were stalled by unseemly squabbles between the very organisations they served; quarrels about who would have precedence, who would be allowed to get there first, control the airport, be in charge. It was a revelation that for some people in a crisis, their own prestige or that of their organisation is more important than any individual suffering.

What has this disaster has unveiled for you? Doubts and agonies about the place of an all-knowing God? Despair about the world? A sudden spring of generosity and a conviction that human love and solidarity are all that matters? Or a bewildering mixture of all these? Whatever has been uncovered, you can bring it all to God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and ask that He will cleanse whatever darkness is exposed and bring to maturity and good fruit those hidden seeds of goodness in you that are surely there.

Chaplain's letter (January)

We are bound to face the New Year with mixed feelings, a combination of hope and anxiety. The world faces many acute problems, including climate change, terrorism, and poverty. We need to keep hope and anxiety together, neither burying our heads in the sand and ignoring problems, nor yielding to despair and abandoning hope. Our major problems are ones that affect every person across the globe, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that our most acute problems raise spiritual and moral issues.

Religion, when it goes wrong, can exacerbate our problems. However, it can also help to solve them. Indeed, it is not clear that any of our major problems can be tackled effectively without taking the spiritual dimension into account. This presents religious people everywhere with a huge chllange, but also an opportunity. As we enter the New Year, let us try, at St Edward's, to contribute to the spiritual leadership that the world so badly needs. (Fraser Watts)