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Spiritual reflection to start the day with Dr Linden Bicket, a teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity

Good morning. I’m speaking to you from Edinburgh, where the Festival (and its equally vibrant and bustling offshoot, the Festival Fringe) are in full swing. Scotland’s capital city is alive with creative energy, with live drama, music, dance, comedy, and much more delighting audiences all through the day and late into the night. Edinburgh’s theatres are packed, and every other available space has been transformed into a performance venue. Our streets are crowded with onlookers enjoying street performances, and our bars, cafes and restaurants overflow with people grabbing quick sustenance between shows. The city is crammed with works of live art and those who revel in them.

I have never been a performer, nor have I written anything for the stage, but I hold such deep admiration for those who share their artistry, whether as actors, dancers, writers, or composers. Writing and storytelling for audiences, and moving people through art, requires such bravery and vulnerability. This year, many shows in Edinburgh confront the injustices of our world with moral courage and no small amount of outrage and urgent calls for change. This has long been a feature of performances at the Festival, but the pain of the world feels so acute at this moment, with suffering so visible across our screens and social media, that it seems both inevitable and crucial for live art to address that pain with moral clarity.

Living God, we thank you for the moral vision of artists, and for the opportunity to encounter their works of courage, protest and prophecy. Inspire us to work together for compassion and mercy and give us hearts that are open to artists’ calls for peace and justice. Amen.