CONGRATULATIONS to those who initiated the project to provide small wooden libraries of free books to those using Foodbanks in the North Cotswolds - such a great way to promote healthy minds in healthy bodies.

In contrast concern was expressed in a Sunday magazine that Artificial Intelligence is taking away the need for us to use and stretch our brains as in the days before computers and iPhones etc.

With the more sedentary life style of our technological age it seems we might be becoming a more unfit human race both physically and mentally – rather a worrying prospect.

Down through the ages it has been believed that we are all made up of three not two elements - mind, body and spirit.

The latter being our relationship with the divine life force that created us, and also our interconnection with nature and with our fellow human beings.

It is this spirit which allows us to choose between right and wrong, to give and receive love and to be creative in such fields as art, music and dance.

Magazines, newspapers and television are full of suggestions of healthy diets and exercise regimes but very often the spiritual is not included.

We live in stressful and fractious times.

Our country has become bitterly divided with a growing gap between rich and poor.

Knife crime and depression amongst the young is rising.

Public figures use inflammatory language and fake news appears on internet sites.

Could it be that a spiritual element is missing in our lives?

Almost two thousand years ago St Paul warned that by neglecting the spirit “men can become enemies and they fight, they become jealous angry and ambitious.

“They segregate into parties and groups.”

He contrasts this with the “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodwill” that results by following a more spiritual path.

Perhaps a path we all need in the weeks ahead.