"When I consider the span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after - as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day - the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which knows nothing of... Continue Reading →
Outsmarting my Smartphone
I am conducting a self-experiment. I am going to "boldly go" where a small but increasing number of people are going: to take a break from a "thing" that makes this life both connected and detached; I'm attempting to outsmart my smartphone. One of my favourite singers, Paulo Nutini, in his great song Coming Up Easy has... Continue Reading →
A Magnificent Flaw
"It is not the gift- and skill-sets – the intelligence and imagination, the range of reading, the elegance and wit – that separate the great theologian from the good one. The difference lies not in the brilliance but the defects. It takes a magnificent flaw to make a great theologian." Kim Fabricius
Commending ‘The Ghost of Perfection – The Search for Humanity’
My friend Joe Haward published his first book last year called 'The Ghost of Perfection - Searching for Humanity'. His chapters tackle many issues that are prominent in our Western societies, though certainly not limited to them. The topics covered are, Mission, Triumphalism, Relationships, Violence, Consumerism, Beauty, Prayer, Trauma and Sex, with a Conclusion entitled Waking Up! It's certainly... Continue Reading →
“The same frantic steeplechase toward nothing”
I found these Thomas Merton excerpts on a tatty piece of paper the other day, and thought they belonged here: “The problem is to learn how to renounce resentment without selling out to the organization people who want everyone to accept absurdity and moral anarchy in a spirit of uplift and willing complicity.” “We live... Continue Reading →
The mirth of believers
We live in a broken world, with astonishing levels of violence, rivalry and scapegoating. And only a fraction of it makes the news. But one of the most counter-intuitive resistances human beings can do, and should do, is to laugh. Laughter is what makes us human, and since we are all made in God’s image,... Continue Reading →
Clown Europe
Call them what you want, Asylum seeker, migrant, refugee; But see, a face that looks like me. * Watch them flee from land and sea, Shining out from our latest HD TV. Packed in boats and rafts; Longing for half a chance. * Despising even the rank air they breathe. No room to move or... Continue Reading →
God chose Judas when he could have so easily chosen me!
"So after recieving the morsal of bread, [Judas] immediately went out. And it was night." John 13:30 "Then Judas Isacriot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray [Jesus] to them. And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him some money..." Mark 14:10-11... Continue Reading →