the sensation of life
A couple of years ago I wrote this blessing. It garnered significantly more interest than anything else I have written here. Strictly speaking, I didn't write it. It was given to me early one Monday morning, not long after Easter, and I wrote it down. The week before I had been away for a week’s … Continue reading Appledore
My most primary concern right now actually involves three parts, each inter-related division corresponding to description, analysis, and prescription: the increasingly disfigured state of the planet and its inhabitants (human and otherwise), exemplified by the financial, ecological, ethical, and other crises;the ways in which capitalism (and its collaborating power structures, including “democracy”) fundamentally drives (and … Continue reading Jesus’s Provocative Political Protest
Every day I write 750 words, sometimes more, never less, though on some days I can’t be bothered to engage and I have been known to cheat by typing the same words over and again. Writing requires me to dig deeper into myself, which also requires (and is the same as) connecting with You. I … Continue reading Demands
People are frequently frightened to give themselves into relationship with You. What will You require? But it seems to me You ask so little. It is the intimacy of this littleness that so unsettles me. Rain on the Thames (photo by Julian Maddock)
I am so distant from the hope of myself,in which I have goodness, and discernment…Mary Oliver, When I am among the trees Forgiveness is not a contract. We do not forgive because someone has said sorry or because reparation has been exacted. The Crucifixion is not a cosmic trade-off. God does not need to forgive … Continue reading For
There were stories this week in the Independent and the Guardian about 130 imams and Muslim religious leaders who have refused to perform funeral prayers for the London Bridge and Borough Market attackers – "a ritual normally performed for every Muslim regardless of their actions". I understand the impulse of this and the political expediency, … Continue reading Mercy
Can I hope that I am now in a new area, traveling more securely, and that my commitment to the hermit life will be something more than a comic gesture? Is the whole thing just a fantastic private comedy? I question myself and my whole life very seriously. The real absurdity of it all! The … Continue reading Clinging to the Invisible God
It may help to think that what [St Mark] does is to help us see events [of the Passion] strictly from the perspective of the victim. When the victims of totalitarian violence and tyranny in our own age tell their stories, as many have, they sound very much like this. Victims typically don’t really know … Continue reading The Discontents of Empire (IV)
Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotised by a host of human-made technologies that only reflect us back to ourselves, it is all too easy for us to forget our carnal inherence in a more-than-human matrix of sensations and sensibilities. Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, … Continue reading The Discontents of Empire (III)
One of the things I like to say in this writing is that God draws each of us to Her/Himself in different ways. There is no one correct way to pray and no wrong way to pray: there is only your way. Some months ago I stumbled upon this post by Rebecca at Grace and … Continue reading Journalling Bible