the sensation of life
Winning and losing doesn’t matter. It’s about making something beautiful and surprising. So says the character, Kimi Muroyama, in the Australian film, Paper Planes, which I have watched a couple of times with my younger daughter, Esther. The film is about an international competition to see who can make a paper plane fly the furthest. … Continue reading Beautiful and surprising
It is Saturday morning. There is nothing I have to do – or nothing urgent. I sit at the open window in my pyjamas with the sunshine, the trees now in full leaf, the early morning birdsong, the air touching my face. This is what I want to do. This is how I want life … Continue reading The Kingdom of Heaven
Camas Lilies Consider the liles of the field, the blue banks of camas opening into acres of sky along the road. Would the longing to lie down and be washed by that beauty abate if you knew their usefulness, how the natives ground their bulbs for flour, how the settlers’ hogs uprooted them, grunting in … Continue reading Camas Lilies
Then sigh not so, but let them go,And be you blithe and bonny,Converting all your sounds of woeInto hey nonny, nonny.Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing People will often say that they can't pray. When asked they will say that they are unable to make their minds still or empty of thoughts. Somehow they have acquired … Continue reading Sigh no more
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