Friday Fun 12: An Indignant Letter to an “Impetiginous Acroyli”
It seems that church ministers are fair game and always have been. Rowan Atkinson is certainly not the first to lay into clergy as people “of such extraordinary smugness and arrogance and conceitedness who are extraordinarily presumptuous about the significance of their position in society”. Ho hum. Much of it is no doubt deserved.
Visionary dreamers: how Bonhoeffer warns virtual (and indeed large) churches
OK, I realise that’s somewhat anachronistic, not to say speculative. But I’m in a staff small group that’s started reading an extraordinary book: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. It is dense, blunt but most of all, persuasive. And even though we’ve only been going at it for a week, it has already stimulated all kinds of interesting […]
Some stop-motion silliness in Sicily
Here was a bit of fun from our holiday in Sicily – a stop-motion jolly directed by my son Joshua, involving my parents, me and my children plus my brother! Perhaps a new movie dynasty is born… Having failed to come up with the goods yet again last Friday, I suppose you could say that […]
We are not enslaved to our past: Ian Cron’s inspiring memoir
It is a rare gift indeed to be able to evoke the confusions, perceptions and wonder of childhood from the perspectives of adulthood. And it is a gift that Ian Cron clearly possesses. His recent memoir (self-deprecatingly subtitled ‘of sorts’), Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me, is a wonderful, life-affirming account of a deeply […]
Scale and Detail: the twin peaks of Jean Francois Rauzier’s “Hyperphotos”
Thanks to a brief profile in Wired last month, I’ve been mesmerised by the ‘hyperphotos’ of French photographic artist Jean-Francois Rauzier. It is definitely worth spending some time exploring his worlds. And they are worlds – each image is deceptively simple but like all great art, draws you in with a summons to contemplate and […]
God, The Refugees and The Dynasty: An overview of Ruth
The book that has occupied my thoughts for much of the summer is that almost hidden gem of the OT, the Book of Ruth. It was the focus of this year’s All Souls week away, and so my talks are issued as a free podcast. What blew me away is that of all the books […]
The Soviet Utopia and the assimilation of Biblical Imagery
I was very struck by this fascinating article (“Building Blocks” from the latest Royal Academy magazine) about post-revolution architecture and art in the Soviet Union. Never having visited Russia itself (despite having travelled fairly extensively through its former cold war satellites), my presumption was that architecture in that era was full of monolithic, brutalising and […]
9/11 through the lens of Revelation
It just so happened that on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, we had come to the second instalment off our romp through Revelation. And it fell to me both to do an overview of all 7 letters to the 7 churches and at the same time do some justice (impossible) to what happened on that […]
Christopher Reid’s A Scattering
Christopher Reid’s 2009 anthology A Scattering won many plaudits, all entirely deserved, including the overall Costa book award (which is very unusual for a book of poetry). It is an anthology of grief – poems written in the process and aftermath of Lucinda (his wife of 30 years) dying of cancer. But it is a wonderful, […]
The Majesty of Mount Etna
Back on Saturday from a wonderful family time in Sicily. The last week was spent at the foot of Mount Etna. It was only a few days ago that this great volcano was erupting, but during our time, we only saw her steaming. Impressive nonetheless. One day we took a cable car (only 6-seater, so […]
Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 36 (September 2011)
Sorry for the delay and somewhat truncated list this time – just back from holiday. But Q is due back on track v soon! Sacred Treasure “Greed given a spiritual name”: a great, if brief, PBS interview with Eugene Peterson on many things (incl prosperity gospel). It is now only a matter of time before […]
