Wishing all Q readers a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS! In celebration of this astonishing commonplace, here is a combination that evokes the shocking naturalism of the Incarnation. Georges de la Tour was a brilliant painter of chiaroscuro (literally Italian for light-dark) in…
Regular air travel increases the likelihood of delays, missed connections and disrupted plans. Especially in winter. I'm writing this in Skopje, Macedonia (my 4th visit) - and I love returning because of the chance to revisit great friends. But the…
I've loved Odilon Redon for a while... but at a distance. I know very little about him, and know only a little bit of his work. So I've very little to say about it, other than to mention my almost…
I had a remarkable week last week. It was my 12th trip to Turkey in 8 years, but in many ways saw the culmination of so many things that a number of us had been working towards. A 3 day…
Sacred Treasure Archbishop Cranmer gets apocalyptic about the Investigatory Powers Act The Transformation of David Brooks: a fascinating article about one of America's most important writers today as he grapples with the concept of sin All of Lloyd-Jones' sermons are…
I'm wondering about writing a post or two about the sheer oddness off being an author. In particular about how one pours oneself into the construction of paragraphs, arguments and theses, only to find that one's work has only just…
From the Q Archive (originally posted in October 2012) 20 years ago my parents bought a south-facing wheat-field off a local farmer. As an investment. It's about 10 acres in beautiful rural Norfolk (see the photo at the bottom of…
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970) might not seem natural subjects for a Q combination. She was an American poet who rarely, if ever, left her hometown in Massachussets or even her bedroom. Yet she managed to convey real…
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It's big news these days - after all, it was only yesterday that MI5 was revealed to have been storing phone data for the last 10 years. The impact of the surveillance state is barely understood by most of us…
Sacred Treasure David & Heather Jackman are old friends - and they've just contributed this essay on marriage to the Cambridge Papers There is something wonderfully redemptive about this - bride's father grabs stepfather to walk down the aisle too... Simon…
Frost's reflection on a wander in his deeply-loved New England has become one of the most loved poems of the twentieth century. It's not hard to see why. A totally straightforward decision about which path to take has such resonance.…