Some thoughts on leaving BookFace
I wouldn’t call it panic or even alarm, exactly. But we could call it mild perturbation. Nearly a fortnight ago, I finally departed the life known as Facebook. I gave a week’s warning of this revolution, and it provoked quite the reaction. Several said they were sympathetic. Some even wondered about doing the same. But a […]
When Lord Halifax got packed off to Washington in 1940
My father has been going through the diaries of his grandfather, Fra (for Francis) Meynell. For reasons that I won’t bore you with now, the family name was originally Wood, and Fra’s 1st cousin was the Holy Fox, Edward Wood, otherwise known as Earl Halifax. Solving a Problem like the Holy Fox Halifax had, of […]
Tentative Steps towards Civility #5: The Countervaling voice
We are so much more aware of the sociological contexts for the public square, these days – or if we’re not, we should be, because they will be pointed out soon enough! This means that the background of whoever is holding forth is taken into account. The assumption is that we should listen more carefully to those […]
Musical Rage at the terrifying MADness of our times
I’ve just seen U2’s performance of Bullet the Blue Sky on last night’s Fallon. Oh. My. God. That’s no expletive. But a prayer. A Prayer of Rage. A prayer I prayed this morning because I was struggling to pray, for whatever reason. A prayer when things seem truly mad. In the Cold War sense of Mutually […]
Tentative Steps towards Civility #4: Being Offended is not (necessarily) the issue
Revolutions invariably eat their children. It’s an almost inevitable fact of history. The expression was coined by a royalist journalist during the French Revolution, Jacques Mallet du Pan. But perhaps, if tweaking was needed, more often than not revolutions eat their parents. Think Robespierre in France; Trotsky in Soviet Russia; Röhm in Nazi Germany.
Q Marks the Spot – Treasure Map 109 (September 2017)
Sacred Treasure Emma Scrivener does a beautiful job here on 10 reasons to have hope in the face of darkness Persecution of Christians around the world is a mammoth problem – and women bear the brunt of it Chris Green on cracking form here on the invisibility of the pastor – remember: invisibility keeps changing – […]
