Last night I had been listening to a news report on the politics of Rwanda which charted the way in which good intentions had started to be undermined by corruption and repression – a drift into the camp of countries like USA, Iran, Israel … who commit the worst possible crime: that of destroying the [...]

Earlier this week I was scanning a series of quoted letters giving opinions for and against holding Tai Ji classes in a church hall. For some, Tai Ji was a covert conspiracy to ensnare Christians into evil; for others it was a healthy exercise of mind and body, entirely appropriate for a church hall offered [...]

Spare a thought for us self-tortured intellectuals. While many Christians are unencumbered by the need to pin everything down clearly, I am constantly perplexed in reconciling the resonant symbolism of Christianity with my vocation to engage the rational mind as well.
Take the “Jesus Prayer”, which I’ve already referred to in an earlier post, with the [...]

William Blake’s poem Auguries of innocence begins:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
I was reminded of this today while chanting the “Magnificat” (the song of Mary). Each interval between the pitch of one note and the [...]

Hope is starting to dawn for me. Hope in the sense of what emerges “beyond optimism” (the book title by the political Buddhist Ken Jones), when optimism has been unmasked.
Yes, I’ve been having a gloomy time. Hardly a day goes past without a reminder of the continuing, and at times growing, presence of “climate denial”, [...]

A few days ago I awoke from a confused dream accompanied by the words “God is within me and I am within God” — a proposition that could mean something, though it has the paradoxical consequence that God is within God. So I spent a few days mulling it over.
At a logical level it’s message [...]

Last week changed the way I thought about Easter.
Easter, the main Christian festival, has always been important for Isabel and myself. In the past we have celebrated it by taking part in the traditional Vigil in the evening before Easter. The service starts in complete darkness, psalms are sung which introduce the themes of descent [...]

Later on in my stay at Douai I went to vespers (in Latin), after which we all went briskly over to the chapel with a statue of the Virgin Mary, where we lined up and sang a hymn to her.  I found myself wondering about this and similar devotional practices. She is a very complex [...]

Last weekend I spent three days at Douai (pronounced “dowey”) Abbey, enjoying a time of quiet and country walking, interspersed with monastic services. The most therapeutic part of it was probably just getting away from daily routines, but the religious dimension was also helpful.
My first thought, once I had settled down, was “what am I [...]

Recently I’ve been stuck with a book chapter that I’m writing. My argument (about physics and spirituality) kept needing more explanation; I slotted in digressions, expanded previous sections – and as I wrote felt the readers’ eyes glazing over as as they flicked to the next chapter. My punch line was going to be great, [...]