Consider my enemies; they are numerous, and they hate me violently. Psalm 25:19 But my enemies are vigorous and powerful; many hate me for no reason. Psalm 38:19 One of the most strange and estranging experiences of life in our age is the absence of enemies. At least,…
Have you ever noticed that Doubt can sometimes move in waves? Lots of people I know are currently doubting – what to do, what to believe, who to listen to, where to go, who to love? In The Curly Pyjama Letters Mr Curly writes to Vasco Pyjama: Dear Vasco, swirling season…
One of the unusual, and I think powerful, features of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy was that he took moods seriously. For him, a mood can be an insight into the real, bare-bones conditions of our human existence: A mood makes manifest ‘how one is’ and ‘how one is faring’. In…
Pains tend to run much more deeply into us than our pleasures. A true pain never really seems to leave you. It can always come back, fresh and revivified, even when the details fade from your memory. Suddenly, you’re right back there again. Even the greatest pleasures only ever…
Easter Saturday is a grey ocean of sorrow, and a man in a little boat. Peter escaping A World paused and become inscrutable. No word in the wind and waves, still still. A spirit hovering over the waters. No form to a void the questioning. And the answers. From today,…
Most of us don’t have any regular contact with the Aged. Maybe you make a semi-regular visit to a relative, maybe you come across elderly people in your line of work, and for most of us that’s probably about it. I’m reasonably sure that there aren’t…
1. Christians are saved into suffering – to be Christian is to put on Christ – to join with him in suffering. The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer…
An Idolators Christmas He was born into a plastic trough filled with hypo-allergenic straw. The waxy rose hues of his new-minted cheeks were hand painted by Santa’s elves. O Plastic Jesus O Son of It’s easy, speaking our loose-minded language, to slap the label ‘impossible’ on all sorts…