This year I’m planning to write 15,000 words (give or take) on the topic of Space. Well, that’s what I think it’s going to be about… hmmm, the final frontier. Although I am genuinely fascinated by extra-terrestrial exploration (I have a deeply cherished ambition to be…
Some clarifications from the previous post: this is definitely not a finished reflection on Christian counselling strategies. There is an immeasurably important place for careful, well chosen words that draw out pain and provide comfort for suffering people. I guess we could all work harder at learning the art of…
> as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3 ESV) I was chatting with a friend a month or two ago about the difficulty I find talking with people who are affected by deep suffering. I know I’m not…
Essays, Writing, Love. But under the crushing weight of the former, is there any chance that the last could remain? The Essay can also be a form of love – the curiosity that impels our love of the world, not interrogation but conversation The world needs to be apprehended through love.…
The Essay is also a trial of nature. While none of us have any doubt that the reason for an essay is to examine the student, ‘the essay’ itself is sold to the student as an opportunity to examine the world. The essay is an opportunity to know more about…
The word ‘essay’ is a fairly obvious corruption of ‘assay’ meaning ‘trial’. Surely there’s something humorous about using a mispelled word to name an exercise intended to demonstrate the mastery of words and ideas? It’s a particularly English form of humour (in the same vein as persistently spelling…
So far, all i have described is a situation in which all ethical discourse is shut down – there are no questions to be asked – but how do we know that the moral exhortation we are hearing is right – how do we avoid the inevitable trump card from the Confessors. The…
series begins here [http://andersonpost.org/2009/08/17/review-australia-whose-land-part-1/] The ethics of Indigenous reconciliation, and the ethics of reconciliation in general involves the exploration of the relation between power and subjectivity. What it means to be a ‘good ethical Hearer’, i.e., the recipient of moral exhortation, is inseparable…