We don’t know any more
where our lives belong
or even where to hide.
The walls of home
hold nothing up
or out
and the door hangs slack
on the hinge.
Where have our lives gone ?
I consult the… Continue reading The Flotsam of Frantic Dreams
Category Community
High Noon this Easter
Let’s recall the film “High Noon,” that great Western. The outlaw and his hoodlum cronies are riding into town. They want revenge on the sheriff, the keeper of the law. The sheriff scours the town looking for support, a posse of townspeople who will help him defend their community from the outlaws. The townspeople know… Continue reading High Noon this Easter
The Rule of the Rough Beast
The “Rough Beast” is a phrase from “The Second Coming” by YB Yeats. Written in 1919, it is a poem that becomes more topical with each passing day.
The last three lines of the poem above are a deliberate reference… Continue reading The Rule of the Rough Beast
HATRED : A SESTINA by Robert Friend
Hatred
is wanting
to hurt
and its fulfillment
dancing
on someone’s grave.
Because the insult was grave,
I must repay hatred with hatred,
abandon all pleasure: the dancing,
the flirting, the wallowing wantings
of every day. How drab their fulfillment
A Drawing of Conclusions
It is surely still natural to respect a conclusion that is reached through cogent argument. Each stage of the argument leads to the next stage, like a series of links in a chain. The conclusion is given its authority, its right to be heard and accepted, by the strength of the links that have led… Continue reading A Drawing of Conclusions
The Brain’s a Tunnel
Owl sculpture by Dorothy Love… Continue reading The Brain's a Tunnel
If the People is Sovereign, Lying to the People is High Treason
As 2016 comes to an end, I want to present an argument which I believe follows from the year’s events. Different elements of the argument have already been touched on here in recent posts.
I must begin with language and those first words of St John’s Gospel. In the beginning was [and was always]… Continue reading If the People is Sovereign, Lying to the People is High Treason
The Dance of the Emperor who Wears no Clothes
The Brexit dance continues. And in London, a court case has just come to an end, in which lawyers have been debating whether or not Parliament should have influence over the Brexit process. We shall hear the result of that court case in the near future.
But its implications are profoundly important and the… Continue reading The Dance of the Emperor who Wears no Clothes
The late David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham
Following the death of David Jenkins on September 4th, I want to bear witness in my own small way to his great stature as a man and true priest.
The first obituaries I read gave prominence to his Virgin Birth and Resurrection “denials.” And of course, in his time, he was called “The Red… Continue reading The late David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham
Sayings
Reaching for words
is like searching the earth
for stones
and then shaping them
one after another
into a path.
Your words took my breath away.
They killed me with their song.
They made my womb turn over.
Sing to me again.
The words… Continue reading Sayings