I chanced upon the Genesee Diary in a Thriftbooks store somewhere in my travels. It was owned by an ‘Anne Green’, scribbled in pencil on a discreet corner of the first page. The cover was tattered and a little worse for wear, an added attraction to a yet unread book with a strange title and…
I have often wondered what our Creator’s intentions for Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 is? Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 NRSVCE A young person once argued that “vanity” was akin to a loss of…
I wrote this in March 2020, and stopped. ” Writing in February (2020), I did not believe the world would turn in such a way as if nothing else matters, to be able to think of nothing else, but as a contagion which has afflicted the earth and its people in a hundred varied ways.…
This is another Sunbird, a luscious colourful, almost shimmering male, unhurried between nectar-hunting, in regal serenity as it pauses……. “EMILY: “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?” STAGE MANAGER: “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.” Thornton Wilder, Our Town (Lumix GX85 M.Zuiko 40-150 mm) Jan 2018
St Pope John Paul II, who passed away on Divine Mercy Sunday on 2 April 2005, wrote his last book, Memory and Identity: Personal Reflections, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, published 2005), in the style of a series of interviews and questions, expanding on the themes that were much earlier examined in 1993 with two Polish philosophers,…
That magnificent quote, from CS Lewis’ Sermon, “Learning in War-Time”, is a wonderful paradigm for our times, in this year, the year of the pandemic war.
Like the humble jambu bol tree that nurtures its flower buds lovingly from conception to fruition, for the birds to feed in a frenzy, gone in just an instance.In early March, the black-naped oriole studies the exuberant stamen. In six weeks, the tree is laden with fruit and ripe for the pickings. A day later,…
News emerged earlier this month that the deers of Nara Park are facing an unprecedented food shortage due to the diminution of tourists in Japan arising from the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The animals have resorted to searching for food and foraging on the small traffic islands and mall-links in Nara city, away from their natural…
God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next …. I have a part in a great work;…
2 Corinthians 6:1-10 † As his fellow workers, we beg you once again not to neglect the grace of God that you have received. For he says: At the favourable time, I have listened to you; on the day of salvation I came to your help. Well, now is the favourable time; this is the day…