W. Eugene Smith was known as the pioneer of photo-journalism. The photo-essay above of Dr Ernest Ceriani, a country doctor in Colorado was widely acknowledged as an original journalistic form. One of the most vivid images shows Ceriani looking exhausted in a kitchen, having performed a Caesarian section during which both mother and baby died.…
Persons
Books, Complex & Simple, Persons, Places, Posts, The Arts
The Genesee Diary – A Reflection on the Monastic Life by Fr Henri Nouwen (1976)
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…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts, The Arts
Discovering Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023)
It seems to me that the genius of the late composer & musician Ryuichi Sakamoto was in his offerings of serenity and momentum, with subtleties of transitions, always with exquisite timing, as befitting the visual imagery and the moment. Listen to his composition Blu, commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Aoyama clothing company in…
Nature, Persons, Places, Posts
An Unplanned Encounter in Jeju
When we visited Jeju island in the autumn of 2022, we had not expected to experience another Encounter with the Lord. As it were, the allure of old friends reuniting, nature beckoning, and savouring the yet unfamiliar Korean cuisine was enough to assure us of a most fulfilling week of fellowship and experience to come.…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Persons, Places, Posts
How will we be tested in our personal end-times?
Today, I was reminded at Palm Sunday Mass (this post was first drafted on 28th March 2021) that when Jesus Christ was at His weakest physical state as God-Made-Man, the devil struck again to taunt, to try to tempt Jesus to succumb to the order of the world, and to let His material wants take…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Places, Posts
Remember Me
The people stayed there before the cross watching Jesus. As for the leaders, they jeered at him. ‘He saved others,’ they said ‘let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers mocked him too, and when they approached to offer vinegar they said, ‘If you are the king…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Persons, Places, Posts
Life of Saint Paul before and after Damascus*
St Paul denied his original self, in order to replace it with something fundamentally more Precious. His narratives and actions, have been recorded in history through his own prodigious inspired writings and that of his collaborators, and in recent history by the cinematographers. When I first watched Paul, Apostle of Christ the 2018 American biblical drama film, it…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
Only This I Want (by Dan Schutte)
[Chorus]Only this I want: But to know the LordAnd to bear his cross, so to wear the crown he wore [Verse 1]All but this is loss, worthless refuse to me For to gain the Lord is to gain all I need [Verse 2]I will run the race; I will fight the good fight So to…
Books, Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
Nothing worth doing is ever in vain
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…
Complex & Simple, Persons, Places, Posts
Love of the Parents
As I read the fragile and parched first pages of my father’s 1952 diary, the sands of time slowly weaved the context of its moment into my consciousness. He was writing well past midnight, having attended to his daughter, my sister. Now he paused to slow down to pen a few thoughts. He was more…