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.…
Places
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, Nature, Places, Posts
Spring is Black – Travels through the Aso-Kuju Highlands
Spring is Black, Summer is Blue, Autumn is Red and Winter is White. Thus read the colours of the seasons in the 1770 book “Kuju-sanki”, which describes the landscape of the Kuju Mountain Range, its people, lifestyle, and the 260-year history of Mt Kuju Hakausuiji-temple Hokkein, which was a site of mountain worship (From the…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Places, Posts
We too, are Sowers
Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside, but such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat there. The people all stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables. He said, ‘Imagine a sower going out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell…
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, 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…
Nature, Places, Posts
Remembering the Trek to Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia
With news that Mount Semeru in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park has erupted, and is pouring ash and smoke an estimated 5.6km into the sky above East Java, i am brought back to the recollection of our trek up Mt Bromo at its northern base from Pura Luhur Poten Gunung Bromo. See ” The…