Driving from my parents’ home to mine takes me from a region known in Thomas Hardy novels as ‘Outer Wessex’ in the extreme west to one that is too far east to appear on his map. This distance which encompasses the entire landscape of 14 novels takes me a mere 2 and a quarter hours.Continue reading “Neither Here nor There”
Category Archives: Essays
On not knowing the songs
The Lord Jesus is a doctor to the sick, a friend to the outcast. His gospel is food to the hungry and life to the dead. Would the same Lord reserve the joy of singing for the happy and the contented and the certain?
On being dark and cold
The sound of God in my ears is an occasion of great joy, which is for now ‘inexpressible’. There is blessing in the longing and the looking. We remember that at Advent too, but in Lent as we trace His footsteps through the desert and the parched land, we draw comfort in the confidence that it will burst into blossom like the crocus. We fast because of the feast. For now, I wonder how to sing: the answer will be ‘Alleluia’.
We are not worthy of the potato
Like Mephibosheth, Christians will dine at the King’s table out of an overflow of his kindness. Every earthly meal is a mere foretaste.
The path less travelled by
Cultural institutions once beckoned ‘tolle, lege’; now, they wave ‘tl;dr’.
Home, rejoicing
Of course we rejoice to return there, but importantly home is also where (wherever?) others rejoice to receive us.
Birdsong and burgers
‘You see that very green field over there?’ she says, pointing at it with her finger. ‘I hate to point the finger, but that’s my neighbour’s field. It’s just rye grass, which makes it look a lovely colour, but it doesn’t support an insect population, which means the songbirds have nothing to eat.’
On Polemical Reading
Recently a friend lent me a book he knew I’d disagree with: Peter J. Leithart’s Defending Constantine. I enjoyed it a lot, not least because of Leithart’s vibrant and forceful prose. As I read, and wondered how much it should change my opinions, some thoughts I’ve had for a while began to solidify in myContinue reading “On Polemical Reading”
Yikeiatry 