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Iona cloisters

A brilliant piece on Ukraine’s queer soldiers. “This is probably the first war where so many openly LGBT+ soldiers are fighting on the frontline,” he says. ​“That in itself is a sign: we’re fighting not just for borders, but for values. We’re like a diamond coating on a blade – the first to …

Iona cloisters

Iona harbour

Bus to Fionnphort

Glasgow to Oban must be one of the best train journeys anywhere, which I will attempt to demonstrate with grainy pictures taken through dirty windows.

In the late twentieth century, then, in a world of banality and commercialized religion in which God had become “nice,” mysticism promised to help “unchain” God from the small, moralistic demands laid on him-to let God be wild and free and daring and beautiful. An …

Heading to Iona: I’m in Glasgow, catching the train to Oban on the way to Iona. This is the first time I have been since I was accepted onto the New Members Programme of the Iona Community. My involvement with the community has been a huge influence on my life over the last couple of years and I’m …

I really enjoyed this piece by Fr Stephen on the glories of creation: The great tragedy of secularism is its reduction of all things to mere things. We are created to have right relationships with all things as well as all people. At its heart this right relationship is the manifestation of love. …

Roseberry Topping from the Cleveland Hills.

Mr. Kind is not the first Jewish pope, Dr. Palmer said. There have also been two Muslim popes and a transgender pope. “We haven’t yet had a Catholic pope,” she said. ‘The Only Person in the World Claiming to Be the Pope Right Now’ H/T @ayjay

Dana’O Driscoll once again has a bleak account of ecological and economic collapse. This is no longer fixable, but does drive us to build community and local resilience. All of this has made me consider my relationships to everything… My relationship to the garden, to the land, to the homestead. My …

You have permission to be ordinary. To live a quiet life. To go for a walk without turning it into content. To do good work without chasing viral. To be present with your people instead of always ‘building something.’ Your life doesn’t have to be optimised to be meaningful. The Ordinary creates …

Pennhill from Leyburn Shawl

St. Margaret’s Church Preston under Scar.

A lovely account of the meaning kitchen objects can play in our lives. Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss

A five minute break in the work day to see the sea in Marske.

Alex Evans' views on international development find an unusual expression: My computer had gone on the fritz during a password update, and in order to resolve it I’d had to tell the tech support guys my old password over the phone – while a senior official was in the room. Imagine my …

Ali Cobby Eckermann: Sit down sorry camp Might be one week Might be long long time Tell every little story When the people was alive Tell every little story more Pádraig Ó Tuama: The poem has an intelligence about lament too. And that leads me to my question: What’s a sorrow that’s been a …

For Francis, Jesus Christ was not mere abstraction, but a man of flesh: “that flesh made of passions, emotions and feelings, words that challenge and console, hands that touch and heal, looks that liberate and encourage, flesh made of hospitality, forgiveness, indignation, courage, fearlessness; in …

Borges imagines Cain and Abel eating by a fire: When the flame illuminates Abel’s forehead, Cain sees “the mark of the stone.” He drops his bread, and asks for his brother’s forgiveness—but adds a question: “Was it you that killed me, or did I kill you?” Abel says that he could not remember, but …

My own deconstruction hasn’t been as radical as Annie’s, but this still spoke to me: Now I don’t know anything! But I also don’t feel obligated to hate people. So that’s a good trade-off.

After a busy week and weekend at work, a welcome long hike.

Cuckoo calling by the River Rye this morning.

Cory Doctorow: The corollary: if we change the policy environment, we can make these careless people – and their successors, who run other businesses we rely upon – care. They may never care about us, but we can make them care about what we might do to them if they give in to their carelessness. …

I am grateful for the Iona Community‘s “fierce solidarity” with the trans community. In a world of ecclesiastical fence sitting, the clarity of this statement is a balm to my soul. Iona Community: Statement of Solidarity with Trans People.

Keith Kurson: Take a deep breath, and say out loud: I am not a machine, I am not meant to scale. You have a finite amount of energy, and a community of people around you who can use that energy. You can use that energy, to make it through the day, which is the most important thing. Waking up …

Roseberry Topping from the Wainstones

God is not only a fact of religion: He is a fact.: Frank Sheed (via @eastbrad): God is not only a fact of religion: He is a fact. Not to see Him is to be wrong about everything, which includes being wrong about one’s self… Richard Beck: Get this first and most fundamental question wrong and everything downstream will go off track. …

Martin Scott advocates for shifting the focus in Christianity from kingdom language to prioritizing community and interpersonal relationships.

I love this icon of St Anne (via Emanuel Burke). Her finger is raised to her lips as a sign that she is a contemplative. It is better to keep silence and to be than to talk and not to be. It is good to teach, if the speaker act. Now there was One Teacher, Who spake and it came to pass (Ps. …

Niléane asks the question we need to hear at this time of crisis: I must ask: have you never wondered if you should wrap your mounted disk drives in cozy iPod socks? In case you need help answering that question, there are pictures: Unimpressed? How about some googly eyes that follow your mouse? …

Easter flowers.

I love a lot about this piece from Dana O’Driscoll: The principle of living low is simple: living in a way that prioritizes time as the most valuable resource over money, prioritizing one’s wants and needs, and living in a way where one is providing as many of their own needs as …

Happy Easter.

Fr. Stephen De Young (via @ReaderJohn ): God loves you. Jesus said so. St. John’s Gospel, the Father Himself loves you. He is not angry at you. He does not want to destroy you for your sins. There is no power of justice that commands Him to do so. No one commands Him to do anything. He loves …

Maundy Thursday Eucharist in the tiny hamlet of Kirby Knowle. An excellent sermon and surprisingly good hymn singing by the congregation of three.

Above Boltby

Delightfully eccentric medieval stained glass at Shibden Hall yesterday.

Dougald Hine had me with this opening: She said, “Didn’t you know, Dougald? I’m dying.” And just for a moment, I wasn’t sure what kind of conversation we were about to have. Then I saw the edge of a smile on her lips, and she started to explain about this programme she’d joined called A Year to …

The first garden asparagus of the year.

The Musée d’Orsay was very busy and physically exhausting. But the building is extraordinary, and it was wonderful to come face to face with so many famous impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Van Gogh’s stare has stayed with me…

We’re just home from a few days in Paris. I wanted to visit Notre Dame for the first time since the fire. It was busy and chaotic but also unexpectedly moving. There was a real sense of people responding emotionally to the restored building. Last time it felt like a simple tourist attraction; …

Helen Stanton is very good on the apophatic tradition: Telling the truth: that we do not know, cannot understand, but recognise that God is in that place of darkness as much as in God’s glorious light. This is, I think, one of our resources when our equations fail as our words do. And it is …

A photo taken from above Horsehouse.

Saltburn

Saltburn

Redcar