“O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, From lies of tongue and pen, From… Continue reading A Hymn for our Times…
"Exactly one year ago today I published this website for the first time" was something that suddenly occurred to me on yesterday´s morning walk. Although I´d been preparing the site for a few weeks before, it wasn´t my intention to´go live´ on that particular day. But a significant experience in a church that I´d wandered… Continue reading The Baby and the Bathwater…
We´re now one week into 2021 and, not for the first time in my life, I feel a little out-of-step with the rest of the world. Almost everyone I know (and the vast majority of those I don´t but who share their views on both social and the wider media) seem to have had a… Continue reading That Light in the Distance…
There´s a Celtic folklore belief in something called ´Thin Places´. These are places around the world where the gap between Heaven and Earth is so thin that the magical quality of Heaven can be actually, physically felt. Clarity; perspective; sudden recognition of what really matters in life; feelings of immense peace and great joy; a… Continue reading Be the Change…
So here we are, approaching the end of the year in the week of Christmas, mentally and physically preparing for, anticipating, joyously awaiting, ignoring or dreading the arrival of The Big Day. And how we´re feeling will, no doubt, have been shaped by our life experience up to this point, and by the circumstances of… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Life…
The day will come when you and I will cease to be. And all that was said, and thought, and done will melt to nothing. And in that moment of returning to the earth again, as water, - Heaven sent, momentary, lingering ... in this space that lies between - some of us may pause… Continue reading The Melt
Angels lend their wings to the seeker of knowledge - Moorish proverb A young man knocked at the door of the (still closed) church hostel this week and asked if he could stay. He was Julien, a French pilgrim who has spent the last few years living in Japan and is now walking the Camino… Continue reading Where there´s a will…
Who am I to tell you how to seek and find the all-confounding, all-demanding, all-providing and glorious God that is Love? Who am I to offer guidance or reassurance that might help you stumble blindly into it, as I have, over the self-inflicted wreckage of fantasy, frustration, false images, failures, hidden frailties and forlorn hope?… Continue reading Who am I to tell you…?
It’s just over two months since my Korean flatmates left Logroño, carried away into the darkness one morning in a taxi bound for Barcelona airport and then onwards, by plane, back to Seoul, family, friends and home. It’s amazing how quickly that time has passed and how things have changed, both for me and for the… Continue reading Why not take all of Me?
Early this morning the clocks sprang forward one hour, symbolically reflecting this time of change and our forward movement into Spring. I hear birdsong all around me (all the more audible for the lack of vehicle hum and city noise that usually fills the streets here). I frequently see storks overhead, making their way to the… Continue reading Home thoughts from abroad…
La Casa de Paz 