In this cockeyed world there are shapes and designs, if only we have some curiosity, training, and compassion and take care not to lie or to be sentimental—Some reflections following the discovery of the 39 men and women found dead inside a refrigerated lorry on an industrial estate in Essex.
The Mann Gulch fire, 1949 Luke 12:54-57 Jesus said to the crowds: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and […]
What porcupines can tell us about loving our neighbour who is also our enemy
An Old World Procupine (Photo: Andrew Butko) INTRODUCTION After last week’s address I had a very interesting and helpful conversation with C about what might any actual attempt to follow […]
The subjunctive of potentiality—a meditation on some words by Robert Musil pushing against the rhetoric and reality of nationalism
READINGS Matthew 5:43-45 NRSV [Jesus said:] You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies […]
Short-circuiting the parable of the mustard seed—a harvest meditation giving thanks for all the children involved in the School Strike for Climate movement
Jan Luyken from the Bowyer Bible. Photo: Harry Kossuth INTRODUCTION Today is our Harvest Festival, a time when, as the author of Exodus in Tyndale’s memorable English we give thanks […]
The cost of civility—A politico-theological meditation following the judgement hand-down at the Supreme Court this week
READINGS Exodus 19:16-25, 20:1 (NRSV) The moments before God gives the Ten Commandments and other laws to the people On the morning of the third day there was thunder and […]
The Muslim/Unitarian encounter and some personal reflections following a visit to the Darul Uloom Birmingham Islamic High School
Darul Uloom Islamic School INTRODUCTION On Monday last week I had a very interesting and positive visit to the Darul Uloom Islamic School in Birmingham. I was invited by the […]
A non-prophet organisation?
In his memoir, the philosopher Norman Malcolm recalls that Ludwig Wittgenstein once observed “that a serious and good philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes (without […]
Working Together in Conversational Motion—or why we are more like a wing than a conventional church community
READINGS: WORKING TOGETHER by David Whyte from The House of Belonging ©1996 Many Rivers Press We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again. […]
Not the beginning of a new religion (re-ligio) but its end (de-ligio)?—A new-materialist reading of Pentecost
READINGS: Poem No. XXII in “A Shropshire Lad” by A. E. Housman From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky,The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here […]
The freedom to be tomorrow what we are not today “The newer testament—the Gospel according to this moment”
Becoming “Free Spirits” and “Archeologists of Morning” Andrew J. Brown Second Edition—2019 A revised version of a talk given at the “Sea of Faith” Annual Conference, Leicester University, July 2016 […]