A Lucretian Mothering Sunday Meditation
Last year on Mothering Sunday I gave an address called ‘The maternalizing of matter and the materializing of the mother’—A poetic, supreme fiction for our age and, should you wish, you can read it again at the following link: The maternalizing of matter and the materializing of the mother—A poetic, supreme fiction for our age. The Roman poet, Lucretius (c. […]
More speed? More strength? More consumption? More Things?—A meditation on Love in the time of Coronavirus
READINGS Matthew 6:19-29 (trans. David Bentley Hart): [Jesus said:] Do not store up treasures for yourself on the earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves penetrate by digging and steal; Rather, store up for yourself treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves neither penetrate by digging nor steal; […]
Facts not fear. Clean hands. Open hearts.—An Epicurean/Lucretian meditation on how to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic
Lucretius contemplating how nature works Introductory meditation (excluding the Lord’s Prayer) adapted from ‘An Epicurean Gathering’ arranged by me, Lewis Connolly (until recently the minister of the Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House) and Dean Reynolds: The Roman poet Lucretius wrote: In the murk of our darkness, you, Epicurus, raised your blazing lantern to show us the […]
A world without gain? An address for Fairtrade Fortnight meditating on a thought by Karl Polanyi and with an after-thought drawn from Paul Mason
Polanyi teaching at the Workers’ Educational Association, c. 1939 (William Townsend) Mark 8:35-37 trans. David Bentley Hart [Jesus said:] For whoever wishes to save his soul will lose it; but whoever will lose his soul for the sake of me and of the good tidings will save it. For what does it profit a man […]
A winter’s day pilgrimage-cum-treasure-hunt to meet with some Straw Bears and to follow a plough
READINGS: Matthew 13:44-52 (trans. David Bentley Hart) [Jesus said:] “The Kingdom of the heavens is like a treasure that had been hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and from his joy he goes and sells the things he owns and purchases that field. Again, the Kingdom of the heavens is like a […]
A new-materialst meditation following Valentine’s Day: Time-scissored work — the meaning-full nature of fragments
John 6:1-13 trans. David Bentley Hart Thereafter Jesus went away across the Sea of Galilee, which is to say the Sea of Tiberias, and a large crowd followed him because they saw the signs he had performed upon those who were ill. And Jesus went up upon the mountain and sat down there with his […]
Learning from Lucretius in the shadow of coronavirus
READING: Lines 78-58 from Book VI of the De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things) by Lucretius trans. by David R. Slavitt (University of California Press, 2008, pp. 253-254) . . . But people / tend to revert under stress to their earlier superstitions and imagine cruel taskmasters, omnipotent beings we wretches / ought to fear and appease, […]
‘We are the Christians who move on’ or ‘Overcoming is worthy only when we think about incorporation’ — some thoughts on ‘God’, ‘verwindung’ and ‘überwindung’
READINGS 1 Corinthians 1:25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Tao Te Ching (from Ch. 78, trans. Addiss and Lombardo) Nothing in the world is soft and weak as water. But when attacking the hard and strong Nothing can conquer so easily. Weak overcomes strong, Soft overcomes […]
More thoughts about naps on boats and biblical counterblows to [neoliberal, capitalist] oppression
INTRODUCTION This address is in fact two addresses or, to be a bit accurate, there is a meta-address as well as the one obviously given below. The meta-address concerns the fact that, in liberal religious circles (the one I most often inhabit and in which this address was given) most of our time is spent pro-fanum, i. […]
A New Year’s (Decade’s) Resolution?—Be more like Jesus—Some lessons for Unitarian & Free Christians from the Marginal Mennonites and some Trappist Monks
Introduction to the reading I subscribe to a online group called “The Marginal Mennonite Society” — indeed, I consider myself to be a Marginal Mennonite because I find myself very much in agreement with the spirit of their public declaration. For your information and, I hope interest and enjoyment, we’ll read that in a moment. But, having […]