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 […]
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 […]
‘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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“It is no longer I who pursue philosophy, but rather repentance that thinks through me”—A meditation on an insight of Tanabe Hajime’s
Window in St Olaf’s Church, Wasdale Head READINGS: Psalm 121 (AV) I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the […]
Epiphany — Walking with the three Magians between doubtful maximal belief and total secular humanism
The Nativity Set in the Cambridge Unitarian Church INTRODUCTION In my Christmas Day address I explored with you the thought that when we read the nativity stories — and, today, […]
Our gift of Life in context see, a pearl of Grace in Eternity—An address in preparation for the New Year 2020
Spinoza in a window of George’s Meeting House (Unitarian), Exeter READINGS Psalm 74:16-17 The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast […]
Christmas Day Address 2019: The Source that Beckoned
‘The Nativity at Night’ (1490) by Geertgen tot Sint Jans READINGS: ‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, 13 […]
Mary ponders and a muddy pond clears—that for which, in Advent, we await (a post-election Advent address)
The nativity scene in the Cambridge Unitarian Church READINGS The Shepherds and the Angels (Luke 2:8-19) In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their […]