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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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, […]