“the culture of the Mechanics’ Institute”
Reading John Buchan’s “The Island of Sheep”, the last of (and the best of) the Richard Hannay novels, I came across this arresting passage (spoken by Sandy Arbuthnot on his…
Category: false dichotomies
“Carbon dioxide should be regarded the same way we view other waste products” – Klaus Lackner and changing minds on carbon
This Elizabeth Kolbert article from the New Yorker on carbon capture is a few months old, but still well worth reading. It is sobering to read how many of the…
The “lazy and indifferent” heron of “Monday or Tuesday”, Virginia Woolf
The only short story collection that she had selected in her lifetime, “Monday or Tuesday” is a 1921 collection in which she pursued the approach to writing set out in…
Henri Nouwen on the powerlessness of God
From “Bread For the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, Henri Nouwen: In and through Jesus we come to know God as a powerless God, who becomes dependent on…
from “Small, Silent, Still” – Fr Paul D Scalia
Full piece here. An interesting interview with Fr Scalia – son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – here We require that God be as we want Him: big,…
“no longer did immediate this-worldly success have to be decisive”
From “God’s Gamble: The Gravitational Power of Crucified Love” by Gil Bailie: The Resurrection delivers men from the fear of death,” writes John Meyendorff, “and, therefore, also from the necessity…
Simon Jacobson on “honouring thy father and thy mother”
The commandment to “honour thy father and thy mother” is one that, one would like to hope, is usually relatively straightforward. Many of us (most of us?) can fairly easily…
“salvation would be easier for the clever and leisured than for the dull and busy”
From “Confessions of a Convert”. R H Benson: It had been put to me by my Superior that I was surely incurring the guilt of pride in venturing to set…
Séamus Sweeney 