“Travel and tell no one, Live a true love story and tell no one, Live happily and tell no one - People ruin beautiful things.” They say Kahlil Gibran wrote that, and perhaps he did. Then again, the internet says many things: that Einstein married Marilyn Monroe, that Churchill coined every popular meme, and that … Continue reading “People Ruin Beautiful Things”: On Gibran, Secrecy, and the Sacred Art of Keeping Quiet
Tag: Jesus
On Dandy Dick – Part One: Or, How to Ruin a Dean and Win a Race
Theology, gambling, and a horse named after a dandy – what could possibly go wrong? There are some things that should never mix: vicars and vodka, bishops and betting shops, or indeed, the very Reverend Augustin Jedd and anything with hooves. And yet in Arthur Wing Pinero’s frothy 1887 farce Dandy Dick, all these taboos … Continue reading On Dandy Dick – Part One: Or, How to Ruin a Dean and Win a Race
Langcliffe: A Quiet Benediction in Stone and Fur
Another little jaunt today as I round off my short stay in the Dales. Today we took tea not in the grand halls of empire, nor beneath the cloisters of cloaked abbots, but in the altogether finer establishment of the Langcliffe Village Hall, where the china clinks not in diplomatic negotiation but in defence of … Continue reading Langcliffe: A Quiet Benediction in Stone and Fur
Suffering, Song, and the Sorrows of the Mother of God
The Stabat Mater is not a hymn so much as it’s a wound set to music - a gash in the human heart where grief spills out in metre and Latin vowels. It’s Mary beneath the cross, yes, but it’s also every parent who has ever outlived their child; every person who has stood by … Continue reading Suffering, Song, and the Sorrows of the Mother of God
Bread Upon the Waters
Ecclesiastes 11:1, the art of giving, and the peculiar futility of being alive “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” — Ecclesiastes 11:1 There’s something heartbreakingly hopeful about that line, isn’t there? Something that makes you want to nod sagely, as if you understand it, even though - … Continue reading Bread Upon the Waters
Wording 