Blackbird Its eye a dark pool in which Sirius glitters and never goes out. Its melody husky as though with suppressed tears. Its bill is the gold one quarries for amid evening shadows. Do not despair at the stars’ distance. Listening to blackbird music is to bridge in a moment chasms of space-time, is to … Continue reading St. Anselm and the Blackbird
Category: theology
reflections on the nature of God and religion
Expressing conviction
In an earlier piece ('For us, there is only the trying') I observed that one of the insights that come with being a writer is the tentative nature of all writing, that it is always an attempt, and to that degree, never certain of success. I have been considering the implications of this insight since. … Continue reading Expressing conviction
The Opaque Window: a fable
People live beside an ancient wall. In the wall is an aperture, a window, which has great cultural significance for them. Many of them gather regularly to stare at the window, an odd practice, as all the panes are opaque; you can see nothing through it, though it does, to a very slight degree, admit … Continue reading The Opaque Window: a fable
No abiding city
Things take odd turns sometimes. After my Byzantine Epiphany I felt sure I was on the track of something, yet it proved elusive: after a lot of writing I felt I was still circling round it, unable to pin it down. Then this morning I woke to the news that (with the General Election just … Continue reading No abiding city
‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth
‘Metaphor: a figure of speech by which a thing is spoken of as being that which it only resembles, as when a ferocious person is called a tiger‘ – Chambers Dictionary Saddling metaphor with a definition like that (which is typical, even down to the threadbare example) is akin to giving it a criminal record … Continue reading ‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth
Can you be offside in chess?
(The Football Players by Henri Rousseau) Two people are arguing; one insists that you can score a drop goal in football, the other that you can’t. Eventually it emerges that the first is talking about rugby football, gaelic football and Australian rules; but the other means only association football. So who is right? Once we … Continue reading Can you be offside in chess?
Means and ends, motes and beams
‘O wad some power the giftie gie ustae see oursels as ithers see us!it wad frae mony a blunder free us,an foolish notion.’- Burns, ‘to a Louse’The end does not justify the means: you may not do evil that good might come; you may not violate your principles in defence of them. If I had … Continue reading Means and ends, motes and beams
Head and Heart (1)
A thought about therapy in relation to art and music struck me after listening to James Rhodes in a TV programme, Notes from the Inside, in which he - a classical pianist and former psychiatric patient - takes a grand piano into a psychiatric hospital to play pieces he hopes will resonate with patients: calling … Continue reading Head and Heart (1)
Vanishing Point and the Golden Rule (by way of Immanuel Kant)
I remember once becoming absurdly excited in Princes St. Gardens in Edinburgh - that was just where I chanced to be, not the cause of the excitement - when I realised that an interesting thing happens if you number the dimensions in the reverse of the conventional order. My brother had once explained the concept … Continue reading Vanishing Point and the Golden Rule (by way of Immanuel Kant)
The Case of the Florentine Poet: Was Dante the father of Science Fiction?
It was only in researching this piece that I was struck by the uncanny physical resemblance between Dante Alighieri, the Florentine poet, and Mr Sherlock Holmes, of 221b Baker St, the World’s first Consulting Detective: ‘His eyes were sharp and piercing, ... and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness … Continue reading The Case of the Florentine Poet: Was Dante the father of Science Fiction?
COMPLEAT TROWZER 