A resounding hallelujah ended the Easter singing marathon I’d promised myself. As I staggered out exhausted into the night, I was musing over what had arisen in me. No question, there was great joy through being immersed in music. Quickly…
Category: Art
There’ll be no return to church, said The Analyst in reflective mode, ‘until they get rid of the homily.’ He was musing, not on the lapsed art of stylish rhetoric, but the tendency to use a pulpit to tell people…
‘Oh, I’m not religious’, is one of the first things people say to me when they know I’m a priest or chaplain. ‘That’s interesting’, seems the only reasonable response, which inevitably prompts a fascinating conversation about spirituality, the meaning of…
Research is all very well, but what if the results force you to rethink existing beliefs and behaviours? I’ve just been challenged like that about a compassion course I co-tutor. The course emerged out of hospital corridor conversations where staff…
Last time I saw Sam Hunt perform I was drunk in a pub in Wellington. We all were, him too most likely. It was what you did at those gigs where poetry and plonk were like riding a bicycle for…
no matter how much we protest about rape (haven’t women been experiencing this forever, remember Dinah in Genesis and when we thought our marching might take back the night) no matter how many rape laws are drafted, enacted people imprisoned,…
There’s more to art and spirituality than meets the eye, ear or intellect. More is what lingers, soothing the troubled soul, leaving a bad taste, irritating beyond belief or what we thought we knew. More is about our interaction with…
The man in the window seat smiled and nodded in that nonchalant, introverted way we Kiwis cultivate as I sat down and buckled my seat belt. Minutes later he turned extrovert as he launched into the saga of his house…
Nearly 50% of Wellington teenagers purposefully harm themselves before they turn 18. They cut burn and scratch themselves with nails, glass, sandpaper or other implements and sometimes break their own bones. This mutilation is frightening for teachers and parents. It…
‘What do you think of this?’ asked my friend. My first glance at the screw sliced in half then separated and held together with a needle hooked me. It was Richard Frater’s perplexing piece in Assume Nothing an Auckland exhibition. As…