Until I met Niki Harré I’d never heard of a secular priest. I was intrigued but also felt confused. The two terms, secular and priest, didn’t seem to fit. How could someone be a priest if there was no sacred…
Category: Church
Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland and lifelong Catholic, is religiously disruptive. She says that people are tired of ‘old men trying to beat the drum of obedience, being obedient to teaching that is long past its sell-by date and…
You might not immediately associate RM Williams’ boots with soul but for me they’re a potent symbol of the need to be grounded. To prioritise soulfulness over spiritual flights of fancy. Trading in my old pair was something of a…
About this time every year my old friend Anxiety shows up as an obnoxious Christmas goblin. I swear it’s HER decorating shops for Christmas in early October. HER drenching my email in targeted advertising now that Google has my purchasing…
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…
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust makes real sense at the end of someone’s life. People get it. Somehow, without saying much, the words shout out the truth of mortality. It’s a popular phrase at funerals, especially when separated out…
This Shrove Tuesday I’m gathering up the leftovers from three years in the spiritual wilderness and seeing what I can begin to make of them. To be honest, it was a strange feeling when my role as an Anglican priest…
You’ve got to hand it to the blokes in the church, for their ability to keep mansplaining Godde for our own good. Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a theological slap to Ariana Grande, she of the God is a Woman…
Standing up to speak I felt tentative, but it wasn’t the slight stomach turning before a speaking gig or worry about whether the technological wizardry would work. Instead, it was an awareness that the ground of my being was shifting,…
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…