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…
Category: God
Just because your life’s fallen down doesn’t mean there’s nothing left I thought as I gazed at the skeleton of Knox Presbyterian Church in Christchurch. Instead of being desolate, this space had a stark kind of beauty. On the whole,…
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…
Professor Sir Mason Durie is a seasoned presenter. One slide with three points and he had the standing room only crowd in his hand at Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre. We were a willing audience having gathered to hear his…
Cathedral high holy days are like magnificent theatrical productions but you need to be able to see the action to appreciate them. Squashed in just beyond the choir and slightly short of the sanctuary, my view of the ordination of…
‘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…
Christchurch’s interim cardboard cathedral is not all cardboard and may well last over 50 years but that’s not the point. It’s the sense of impermanence that has promise. Cathedrals tend to play down impermanence, opting instead for solid and imposing,…
There’s a pyramid in Rome that presides over a frantic intersection, the kind that only Italians seem able to navigate without appearing suicidal. Like its Egyptian relatives, this pyramid is a portal to the underworld. Spreading out from one of…
Jim’s Easterpreneur cartoon made me smile. For a split second, I thought I knew what it meant, momentarily forgetting that no creative work about the crucifixion is likely to be that easily tamed. Hoping for inspiration I carried it around…
Emilie Selden has an appealing naïvety. She’s educated in the art and philosophy of alchemy but has no clue about more mundane matters like the predatory bloke who’s after her fortune. She intrigued me when I met her on the…