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…
Category: Spirituality
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…
Archibald Baxter is a hero to me. I remember him on every Anzac Day. It’s my way of saying that his story, marked by brutality and torture after he refused to fight in World War I, is a vital missing…
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…
Michelle Williams is tantalizing in the movie, My Week with Marilyn. She ensures Ms Monroe is present, a disarming combination of innocent child and sensual siren. It’s not the sleek exterior that seduces; it’s the contradictions that open us up.…
I’ve been thinking about the most wonderful keyhole in the world as debates about public prayer have been on the agenda of city council meetings in Bideford, England, and Whanganui, New Zealand. To look through this keyhole you have to…