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…
‘Look’, he said, waving a scrap of paper in front of me, ‘the doctor’s been and this is what he thinks I’ve got.’ The phrase on the page was vaguely familiar but before I could begin untangling the words he…
Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who had suffered a great loss. There’s nothing novel about that. Most of us have the experience at some point or another of staggering about life, arms wrapped around grief, loss or…
I was just 21 when my mum died after a long illness. For the last month of her life, we nursed her at home, which turned out to be one of the defining experiences of my life. Perhaps it sounds…