Culture Articles
Doppler
the distance of far away of far before this (now) and each day passing each night falling (behind) and stars signalling a universe a timeline of here and there a life of echoes of belonging (and leaving) a life smaller than a grain of sand.
Homecoming
Eyeless in the midst of chaos are the giants of concrete: windows shattered, knees bent beyond repair. Testaments to bombs and shells. An authentic, new reality.
I take my anger to Meetings
I take my anger to Meetings. He sits next to me. (On the left, actually) An urchin With greasy hair and grubby fingers His knees grey with ingrained dirt
Illegal deposit
What’s the law on loitering? (with or without intent?) Does he commit offence, who summer, autumn, winter, spring, swings his soiled sleeping bag into a shop doorway and curls inside it in a drug-drenched sleep?
Playing God: Science, religion and the future of humanity, by Nick Spencer & Hannah Waite
Playing God begins with a walk in the park. The walk took place in Brussels in 1927; the walkers were Albert Einstein and the Belgian scientist Georges Lemaître. The pair discussed Lemaître’s discovery that the way galaxies move in the night sky could be explained if we accept...
Youth hostelling in Normandy
The Paris gendarme whimsically dropped round David’s neck a garland he’d found, and waved us on. We pedalled stoically over Normandy as wind plucked cuffs and panniers, barns hosted us. Till one night, sleeping in a ruined chateau guarded by a ghostly widow, who led us down dark...
Madonna and child
In just a heartbeat Space dissolves And time stands still And oh! the ecstasy, the thrill In that dissolving unity That tender gaze… A blink before the birth of fear When cruelty was a distant cloud A devil’s joke And there was love, and peace, and hope And all...
A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and disability in the letters of Paul, by Isaac Soon
When he wrote his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul felt compelled to tell his correspondents about what he called the ‘thorn’ in his ‘flesh’, a mysterious ailment that has long puzzled readers. Isaac Soon’s book is the first to be devoted to this enigmatic complaint, and to other...
Alison Lapper: Lost in Parys
There was depressing news recently for the creative arts in the UK, as the government cut funding for performing and creative arts courses at English universities. All the more reason, then, to celebrate a new initiative to encourage young people’s engagement with the arts, focusing on how art can...
Confession
I come to a place of light in an ocean of darkness. They said: Stand still in the light, submit to its power. When temptation came and troubles appeared I was to sink to the bright seed. Troubles would be hushed and darkness fly away.