For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Why are Christians so afraid of art and literature? I have worked in education all of my adult life, and if there is one thing I can guarantee, it is that if I prescribe a text with any hint of magic, sex, or swearing (funnily enough, violence is usually less of an issue)there will be... Continue Reading →
I want to season this piece with grace, if possible. So I am going to ask your pardon upfront if it sounds like I am being dogmatic or bitter. That is not my intention. I don’t want to go on a crusade against certain types of Christians; that said, I do have serious reservations about... Continue Reading →
I used to believe that technology hated me. I am sure many of you will be able to identify with that. If you have ever had a video or sound-clip form a critical focal point of your presentation only to have it suddenly refuse to play at the crucial moment; if autocorrect has ever embellished... Continue Reading →
Recently it was decided to ban passengers on our flights from carrying spices in their hand luggage. Apparently, assuming you harbor intentions of conducting an assault on an aircraft, you are far more likely to consider a sachet of pepper as your weapon of choice rather than, say, a sharpened pencil. There is a flattering... Continue Reading →
So here I stand, with the spectre of the cross looming large, staring up at a Jesus who seems to me to be at once completely alien and yet so intimately familiar. The more I have read, the deeper I have delved into Jewish thinking in an attempt to better understand this most beautiful of... Continue Reading →
Like so many other important wisdoms, we have read it on the backs of sugar packets or pasted onto nauseating memes so many times that we tend to overlook the truth the statement contains: life is a journey. The important things in life are always journeys, not events. The events may mark milestones along the... Continue Reading →
The problem nowadays is that every Christian claims to have a Christ-centred theology. Not that a Christ-centred theology is a bad thing, mind you. I would argue that if Christianity is not Jesus-centred it is absolutely worthless. The problem is not with the concept of placing Jesus at the centre of our sense-making when it... Continue Reading →
If I asked you what it meant to “believe” in Nelson Mandela, say, or Martin Luther King Jr, or Germaine Greer, or Ché Guevara, or Charles Darwin or Donald Trump or Margaret Atwood, how would you respond? In all likelihood, you would understand that “believing” in a public figure entails resonating with their core ideologies,... Continue Reading →
We see the world in metaphors. Faced with the vast, chaotic, incomprehensible alienness that is life, we seek to impose order onto it. We try to make connections, we search for patterns: the only way to make life navigable is to impose some sort of order onto the chaos. Whenever we are faced with the... Continue Reading →
I can sympathise with Peter. In so many ways he is just like us. If you have grown up in the church, as I have, you will know what I mean when I say that “being on fire for God” is regarded as the optimal state of being for any believer. In other words, the... Continue Reading →
Vapors In The Wind 