Posts Tagged: bible

  • Leonard Cohen sings Hallelujah

    Hallelujah—Leonard Cohen

    Last week we said goodbye to Leonard Cohen (7 November 2016), the Canadian poet turned singer. He sang dark but uplifting songs to the children of the 60s and is as important as Bob Dylan. His music is a fundamental part of the zeitgeist. We mourn him for he was part of the glue of […]

  • The worst of the holocaust—Auschwitz children at the liberation of the camp.

    Remembering The Holocaust

    This week we acknowledged the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945. It is a major event in remembering the Holocaust. Survivors, mostly children at the time of the liberation, gathered at the death camp in Poland. The BBC reported that one survivor, Roman Kent, born in 1929, told the gathering […]

  • A gladsome celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, with three joyful figures rejoicing before the empty tomb, its stone rolled aside and golden light streaming from the entrance. Jerusalem lies beneath a soft plum-coloured dawn sky.

    Don’t make light of gladsome

    It is a gladsome day. It is mid-winter and the sun is shining. The air smells clean. I can hear boys playing sport across the road in the park and from next door the congregation singing in the church. I am trying to encourage the use of gladsome, as many dictionaries are suggesting that  it […]

  • Ron Cobb Blessed are the meek cartoon

    Blessed are the meek?

    Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. But if we aspire to inherit the earth, how do we recognise the characteristics of meekness that we need. There are considerable differences in the definitions of meek …

  • ICON Jesus Christ, messiah, saviour, redeemer, Lord

    In the name of Christmas

    Christ Christmas is the mid-winter celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The meaning of Christmas is literally Christ’s mass. It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, from Old English Crīstesmæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. Sometimes Christmas is abbreviated to Xmas, the X representing Christ. Although this irritates some people, it […]

  • Jesus in a chariot rides through the clouds above Englands green and pleasant land and dark satanic mills. AI generated.

    Swing Low Sweet Chariots of Fire

    I have been wondering why the English are so fond of chariots. Chariots are a recurring theme in the English national identity and in their rugby songs. They even made a film called after them (Chariots of Fire). What is it all about? Chariot is a relatively recent word (see How did modern vehicles get their […]

  • Post apocalypse morning reading the paper while my daugher plays the trumpet.

    Post-apocalypse analysis

    Sunday morning and the world has not ended (22 May 2011). My hangover has gone which is a good post apocalypse result. There are no hoof prints in the garden, no open graves and there was no thundering in the night. The only trumpet to be heard is my daughter’s rather perfunctory practising, which for quite […]