The arrival of a cream laid envelope with a Washington DC postmark was not unexpected at Bishop’s Dingle. The Revd Sylvia Longbridge patted it triumphantly and decided to withhold opening it until the morning post was duly despatched, and she [...]
Patrick Reardon asks what can be learned from some literary devices Among the literary features that particularly adorn the Gospel according to St Luke are certain points of symmetry and polish that unite the beginning and ending of that work. [...]
Mediaeval Sculpture Anne Gardom visits Tate Britain This exhibition is a blend of three rather different and unexpected things. Firstly, of course, there are the images themselves, remnants of our artistic and religious heritage, some of those which survived destruction [...]
Each crisis, it seems, needs new laws. The preacher, one must presume, was wrong: everything under the sun is new. Every new form of criminal, sexual or terrorist activity needs new legislation from parliament, new laws to combat the new [...]
Roger Homan visits the twenty-first century and finds that it does not work There’s a minute or two to go but the organ hasn’t started. I’m used to a piece of music to get me in the mood, to adjust [...]
A German friend of mine once ruefully (but truthfully) described his compatriots as a nation which had invented manners but not yet discovered tact. Rumours have been reaching the outside world for some time that the Bishop of Southwark may [...]
No Fairy Tale Before Christmas countless cribs appear in our shopping precincts, contradicting our affluent materialism. Christmas for the majority has become a piece of history, a fairy tale in the pantomime season. But, in frenzied shops the crib represents [...]
Bruce Ballantine-Jones tells the story of an extra-ordinary encounter Elijah was a direct man who called it as he saw it. If the ‘great ones’ didn’t like it – too bad! He owed his allegiance to God. What he said [...]
‘Exeter’s loss is Europe’s gain.’ That was the compromise judgement suggested by a fellow cleric, as we sipped our wine on a warm evening under the palm trees in the courtyard of the eighteenth century Garrison Library in Gibraltar. It [...]
Highways and byways in hymns Confession time How often are you required publicly to confess, or even find yourself confessing, sins you are not honestly conscious of committing? A certain Vicar enjoyed admitting to the sin of lust; this was [...]