As part of my new writing project, My Family and Other Landscapes, I’m setting myself the challenge of writing one sonnet each day for the next few months. I won’t post all of them here, but I’ll make semi-regular updates and select the best to put together a book from them. Here is today’s effort.Continue reading “Mind and Soil”
Category Archives: Apologetics
From Ashes Part 9: The Philosopher’s Wretchedness
When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after…the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know thing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself hereContinue reading “From Ashes Part 9: The Philosopher’s Wretchedness”
The Case Against the Gods: C.S. Lewis’ Grief and Complaint
Well, today is the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, one of my favourite authors. To commemorate the man and his body of work, here is an essay I have written about him – part of a larger book I am writing on the role of emotional suffering in the lives of significantContinue reading “The Case Against the Gods: C.S. Lewis’ Grief and Complaint”
Apologetic
You’ve heard, of course, how Blaise Pascal played dice – An arbitrary way to find the truth, As though the logic, weighed up in a trice (A coin tossed in the air), could render proof Redundant. Can eternity be found In such impulsive propositions? We Feel that faith should demand much surer ground. All theContinue reading “Apologetic”
Ontology (For Anselm of Canterbury, d. 21 April 1109)
If our minds, Flawed and finite as they are, Can find thought-bulbs and clues of You Who must, we know, be greater than The total sum of all our best, Our dimmest thoughts, Our smallest glimpse Of You must shine, Faintly, weakly, unto You In all Your fullness, all Your being, all that our mindsContinue reading “Ontology (For Anselm of Canterbury, d. 21 April 1109)”
The Feast
And dreaming I saw that truth was a feast Laid out in the desert of starved reason and mind, Where wanderers weary could lay down to rest And fill up their souls on all they could find, An oasis where lay the richest of meals Where all that was mystery or sadness or painContinue reading “The Feast”
Gospel and History
One day, in the throes of some crushing doubt about the historical accuracy of the Bible, I wrote this reflection. It helped me a lot in clarifying my thinking on the topic. Gospel and History
Doubt and its Discontents
Here is an essay that I wrote a year or so ago about intellectual doubt in faith and the problems it presents. Having struggled significantly with doubt over the years, this is a topic I have spent a lot of time thinking about. It may benefit other doubters and others who wish they did notContinue reading “Doubt and its Discontents”
Reading History Backwards
Religious doubts can come in various forms. Sometimes mine are intellectual, but more often than not they are emotional. One thing I find, however, is that, when I am in the throes of some spiritual malaise or disconnectedness from God, my mind can play tricks on me and can bring back to the surface intellectualContinue reading “Reading History Backwards”
The Consolations of Writing 