Tag Archives: Kierkegaard

Philosophical Crumbs: Haiku for Kierkegaard

A friend of mine recently said that he had tried to read Kierkegaard but hadn’t made it. “I need the children’s book version,” he said. Probably not an unusual experience. While I’m not sure I’m the one to provide the children’s book, I thought I could do the next best thing: to try to putContinue reading “Philosophical Crumbs: Haiku for Kierkegaard”

Unexpected Gifts

Because the Danes roared across the waves in Viking- glory, horn-helmeted King Cnut at the helm, we can now say that we are glad, can label small what we’d otherwise miss, and can cut with a knife the smallest things the eye can see. Come wind and hail, though time may slay, we lay cold and rain beforeContinue reading “Unexpected Gifts”

Collects: Sparrows (After Knut Nystedt and Anathallo)

Collects: Sparrows After Knut Nystedt, “Prayers of Kierkegaard, Pt. 3: Great Are You, O God” and Anathallo, “Sparrows” I. When under the arch of heaven I stand surrounded by the wonders of creation, I rapturously and adoringly praise your greatness, you who lightly hold the stars in the infinite and concern yourself fatherly with theContinue reading “Collects: Sparrows (After Knut Nystedt and Anathallo)”

From Ashes 10: Søren Kierkegaard – Original Sin and the Fear of Possibility

“When you’re absolute beginners,” folk singer M. Ward tells us, “it’s a panoramic view, from her majesty Mount Zion, and the kingdom is for you.” What he seems to suggest here is that, at any beginning point, there appears an infinite potentiality to life, stretching out like a majestic panorama before us. W.H. Auden, in hisContinue reading “From Ashes 10: Søren Kierkegaard – Original Sin and the Fear of Possibility”

The Jolt, the Life

Having been looked at by God, I had to and have to look at God. (Søren Kierkegaard, Journal)   You – how can I call you by familiar names? Only Thou seems fitting; yet You invade Space, time, as though next to me, as though plain. Yet You are not plain: You assault, You raidContinue reading “The Jolt, the Life”

From Ashes Part 1: Melancholy and Silence

  When I announced, both on my blog and on Twitter, that I would be writing a series of pieces on significant Christians’ struggles with mental illness and asked for suggestions, I had thought I was onto a good thing. I had in mind as a starting point the stories which had brought me greatContinue reading “From Ashes Part 1: Melancholy and Silence”

Søren (After Rowan Williams’ “Rublev”)

The Messiah came one day, tattered in Adam’s rags, ragged and anxious from the moment of sin, sick nearly to death. I said, My father has betrayed you and I have chased dead beauty. Sit ragged with me by my hearth. I too wear scars: do you know them? These the contours that choice hasContinue reading “Søren (After Rowan Williams’ “Rublev”)”

You Shall Love – A Valentine’s Day Anthology

Well, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Whoever St Valentine was or was not, his feast day has come to be associated with romantic nights out and Hallmark cards. It isn’t the best expression of love that we have, but it’s still a day when our culture focuses quite publicly on a very specific kind of love,Continue reading “You Shall Love – A Valentine’s Day Anthology”

What It Is

is a giving, a direction,             a relation to God, a movement within the eternal.          At His core is what we fail to be, to do, to know.             And so we love to show             what we are not and what He is:             relationship, community, righteous love, perfected from             the start,Continue reading “What It Is”