Category: Personal

puzzles

Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.

I normally would write about books. Or maybe reading, or information. But the one thing that brings me unconditional joy is jigsaw puzzles. I love the peace and enjoy the development of the picture. In fact, I think jigsaw puzzles are a metaphor for the way that I think – I describe pieces and you make the picture.

Trinity or heresy Sunday?

Today is Trinity Sunday. The BCP sets John 3 as the Gospel while the Western Roman Rite has Matthew 28:18–20. Interesting?! I am not much of a theologian (hubris much?!) so the following needs to be read with some salt.

I have heard many sermons trying to explain the Trinity. Some end in modalism – oh, so modern – others in a different heresy. The worst are “children’s sermons” that use physical examples. I sometimes wonder if Trinity Sunday should not be renamed to “Heresy Sunday”?!

So, simply, a reworked quasi-quote from Kierkegaard:

[The Trinity] is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced

no “grand system”!

The philosopher creates and critiques continuous lines of argument. The aphorist, on the other hand, composes scattered lines of intuition. One moves in a chain of discursive logic; the other by arrhythmic leaps and bounds. Much of the history of Western philosophy can be narrated as a series of attempts at the construction of systems. My theory proposes that much of the history of aphorisms can be narrated as an animadversion, a turning away from grand systems through the construction of literary fragments.

A Theory of the Aphorism, 2

some Merton

If I know anything of intellectual honesty, and I am not so certain that I do, it seems to me that the honest position lies somewhere in between. Therefore the meditations in this book are intended to be at the same time traditional, and modern, and my own. I do not intend to divorce myself at any point from Catholic tradition. But neither do I intend to accept points of that tradition blindly, and without understanding, and without making them really my own. For it seems to me that the first responsibility of a man of faith is to make his faith really part of his own life, not by rationalizing it but by living it.

No Man is an Island, Prologue.

Hmmm?!

What quality do you value most in a friend?

I find this an impossible prompt to answer. I am not sure I have ever had a friend. Not due to other people. People are friendly to me. But I simply do not connect with people. And eventually everyone drifts away or gets sick of me.

So what do I value? Honesty with compassion. Also intellect.

not many

What jobs have you had?

Jobs that I have had for pay are …

I have worked in retail selling white goods and furniture. Not much fun!

I worked in a call centre. Nearly destroyed me.

And, drum roll, I have worked as a minister of religion. Very rewarding at times but also soul destroying.

I have had many other jobs that did not pay but that is for another post.