Author Archives: europhilevicar

Hail Mary, full of grace I see that COVID restrictions in France have caused the cancellation of Lyon’s Fête des Lumières this year.  Normally the Festival is held each year on December 8th, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception. Lyon thanks the Virgin for saving the city by lighting hundreds of candles which areContinue reading “Though a glass darkly – 31”

Changing Places Just typing those words brings up odd memories and connections. Changing Places was the title of a very funny campus novel [of 1975], in which the conformist University of Rummidge [Birmingham] lecturer, Philip Swallow, does an exchange with the ebullient, cigar-chewing Euphoria University [Berkeley] academic. Morris Zapp.   But in a very differentContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 30”

Susie and I drove to Glasgow ten days ago, to Bishopbriggs to be precise, in a City Car Club car. Possibly in contravention of current lockdown restrictions here in Edinburgh. We went there in order to take two big cardboard trays of biblical commentaries, about a hundred books, to the nearest collection point for BookAid.Continue reading “Through a glass darkly – 29”

The Fall of France Do not be afraid ! I am writing about history, not current affairs. After reading Alistair Horne’s book on The Siege and the Paris Commune [see TaGD 22], I thought I’d look again at his book To lose a battle: France 1940. But this has gone. Probably a casualty of waterContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 28”

The smell of corruption “A lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war,” was [according to J.M. Keynes] Stanley Baldwin’s comment on the House of Commons after the 1918 election. We imagine that he was referring to the greedy manufacturers who found their way into grubbyContinue reading “Through as glass darkly – 27”

Generally I don’t read a lot of theology. Perhaps not as much as I should. But I’ve been reading an excellent new book [published this year] by David Smith: Stumbling towards Zion: Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the era of World Christianity. It’s quite a long title, but the book itself is aContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 26”

This is just for my own benefit, to allow me to see what I’ve written over the past 6 months. In case I wake up one day and get it into my head that I’ve written War and Peace. 0. Getting Started March 2020 Gratitude, and Desert Places March 2020 2. Peter Frankopan: The SilkContinue reading “Though a glass darkly – Index 1-25”

Gordon Ogilvie RIP Gordon Ogilvie died on September 29th, at the age of 78. Gordon and Sylvia had both been living in a care home in St Andrews since the start of this year. He died of a heart attack, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and with Lewy body dementia [LBD]. Susie and IContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 25”

A few months ago a friend who was reading this blog asked me to address the glaring question: Why do so many American [evangelical] Christians vote for Trump ?  I didn’t rush to respond; partly because I don’t know the answer, and mainly because I don’t know enough about the States.   [My direct experienceContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 24”

May or September are [said to be]  the best months for visiting Scotland. After a couple of distinctly autumnal weeks we went north in mid-September more in hope than in expectation. Or to be more precise we went north in a dark red Kia Ceed [they dropped the bizarre apostrophe in 2018]., rented from aContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 23”