Category Archives: Uncategorized

Monasteries and Retreat Houses I spent the middle of last week in a monastery. It was only a couple of nights. We  were staying in St Mary’s, the Redemptorist monastery on the side of Kinnoull Hill, just on the edge of Perth.  My recollection of staying there some thirty years ago, most probably for post-OrdinationContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 57”

Unlike Jonathan Goodall, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet [and a wholly invisible contemporary at Wycliffe Hall in the late-mid 1980s], who has just left the Church of England to join the Church of Rome,  I’ve never had any desire to be a Roman Catholic. Much as I like several Catholic priests, mainly French,  there are aspectsContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 56”

Not gone to Birmingham We should be in Birmingham. Except that we haven’t gone there. We are still in Edinburgh. My younger brother, Peter, has a 70th birthday this weekend. Sadly he isn’t very well: what he thought was long COVID turned out to be a brain tumour. He was bravely going ahead with aContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 55”

Abroad We had an excellent early summer here in Edinburgh; dry and sunny with the temperature hovering around  23ºC.  Good weather for enjoying the garden. And also for church walks. But now it is raining again. I feel for our children who are heading for the Scottish Highlands in a camper-van. For the little girlsContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 54”

Transition We are officially in transition. Blustering Boris has rolled the dice and, under pressure from libertarian back-bench Tory MPs, has decided to scrap all domestic COVID restrictions; goodbye to face coverings, and hello again to indoor gatherings and night clubs. Unsurprisingly COVID infection numbers are doubling every week or so. The numbers of thoseContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 53”

Hebridean diary Huge skies and a constant driving wind. We have been in the cottage for four days. Leurbost feels a long way from Edinburgh. The Outer Hebrides, Na h-Eileanana in the Gaelic, are a 130-mile long string of islands off the north-west coast of Scotland. They were once known as The Long Isle. ButContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 52”

Letter from Leurbost I am writing this on my knee in the cottage. On Tuesday afternoon. Outside the skies are grey and there has been steady rain since lunchtime. We are in Leurbost, a scattered community on Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, twenty minutes south of Stornaway. We arrived here yesterday afternoon, driving up fromContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 51”

The business of safeguarding About a year ago I wrote a blog about sexual abuse, mainly of young boys, in [mainly] the Roman Catholic church. The blog was triggered by watching rather half-heartedly the film Spotlight, which focussed on the unhealthy goings-on in the Catholic Diocese of Boston, and then reading the book of theContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 50”

The great all-rounder C.B. [Charles Burgess] Fry was the great all-rounder. He was an outstanding cricketer for Oxford University, Sussex, and England; who regularly topped the batting averages of his time, and who captained the England team without losing a single test. In addition, at football he was an FA Cup finalist and an EnglandContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 49”

Opening Up We have now had both our COVID jabs and the world is starting to open up a little for the first time in a long time. To be honest I haven’t been unhappy with lockdown. Perhaps I am naturally Billy-No-Mates and  self-contained ? I have enjoyed reading some serious books, and trying toContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 48”