Learning to write in the tropics

 These past weeks have involved intense discussions, prayer, and thinking on a topic close to the hearts of all of my fellow discussants. Our concern, pain, and confusion is clear. St Catherine of Siena comes up regularly. Watch this space if you are interested in some weeks or a few months you might want to find out more. Independent of them and only briefly publicly saying what I think on one topic specifically, I write this very brief note. The role of women is one of those topics that has become a ‘hot’ topic for Catholics and one can be easily misunderstood if one is too diplomatic. It has happened to me as a theology student in Cambridge and being amongst anglican ordinands I was diplomatic and wholly misunderstood. The way I, a Catholic, think about this topic is radically different from theirs and I wanted to spare their already confused and frayed spirits. BUT being misunderstood on this important topic did no one any favours. As a Church we have some wonderful sources for...

 Those who know me personally know that the practice of Lectio Divina has shaped my practice of the faith for some time now. Since my student days at the Oxford Catholic Chaplaincy. Far from a pious claim this is has been and continues to be  a confirmation of how much I don’t know about scripture. It is an honest recognition that I, and most likely many other Catholics, don’t spend enough time before our Lord in the written words of Scripture.  Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark, like the past few weeks, we continue in Chapter I. Today Jesus cures a leper. Fr Nicholas Crowe at Blackfriars Oxford goes far deeper into the minute symbolic meaning of the actions taken by the Leper in today’s Gospel during the  homily  he gave at Mass, than I will do. What stayed with me from this week’s Lectio with the local Dominican fraternity was the phrase that comes at the end of the Gospel. The leper understandably joyful about his being cured tells all and Jesus can ...

 My life lately has included barely any social media outside of work related social media……here’s looking at you Las Casas….but I do sometimes log on to facebook to see if it is still there. I sometimes come across something that really makes me laugh, today the thing sort of went in that direction. One of the brothers (dominican) of a well known priory in that place on the Cam asked a random question. WHAT suggestions do you get for reels and videos? This coming right after seeing the comment by a mom somewhere in the midwest about the effects scrolling has on people’s mental health. She writes some very good essays on substack about spirituality though her thinking was going also a bit in this direction. Both comments and the brother’s question made me stop and think about something I rarely think about: what is in my own social media feed? I decided for this exercise, and so as to respond to the brother, to exclude twitter….yes I know it’s now X but just don’t like the sound of ...

 I rarely, in reality, most likely never have, written an end of the year post. I have no thought out reason for the absence of end of the year posts, my years simply finish, usually surrounded by some configuration of family members in some corner of the world, and more often than not, I spend the last day of each year baking something. This year, on the contrary, has ended quite differently, after a year of many unexpected changes in job and place of abode, it began quite differently from how it is ending. And that is exactly what I needed at this point in time. So I am not baking nor am I in some family members home in some part of the world, rather I am in my home, in my corner of the world…..and my brother is doing most of the cooking. God is always surprising and we must do our best to not reduce Him to our size. We tend often to see things as we think God would see them but in reality it is our way of viewing life and those around us calling it God’s way when in reality what...

Its been many months, I have very consciously been underground but decided to turn bbc radio 4 on the other to listen to the news…. sometimes its good to reappear from time to time. And the Today show was interviewing a man (I didn’t catch his name) about the Synod in Rome. What I heard for the most part was concerning, on one side about the obvious misconceptions that were coming out and the confusion this could cause, and on the other side, because the misconceptions can very easily lead to disappointments and greater divisions in the universal church. We must pray that the Synod is especially about listening to each other and learning to dialogue and not about rupture.  A few days ago I taught a class on JPII and Ben. XVI and in preparing the class I was reminded of the two strands present at the second Vatican Council that then played out in the application of the council documents and was defined academically in the establishment of two opposing journals: Concilio and Communio...

 Today I dreamt of creating my own meme. There is something almost cathartic about them and my current situation definitely seems meme appropriate. As a medical historian, I have fairly good knowledge of what diseases were eradicated with vaccines, which weren’t but are no longer so latent, and which are still merely roaming the earth. Or so I thought…..turns scarlet fever, the disease that caused Beth’s heart to weaken in Little Women, and so it stayed in my mind as something from that period and like several from that time period, it was no longer ‘around’. To my surprise, the daughter of some friends may have had a mild case after an outbreak of it in her nursery. So one week later, after an encounter with said child, I found myself with a bad sore throat, I am prone to laryngitis so I didn’t connect it to the child and her possible scarlet fever-induced rash. I don’t actually have scarlet fever but, predictably, laryngitis but for a day or so before going to the GP it crossed m...

  Lately, because of a bad knee and the bike needing some repairs, I have been strolling into work. Strolling at a not so early hour but early enough that the day is just beginning and the many people who live in east Oxford and work in the city centre are in the midst of their morning commute. In these many months I have done it quite automatically more concerned with not getting wet, being too cold, being too hot, and being on time to really take notice of more than a few things. But today was different, maybe I was more awake or maybe it was the weather, I noticed more details than usual. In the months since February that I have been doing this on foot commute the sun has changed, it is coming out earlier and earlier, and the street I live on is lusher and lusher, with many hues of green to light my way. The smell of blooming flowers is another thing that accompanied me this morning but what stood out the most was the fact that as I passed through the covered market and then out...