To everything there is a season,A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born,And a time to die(Ecclesiastes 3.1–2). Over the past few weeks, five people whom I’ve known, as either family members or friends or acquaintance, have either died or are passing away even as I write. Death sweeps across our lives like a plague wind, on occasions. At such times we…

I am tired; I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years (Velvet Underground, ‘Venus in Furs’). Sunday, June 2. 2.00 pm: I ran to Llanbadarn Village with the Velvet Underground pounding in my ears. My habit is to break journey at the church, which is one of the few in the area that remains open between services: The…

6.15 am: I ran to the Promenade and back: There were few others about, save a homeless man sleeping rough in the Public Shelter, an ample young man pulling an equally ample suitcase, three eastern women togged-out in spectral gym gear, and a senior lady walking a very small dog, who smiled and said ‘Good morning!’ as I pulled myself…

Listen to me in silence (Isaiah 41.1). 8.00 am: A communion. We suffer most when unable to comprehend the purpose of either our own or other people’s distress. Apparently meaningless affliction or loss is so hard to bear. Thus, we should never cease to ask: ‘Why?’ While an answer may not be immediately forthcoming, it may yet be discoverable in…

9.00 am: The weather was peculiarly apposite: sullen-grey and indifferent to suffering – like on the day after my paternal grandmother died. And life goes on in a stupid way, still, thereafter. I turned ‘.doc’ files into ‘.pdf’ files, reduced 100% to 30%, aggregated marks, and entered them on tables. There was an end to it in sight, however. 11.00…

How is the gold become dim (Lamentations 4.1). 6.30 am: I awoke, showered, breakfasted, and dispatched various domestic jobs before settling to the morning’s communion. I addressed a necessary corrective. In the maelstrom of daily stresses and strains, it’s easy to drift from these moorings. The psalmist presents not just a series of divine commendations, but the testimony of a…

7.00 am: Showered. 7.45 am: Following breakfast, I pressed on (quite literally) with what remained of the ironing. (Socks and other delicates would be coupled and sorted at the close of the evening.) Ironing can be a contemplative activity. As I flattened the terrain of tea towels, t-shirts, and trousers, my mind unfolded ideas and wistful hopes, and smoothed-over problems…

Yesterday afternoon was absorbed by ironing. I’ve been a believer in this purgatorial chore ever since a female college friend in the early 1980s remarked to me that I looked like I slept in my shirts. 7.15 am: Breakfast, and a period of reflection on some of the emotional undercurrents that’ve flowed through my life during the past years. There’re…

I love tomorrow (Conrad Roberts, ‘Inamorata’). 7.30 am: I’m a weak and inconstant man. But I have it; it doesn’t have me. (‘Keep telling yourself that, buddy!’, my ‘muse’ whispered.): 8.15 am: A little house work. 8.30 pm: A little email catch up. Bank Holiday weekends don’t stem the flow of incoming mail. 9.00 am: On, then, with postgraduate marking.…

8.00 am: A communion. ‘The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down’ (Psalm 145.14–16). There’re times when either falling or bending under the weight of some heavy burden seem to be our prevailing condition. 8.30 pm: Off to School for the second and last day of third-year painting assessments. Dr Forster and I haven’t begun…