There let it freely burntill earthly passions turnto dust and ashes in its heat consuming;and let your glorious lightshine ever on my sight,and make my pathway clear, by your illuming(St Bianco de Siena, ‘Come Down, O Love Divine’ (c. 1350 – c. 1434)) Sunday, February 23. Angels with musical instruments abound: the east window, St Padarn’s Church, Llanbadarn Fawr: Monday,…

8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Domestic admin. 8.45 am: On, again, with the paper and its Powerpoint. In the background: works by the Japanese experimental musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Hiroshi Yoshimura. This is not muzak. I’m attending in an unfocussed way – absorbing sonorities; learning from their example, ambiently; discerning the distinctions of the work, casually. I believe in…

Anyone will tell you / Just how hard it is to make and keep a friend (Joni Mitchell, ‘Jericho’, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977)) 7.45 am: I checked that all my gear was in order in readiness for the morning’s workshop with PhD students on the university’s training programme. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.25 am: Up hill to the campus…

‘Let it all fall to the bottom of the lake.’ (Heard in a dream, February 20, 2020) I photograph every aspect of the School these days. The familiar things are forgotten first, in my experience. I’m storing them up for the future: the substance of recollection. Sleep was elusive last night; I’d had too many cups of tea too late…

‘Let me be the interpreter of the room.’ (Heard in a dream, 5.30 am+, February 19, 2020) 8.15 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I left the house as the painter and decorator entered. Today, I’d built periods for admin into the PhD teaching schedule. 9.00 am: An undergraduate dissertation tutorial with, possibly, one of my last tutees on this module.…

Mary let her hair down (John 12.1-8). There’re times when all about appears strangely transformed and intensified. Doxological perception, I guess you’d called it: a hymn of vision. In that moment, the natural world seems fresh, vitiated, and urgent, even under heavy weather. I saw bare and tremulous trees, as though for the first time (like new-born Adam in the…

I’d only been away from home 26 hours, but it felt like weeks. En route, my eyes scanned for signs of change, as one does when revisiting an only haunt many years later. What had blown away or otherwise succumbed to the storm? Yesterday, I was half inside a bush with a digital recorder trying to capture the strong wind…

This day was made for me, and I for this day. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Against the wind, under the rain, onto the streets, towards the School, via the shop, for Visiting Day. The weather had begun to churn. Within a few hours, the roads would be sprinkled with a confetti of twigs shaken from the trees. The…

I always sent Mam a Valentine card. 7.15 am: Over breakfast, I caught up with my Twitter feed. A recent Times Higher Education survey suggests that many students consider the staff who teach them to be unhelpful, and that this causes their high rate of anxiety, depression, and dissatisfaction with life. Dr Matt Lodder’s take on the survey is both…

7.00 am: For the first ten minutes of the day I tried to sense the level of my health and well-being. In the best of weather, this is a gruelling day. In the present circumstances, I’d need a strength not of my own to see me through. ‘Move through your commitments, one at a time, and with joy.’ ‘And keep…