Letters from Quotidia

We often have images of groups of chanting people being set upon by wild beasts in the Colosseum as the Roman crowd roars its approval and do you perhaps see, in your mind’s eye, lines of screaming human torches blazing along the Appian Way as punishment for the dastardly sect’s setting fire to Rome. More

Gradually, I learned to make a shining virtue out of dire necessity by quoting a Catholic saint who said, of any difficulty faced, this is the path to heaven, and I even found a quiet pride in doing the various tasks well and mastering new skills as I went along.More

Every time I am tempted to sit back and read a book, do a crossword and maybe potter about in the garden as the sum total of my remaining life, I recall that Paul Klee, when confronted with approaching death from the autoimmune disease, scleroderma, reacted by creating 1253 drawings and images in 1939More

...aren’t we gleeful when we witness the crashing collapse of those people who hold themselves above the common herd and crow about their magnificence. The Christian tradition also has examples of hubris: have a look at Gustave Dore’s depiction of the fall of Lucifer into Satan from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. More

The gravitational pull of family prompted our return to Northern Ireland where the hunger strikes of 1981 in the Maze prison near Lisburn occurred 10 years after Internment without trial in 1971 More

The enemies of Jesus called him a drunkard and glutton because He and his disciples wined and dined with tax collectors. But then, of course they had also lambasted His cousin, John the Baptist as a lunatic because he fasted and abstained from alcohol. More

The mistake too many human beings make is thinking that they can negotiate with the forces of darkness and come out in front. Soul for sale anyone? Best not, eh! More

Sharing a birthday drink with my brother-in-law, he told me about a mate he worked alongside with for many years who, learning he has terminal cancer, has arranged a neat end. He has approval for voluntary assisted dying and has said farewell to his family and friends as well as having ordered his affairs. He is not in pain, but he intends to bow out this weekend. More

Twenty years ago...around a fire with a friend...we were talking about how little we knew about our forebears. My nephew, the family historian, had discovered that my great-uncle had fought and died with Australian forces on the Western Front in 1917...maybe I should jot some stuff down about... my life just in case a future family historian might want to delve into what it was we were all about. More

Jack London had many attributes of the classical hero: a wanderer over land and sea, a prodigious energy ,consorting with interesting people, gaining fame and fortune and dying at an early age.More

So, every Father’s Day, presented with descriptors such as World’s Best Dad, men groan- perhaps inwardly- when compared, falsely in most cases I would imagine, to heroes... and to any number of masculine exemplars! More

For those starving or dying of thirst, a scrap of food or drink of water may be the only thing that counts. For each individual, the only thing that matters is what counts for you!More

People of my generation remember Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, where she uses clouds as a metaphor for change and life’s bittersweet nature. The Rolling Stones’ Get Off Of My Cloud, I wore done as a 45-rpm single where the line, Hey you get off of my cloud/ Don’t hang around cause two’s a crowd emphasised the 60s elevation of personal freedom as a guiding principle of life. More

-Yet another doleful dirge, eh?- -Hey, what do you expect, another My Way?- -Well, we could certainly use the money.- -Sorry but I can’t write from the point of view of a sociopath! I mean, a full life lived with so few regrets that they’re not worth mentioning!- More

The kids of The Colony had a rare freedom, even for those relaxed times of the 1960s. We swam in the lagoons, fished off the reef, and explored the caves and abandoned phosphate mines of ArubaMore

. Poets so very often get it right, don’t they? And long may that gentle light return- even though it may seem to stray and vanish. More

...let us pause and relax around the flickering light of the campfire at this sweet oasis and talk about Cabbages and Kings or, oh, what about Presidents and Popes...More

I recall from my childhood, images of a devilish red angel with pitchfork and lashing tail whispering malicious enticements into the left ear of the protagonist while into the right ear a glowing white angelic figure whispers contrary advice.More

From Magna Carta, through Susan B Anthony’s magnificent speech in June 1873 declaring the personhood of women and consequently their right to vote under the Constitution, to the D-Day invasion on 4th June 1944, June has been a month of resonant hope to those of us who maintain an optimistic view that the forces of darkness will be ultimately defeated by the light.

What if you aren't an ordinary person- or indeed a person at all! Are you an alien? Or perhaps an angel? But I refer neither to aliens nor angels, but to modern AI assistants like Microsoft's Co-Pilot.

One of the most timeworn genres is the love song. From The Love Song of Shu-Sin 4000 years ago to the latest effusion in the charts, we never tire of the theme in any of its many variations.

So where does it come from? This urge to create something new that itches until scratched, wherein a spark ignites a flame that may grow into a conflagration, or which is more likely, merely results in reddened, irritated skin as flaking epithelial cells drift slowly to the floor to accumulate as one of the more harmless components of household dust.More

Time goes running, even/As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.// Horace, with his unsentimental eye, says it so well. More

For New Years Eve 2024, I leave you with something hopeful- this from Psalm 18, may serve: "You Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light."More

The best prophets have the capacity to surprise us! “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” More