Nothing to Lose Sleep Over

This riddle is doing the rounds locally. Can you see the answer (without googling!)?

I am:

• Greater than God;
• More evil than the devil;
• The rich want for me,
• Yet the poor have me;
• But if you eat me, you will die.

Who am I?

5 comments December 20th, 2006

Addictive Aquarium Game

If you’d like to waste a few hours here’s a fascinatingly addictive aquarium game to help you in your procrastination.

1 comment December 20th, 2006

Wednesday Week 2 of Advent

Readings: Isaiah 40:25-31; Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus confuses me. I love this gospel but my first reaction hearing Jesus words ‘I am gentle and humble in heart’ is to say ‘who are you kidding?’

We used to have a big red poster downstairs, done by Cafod I think, with a face of Jesus, Ché Guevara-style, and the words ‘Meek. Mild. As if!’ Someone nicked it—or maybe it was taken down in protest. Either way they were wise.

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4 comments December 13th, 2006

Post Plugins Updated

Similar Posts, Random Posts, Recent Posts, and Recent Comments have all been updated. The update is an interim bug-fix until the next real versions are ready. Two bugs are addressed.

One caused some users to get spurious characters displayed before the post listing.

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Add comment December 6th, 2006

Discipleship

The following talk was given to a weekend retreat group. I begin by referring to a session the previous evening where I’d shown a couple of clips from the film American Beauty in which the central character, at the point of death, reflects on his life and finds himself moved by gratitude and beauty. I asked the group to do their own reflection:

• What would you like to flash before your eyes in that last second, that ocean of time?
• What are you grateful for–really, spontaneously grateful for?
• Where is the beauty in your life and where is it leading you?

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7 comments December 2nd, 2006

Eros, Attraction, Beauty, Desire

The “October” issue of The Way has just been published including my article on the Spiritual Exercises, “Id Quod Volo: The Erotic Grace of the Second Week”. I wrote briefly about the core idea a little while ago and if you are interested you can access the full version free, gratis, and for nothing at The Way online.

3 comments November 29th, 2006

Sunday Week 33 Year B

Homily for a Study Day on the Spiritual Exercises dealing with the Contemplatio ad Amorem

Readings: Dan 12:1-13; Heb 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32

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5 comments November 19th, 2006

Post Plugins Updated

Similar Posts, Random Posts, Recent Posts, and Recent Comments have all been updated. One or two bugs in parameter handling have been fixed, certain parameters can now be blank where appropriate, or be more complex than before, e.g., 'before_title=<li class="item">'.

Excerpts can now be trimmed down to stop them ending in mid-word. They can be cut back to a word or a sentence. NB excerpt_length is now counted in characters and not words as previously.

Add comment November 14th, 2006

Saturday Week 31 Year II

Readings: Philippians 4:10-19; Luke 16:9-15

Money continues to be in the spotlight today and it’s interesting how Jesus both praises and condemns it in the same breath.

He calls it tainted, little, even loathsome and yet, precisely because it is so unimportant it assumes importance. How we handle the small stuff reveals our hearts better than our big-banner projects or the public values we claim. Money, because it means so little says so much: it speaks of what we worship truly rather than who we say we do.

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12 comments November 11th, 2006

Too Attached to Words

It isn’t as if it is entirely news to me… but a recent round of being edited for publication has really rubbed in how attached I am to the sound of my own ‘voice’.

I’ve been working with Philip Endean, SJ, editor of The Way, to get an article ready for the latest issue and I realise I’ve been a difficult author. I’ve been adapting a piece given orally at the Loyola Hall Seminar on Spiritual Accompaniment into something that can be read off paper. My written style tends to the oral anyway, which stands me in good stead for preaching but makes me awkward on the written page. And this piece I wrote deliberately densely, playing with the weight of words, to evoke a feeling, a memory, an experience. Philip’s admirable outlook is that if a sentence takes two readings it needs editing. He has his readers to think about but I have been more wedded to the words than the communication. Every cut and every elucidation I’ve taken personally–I want it to sound like me.

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4 comments November 8th, 2006