It suits the powerful not to know what people’s lives are really like, so they use all means available to them to make the people they are responsible for, and failing, also ‘not know’ the reality of their rulers’ dangerous incompetence or simple indifference. We call this general state of affairs denial and it is what we are seeing, of course, on the political stage here in the UK right now. It is also something that goes on in our own lives. It’s possible, as I am finding,

He said he was sorry. #Sorry #forgiveness #joy #father #remembering

I was tempted to give Lent a miss this year, partly out of laziness and partly because the whole business of ‘giving up’ sets me off on a downward spiral of guilt, and thence to guilt-induced depression. Guilt is the great imposter when it comes to the real meaning and purpose of Lent, and I am not sure whether giving up alcohol or chocolate really makes any difference in this regard. In surrendering material things, such as things we like to eat or drink, we experience hunge

Somewhere between Nathanial Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter) and the story of the Prodigal Son we meet Shamima Begum, a nineteen year old mother of three (two of her babies have died) and an ISIS bride, who now wants to come home to the UK. Two issues seem to dominate the discussion in regard to allowing her to return: The first, does she pose a threat, existential or physical, to the nation? The second, does she feel any regret for what she did when she was fif