It was to be an ethereal autumn, to be nestled by the banks of Lake Towada, in Aomori, Japan, and to experience the beauty of Oirase Gorge and its surrounds. And indeed if wishing to be in an ethereal moment was to be desirious of its eternity, then it was surely an outstanding …… but…
W. Eugene Smith was known as the pioneer of photo-journalism. The photo-essay above of Dr Ernest Ceriani, a country doctor in Colorado was widely acknowledged as an original journalistic form. One of the most vivid images shows Ceriani looking exhausted in a kitchen, having performed a Caesarian section during which both mother and baby died.…
I chanced upon the Genesee Diary in a Thriftbooks store somewhere in my travels. It was owned by an ‘Anne Green’, scribbled in pencil on a discreet corner of the first page. The cover was tattered and a little worse for wear, an added attraction to a yet unread book with a strange title and…
Spring is Black, Summer is Blue, Autumn is Red and Winter is White. Thus read the colours of the seasons in the 1770 book “Kuju-sanki”, which describes the landscape of the Kuju Mountain Range, its people, lifestyle, and the 260-year history of Mt Kuju Hakausuiji-temple Hokkein, which was a site of mountain worship (From the…
Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside, but such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat there. The people all stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables. He said, ‘Imagine a sower going out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell…
When we visited Jeju island in the autumn of 2022, we had not expected to experience another Encounter with the Lord. As it were, the allure of old friends reuniting, nature beckoning, and savouring the yet unfamiliar Korean cuisine was enough to assure us of a most fulfilling week of fellowship and experience to come.…
Today, I was reminded at Palm Sunday Mass (this post was first drafted on 28th March 2021) that when Jesus Christ was at His weakest physical state as God-Made-Man, the devil struck again to taunt, to try to tempt Jesus to succumb to the order of the world, and to let His material wants take…
The people stayed there before the cross watching Jesus. As for the leaders, they jeered at him. ‘He saved others,’ they said ‘let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers mocked him too, and when they approached to offer vinegar they said, ‘If you are the king…
St Paul denied his original self, in order to replace it with something fundamentally more Precious. His narratives and actions, have been recorded in history through his own prodigious inspired writings and that of his collaborators, and in recent history by the cinematographers. When I first watched Paul, Apostle of Christ the 2018 American biblical drama film, it…
As I read the fragile and parched first pages of my father’s 1952 diary, the sands of time slowly weaved the context of its moment into my consciousness. He was writing well past midnight, having attended to his daughter, my sister. Now he paused to slow down to pen a few thoughts. He was more…