Golgonooza

If you imagined that 'false news' was a contemporary phenomena, think again! It is a recurrent theme. Wherever competing interests exist to be communicated, there it will be. This was brought home to me whilst reading Kent Nerburn's excellent, "Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce". The Nez Perce first encounter with the white man was peaceable (and ennobling). It was with the expedition of Lewis and Clark as they made their way to and from the Pacific. The Nez Perce lived as independently minded groups in what is now Idaho, Montana and Washington. Intermingling with other tribes, through trade and marriage, differentiated from others by enmity. As the pressures of white settlement mounted, much nobility evaporated and under increasing pressure, some chose the way of agriculture and Christianity, others, however, found themselves on an epic journey of months as they fled the pursuing US Army (and assorted vigilantes including other indigenous trib...

A solar storm has knocked out much of the world's electronic/electrical systems only fragments of that world, so unthinkingly familiar, survives. Mobile phones fall silent, your credit card is useless and indeed redundant as your bank account, nesting in the 'Cloud', has disappeared! Just in time delivery means that nothing is stocked where it is needed, the cities and their citizens, go hungry and slowly, steadily citizenship, itself, crumbles. Meanwhile, though not wholly unaffected, even they have made compromises with modernity, the Amish and their life continues to unfold. It is late summer, moving into autumn, there is harvesting to be done and the subsequent milling, canning, preserving. All of this shot through with scenes of community help, community gossip and, most importantly, for this ancient Anabaptist group, worship and prayer. But even though they have 'separated' themselves, no one in the world is truly separate and the world's chaos cl...

I remember when Rowan Williams was made Archbishop of Canterbury his staff had to persuade him to cease his previous practice of opening his own mail not only because of its increase in volume but also because often nestling within was the vituperative poison of the disgruntled and disaffected! Avril Pyman in her accomplished biography of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh gives her own examples of this surprisingly common 'Christian' art form that this particular saintly bishop accrued to himself through his own management of the Russian Patriarchal Church in Western Europe that was his responsibility over many years. The disappointments of Judas, sadly, are always with us. Since the organisational life of the Church absorbed so much of Anthony's attention and energy, likewise it must occupy his biographer but I confess it is, for me, the least interesting part of the book. The parsing of denominational difference especially when it is within Orthodoxy (rather than b...