In this week’s episode, we revisit the idea of stages of faith – which is really what this podcast is all about. The idea of Mid-faith Crisis was also behind my book The Dark Night of the Shed. During the podcast, however, we also touch on how this isn’t just a spiritual journey: you can see the stages reflected in stories, worked out in relationships and patterned in life itself.
The Assembly is a wonderful programme. Michael Sheen is interviewed by a group of autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people. It’s fresh, joyful, surprising and moving.
In our latest episode, Joe and I discuss our themes for the New Year.1 (Our New Year begins on March 25 as was the custom up until the late eighteenth century.) My theme for this year is focus. I’ve been struggling against the endless waves of distraction for a long time now, and I need to do something to arrest the slide. Moving to micro.blog was one way to avoid distractions of social media whilst still having an online presence.
I am reminded of the grace of reticence, the power of discretion, and the possibility of being utterly private and autonomous yet deeply aware of and receptive to the world. If I am enchanted by staying out of sight, it is because such behavior seems so rare in our own species. In recent years, we have been more preoccupied than ever by the question of how to stay in view…
Visibility has become the common currency of our time, and the twin circumstances of social media and the surveillance economy have redefined the way we live. In his landmark 1979 book, The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch noted that “success in our society has to be ratified by publicity.” Forty years later, our cult of transparency shows his prescience, as do the enabling new technologies. It has become routine to assume that the rewards of life are public and that our lives can be measured by how we are seen rather than what we do.
From Akira Busch, How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency
In this episode we reflect on what the Easter story means for us this year. I’ve been particularly thinking about how the shape of the week – from triumph and joy, through perplexity and darkness, to new life and resurrection – is one of the basic human stories and also the shape of so many of our faith journeys. Listen and subscribe
You ask Amazon, "What's your cheapest batteries?" and it lies to you. If you click the first link in a search-results page, you'll pay 29% more than you would if you got the best product – a product that is, on average, 17 places down on the results page. Amazon makes $38b/year taking bribes to lie to you
Pluralistic: Meatspace twiddling (26 Mar 2024) Cory Doctorow
In our latest episode, Joe and I discuss the nature of praise. As the song goes, ‘Praise him on the trumpet, the psaltery and harp!’ But it never really explains why. Doesn’t the obligation to praise God make him seem, well, a bit needy? And what the heck is a psaltery anyway? We talk about praise as a response, as a practice of gratitude and appreciation, how it needs to be based on intellectual content, and why attempts to do mood-altering worship never really work.
The streets of St Ives
Beautifully written, revealing account of what it is to be a celebrity ghost writer. (Read to the end.) Personally I think all ghost writers should be credited somewhere in the book. And in any interviews that the celebrity does. Especially those where they claim to have ‘written a book’.
You never know what you’re going to get with our feedback! But one of the things I loved in this week’s episode was discovering that the green crockery so beloved of churches and church halls everywhere is called Beryl. It somehow fits. The rest of the feedback leads into discussions about whether our desire to achieve things is personality driven, and the proper role of regret in our lives. Although I think I will have more to say about that.