A small square of cloth for the ordinary business of being human. Whatever happened to handkerchiefs? Men carried them. In their back pockets as they worked, as they went about their day. Folded into a jacket or pushed into a pair of trousers. Quite often initialled, lest there be any
Which season is this? Are these the remaining days of summer? Or just an untimely autumn sun? Bright but lethargic. Heat without passion. One last promise. One last promise. One last promise from a languishing lover. There’s a want in the day. A call to some forgotten adventure. The
On shame, forgiveness and returning to aliveness A while ago, a woman asked me why I believed I was a sinner. We were speaking through the glow of our phones, trying to pass something delicate between us without crushing it beneath old words. I said that we are all sinners.
From the village pump to the algorithmic age, within living memory My father told me about standing on the hill behind Ballyboughal football pitch in 1963, watching an aeroplane fly towards Dublin Airport. John F. Kennedy was on board. The president of the United States was descending out of the
The metaphysical work of tending the earth There is a saying, often passed around with a knowing smirk: “Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” The implication is simple. Cultivate peace, but remain capable of violence. Keep your sword sharp, even while planting
A Desert Vision in Two Parts I had this vision in two episodes, months apart. It wasn’t a dream. The first came through sleep, yes, and the second through deep meditation. Both carried the weight of a visitation. A knowing. I was in a desert. The air was thick
Fear, fatherhood and the hiddenness of God All my children are away from me. There are different histories behind those distances, and I could explain each one differently. I could speak of circumstances, relationships, borders, decisions made by other people. Some of that would be true. But beneath the complexity
On revelation, refusal, and the difficulty of following Christ. There were three Ayahuasca ceremonies in one year, and beneath everything they showed me there was a quiet and increasingly unwelcome suggestion that all of this was somehow going to lead back to Christianity. I did not want it to. I
Jung, Ahriman and the anti-Christic logic of digital exposure The accuser no longer needs a court, an editor or even an assembled audience. An account is enough. Somewhere, in the private light of a phone, a name is searched, an old post reopened, a screenshot passed to someone who
On systems, consumption, and the human animal beneath them People did not know they were interested in skiing until the ski helmets appeared in the middle aisle of Aldi. This is obviously not entirely true, which is why it is useful. Desire does not begin in Aldi. But much of
When Blood Claims Reason’s Jurisdiction A relationship can end long before the body receives the news. The belongings have been returned. The number is blocked. There is no practical reason for further contact. Yet the argument continues inside the nervous system. The body remains assembled for trial, rehearsing evidence,
WHAT Ai OFFERS, IF ANYHTING, TO THE INEFFABLE Artificial intelligence has brought language to an extraordinary pitch of competence. Mysticism begins where competence ceases to matter. A large language model is pure language. Nothing else. It has no body beneath the sentence, no silence behind the word, no life that
