The weight of grief
Grief is heavy. Not simply sad. Heavy. It settles into the body with a kind of insistence. In the shoulders. Behind the eyes. In limbs that feel tired before the day has properly begun. And with the weight comes a strange indifference. Things that would normally matter suddenly do not. Plans feel unnecessary. Conversations require…
Towards the Human: Limit, Continuity and Magnifica Humanitas
There is, to my mind, something deeply theological in the mathematical concept of a limit. In calculus, a limit is concerned not simply with where something is, but with the value towards which it tends: a function may draw ever closer without quite arriving. What matters, therefore, is not only position but direction, the horizon…
Algorithmic concerns in the atmosphere of adolescence
We are doing a lot of categorising of boys at the moment. There are good reasons for to be concerned. Conversations about boys, masculinity, misogyny and violence are no longer confined to academic papers or parenting forums. They are happening in schools, staffrooms and homes. We are hearing more about misogynistic language, intimidation and the…
Transfigured
Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration here in Australia. There is so many aspects to break open in that narrative. The divinity of Jesus, revealed. God’s presence – yet again encountered up a mountain. Scripture fulfilled in the presence of Moses (Law) and Elijah (Prophets). The simple humanity of Peter, trying to hold in…
Silence and Noise
Silence is golden. How much silence do you seek in your daily life? Is your transit time enveloped in a podcast, an audiobook or music? I worry that we diminish our capacity to listen to our inner voice (and the voice of God) on a daily basis, slowly eroding our natural inclination to the divine…
The Future Entrusted to Us
It starts in the present. Catholic theology begins with the conviction that creation is gift. The earth is not merely raw material waiting to be exploited, but part of a created order entrusted to human care. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis challenges a model of progress measured only by production, consumption and extraction. Pope Leo…
Looking through the eyes of grace
There is a kind of seeing that asks very little of the eyes. It does not scan the room for evidence, or gather visual proof, or measure worth by what is seen on the surface. It is a slower and quieter seeing, the kind that waits long enough for the truth of a person, a…
Accountability
There is a sentence that sounds brave until you hear it from the underside of power. You need to hold them accountable. It is often said to the person who has already been wounded. The person who has already carried the cost, already spending too long wondering whether they are overreacting, whether they misunderstood, whether…
More than decency
There are moments when grace does not feel like peace, it feels like being cracked open. Not destroyed, not humiliated for the sake of humiliation, not reduced to the worst thing within us, but interrupted in that deeply uncomfortable place where our carefully maintained sense of innocence begins to fail. Most of us prefer grace…
Babel with better WIFI
There is something almost biblical about artificial intelligence. Not because it is magical or demonic. Nor should we gather around a laptop and start looking for the Antichrist in autocomplete. AI is biblical because it exposes us. It reveals what we want (think back to the show Lucifer on Netflix (I think)). It reveals what…
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