• Helmets, Museums, and Colonialism: What the Staffordshire Hoard Can Teach Us About Ourselves

    Helmets, Museums, and Colonialism: What the Staffordshire Hoard Can Teach Us About Ourselves

    Who looks after and displays historical artefacts matters.  Britain still flexes its colonial muscles, it just does so by using its cultural and academic influence more than its military influence.

  • The Church Can No Longer Be Politically Neutral

    The Church Can No Longer Be Politically Neutral

    I can still picture the moment I discovered that there are Christians who believe that climate change is a good thing because it will speed Christ’s return!  Much like the famed ‘rapture hatch’, it can be tempting to laugh at such eschatological clumsiness, but for the seriousness of its implications.  A similar story emerges with…

  • Joy in Enough: Economics for People and Planet

    “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”  So goes Henry Ford’s oft parroted quote.  It is particularly popular with Donald Trump, who has tweeted it on at least three separate occasions.  Of course it’s easy for someone like Donald Trump to say, starting out, as…

  • Poverty and Privilege

    Poverty and Privilege

    Walking the Camino is a privilege.  We often use such words flippantly, even if we are showing gratitude, but what does it really mean for something to be a privilege?  For the last five weeks I’ve been working this through my head.  I am someone who has, at least in relative terms, known both sides…

  • The Passage of Time and the Blessing of Hospitality

    The Passage of Time and the Blessing of Hospitality

    It is a peculiarity of travel that you can lose sense of the passage of time.  Past events can somehow simultaneously seem both recent and distant.  So it is with my Camino.  I am two thirds of the way through my pilgrimage now, and I can’t seem to work out how or what to feel…