I love Chopin. I love listening to his music, but I especially love playing his music. His Nocturnes in particular. There's something very satisfying about playing Chopin. He was a pianist, and every piece of music he wrote was for the piano, and so he "gets" what it's like to sit at a piano and wrestle with those 88 keys in front of you. He was a genius who knew how to get the most out of this instrument, and to challenge those who would want to call themselves a pianist (ever tried playing 12 notes at once with 10 fingers?). Perhaps what I like best, though, is the opportunity that playing Chopin gives me to really express myself through the music. It's like nothing else that I know and taps right into the depths of my emotions and indeed my soul. For me, it's very much a kind of prayer to play this music. Anyone who plays a musical instrument well understands (or should understand) that it's so much more than just the notes on the page. In fact, the b...
Sonia and I have both moved house a lot. Both previously to being married together, and since, we have moved home a lot of times. When you move a lot, you realise just how much “stuff” you have accumulated and you can get good at getting rid of things. I think I’m pretty ruthless with unnecessary stuff; trying not to let sentimentality drive the decision on whether a particular “thing” is something I need to take with me to the next house. I have a fairly straightforward principal that if I haven’t used that thing since the last move, then I ask myself “do I really need it?” But then there’s the books. I have quite a few books. And I find it really hard to part with them. I’ve accumulated them over many years and I find it very difficult to think of getting rid of any of them. As an academic, books aren’t just for reading, they are for reference, and so I hang on to them because there may come a day when I need to refer to them. Maybe that’s just optimism, or idealism, or me trying to ...
On Friday 21 March, 2025, I finally graduated with my PhD. It had been a long a rocky journey to get there, so it was amazing to share in that occasion with family and friends, and other PhD students I had studied with along the way. I had the privilege of being asked to give one of two valedictory speeches on the night. Below is what I shared on the night, with the video at the bottom of this page. ____________ Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Archbishop, distinguished guests, staff, fellow graduands, family and friends. A PhD gave me the chance to wrestle deeply with significant questions: “given that the church confesses that Jesus is fully human and fully divine, why did Jesus worship?” And what does that mean for how we understand worship itself? Is it merely a human activity towards the divine, or is something much bigger going on? To explore that, I turned to the world of drama. With that framework in mind, I saw Jesus, the worshipper, as an actor revealin...
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