Ok, so the voice is really bizarre... even bordering on creepy... but the content of this short clip actually outliens one of Gregory's best paradoxes, "luminous darkness", quite well.
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...
A little over three years ago Sonia and I first walked into this parish. We were tired and broken, and we needed a new church home, but more than that we needed to be loved. Everyone welcomed us warmly. Victor took us out for coffee that week and we sat with him, just across the road in the shopping centre, and we told him our story. He listened attentively and, at the end of it all, he said to us, “I hope this will be a place of healing for you.” I will never forget the impact of those words. Nor will I forward the reality of that healing coming through being loved by this church family. I don’t have to look far at all to see a group of Christians fulfilling Christ’s command from our Gospel reading today, “love one another as I have loved you.” I have seen and experienced the love of God from you. I have sought to love you in return. A lot has changed in those three years. For us personally, but also for this church. This church has had 15 baptisms and 4 confirmations and receptions i...
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 ...
I love the comment that it is only in the not knowing and not seeing that we truly know and truly see....that resonates so much with me.
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