Blog on the Learig

  23 March 2026 ‘Where is wisdom to be found?’ asks Job. ‘Where can we learn to understand?’ The first point to make is that knowledge does not necessarily bring with it the wisdom to know what to do with it. We may live on the edge of unprecedented scientific and technological discovery but do we know how to use it wisely? Even the greatest minds make mistakes – as Albert Einstein discovered. Just before he died, he admitted that he had made a great mistake ‘when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made.’ His scientific knowledge anticipated the atomic bomb in 1939 and, of course, six years later the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Many have discussed the wisdom of this. Einstein’s regret is compelling and we rest our case with Job, ‘Wisdom is not to be found among men; no one knows its true value.’ ‘God alone knows the way, knows the place where wisdom is found.’ For the poet says, ‘ To be wise, you must have reverence for God.’ ...

  22 March 2026 In the Orthodox Calendar of Saints, ‘Our Holy Father John and Companions’ are remembered on 20 March. They were monks in the ancient  monastery of St. Sava in the Judean desert. It was attacked, pillaged and laid waste  on several occasions by Arabs. During the eighth century when Constantine and his mother, Irene, jointly ruled the Byzantine Empire, the Arabs attacked again. On this occasion, the monks decided not to flee from their monastery but remained steadfast within its bounds. ‘We have fled from the world into this wilderness for the sake of our love for Christ, and it would be shameful if we fled from the wilderness out of fear of men.’ they argued. ‘If we are slain here, we will be slain because of our love for Christ, for whose sake we came here to live.’ Unlike the Arabs, they were unarmed. They waited for their hostile arrival. The Arabs slew some of the monks with arrows. Some were sealed off in the cave of St. Sava. A fire was lit at...

  21 March 2026 – Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer became Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VIII   but was martyred during the reign of Bloody Mary Tudor on 21 March 1556. We saw where he was tried in Great St. Mary’s in Oxford. Prior to the reign of this Catholic Queen, he had been instrumental in shaping the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. He is well remembered for the beautiful collects which he devised and which have been dutifully repeated down through the centuries much to the pleasure of many worshippers who have by use and wont memorised these texts and thereby nurtured their spiritual life. ‘God, which hast prepared to them that love thee such good things as pass all man’s understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we loving thee in all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Christ, our Lord.’ In the preface to the Prayer Book, there are words of guidance concerning the worship of the Church...

  20 March 2026 – From My Diary 1996 The massacre at Dunblane permeated our world. ‘Every pastoral visit begins or ends at Dunblane.’ I wrote on 21 March 1996. ‘Everything else seems trivial by comparison. The only people who weren’t talking about it today were suffering from dementia.’ There were several meetings at the local Primary School where parents wanted to hold a vigil. Some didn’t favour the format. Some didn’t like candles. Others wanted an opportunity to give thanks for what we had. The parents who had taken the initiative wanted a non-religious ceremony. I met with two ministers from   different denominations. They were consulting each other about a joint future. ‘The idea of expanding this ecumenical fraternal was agreed.’ I wrote. ‘In light of the Dunblane tragedy and the powerful presence of the united church, it would seem imperative to get to know each other better.’ This was one of the most important things which I learned from the massacre at Dunbla...

  19 March 2026 On Tuesday  night, the Scottish Parliament voted against the ‘Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill’ by   69 to 57 votes. The margin was substantially higher than commentators predicted. It was the third time such a bill had been defeated in sixteen years. Liam McArthur, the Scottish Liberal Democrat, who sponsored the Bill responded defiantly, ‘This issue isn’t going away … the public overwhelmingly want to see a change in the law, so this is coming back.’ Perhaps even in the next Parliamentary session? One of the most powerful interventions came from a disabled,   Independent MSP, Jeremy Balfour. ‘We cannot legislate for the feeling of being a burden. We cannot legislate for the throwaway comments that make me and others feel that our lives are worth less.’ One of the outcomes of the debate has been the realisation   that the provision of palliative care across Scotland is patchy and this needs to improve. Visiting ho...

  18 March 2026 ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is a Russian documentary which won an Oscar on Sunday night. It was filmed by Pasha Talankin in a Primary School in Karabash. It’s a poor mining town near the Rural Mountains. Pasha was employed to record and organise school events. At the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government instructed schools to hold regular patriotic displays and provided curriculum papers written by the State to justify the invasion. These bulletins were read out to classes by the teachers. The schools were obliged to upload footage of these displays to demonstrate compliance. This allowed Pasha to record what was going on in the school without anyone being suspicious about what he was actually doing. The filming took place over two years. ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is about how you lose your country.’ said Pasha at the Oscar celebrations. ‘And what we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless, small, little ac...