Blog on the Learig

  12 November 2026 In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher has two important insights to offer us. The first is moderation. ‘ Do not be too righteous and do not act too wise.’ he says. Moderation in all   things. ‘ Do not be too wicked and do not be a fool.’ There’s need for balance. Afterall, ‘There is not a   righteous person on earth who does good and never sins.’ We are all human. Let our common humanity temper all our prejudices and follies as well as our political and military aspirations. The second is co-operation. ‘ Look, the tears of the oppressed with no-one to comfort them.’ says the Preacher. The world is divided and the root cause ‘one person’s envy of another’. The Preacher counsels co-operation rather than competition. ‘ Two are better than one,’ he says, ‘ because they have a good regard for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other …’ But now the small step along the road to nuclear disarmament which was taken between the Russians and the ...

  11 November 2026 When Edmund Blunden made his way along the trenches on the Western Front, he passed ‘a young and cheerful lance-corporal’ with a mess-tin of tea bubbling over a little flame. Three fire-bays later, a shell dropped behind Blunden. ‘I saw its smoke faint out, and I thought all was lucky as it should be.’ But it was not. When he returned along the trenches, he discovered that the ‘young and cheerful lance-corporal’ had been blown to smithereens, his remains scattered on all sides. ‘ At   this moment,’ wrote Blunden, ’ while we looked with dreadful fixity at so isolated a horror, the lance-corporal’s brother came round the traverse.’ Time stops dead – the cheerful tea-making, the gruesome shelling, the split second between that time for war and that time for peace, the anticipated horror and the unimaginable grief of the lance-corporal’s brother. This is our remembrance – on this and every day. Let us never forget it. This is war and this is the time...

  10 November 2026 I heard that Culross Abbey is being sold for £35,000. Cheap at the price, I would say. This ancient building on top of the hill has been a place of regular worship for some eight centuries. The existing congregation can no longer afford to keep it. A service of closure has passed. It follows the demise of Brechin Cathedral. Once again, the upkeep of the building became too much for a diminishing congregation. The pattern continues in lesser kirks and in other denominations none more so than the Church of England. A few weeks ago, the Dean of Southwell Minster gave a cri de coeur. The fabric of the building has been neglected for some time and the roof is in need of half a million pounds. The Minster does not have the financial resources to keep the building wind and watertight. In my cathedral book, I read that, ‘In the Middle Ages Southwell was one in a group of three outstandingly rich churches distinguished by the title of ‘minster’ in the diocese of Y...

  9 November 2026 We spent a few days in Perthshire to celebrate my birthday. The day was spent walking up the Birks of Aberfeldy on a gloriously autumnal day. We met a man in his eighties walking up the craggy hill with two knee replacements. And another pushing his toddler in a buggy all the way to the top. We got there too! I bought a book written by Mary Beard, popular classicist, about her work as a teacher of classics. She was very eloquent about the subject and made an interesting point in defence of it. Because the classics belong to an age which precedes us all by a very large margin, it belongs to no-one. This makes it possible to explore various aspects of ancient society without carrying any emotional baggage since none of us were involved in these days – warfare, gender, sexuality, freedom of speech etc. The discovery of this book is a celebration of all that is best in independent bookshops! Whilst there, I picked up a little catalogue entitled, ‘Christmas Boo...

  8 November 2026 – Remembrance Carlo Rovelli has written a little book, less than a hundred pages, entitled, ’85 Seconds to Midnight’. It has a subtitle, ‘A physicist’s argument against rearmament’. As you can imagine from the author’s credentials as a celebrated and world-renowned scientist,   it is well researched and written. The title is intriguing. It refers to the Doomsday Clock created by the ‘Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ and is a measure of how close they think we are to a nuclear catastrophe. In 2025, the clock said 89 seconds to midnight. This year it was recalibrated to 85 seconds – the closest it has ever been to our destruction. Clearly, the world is a more dangerous place than it has been for a very long time. Wars proliferate and the consequences are felt globally. The failure to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the USA and Russia adds to the uncertainty. In his book, Rovelli makes an interesting point about the development of the nu...

  7 November 2026 The Children’s Society has just published ‘The Good Childhood Report 2026’. It the introduction, they say that their report ‘ demonstrates a strong relationship between belonging and wellbeing: young people who lack a sense of belonging, or do not have a trusted adult to turn to, are more likely to experience low wellbeing.’ The Society sets out their recommendations to strengthen belonging through four interconnected areas. The first is People and the provision of people young people can trust .   ‘Over one in five (21.7%) young people with low wellbeing did not have an adult to turn to, compared with just 6.1% of those who did not report low wellbeing.’ The second is Places and the provision of places where young people feel they belong. Nearly a quarter of young people with low wellbeing reported   that ‘they did not feel like they belonged in their community, compared with just 3.6% of those without low wellbeing.’ The third is Power to in...