faith

James’s Blog: Writers Wot Have Influenced Me – Part 5 of 4

Lioness Writing Ltd Author , , , , , , ,
James’s Blog: Writers Wot Have Influenced Me – Part 5 of 4

Flannery O’Connor

“She had never given much thought to the devil for she felt that religion was essentially for those people who didn’t have the brains to avoid evil without it. For people like herself, for people of gumption, it was a social occasion providing the opportunity to sing; but if she had ever given it much thought, she would have considered the devil the head of it and God the hanger-on. With the coming of these displaced people, she was obliged to give new thought to a good many things.”

The Displaced Person, Flannery O’Connor Read more

James’s Blog: Natural Words and Spiritual Words.

Lioness Writing Ltd Author , , , , , , ,
James’s Blog: Natural Words and Spiritual Words.

Sometimes I’ll talk to someone about how things are going, and they’ll say something like:

“When she was out walking the dog, Sheila noticed that the family a couple of doors down was selling their car. So, we bought it for a good price. It turned out to be really convenient.” Read more

James’s Blog: Musings on Faith, Reason, Experience, Colouring-in and Worship.

Lioness Writing Ltd Author , , , , , , , , , ,
James’s Blog: Musings on Faith, Reason, Experience, Colouring-in and Worship.

It’s been one of those years – the kind of year that was meant by the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in Interesting Times.”

Here’s a couple of things I find interesting about these Interesting Times. The first is that, through following up on Tweets and stuff, I learned that in America three of the top five best-selling non-fiction Christian books of 2016 were adult colouring-in books.  After what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I don’t know what to say.  I understand that some people find them helpful, but really?  Three out of five? Read more

James’s Blog: Looking Forward to Christmas.

Lioness Writing Ltd Author , , , , , , ,
James’s Blog: Looking Forward to Christmas.

I like the build up to Christmas. I like the festive lights, nostalgic songs and the general atmosphere. I even enjoy the weather – the crisp, cold winter days. In Australia we had nine months of summer and three months of grim misery in a house that was designed to shed as much heat as possible.  Plus, Christmas in the summer just felt wrong. Read more

James’s Blog: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

Lioness Writing Ltd Author , , , , , ,
James’s Blog: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

I was discussing with someone who suggested that, as an atheist, he at least was ‘…thinking for himself’. I pointed out that, unless he had invented atheism, he actually wasn’t. None of us really think for ourselves, I told him. There are thousands of years of history and debate and experience behind each of us, and all we can ever do is just pick a side. Read more

%d bloggers like this: