New T.S.Eliot Publication

An  interesting item  to appear recently on the  official T. S. Eliot website (tseliot.com) is the online publication of Noctes Binanianae (1939), a rare collection of light verse that has until now been available only in a tiny edition of 25 copies.

The book brings together Eliot, Frank Morley, Geoffrey Faber and John Hayward in a sequence of humorous poems, mock insults and literary banter. Writing many years later, Eliot described it as a collection in which the four friends "exercised our gifts of reciprocal insult in humorous verse". The title comes from Bina Gardens in Kensington, where they regularly met.

What makes this publication valuable is that it allows the collection to be read as it was intended: not as a handful of isolated Eliot poems, but as an ongoing conversation between friends. As editor John Haffenden notes, each poem answers the last and is then outdone by the next.

Eliot contributed eight of the twenty pieces, including the well-known "How to Pick a Possum", but the real interest lies in seeing the whole sequence unfold. It offers a glimpse of a side of Eliot that can easily be forgotten: witty, playful, sociable, and enjoying himself among close literary companions.

Of course, like most I think, I  associate Eliot with The Waste Land or Four Quartets, and all those other collected poems,  this collection is a refreshing reminder that even the most serious poets sometimes wrote simply for amusement.

The publication has been prepared under the auspices of the official Eliot website and features an introduction by John Haffenden, who is closely associated with Eliot scholarship and also has longstanding links with the UK Society. Useful therefore, not to conflate the two organisations.

The online edition may be found  at T S Eliot.com/Noctes 

The website of the T S Eliot Society UK is here >>

 

Friends in the Peak District 2011

So, in a few minutes of unstructured time, I thought I'd take a look at an old YouTube video from a while back.

In those days, it was not possible to summarise such a video at the click of a mouse.....

But I did that, and here's the video, and a summary.

The music is by Bruce Hornsby and the Range - 'That's The Way It Is'

---

This video, titled Peak District 2011, captures a casual weekend trip with friends to the scenic Peak District in England. The footage showcases the group's outdoor activities and the beautiful rural landscapes.

Key highlights include:

Picturesque Scenery: The video features rolling hills, quiet country lanes, stone walls, and local livestock, including sheep and cattle (0:15-0:21, 1:42-1:44).

Exploration: The friends are shown walking through wooded areas, near streams, and exploring rocky, cave-like formations and landmarks (0:39-0:47, 1:00-1:06, 2:57-3:00).

Relaxed Atmosphere: Interspersed with their walks are scenes of the friends sitting at a table together outdoors (2:29-2:32, 3:52-3:57) and driving through the countryside surrounded by cows (4:17-4:20).

Local Culture: The video highlights visits to local spots, including a classic red telephone box (0:26) and a shop selling Bakewell tarts (3:36-3:38).

The Tympanum at St. Peter's Church, Charney Bassett

 

Not sure why, but I thought today about a visit I made to the village of Charney Bassett. It was February 2023, and I wanted to visit the grave  of relatives. My aunt and uncle, long term residents of the village, took care of me during a summer in the 1950s. I haven't forgotten those days.

I took a look around the church. A building I visited often. Here's a highlight I always return to. Here's a review of this fascinating carving.

The survival of this tympanum inside St. Peter's, is a mystery. At first glance it appears to be just another fragment of Norman stonework. Yet the more we look at its history, the more puzzling it seems. Even specialists have disagreed about both its date and its meaning.

Tympanum in Charney Bassett church, Oxfordshire 

Many Mansions, One Voice

 Just occasionally, parallel ideas come to mind, and seem to strike a chord worth listening to. Today for some reason, I found myself  thinking about those words in the New Testament , in John's Gospel 14:2 - 'In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you'.

The full verse in Greek is:

ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου μοναὶ πολλαί εἰσιν· εἰ δὲ μή, εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν· ὅτι πορεύομαι ἑτοιμάσαι τόπον ὑμῖν.

A fairly literal translation would be:

"In my Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going to prepare a place for you."

So, should I wonder again, about what heaven might look like and again,  about what becomes of the individual soul?  As we are drawn into our destiny in the hereafter, do we become less ourselves or more ourselves? The words of Jesus, "In my Father's house are many mansions", have always suggested to me a unity that  makes room for difference. The Greek, meantime, explains better the idea of  'mansions', which seems to me to be a peculiar word to use for the interior of a house...

In any case, Jesus is looking beyond a description of  the physical reality of heaven in John 14:2. Mansions, dwelling places, houses...all these are images for the time-bound understanding of timeless ideas. He using the image of his Father's household to express the deeper spiritual reality of belonging to, and abiding in, God.

Recently, while looking again at the closing section of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, I was reminded of the passage which has parallels to those musings.

In What the Thunder Said, Eliot draws on an ancient story from the Upanishads. The creator, Prajāpati, speaks a single syllable, "Da", to three groups of his children. Yet each group hears something different. The gods, humans and demons each understand the sound according to their own nature.

What interested me this time was not the moral teaching usually drawn from the story. [ Give / Sympathise/ Control : see Booth, below].  It was the image, the idea  itself: one voice, many hearings.

For me, Christian thought has always held together two ideas that can seem difficult to reconcile. God is one, yet human beings are infinitely varied. We are all made in the image of God, yet no two persons are alike. If heaven means union with God, does individuality disappear, or is it somehow completed?

So today, I thought maybe the phrase "many mansions" hints at an answer. God, the Creator's  house is one house, but within it are many dwelling places. Thus unity does not require sameness. On the contrary, the richness of creation lies precisely in its diversity.

Seen like this, Eliot's story takes on an interesting resonance. The Creator utters a single sound, but each hearer receives it differently.

Perhaps the life to come is something like that? We do not lose ourselves in an undifferentiated oneness. Instead, each soul encounters the same divine reality from its own unique standpoint. The glory is shared, but the experience is personal.

I do not know whether Eliot would have recognised this interpretation. Yet the image remains compelling. A single voice speaks. Different hearers listen. And perhaps the mystery of the Creator/Father's house is that it contains room for every authentic response. The voice is one, but the hearing is many.

---------------------------------------------

Here is the story: 

1. The threefold offspring of Praj āpati—gods, men, and devils ( asura)— dwelt with their father Praj āpati as students of sacred knowledge ( brahmacarya).
 
 Having lived the life of a student of sacred knowledge, the gods said: “Speak to us, sir.” To them then he spoke this syllable, “ Da.”“Did you understand?” 

“We did understand,” said they. “You said to us, ‘Restrain yourselves ( damyata).’” “Yes ( Om)!” said he. “You did understand.”
 
2. So then the men said to him: ‘Speak to us, sir.’ To them then he spoke this syllable, “ Da.” “Did you understand?” 

“We did understand,” said they. “You said to us, ‘Give ( datta).’” “Yes ( Om)!” said he. “You did understand.”
 
3. So then the devils said to him: “Speak to us, sir.” To them then he
spoke this syllable, “ Da.” “Did you understand?” “We did understand,” said they. “You said to us, ‘Be compassionate ( dayadhvam).’”

“Yes ( Om)!” said he. “You did understand.”
 
This same thing does the divine voice here, thunder, repeat: Da! Da! Da! that is, restrain yourselves, give, be compassionate. One should practise this same triad: self-restraint, giving, compassion. ( Thirteen Principal Upanishads , B ṛihad- Āra ṇyaka Upanishad 5.2.1–3)

Eliot incorporates pairs of words from this story at in The Waste Land: “DA / Datta . . . . DA / Dayadhvam . . . DA / Damyata” (The Waste Land 401–02, 411–12, 418–19). In other words, he gives us not only what the thunder said, but also what his students understood his words to mean.

Acknowledging:

Booth, A. (2015). “Datta: what have we given?”: The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In: Reading The Waste Land from the Bottom Up. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137482846_45

A Golf Course in Washington D.C - What's the Game?

This piece by Ruth Marcus, a Contributing writer coverng law and the courts for the New Yorker Daily, uses what appears at first to be a minor dispute over a Washington, D.C., golf course to make a much larger argument about the Donald Trump administration's relationship with the judiciary.

Summary

The article centres on a lawsuit concerning President Trump's plan to close and redevelop a public golf course at East Potomac Park near the White House. The immediate controversy is not the golf course itself but the administration's decision to cut down more than 430 healthy trees after repeatedly assuring a federal judge that no significant changes were imminent.

Marcus argues that this episode is a vivid example of what she sees as the administration's growing disregard for judicial authority.

Key points include:

• For months, the government told U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes that there were no active redevelopment plans requiring court intervention.
• On the eve of a holiday weekend, government lawyers notified the court that up to 529 trees would be removed, and tree cutting began almost immediately before opponents had a realistic chance to respond.
• Judge Reyes reacted angrily in an emergency hearing, saying she felt misled by government assurances and questioning how officials could have believed their actions were acceptable.

Marcus places this incident within a broader pattern of conflict between the Trump administration and the courts. She cites:

• Trump's criticism of judges, including calls for impeachment.
• Justice Department ethics complaints and recusal requests directed at judges.
• Administration efforts to challenge lower federal courts that have blocked or questioned its policies.

According to Marcus, the golf-course case is especially revealing because it involves what she characterizes as an apparent disregard for clear judicial expectations in pursuit of a presidential objective.

The conflict escalated further when:

• The Justice Department sought Judge Reyes's recusal, accusing her of bias and excessive behaviour.
• Trump publicly attacked Reyes on social media, calling her a "crazed lunatic."
• The administration maintained that the tree removal was unrelated to course redevelopment, while Trump subsequently announced a timetable for closing the course and beginning construction, seemingly undermining that argument.

The Larger Theme

The golf course is really a symbol. Marcus's central claim is that the dispute illustrates a broader constitutional issue: whether the executive branch is willing to respect the authority of the courts when judicial oversight becomes inconvenient.

She suggests that the administration's conduct reflects not merely disagreement with judges but a willingness to evade, challenge, or undermine judicial constraints. The article closes with Judge Reyes's observation that a federal judge was receiving death threats over a golf course, underscoring Marcus's view that a seemingly local dispute has become part of a national struggle over the rule of law and the balance of powers.

In One Sentence

Marcus argues that the East Potomac golf-course controversy is far more than a fight about trees or golf: it is a revealing case study of what she sees as the Trump administration's increasingly confrontational and dismissive stance toward the federal judiciary.

Henry Moore and a Clenched Fist

 

At Kew Gardens recentrly,  I found myself standing for some time before a Henry Moore drawing of trees. So fascinated was I, that I forgot to check the title of the drawing, or when it was made.  But in it,  dark trunks rose from a tangled mass of roots, their forms twisting and straining against a pale background. It was an arresting image, full of weight and movement, but at first I saw nothing more than trees.

Then something changed.. On the left-hand side of the drawing, a root or branch suddenly appeared as a human arm ending in a clenched fist.

I had not been looking for it. The image simply emerged, and once seen it became difficult to ignore. The obvious question was whether Moore intended it or not. The trouble for me was,  that neither answer seemed satisfactory.

If he intended it, the fist becomes little more than a hidden symbol waiting to be discovered. If he did not, I was  tempted to dismiss it as coincidence. Yet neither explanation reflects the experience of standing before the drawing. The fist seemed meaningful, but not in the straightforward way that a symbol is meaningful. It appeared to belong naturally to the drawing itself, as though it had grown there among the roots and branches.

I have read and understood, that Moore spent a lifetime studying natural forms. He was fascinated by bones, stones, roots, landscapes and the human body. I am told, that what interested him was not simply how things looked, but the forces that shaped them: growth, weight, balance, pressure and movement.

Perhaps that is why the fist is so difficult to explain. The same underlying tensions that shape a tree also shape a human arm. A form may emerge in the creative process that belongs fully to neither category and yet is involved in both. But I guess what interests me,  is not whether this explanation is correct. It is that the drawing presented me with something that I think neither artist nor the viewer can finally account for.

We often assume that a work of art expresses something already known to the artist. But perhaps creation sometimes reveals something not consciously known beforehand. Forms emerge whose significance cannot be reduced either to intention or accident. 

I cannot know whether Moore saw the arm and the fist as I saw it.  I cannot know whether he intended it. Nor can I fully explain why they appeared so suddenly and so convincingly before my own eyes. All I know is that it is there.

Gram Parsons: Early Songs

 

Here on my record player is Another Side of This Life: The Lost Recordings of Gram Parsons 1965-1966, It is collection of early home and demo recordings that were not released until 2000. These tracks capture Parsons before he became famous with the International Submarine Band, The Byrds, and The Flying Burrito Brothers.  

The album  reveals a different Gram Parsons from the one most people know. Instead of the country-rock pioneer, here is a young musician deeply rooted in the mid-1960s folk revival. Most of the recordings feature Parsons alone with an acoustic guitar, performing a mixture of folk standards, contemporary songs by writers such as Fred Neil, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Tim Hardin, together with several of his own compositions. 

Highlights are the early versions of Parsons originals such as"Brass Buttons","November Nights", and"I Just Can't Take It Anymore", where you can already hear the lyrical melancholy that would later define his classic work.  

Not a studio masterpiece, then,  in the way that Sweetheart of the Rodeo or Grievous Angel are. But it is a fascinating historical document: a glimpse of Gram Parsons in the process of becoming Gram Parsons.

Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan: Multitudes and Hard Rain

 With the growing sense of political insecurity around the world, a song that came back to me today was Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. [ Lyrics here >>> ]

Written in 1962, at a time of Cold War anxiety and growing fears of nuclear confrontation, it has always been a song  foreboding. Its successive verses sweep across a landscape of human suffering, violence, deception and impending disaster. 

A young man is asked where he has been, what he has seen and heard, and what he will do now. His answers come in a succession of extraordinary images: a newborn baby surrounded by wolves, a black branch dripping with blood, a room full of men with bleeding hammers, a dozen dead oceans. It is as though the whole troubled world has been gathered into one terrible vision.

I remember reading Dylan's own explanation of the song in the sleeve notes to his 1963 album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I've looked at them again just now. He described it as a "desperate kind of song", explaining that every line was really the beginning of another song. He had thought there might not be enough time left in which to write all those songs, so he had put everything he could into this one. It is a remarkable statement, and perhaps the key to understanding the song's extraordinary density. It is as though Dylan felt compelled to gather the fragments of a whole world into a single piece of writing, before the opportunity to do so disappeared.

The song is often associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, but Dylan had already performed it publicly at Carnegie Hall on 22 September, before the crisis began. It was born of a wider atmosphere of anxiety, rather than being a direct response to that particular event. But I suppose my early teens memories conflate the two things, getting to know of the song during that particular crisis.

Much later in life I came across  Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, written almost a century earlier. [ Poem here >>> ] Whitman, too, seems possessed by the need to include everything. His great poem moves through people, occupations, landscapes, bodies, cities, animals, suffering and celebration. Nothing seems too ordinary or too remote to find a place within it. The poet's self expands until it becomes a vehicle for the experience of others. His famous declaration, "I am large, I contain multitudes", might almost serve as a motto for the whole undertaking.

And elsewhere he offers a wonderfully simple expression of the connection between individual and humanity:

"For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

Whitman writes –

Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,
Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish,
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey...

The repeated ‘Where’ is important. It has something of the accumulating rhythm of Dylan's repeated ‘I saw’ and ‘I heard’.

Thus the same rhythms and ideas are  in Dylan, although his method and his mood are very different. His song is structured around a simple, repeated question: "Where have you been, my blue-eyed son?" What follows is not a straightforward account of a journey, but a gathering of images, impressions and encounters. The answers seem to encompass the accumulated experience of a troubled world. Where Whitman embraces the multitudes, Dylan's traveller seems almost overwhelmed by what he has witnessed.

Both writers, however, are attempting to make the individual voice large enough to accommodate the world beyond it. Whitman's response is an affirmation of human variety and interconnectedness. Dylan's is a more anxious testimony, a record of violence, suffering and foreboding. Yet both seem to share the feeling that there is more to be said than any ordinary poem or song can comfortably contain.

Whitman embraces the world, with all its contradictions, in an almost boundless celebration of existence. Dylan's vision is darker, more urgent and more fragmented. His world is one in which the accumulated evidence of human folly and cruelty seems to be approaching some final reckoning.

Whose work, I ask, is more pertinent today?  I hope beyond hope that it is Whitman’s. And yet, we live with an almost continuous procession of images of conflict, displacement, political confrontation and environmental destruction. The news arrives in fragments, each demanding our attention, yet somehow contributing to a larger and more troubling picture. We struggle to comprehend the whole.

Dylan's song does something that the daily news cannot. It takes these fragments and gives them a shape, a rhythm and a voice. The repeated question, "Where have you been?" and the answer that follows become something like a testimony. The singer has travelled through the landscape of his time and returned with what he has witnessed. He cannot explain it all, or resolve it, but he can bear witness to it. It's what song and poetry is for.

Footnote:

In Noces à Tipasa (from his 1938 collection of lyrical essays Noces), Albert Camus explores a direct, physical communion with the natural world, famously writing: "Il y a un temps pour vivre et un temps pour témoigner de vivre" ("There is a time to live and a time to testify to living")

• Camus says, in effect: first live; then bear witness; then create.

• Whitman suggests that to live fully is already to participate in the lives of others.

• Dylan asks what to do when what we have witnessed is so terrible, that it demands to be communicated.

For another day ....

Cranham Grasslands and the "Missing Link"

Yesterday, I drove with my wife to meet friends in the picturesque Gloucestershire village of Cranham. It was eventful, as we had not reckoned with the recent new diversions for traffic on the A417. For sure, we had seen before, the extraordinary works going on - the so-called Missing Link (Air Balloon) development - as we have travelled these Gloucestershire roads many times. But somehow, this time, we found ourselves perplexed and delayed by the new diversions, which were taking traffic to new sections of the development, whilst work could be carried out on the areas familiar to us over time.

The village of Cranham is about 7 miles driving distance, (roughly 14 minutes by car) northwest of the former Air Balloon roundabout area. This is immediately adjacent to parts of the wider A417 Missing Link development boundary. Nearby locations are Cranham Wood and Buckholt Road.

In our visit, when we finally arrived and settled into our time with our friends, we discovered that the common at Cranham at the heart of the village is one of a number of very special “unimproved grassland” commons on limestone soil in the Cotswolds.

These ancient grasslands are rich habitats for wildflowers, butterflies, bees and many more creatures. In the 1930’s, unimproved limestone grassland covered 40% of the Cotswolds area. Now it covers just 1.5% – which is over half of the UK’s total remaining Jurassic unimproved limestone grassland.   We also learned that the rich  and unique diversity of this grassland is lost when it is “improved” for farming by reseeding and fertilising.

When we discovered all this,  I immediately thought of the effects of those extraordinary earthworks we had negotiated a couple of hours before.

 The A417 “Missing Link” — What Is Being Built Across the Cotswold Escarpment?

The enormous roadworks visible around the A417 between Gloucester and Cirencester are part of the A417 Missing Link (Air Balloon) project. It is one of the largest road schemes currently being undertaken in the Cotswolds.

What  a bewildering collection of earthworks, new roads, temporary routes and roundabouts! I have discovered that this is in fact the construction of an almost entirely new strategic road across the Cotswold escarpment.

The essential purpose is to replace the notorious single-carriageway section of the A417 with a safer, more reliable and substantially better-engineered route.

So, I have had a look at the details of it all. I try not to be too hasty in condemning the destruction of yet more of the Cotswolds' natural habitats. Although from the outset, it is clear from research that The Missing Link does indeed concrete over some of the Cotswolds' precious remaining calcareous grassland. This includes a significant proportion of the unimproved grassland within the scheme boundary.

In compensation, the project proposes to create a far larger area of species-rich calcareous grassland and to connect habitats through ecological corridors and a green bridge. The numerical biodiversity balance is therefore strongly positive on paper. 

But the ecological question is not simply one of acreage: newly created grassland cannot immediately possess the history, soil ecology, species communities and maturity of established unimproved limestone grassland.

The true success of the scheme will therefore depend upon whether the new habitats survive, mature and become genuinely species-rich over the decades ahead.

When someone walks across these hills fifty years from now, will they see a road that damaged an already-fragmented Cotswold landscape — or a road around which a new and genuinely flourishing limestone-grassland landscape was successfully created?

The new eco-bridge imagined

I plan to expand this piece when time allows.

The Distance Between Knowledge and Wisdom

I had cause today to remember the September of 37 years ago. It marked the end of my year studying Computer Science at the then Hatfield Polytechnic, now the University of Hertfordshire. I came across the bound copy of my dissertation, in another one of those clear-outs of which I find myself engaged in at spare moments these days.

This master’s thesis of mine discussed data modelling. My eyes lit upon a passage which highlighted distinctions among data, information and  knowledge .

I asked myself today – I guess I could have gone the distance and included wisdom? Data - Information-Knowledge-Wisdom. That’s the journey.

Was I not influenced by these lines from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Choruses from the Rock’?

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

And why did I not make that final step? Or even at the time recall the poetry?

I guess an explanation lies in the intense nature of that academic year. I was entirely immersed in a field that valued technical accuracy over any kind of philosophical  reflection – though for sure I was meeting folk with minds which could do both, and more!  

Success for me meant defining systems that were functional, bounded, and demonstrably competent. Wisdom—with its fluidity and resistance to rigid schemas—simply did not fit into those data types and  engineering equations I was encountering.

In the decades before and since those days at Hatfield, I have  regularly revisited  T.S. Eliot’s poetry.   I guess the master's degree taught me to focus on  how to assemble information, but the years before and since have been a slow, necessary journey towards trying to understand what is worth keeping.

Powhatan Pines Remembered

 At this end of summer, I remember the summer of 1973, when I had a few months in the USA,  working on a summer camp by Pleasant Lake in Oxford, Maine. I worked on general maintenance, and shared a gallery room in a set of wooden buildings with 4 other guys, all of whom were fun and energetic and all a little crazy. There were other random rooms for others, including for the girls, and a communal area for meals and shenanigans. We all got to know each other pretty well through shared work and lake-borne activity. It was fun. But as with all these adventures, there is that 'end of summer' sense when things close off and are left behind. Here are a couple of diary notes which I've recently revisited. 

I found a little poem. I do not know who wrote it. But it echoed a feeling. 

And, after all those new-found friends had gone away at the season's end, I sat alone and wrote this ditty:

Powhatan Pines – Going Home

She sat on a box with her things in
Strumming an old guitar
Pamela her mind on yesterday
Pamela you'll be a star.

And Helen goodbye, I'll not say it
Just wish you well now I'm alone
You'll be fine all the way down to New York
With your song a song I have known.

Merle what a Pearl and you know it
With  your red Dexter shirt and your hair -
It has grown in the weeks I have known you
Will you change or grow old, do you care?

Will you ever stop Greg with your bitching
At Julie and Sherri and the gang?
Will Glenn help you out 'cause he's younger?
Shall you let him like the rest go hang?

And Dave, friend Dave, can you leave me
Here with this axe in my hand?
Is today the real day you see clearly?

Will today see you making a stand?

We stood in these groups, and all chatted
We felt free for the first time in weeks
Our farewells rang around in the pine trees
And the future was ready to speak.

What has it been this long dream that we've been through?
Was it real now I sit on my own?
It is strange in Powhatan without you:
We made summer and now we're alone.

She sat on a box with her things in
She was strumming an old guitar
Pamela my mind is there with you
Pamela you'll make me a star.

Resisting any further possible  descent into mawkishness, here's how I best remember that room and its inhabitants....

Merle , Glenn , Greg, Dave L-R

... and I did not mention 'Chef', whose name I've either forgotten, or perhaps only knew as 'Chef'. He would  greet me every day at breakfast, or any time he emerged from the kitchen : "Hey, Churchill! How ya doin'?"

'Chef' at work - I think that's Sherri in the background...

Always reminded me of my 'Britishness'...

Footnote:

Powhatan Pines / Camp Powhatan on Pleasant Lake, Oxford, Maine was run by  the Bloom family from 1921 - 1996. I remember Joel Bloom, who employed me. He was  a kindly man, open and generous. Though the Bloom era is long gone, the camp facilities themselves are still actively used for summer camps today.

Tribute to Dolly Parton

 

In 1969, Dolly Parton released a song called "Little Bird." It contains these lines.

Beauty is a rare perfume
Precious, yet doesn't last long
Youth is but a playful breeze
That blows our way once then moves on

It's a song about longing, and making peace with the fact of our own mortality. People such as Dolly Parton are heroic:  they carry such wisdom at a young age, and then live a life which blossoms in spite of - or rather, because of - such wisdom.

Christian Perspectives on Biblical Eschatology and the Land of Israel

A recent Church of England Synod debate caused me to focus on  the Biblical narrative interpretations which  see of the coming of Christ contingent on the full occupation of the land of Israel by God’s chosen people. Here are some explorations.

The decision by the Church of England’s General Synod on Monday, July 13, 2026, to pass motion GS 2451A has highlighted a deep, long-standing rift in the Church —both political and theological.

The motion called on the Church of England to stand in solidarity with Palestinian Christians and to "hear" the Kairos Palestine documents—including a highly controversial update published in late 2025, known as Kairos II (A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide). [ See here  Opens in new tab]

Brought forward by the Carlisle Diocese, the original text aimed to 'receive' the Kairos Palestine documents. After amendments, the final wording indeed shifted to 'hear' and to engage with these accounts as reflections of local Christian suffering under occupation. [ See here Opens in new tab] 

To understand what is happening, we have to look at two distinct areas: the immediate political and interfaith controversy surrounding the Synod's decision, and the underlying theological conflict between Palestinian Christians and Western 'Christian Zionists.'

The General Synod motion GS 2451A explicitly received the documents authored over time by Palestinian Christians, including Kairos Palestine Declaration (2009), Cry for Hope (2020), Call for Repentance (2023), and Kairos Palestine II (2025) all as 'heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians.'   For Palestinian Christians, these documents are a theological cry from within suffering, a plea for global Christian solidarity, a non‑violent call for justice and a  description of occupation as a moral and spiritual crisis.

The challenge came from some UK Jewish organisations and interfaith bodies who objected to the Church of England receiving these documents. 

The debate in the Synod was intense because of two sharply competing perspectives: 

The Concerns of the Critics (Jewish Leaders & Some Synod Members)

We read in the Jerusalem Post that critics, including UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, pointed out that the Kairos II document uses highly inflammatory language. It describes the State of Israel as a 'colonial enterprise built on racism' and repeatedly accuses it of "genocide".

A major point of anger was that Kairos II downplays the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, describing them as 'born out of decades of injustice' and affirming the 'right of a people under occupation to resist'. Critics argue this contradicts the Synod’s stated support for non-violent resistance.

Meanwhile, other opponents - including members of The Board of Deputies of British Jews -  argued that the document utilizes 'supersessionist' concepts (the idea that the Christian Church has entirely replaced Israel in God's covenant) and erases the deep, historical, and religious connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The Perspective of Supporters (Palestinian Christians & Church Leadership)

Proponents, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, argued that the Christian population in the Holy Land is facing an existential crisis. They argued that the Church must 'hear' the raw pain, displacement, and daily suffering of indigenous Christians under military occupation.

'Hearing' is not 'Endorsing': The Archbishop of Canterbury and others clarified that to hear the lived experiences of Palestinian Christians does not mean the Church of England agrees with every political or theological statement in the Kairos documents.

The Compromise

To pass the motion, the Synod changed the wording from 'receiving' the documents to 'hearing' them, while adding strong, explicit clauses rejecting antisemitism, condemning anti-Muslim hostility, and lamenting the loss of both Israeli and Palestinian lives.

Here is a summary: [ PDF: Opens in new tab ]

Why We Should Care?

Do people really understand the fundamentals of these problems?

Palestinian Christians argue that Christian Zionism turns the Bible into a 'weapon' and a real estate manual. They believe that any theology, seemingly based on the Bible... that legitimises the occupation, is far from Christian teachings because it reduces God's universal love to a narrow, tribal, political programme. 

The debate around Dispensationalist belief systems has been intermittently on my radar since late 1960s days and my first real engagement with Bible Believing Evangelicals. I suppose it comes down in simple terms to this : Jesus' words to Pontius Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). 

So indeed,  an interpretation of these words helps us to consider the notion, that the Kingdom of God cannot be tied to a modern secular nation-state or militaristic borders. But it is also important to understand the post-reformation revivals of Old Testament land-promises which refuse to go away, and which inflame the debate and of course the tragedy. 

That is where the debate among Christians continues to focus. And for sure, in these  fractious times where events in the Middle East are focussing many minds into a cauldron of protest and anger, needs to be presented to the wider world of non-Christians  in easily received and understood shape. Did these discussions do that, I wonder?

Here is an attempt to map the various interpretations of Biblical narrative  more closely. It is likely that some of this is contentious. But my purpose is to present the complexities.

Christian Perspectives on Biblical Eschatology and the Land of Israel
 (Click/Tap to enlarge)

 

Question	Amillennialism	Premillennialism	Postmillennialism	Christian Zionism
Central conviction?	Christ reigns now; the Millennium is the present Church age.	Christ returns before a literal thousand-year reign on earth.	The Gospel gradually transforms the world before Christ returns.	God's covenant with Israel remains in force, including the land promises, which continue to shape world history.
How are God's promises to Abraham fulfilled?	Fulfilled in Christ and ultimately in the New Heaven and New Earth.	Fulfilled literally for ethnic Israel during the Millennium and then in the New Creation.	Fulfilled through Christ's worldwide Kingdom, culminating in the New Creation.	The covenant promises, especially the land, remain for the Jewish people and are being fulfilled in history.
Does the modern State of Israel have prophetic significance?	No.	Usually yes.	Usually no.	Yes. The establishment of Israel in 1948 is widely regarded as a significant prophetic event.
Should the Jewish people possess the biblical land?	Not as a prophetic requirement.	Yes, as part of God's future plan.	Generally not regarded as a prophetic necessity.	Yes. Many support Jewish sovereignty over the biblical land because they believe Scripture teaches it.
Will there be a future Temple?	No. Christ fulfils the Temple.	Often yes (views differ).	Generally no.	Frequently yes, particularly among dispensational writers.
Will Christ reign from earthly Jerusalem?	No. Christ reigns now from heaven.	Yes, during the Millennium.	No. Christ reigns from heaven until His return.	Yes, following His return.
Status of the land after Christ returns	Israel becomes one part of the renewed creation along with every nation.	Israel retains a distinctive role during the Millennium before the New Heaven and New Earth.	The renewed earth becomes the inheritance of all God's people.	Usually follows the premillennial understanding.
Political implications today	Seeks justice, peace and equal dignity for Israelis and Palestinians; no unique theological status for the modern state.	Often sympathetic to Israel because of future prophecy while differing on contemporary political questions.	Varies considerably; emphasis is usually on Gospel witness and justice among the nations.	Strong support for Israel's security and often for its claims to territory associated with the biblical promises.
Who ultimately inherits the Promised Land? (The underlying theological question)	Christ and all who belong to Him inherit the whole renewed creation. The Promised Land foreshadows the New Heaven and New Earth.	Ethnic Israel inherits the Promised Land literally under Christ's Millennial reign before the New Heaven and New Earth.	Christ's Kingdom extends over the whole earth, so the inheritance becomes universal rather than centred on one nation.	The Jewish people retain a continuing covenantal relationship to the Promised Land as part of God's ongoing purposes in history, while its final destiny is completed in Christ's eternal Kingdom.
Representative Christian voices today	Many Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed churches, and many Palestinian Christians (including those associated with the Kairos Palestine movement).	Historic Premillennialists and many Evangelicals (especially those who are not dispensational).	Some Reformed churches, Presbyterian traditions, and Christian Reconstructionists.	Many Evangelicals influenced by Dispensational theology, especially in North America, together with a growing number of Christians worldwide who believe the modern State of Israel has continuing biblical significance.

All five perspectives affirm that Jesus Christ will return, evil will finally be defeated, there will be a resurrection of the dead and a final judgment, and God will create a New Heaven and a New Earth in which righteousness dwells. The disagreement concerns how God's promises to Israel are fulfilled, not whether Christ is Lord of history.

Final Sobering Thought for Now

None of this has discussed the wider perspective of the fundamental ideological, historic, political and theological problems from the perspective of Islam.  

Church Green, Waiting for Rain

It has been said often that there are times when the familiar suddenly becomes unfamiliar.

This is Church Green in Witney. I took the picture after almost two months of summer heat and scarcely a drop of rain. That  great sweep of grass, normally such a reassuring green, has been bleached to the colour of straw. An English town green  waiting for water.

Yet the trees around it have held their colour. Their deep green foliage frames the dry expanse, while the benches sit quietly at the edges, as though waiting for the Green to become itself again.

But above this exhausted landscape, dark clouds are gathering. A patch of blue remains visible beyond them, and sunlight still catches the trees and buildings, but the storm is unmistakably approaching. A few hours after I took the picture, the rain finally came, a sharp, welcome shower after weeks of dryness.

It brought to mind, inevitably for me and to the annoyance of friends who remark on my obsession with the poem, the closing section of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. There, after the desolation of the poem's dry landscape, Eliot gives us his  image of the Ganges:

'Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.'

Absurdly disconnected, of course. This is not the Ganges, nor are these clouds gathering over Himavant, the snow-clad mountains of the north. There is nothing here resembling mountains at all. This is Church Green, Witney. There is no sacred river disappearing into the dust, no Himalayan range looming beyond the horizon. There are parked cars, village houses, benches and — somewhere just out of sight — probably a dog waiting for its owner.

And yet Eliot's lines catches  something that this photograph catches too: the strange stillness before rain. There, the Ganga is sunken and the limp leaves wait. Here, the grass is bleached to straw, the trees stand heavy with their leaves, and the clouds gather as in the poem, Crouched, humped in silence. We could be here, or there, or elsewhere*.

* T.S.E - East Coker

The Odyssey, Two Ways: Ezra Pound’s Gothic Remix vs. Christopher Nolan’s IMAX Blockbuster

We’ve all been there: you want to experience one of the fundamental pillars of Western literature, but you only have three hours to spare. And so yes, maybe the  two best options are a modernist poem translated from a 16th-century Latin cheat-sheet, or Christopher Nolan's blockbuster film 'Odyssey'.

I've just seen Christopher Nolan's movie which is doing the rounds just as I am revisiting Ezra Pound's Cantos. I have just read through Canto 1 for the umpteenth time, with reference material to hand to untangle the narrative, the structure, the complexities. Meantime Christopher Nolan's movie does not disappoint when it comes to time-slicing the narrative, but having a handle on the tale means there are no real challenges to following what's in front of us. 

I think I’d speak for most, that  Nolan's Memento,  Inception, Oppenheimer  timelines, and his recent Rose of Nevada, are tricky. But these pale when reading Pound’s Cantos. And from the start,  Canto I , the poem I am focussing on at the moment, is a translation of a Renaissance Latin text by a guy named Andreas Divus. It  masquerades  as a medieval Viking poem, describing an ancient Greek myth. It is a literary nesting doll that probably needs three university degrees and a map to navigate. And it starts with Book 11 of the Odyssey.

Ironically, Nolan’s treatment is actually the straightforward option here, even though he also starts somewhere down the track of the story’s timeline. He doesn’t include the complete complex Pantheon of interfering Olympian gods, doesn’t for example, include the story of  Princess Nausicaa, but presents a pacy, slick survival movie. Sure, he completely rewrites Homer’s ending so Odysseus and Penelope can sail off into a sunset, but at least nobody has to look up what "In officina Wecheli" means in the footnotes.

The opening 45 minutes were compromised by often mumbled dialogue and yes, of course, the accents - these, apart from the somewhat dry exposition to set the scene, made for a slow start. It took a while for the movie to find its stride.

The visual effects are stunning for sure, but I have to say I felt mildly sorry for poor old Polyphemus / Cyclops. He seemed to be minding his own business with his sheep and was being gate-crashed by this band of ne'er do wells!

Nolan, on the other hand, gives us Matt Damon as a deeply traumatised, frowning war veteran, guarding his men as best he can. He doesn't  try to outwit the Cyclops with the famous 'Noman' ruse. The whole Homeric sequence around the encounter is lost. Damon’s Odysseus skips the banter entirely and just shoots Polyphemus as a quid-pro-quo against Polyphemus’ devouring of several of his men . Because nothing says 'ancient mythic cleverness' like a $250 million production budget and tactical archery.

There is currently a much larger argument going on about whether Nolan has understood Homer at all. Emily Wilson, whose translation apparently influenced Nolan, has been extremely critical of the film's psychological, emotional and ethical depth. [ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man ] Maybe it’s true that Nolan turns  Odysseus into a conventional tortured protagonist and diminishes some of the qualities — cunning, charm, complexity — that make Homer's Odysseus distinctive.  But this, after all, is an epic movie built to entertain and surprise: most folk know what to expect of the standard epic movie format.

So in that format, to find an authentic emotional centre can be tricky. I guess my sympathy for Polyphemus was unexpected, but there is something almost unbearably economical about the scene where the dog Argos recognises Odysseus on his return. Nobody else recognises him. His wife Penelope does not; his son Telemachus does not; the household is full of suitors who certainly don't.  Argos has simply waited all these years, and his purpose is fulfilled. The dog is lying neglected on a heap of dung, old, dirty and covered with ticks. He has been abandoned since his master went away. We are told he has outlived his dog-years in this waiting.  Odysseus sees him but must conceal his identity, so he cannot embrace him or even openly acknowledge him. And then Argos lifts his head. He knows. That tiny act of recognition is all that is needed. Odysseus is finally home, and someone — the creature who has been waiting longest and has nothing to gain from his return — knows him immediately. And so we have that moment: a little movement of Argos’ head, no music required. Argos dies as soon as he has seen his master again.

( So, no Emily Wilson, I do not salute your chattering hardness of spirit: 'My eyes stayed dry, even for Argos the dog – whose adorableness as a puppy is predictably amped up to suit our animal-loving times.')

So, back to Ezra Pound: If you prefer your classics served up as epic modernist poetry with heavy Anglo-Saxon alliteration and a side of 16th-century publishing history, Pound is your man. But if you want to see a grim, hyper-realistic Matt Damon battle mayhem and  monsters on the largest screen imaginable, stick to Nolan.

Either way, Homer gets a co-screenwriting credit—though his estate probably hasn't seen many New Directions royalty cheques and  isn't seeing as  much as a penny of that billion-dollar box-office return.

 

Dog Days at Blenheim Palace

 

Blenheim Palace has always known how to do scale. The lake, the bridge, the palace - everything is a model  of certainty —  a choreography to make you feel small in a way that’s oddly steadying. After many visits in recent years, I find what I enjoy most isn’t the architecture, the exhibitions – enjoyable as they are  -  or indeed the increasing profile at the palace which reminds visitors of  the life of Winston Churchill. It’s the walking. It is the sense that the estate understands that  people come not just for spectacle but for that recalibration which happens when you move through open space. Even among the crowds in high summer, there seems, as today in scorching heat, to be plenty of space

Blenheim Palace in 2025

On several such walks together with my wife, we make sure we visit the Secret Garden. This was created in 1954 by 10th Duke of Marlborough and is designed as a quiet oasis of winding paths, gentle water features and sheltered corners. It has its own character among the many attractions in and around the palace’s 2000 acres. It was initially, a private space for the Duke and his family.

In recent times, the garden had  become  overgrown, but these days  pathways have been reopened, new ponds added and the garden has been  shared with visitors since  2004. More recent restoration has seen the garden flourish into a space for all seasons.

Lately, a new addition has arrived, in the shape of a sculpture of a black dog, a Labrador, with an explanatory sign at its feet.

Winston in the Secret Garden (Click/Tap to enlarge)

And Blenheim has form when it comes to dogs. The International Churchill Society notes that the palace once kept “some eighty servants…on hand to cope with a large dog population,” and that Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough, was said to have turned the place into “a kennel.” [ See here - opens in new tab]. It’s an almost comic image — spaniels flowing through the corridors like a living tide. We can imagine that dogs have long shaped the emotional atmosphere here, offering chaos or quiet company.

So what of this incarnation?

The new plaque beside the Black Dog sculpture has the explanation. It talks about depression without drama, without the heavy-handedness that so often clings to public messaging. It simply acknowledges that mood has weight, and that walking through Blenheim’s 2000 acres of shifting light can help redistribute it. If you know the Black Dog, you’ll recognise the tone immediately. If you don’t, it’s a gentle reminder that its arrival is always possible, always human.

(Tap/Click to enlarge and read)

Churchill famously referred to his recurring periods of depression as his "Black Dog." Whether or not he coined the phrase (it was already an established expression), he made it part of the public understanding of his inner struggles. Today the "Black Dog" has become one of the best-known metaphors for depression.

The Black Dog feels right here as a companionable presence in a garden built for quietness. The setting becomes something which acknowledges dark moods without spectacle, a shadow that can sit beside you while the leaves shift overhead. Here the Black Dog can stand, neither feared nor romanticised. Here a dog waits patiently by the path not primarily as  a symbol of depression, but as a guide beyond it. Sometimes the first step towards recovery is simply to take the dog for a walk.