FINISHED READING - Lower Than The Angels by Diarmaid MacCulloch

I was really looking forward to getting my head between the pages of this volume. As with so many of Diarmaid MacCulloch's books, it is quite a substantial rifling though of the history of Christianity's rather hesitant, then proscriptive, then punishing, then moderating, to provaricating attitude towards the whole area of sex, marriage, same sex relations etc. MacCulloch guides us through it all. There's a definite air of him thoroughly enjoying the writing of this one. The sentences and expressiveness is considerably more spritely and spikey. His humour more cuttingly on show, with wonderfully wry, and on occasions very dry, passing comments. So, besides being a revelation on the various volte faces of the Christian attitude towards sex, it also investigates it's uneasy handling of gender, particularly the oppressive way it has dealt with the feminine or anything it considers transgressive of moral norms.

Christianity was initial reluctant to intervene in marriage, what happened within it was originally considered a private matter. That became over the centuries increasingly proscriptive. It took the Catholic Church twelve hundred years before it took complete control of the whole marriage procedure.  Marriage became promoted as a means to legitimise the act of procreating the species. Sex for any other reason. for fun for instance, was to be downplayed, or even frowned upon. Encouraging married couples to practise chastity the rest of the time. This links it with the issue of a celibate priesthood, also a late development. The transition in medieval times from having married clergy to a solo celibate priest, was, as you can imagine, pretty messy. It required a lot of chaste relationships whilst the 'aberattion' of previous decades slowly vanished. Clergy and monastics were now meant to exemplify a more 'angelic' way of living to their congregation. Because angels, as every one understood, were asexual or non sexual beings. Though quite how they so firmly established that fact is left mythically vague.

In the middle of all this is a mischievous little paragraph about Pope Gregory :-

"Before Gregory became Pope, he was struck by the good looks of some English boys or youths who, Bede says, were being sold as slaves in Rome. Enquiring where they came from and being told that they were 'Angli', Gregory commented that the name was appropriate to those with angelic faces, and he varied that cheerful thought in a clutch of further devout Latin puns. Traditionally Gregory's reported literary playfulness has been summed up in a misquotation as 'Angli sed angeli': 'Not Angles, but angels.' Perhaps the agreeable neatness of the pun has allowed the survival of a story which, if reframed as ' Pope, impressed by beauty of young enslaved males, launches mission', might not meet modern safeguarding standards in the methods of evangelism."

When he comes to examine homosexuality MacCulloch unearths some interesting facts. Mediterranean attitudes in the South were generally permissive towards same sex relationships, whilst northern countries tended to be more proscriptive. Though Christianity has been greatly enamoured by the works of Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, they became deeply shocked to discover their blatant homosexuality. This fact they studiously edited out of copies of these philosopher's work for centuries. Even words, and to whom they are applied can also suddenly pivot.

"There is nevertheless no doubt that 'effeminacy' also completely reversed its meaning as a description, previously, Catholics had mocked Tudor Protestant bishops as 'effeminate'  for their excessive interest in women, rather as John Chrysostom had mocked male partners in chaste heterosexual relationships. A century after the Reformation, the same mockery was applied for the same reason to England's Charles 2nd, that most ebulliently heterosexual of monarchs, so the subsequent switch in meanings after 1700 was very sudden. The new eighteenth century stereotype of the theatrically effeminate homosexual has had a long life; it remains a source both of mockery and of proud gay self-assertion in masculinised heterosexual cultures."

MacCulloch also reveals how even the term 'heterosexual', if examined etymologically, implies an indiscriminate romping across a wide range of the feminine, in and outside of marriage. Literally anything female will do. So, no monogamy there then.  When it comes to trans issues, there are numerous examples of men and women throughout history living as the opposite sex, without that ever becoming an issue with the generally knowing broader population. He resurrects the life of St Wilgefortis as an iconographic example:-

" The bizarre legend and devotional iconography of St Wilgefortis (Uncumber), who had grown a beard in order to escape the threat of a non-Christian marriage and as punishment had been crucified. She/they developed a cult among unhappy wives, and, despite official unsainting by Rome in 1969, Wilgefortis has attracted a new constituency of non-binary interest today."

It does seem that the dual arrival in the 18th century of The Enlightenment, and John Wesley's street evangelism, appeared to trigger a tightening of the moral opprobrium around same sex relationships, and even the more widespread, supposedly deleterious effects of masturbation upon morals. Initially it was unclear from which moral stand point The Enlightenment stood regarding science, sex and it's diversity. Taking far too seriously obvious charlatans like Mary Todd who claimed they have given birth to several rabbits. 

As the narrative moves to more recent times, he charts the difficult arising of the abolition of slavery, women's emancipation, contemporary concerns about abortion and homosexuality, that now include trans issues. The latter three appearing to exist in parallel opprobrium within Fundamentalist Christianity. The propensity for Christianity to move the biblical goal posts when it suits, is exemplified by an attempt to answer the question Why Jesus makes no mention of homosexuality at all in his teachings? The answer apparently was very simple, so the theologians proudly stated; before God's son could be born into the world, the Lord Almighty had eradicated all gay people from the world. It's a neat duck, but a laughably fallacious later concoction. 

In modern times political adoption of Christianity becomes similarly slippery with the actual facts. Putin often borrows the moral cloak of Russian Orthodoxy when it suits his political agenda.  When he was invading Ukraine, he claimed the Donbas region were asking to be saved from 'gay parades 'which as MacCulloch remarks had not previously been ' notably part of Ukrainian President Zelensky's declared military strategy.' Contemporary right wing Christians fail to reflect on their own religion's history with regard to sex, marriage and the family. That for the first millennium it was dominated by the pursuit of an 'angelic' celibacy, and only after the Reformation did bolstering the family unit become a central thrust of its ministry. Plus a long history of campaigning for more compassionate responses towards those who are poor, or minorities being oppressed or abused.

" My observation of the discussion of sexual morality during six decades of ecclesiastical life and politics has been that self-styled traditionalists rarely know enough about the traditions that they proclaim; conservatives do not fully admit to themselves or to others what it is they are trying to conserve, and why they are trying to conserve it. It is important when demolishing myths from the past not to create new ones to justify the present."

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

PROTEST & PROGRESS - Kett's Rebellion

My purpose in writing this Protest & Progress blog post, is to explore for myself the history of English Protest Movements. What effect they had, and the changes they may ( or may not ) have instigated. Today, it's the Kett's Rebellion.

1549 - THE KETT'S REBELLION
Once the dissolution of the monasteries finally concluded in 1541, the question was, what happens to the vast landholding, the estates of these institutions? Henry 8th required cash more than land. He used former monastic land as capital to pay for his extravagances and palace building, but also as bribery to secure the allegiance of the nobility. There was a form of competitive tendering going on between landowners to obtain the prime richest most fertile bits of monastic farmland. This legitimised land grab took place right across the country. Illegal enclosure of common pasture had been going on for centuries, slowly nibbling away at its edges, undermining the very principle of commonly held pasture. And though officially such enclosures were illegal, unofficially a blind eye was taken towards them. Particular by those who made the law and it's enforcement, who were often the chief infringers of it. After a few years, who would remember it was once land set aside for peasants to graze their animals on?

East Anglia had still not reached the peak of its wool and weaving boom, that had turned it into one of the richest counties in England. Post the dissolution illegal enclosures were rife here. Agriculture which had been such an integral part of those institutions economic support system, was now in crisis. Without common land peasants had no where else to graze their livestock on. Large landowners forced tenant farmers off their land in order to incorporate it into their ever enlarging estates. Converting arable pasture into land suitable for raising sheep on, which was an incredibly profitable move. The whole 'wool' economy was now in danger of over heating, inflation and unemployment were rising, just as real wages were plummeting. With these sort of economic conditions a revolt of some sort was inevitable.

Tempers frayed and broke first in Wymondham in July 1549. In the previous month the lord of the manor in near by Attenborough has suddenly erected fences around common pasture land. These had angrily been torn down by local peasantry. Convinced they were acting within the law, because Edmund Seymour, The Lord Protector of the child King Edward 6th, had recently issued a proclamation declaring the illegality of such enclosures. After holding a celebration in what remained of monastic Wymondham Abbey, they marched over to two nearby villages, intent on removing fencing around common pasture, erected by Sir John Flowerdew, who'd overseen the dissolution at Wymondham. Showing a degree of malevolent cunning, Flowerdew bribed these rioters to go and attack his neighbour Robert Kett's enclosed land, and to leave his alone.

Robert Kett was fifty seven, a man from an old Wymondham farming family. He had been central in the saving of the Abbey Church for use by the town, which had put him in direct conflict with Sir John Flowerdew. To his credit, he recognised the grievances the rebels expressed, joined them and tore down his own fences and those of Flowerdew. Once Kett launched himself into full support of the rebellion, other villages and towns did likewise. They headed in ever great numbers towards Mousehold Heath, that looks down on the River Wensum and the City of Norwich. For the next six weeks the camp on the heath continued growing in size. Forming its own rudimentary council to run the camp and the campaign, beneath what came to be called Kett's Oak of Reformation. 

Here they drew up a petition to deliver to the Protector Somerset, outlining twenty nine demands. Only one of those specifically related to the enclosure of common land. But most of the others were a mixture of semi- related concerns - limiting the interference of the gentry, particularly in relation to the villages, restraining the pace of change, the over exploiting of communal land and resources, reshaping the values of the clergy, a rent reduction and punishing corrupt officials. All the while fences across East Anglia around enclosures were being riotously dismantled. Eventually the rebels moved to take control of Norwich itself. This was the point when armed regiments began to arrive in ever increasing force, to free the city from rebel capture. A battle outside the city walls in August 1549, brought the rebellion to a brutal end. Huge numbers of rebels were hung from an entrance gate to the city.  Kett was arrested and taken to the Tower of London, eventually to return to be hung from the walls of Norwich Castle in December, as an exemplary warning.

Initially the King's ministers made a great deal of negative propaganda out of 'the sins' of this rebellion. But over the subsequent centuries what Kett achieved during this rebellion transformed him into a folk hero. The level of organised opposition to the status quo, is what is most exemplary here. Rebels basically set up their own alternative ruling jurisdiction, with its own codes of behaviour. Nothing like this had been seen before in popular rebellions, which is why the authorities became so rattled. They did nothing to meet or appease the rebel demands, but came down hard upon them. 

What this rebellion demonstrated was that the English countryside was in the midst of huge social changes, after the monasteries were destroyed. All they we're really asking for was for these upheavals to be managed better, the land grab to stop, and the needs of the common people to be taken into account. The entire way society was run needed urgent social, economic and religious reform. Kett's Rebellion was the first indication that the emerging Protestant religious reformation and more radical political ideologies were in the early stages of becoming entwined.

Next Episode - Uncivil & Civil War

ART 'N' AB ART - Legacy - Brenda Unwin & Sarah Caputo - Cromer Art Space Exhibition

Cromer Art Space exhibitions have been, in terms of artistic quality at least, a bit erratic this year. I read the synopsis for this one, looked at the photo in the programme and my thoughts tended towards dismissive.  It bore, so I thought, all the hallmarks of a worthy theme, whose artworks might turn out to be underwhelming as an experience. But, I was completely wrong in making that prejudicial assessment. This is by far the best Art Space exhibition of the 2026 season. And one I'd recommend you try and see before the 27th July, its final day.

It explores the theme legacy through generations of environmental damage to the Norfolk coastal environment, whilst also being, in a variety of innovative ways, an aesthetic experience. Ceramic interlocked curves arranged like sea defenses in a sand pit, cast from collages of found beach objects and drawings etched into its surface, with delicate coloured glazes. Unwin and Caputo often work collaboratively, with ideas bounced between them, whilst each explores through there own preffered medium, whether that be ceramic or printmaking.

So we have large screen printed hangings with angular colourful arrangements of image and text. Walls of a wide range of mono colour Collograph prints composed from plates of found objects and textures.  Fascinating cylindrical casts, like core samples, of objects trapped within plaster, as though frozen in their layers of time and origin. Or part sculptural, part specimen, stacked monoliths  These bore distant echoes of Kurt Schwitters Merz projects where space ended up getting smaller as objects became more deeply buried within its walls.  The elements of time and degradation are rarely missing from the aesthetic here. We have not just recently arrived at this particular point in the climate crisis, it's foundations were laid in the Industrial Revolution.  Our reckless disregard for the effects of our industry upon the natural world is now all too visible in the stratigraphy, in the oceans, and within us.  There is so much in this exhibition that could well require a second visit.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

2026 PLAYLIST No 16 - Alviverde by Jun Miyake & Arto Lindsay

Alviverde by Jun Miyake & Arto Lindsay

If you have seen the film Pina about the work of the choreographer and performer Pina Bauch, you will instantly be familiar with this tune. I , however, re-encountered it recently through my rooting about in Arto Lindsay's back catalogue, and You tube's algorithm did the rest. It is such an addictive tune, underpinned by that spritely double bass riff and the scattering percussive rhythm that dances around it propelling the music onwards. Over the top of this Arto Lindsay does his usual laid back oh so effortlessly cool singing. It is currently on repeat play on my daily music list. 

SCREEN SHOT - Kingdom of Heaven ( 2005 ) Director's Cut

Kingdom of Heaven is a Ridley Scott epic film through and through. This probably contains some of his finest stagings of battle sequences, with a gritty, if not to says sand dusted, aesthetic. This is bold large scale filmmaking, with an attempt at a big story at its core. The original release had nearly an hour cut from it by the distributor, and unsurprisingly people were a bit baffled and non plussed by the film, it didn't quite fully make sense. Very shortly afterwards Ridley Scott released a Director's Cut, which at over three hours in length does give the story more time to breathe properly. There are some brilliant performances from the likes of Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Ghassan Massoud, Eva Green. Plus Brendan Gleeson as a knight who has completely lost his marbles to barbarity, and an admirably restrained Edward Norton is devastating as the leperous King Baldwin.

Balian (Orlando Bloom) is a blacksmith in a nondescript French village. His life has fallen apart with the post partum suicide of his wife. Nothing about his life makes sense for him anymore. A group of Crusader knights pass through. One of them, Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson) turns out to be his Father. He tells him one way to redeem himself from the shameful shadow of his wife's suicide, would be to come with him on crusade. At first refusing. he later gets into an argument with his brother, whom he ends up murdering. He escapes on horse, to catch up with the Crusader knights. He really needs the salvation of the Crusades now.

The Crusades are a fascinating period to attempt to portray through one story. Kingdom of Heaven takes snapshots from the history and tries to deminstrate quite what a moral quagmire the Crusades were. Crusaders often had a very mixed perversion of motives. The character of Balian attempts to keep his volutions pure in a situation that screams at him to be morally compromised by a desire for power, wealth or sex. Sybilla ( Eva Green ) the sister of King Baldwin, is married to a brute of a Templar knight. The evident affection between Balian and Sybilla has to remain suppressed or at least chaste. Sybilla's life is one long suffering series of dutiful actions to protect herself, her brother and her nephew from harm. The ideals of the time were indeed held very high, only for most to inevitably fall hard and short of.

There are then a number of very meaty themes running through this film, which the script does sensitively grapple with, but doesn't always fully give convincing form to them. And if I were to hazard a guess at why this film, which is undoubtedly a very fine example of Ridley Scott at his most ambitious, nonetheless fails, I'd say it comes down to two things - it's script and it's leading man. 

The script lacks sharpness and bite, it doesn't quite get to grips with forming a cohesive line of moral tone through it. It went for far too broad a pallet of characters and scenarios that ended up muddying the clarity of the narrative line. Now this may have been saved if your lead had all the acting heft and sensitive intelligence of a Russell Crowe in Gladiator, which this film attempted to follow. But Orlando Bloom, really does not have a bone of moral gravitas in him. So as soon as you ask him to defend Jerusalem with a noble rousing speech from the battlements, it falls somewhat flat and limp. It's not that he is a bad actor, far from it, But a light romantic comedy this is not. What this film requires of him, is the breadth of his acting talent to raise its game to match it. I can understand why he was chosen, he was at his peak in popularity between Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings, he was big box office. But having this low key emotionally thin form of acting at it's centre, knocks a great big hole in the compelling vividness of its storytelling. You don't root for this guy, just pass him the sun cream and moisturizer. 

This Director's Cut does a sterling job at salvaging Kingdom of Heaven, because there is a lot to be in love with in this film. But it still only tips a hat towards greatness, unable to grasp it with both hands.

CARROT REVIEW -6/8

MY OWN WALKING - The Anniversary Issue

The 10th of July, was a Friday this year. It was the second anniversary of my heart attack. How much things have significantly moved on since then. My gratitude for being alive, still able to enjoy a good life, still free of debilitating illness, has only grown deeper. Obviously some or all of this could, and probably will, change at some point.  I remain mindful of not taking life and it's quality for granted or acting as if wishful assumptions were fortune cookies, for how long I have left to live. Padmasambhava's invocation helps me bear in mind that - I do not have. I do not understand, I do not know - what the future holds. This should be painted across the dawn sky of every day. Because time fritters away, despite my intentions for it to be otherwise. 

In the run up to the anniversary, I found myself amidst the high point of the heatwave, becoming despondent and frustratedly angry. Time spent in the shadow of a heart attack, can sometimes make me far too precious about not wasting time. I wasn't finding enough productive time to work on my art projects. I felt to be constantly having my attention drawn elsewhere. And though this was all true to a degree , despondency ( well it is pretty much my oldest friend ) returned to undermine any artistic resolve and creative impulse I might have. At its worst, attacking the very act of creation itself. Who after all was this for? What was it all in aid of ? Isn't it just so much easier to not do it at all? Pointing towards its lack of utility and rationally putting a stop to art altogether. 

Then I watched an old documentary of Hockney in old age returning to his native Yorkshire. He said, with his usual casual bluntness, that he found no point at all in dwelling on the imminence or otherwise of his death, and just kept coming back to his creativity as being the best thing he could do with his time. Which made me feel a whole lot better about my own art practice. Creating art has intrinsic value to the artist. Art may have no practical use, but that doesn't make it meaningless. It requires nothing else from you, than that you turn up and do it.

Last year on the first anniversary of my heart attack I took myself off, on a very hot day, to Walsingham. I remember having rather too heightened an expectation of it. This year, I decided a repeat journey to Walsingham was required, but in a more relaxed and less needy manner. I'd just turn up for whatever it offered. The weather forecast was for an extremely hot day, between 28- 30 degrees Celsius. So I'd have to play it by ear, just how much being baked by it I was up for. Two bus journeys later I was stepping off in Walsingham.  There was a cooling breeze as I headed out towards Great Walsingham. As I set off, a very odd thing happened, a three legged dog came running down the street past me, purposefully belting along on an urgent mission. Slightly bemused I carried on. I have since realised that this incident metaphorically gave physical form to how I've been feeling about my spiritual life recently.  You can definitely get a fairway in Buddhism using three legs, but the sense of something being amputated from it, like a fourth leg, seems eventually inescapable. Buddhism, for all its self evident value to me, has started to feel like that. Lacking in an essential fourth leg. Enlightenment is not a thing you can talk to or relate with on a human level. It's an ideal, practically and imaginatively, disconnected from where I am, on the other side of it. I am like a dog running fast on three legs, confusing speed with purpose.

The road to Great Walsingham is actually very beautiful.  The village itself is the definition of picturesque, with its tree lined streets, dappled shade, and a bridged path crossing a forded stream. You do wonder how undervalued Great Walsingham's Parish Church must feel, when there has always been so many bigger grander buildings, just down the road from you. Once you emerge onto the green you see ahead of you a small former Victorian Methodist Chapel, converted into The Orthodox Church of The Holy Transfiguration. With its icon painted tympanum over the entrance door. Inside is a tiny undiscovered gem of a church. Bedecked with numerous icons and traditional iconostasis screen. It possess a charm and magical feel uniquely all its own. I took plenty of photos, picked up a leaflet about an online course to discover what Orthodoxy is all about, and left.

I took the back road from Great Walsingham toward its larger relative Little Walsingham, and the Anglican Shrine Church. I have a long term objective to 'church lark' all the main religious buildings in Walsingham. I've taken photos of the Shrine Church before, but never with a view for giving you an overall sense of it. Phone camera at the ready I made a start. But after a while I realised my heart wasn't really in it. This was not why I was here today. I was here to pray, give thanks and express my gratitude for another year of life. So I put my phone camera away.

The Shrine itself is a recreation, conceived right down to the original proportions, of the medieval shrine. Over the years I've become closely familiar with it.  I lit a couple of candles and after some hesitation decided to kneel down and pray. Just as I was getting my head around the idea of starting, - in walked a priest. Who came right over,  stood right next to me shuffling and sorting through paperwork, as though I wasn't  really there. I suddenly got the sense that perhaps here was not going to be the right place to do what I felt I needed to. The Anglican Shrine is like this, I have frequently found it too busy as a place. Even though it requests silence, it is very prone to the activity and noise generated by tourists, school parties, congregations for its services and priests, apparently. This is rarely a place of serenity and stillness, for quiet contemplation. So I left, had some lunch, and prepared myself to walk the Holy Mile to the Slipper Chapel.

The top pathway to the Slipper Chapel, with its panoramic landscapes, has very little shade to protect you from the sun. So I took the low road, which though busy with traffic, has a stream that runs alongside it and is regularly shrouded in shade from its trees. Though only a mile, the heat of the day was now high. So by the time I reached the Slipper Chapel I was a very over heated sweaty pilgrim. It was then, a far from unflustered person who sat down in the Chapel.  It took a while just to arrive, to externally and inwardly cool myself down the best I could. Until I felt prepared and fully present enough to kneel down by the communion rail to pray.

I have no remembered experience, as an adult, of having prayed in a church before. Though I must have done so in my Church of England Primary School days, and when I was a chorister. And here I was, now about to pray, it felt an odd thing for a sixty nine year old Buddhist to be doing, After all who do I imagine I am praying too? I read recently about the simplest form of prayer, it is structured similar to the Metta Bhavana, you start with yourself, move your attention outward to family and friends and to the world. And that was how I got myself engaged with it. What I prayed for was between me, Our Lady, God and the universe. It started and ended with a feeling of gratitude. As I sat back in my chair, this felt like an extremely important and beautiful thing to have done. 

As I sat there feeling satisfied, my attention was being distracted by a large fluttering butterfly up in the altar canopy above. It was flying into the chapel, then back towards the stained glass and on hitting this immovable surface, flew back out again. Doing this over and over again. As I gazed upwards transfixed with this, a sudden instruction erupted into my mind - You must write about this. Grabbing my phone, I opened the Notes App and began hurriedly writing for a minute or so in one long unpunctuated paragraph of whatever came into my head. Afterwards I felt this huge sensation of uplift and elation, that's still there every time I re-read it.

Here it is. The only thing I've done subsequently has been punctuate, correct grammar, insert one phrase and rephrase another for better comprehension. Some sentences feel to require further reflection on my part to unpack them further. Here I leave them as they are. 

' The butterfly newly re-born knows not where to go, nor how to be, so it flutters around bumping into things, sometimes the same things repeatedly. But like stained glass whose beauty attracts your attention, you cannot batter your way through it. Beauty can become an obstacle, as well as a lure. Beauty can be misleading, we can assume goodness  if someone or something is beautiful. Beauty can be just beauty, not a portal to something else. Until the butterfly comes to know its own form better, it  should settle on a tree and be supported by that. Until the day it is clear what its purpose is in the shadow land on the approaches to death. All death is a portal to another death, for death is a form of transformation. Its how you transition from one state to another.'

UNFINISHED READING - The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhardt by Bernard McGinn

This has been in my Book Pile for quite some time. So long, I can't quite remember when it first arrived, probably eighteen months ago. However, I found myself reticent to tackle it, in case it was really theologically too much for me. As it turned out, it was. I got halfway and skipped a whole chapter exploring the difference between God 'boiling over' and God 'boiling through' and I just thought- 'You know, this is not a distinction that has bothered me before, and I'm not going to start now.'

The book has been full of similarly detailed, and no doubt thorough, expositions of what Eckhardt's philosophic/mystical writings were supposedly about. Early on, I got the feeling, that perhaps I really should have bought a book with a selection of his teachings, rather than an academic commentary by a confirmed Eckhardt geek like McGinn. Nothing against the guy, he must know what he is on about, I presume. Had I read some Eckhardt cold beforehand, I'd know whether this book was genuinely further enlightening, or not. For most of the time I was struggling to sustain following his analysis,arguments and explanations. In these sorts of conditions, the quote from Eckhardt's writings I tended to find more lucid than the academic explanation, which merely, to my untrained eyes, succeeded in muddying the water further.

I suspect that this may be another serious case of my further cultivating an antipathy towards Christian theology. This often reads as a series of assertions about the nature of Jesus and God, which are either true and I'm just a bit too thick to fully grasp why that is so, or they are actually preposterous claims that no amount of convoluted exegesis is going to convince me otherwise. If I had a phenomenally clever mind I'd know which it was. It may come down to the specificity of theological language.

Over the years I've been willing to push the envelope of my intellectual limitations a fair way beyond it's comfort zone. Quite often to obtain the general gist, even if the precise detail still escapes me. But I have come to recognise when I've reached the actual limit of my ability to follow and comprehend what the heck someone is trying to communicate. As my brain cells get deeper fried in lard. Yes, it is humbling, to have to say I don't know what this guy is rambling at such length about. But this too, is good for me. 

This may be theological wank or the most profound thing I've never understood. If only I had the sort of brain that could systematically deconstruct things, then I'd be able to explain in very lucid refined terms, why it is all wank. And I'd feel much better, or at least less prone to self justification. Instead of using the increased volume of dismissive curses as my expression of how wrong it is. As it is, I have to trust my gut intuition, which may of course be merely dyspeptic indigestion.

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

INSIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN THE FOLDS OF TIME - Tricycle Tales

The outrageous pumping of his desperate little heart. The determined turning of his hips, knees and ankles joints, madly whirling round and round and round and round the wobbly shank and it's peddles. Breath more belaboured and heavier with the purposefulness of his youthful exertion. The sweat beading on his brow. Accompanied by the most cacophonous of noises, caused by the stones and various odd objects, gems he'd collected, thrown into the tin boot to tumble around in one immense aggregated rattle. All in imitation of those large empty dump trucks he loved, that hurtled by his home clanging, banging and explosively booming, like anarchic drummers announcing the pitted unevenness of the road on which he lived.

This activity felt too wonderful, fully exhilarating, the most alive any 'not yet a five year old boy' could ever experience. This young boy and his tricycle, had for a moment become furiously focused, one piece of united energy. Who could have known such short legs, with so little muscle, could generate this amount of momentum. But to his boyhood imagination the sense of propulsion and speed felt immense, utterly intoxicating. He wanted much more of racing along the pavements hell for leather. Then an adult hand caught him, and brought it all to an abrupt stop. 

It was always like this it seemed, some adult, usually a parent, spoiled the fun. To them it was all about stopping him, making him consider the effect of his actions upon other people, that he needed to be more respectful. It was, after all, early afternoon, and lovely kind Mrs Greenwood would be having her afternoon nap. They'd completely over rule his excuses. Downplaying the value of his enjoyment. For one moment he had been riding his tricycle without a care in the world. Now could that ever have been wrong? Adults were relentless spoilsports, trying to force him to feel guilty. And there were tears, but more out of a sense of loss. Grieving for this one blissful moment in his life, now trashed and sullied. Apparently the problem with him was he did not think. And so he'd cried, but did so with such an angry pout of disapproval on his face. They had ruined his entire day. He'd been, and still was to his mind, guilt free, enjoyably pedaling his tricycle around and around the block, along pavements, up and down cobbled snickets and back alleys, between the terraces. They'd obviously forgotten what that was like.

Going round the block, this was his race track, around which he was timing himself. But for some reason adults, they always wanted to get him to 'stop making that bloody racket' They always swore, and his Mum always said it wasn't clever to swear. Rude language, was vulgar, indicating a lack of intelligence. Poor vocabulary spoke volumes about who you were. He never understood a lot of that. Why was it adults could swear and he couldn't? This he could not comprehend. The racket, the noise, was what made this particular form of playfulness special. It was what adding all the stones and objects was all about. To see what difference they made to the overall sound. The stones were cargo, that needed delivering, and he was now behind with that delivery, thank you very much. He had to catch up, if he was ever to be on time. 

The metal tricycle had once been a spanking new red. Now it was seriously dented and scuffed, some of the battered pock marks were beginning to rust badly from being left out in the rain. His Mother was already firing warning shots about him out growing it, and the time to throw it away. He had not, at first, recognised the possibilities a tricycle gave him. Perhaps initially too young for it, his legs did not quite meet the pedals right. It had felt as though it required too much effort. But a mere few months later, suddenly it all clicked, exactly what a tricycle could do. At first he was endlessly cycling up and down the pavement in front of his home. It was only when he went up and down the echoing cobbled snicket for the first time, that it's acoustic possibilities became the decisive revelation of love. What an immensely pleasurable noise that was, as you were shaken and bounced up and down over every little minor cobble and rut. 

He ventured further afield, to discover what different surfaces and places looked and sounded like. One day he got so carried away with his peddling, he actually reached the very limit of his road. Never having ventured this far before, he started to feel uneasy, out of his depth and a teeny weeny bit scared. He scanned what was at the road's end, spotting a few things he'd like to explore later, on another day, when he was feeling braver. Aware, on this occasion, that it was probably nearing tea time, and he really ought to be heading for home.

His Mother took him with her on a shopping trip into town the following day, what a tedious waste of time that was to 'a not yet five year old boy" intent on adventure. Consequently he was only able to perform the return journey, a few days later, back to the road's end On his previous glance around, he'd spotted a row of semi-dilapidated garages on the corner opposite. He reached these easily, part pushing with his feet, part waddling across with the tricycle still placed between his legs. To the right of these garages was a lowish stone wall, one he knew he could easily climb. This turned out to look down onto the railway cutting and shunting yards, things he'd only heard before, never actually seen. They were incredibly close, so near he could wave to the drivers. And he spent many a subsequent idle afternoon, hanging around just watching these magnificent beasts, with massive engines moving back and forth. Occasionally older boys, ones he didn't know, turned up. They'd hassle and teased him too much, that he started to clear off home sharpish the moment he saw them heading in his direction. 

There were, of course, other places to explore. He could see them in the distance, over the other side of the wide road junction, where the main road out of town split off in two directions. Could he cycle over there? He'd give it a try. Setting a determined chin peddling his tricycle furiously across this main road. With such intensely that he hit the kerb opposite with great force, and was nearly thrown over the handle bars. Quickly heaving the tricycle off the road, he reviewed whether there was any lasting damage. Well, none that he could see. And having finally arrived there, he could take in the bank of allotments the other side of a shallow stone wall, the suggestion of a valley beyond them. These all were enticing. He couldn't possibly drag a tricycle all that way, so what was he going to do with it?  Improvising a hiding place behind a hedge, and hoped that that would be enough for it to remain secret. 

There were a few adults pottering around the allotments, so he'd need to behave like the Indian tracker he saw on TV. Keeping low, move slow and quietly. There'd obviously been children here before him, with a well flattened grass path to crawl around the back of the allotments. And then that path suddenly veered downhill. You could fully see the heather on the top moor opposite, and how the road curled in the valley beneath it. Having rapidly descended, the path curved horizontally across the slope until it came to a soot blackened granite shelf of rock that stuck out dramatically, what the boy instantly christened 'the cave'. He hung around entranced by his discovery for seemingly an age, looking out at the hills opposite, rapt in his imaginative reveries. Until again he started to feel on edge, nervous about it getting dark soon, of being here on his own, that maybe he hadn't hidden his tricycle well enough, what if he couldn't find it?  What time was it now? Suddenly hitting the panic button, he pelted as fast as his legs could carry him, passed the allotments, back to his tricycle hidey hole, back across the road junction. 

By the time he'd reached home, the panic attack had subsided and he was on full beam with the sheer joy of today's adventuring. His Mother was waiting for him, standing by the back door looking bad tempered and cross. He'd been seen by a neighbour cycling across that busy main road, what was he thinking? There was a hard slap across the thigh. He was to stay at home for the rest of the week. This one incident proved to be the death knell for the tricycle. But the young boy 'not yet five years old'  quickly got over mourning it's loss. He wasn't visibly angry or sulking, well, maybe invisibly he was, just a little. After all, he was now ready to move on to pastures new, he'd found himself a cave.

PROTEST & PROGRESS - The Pilgrimage of Grace

My purpose in writing this Protest & Progress blog post, is to explore for myself the history of English Protest Movements. What effect they had, and the changes they may ( or may not ) have instigated. Today, it's The Pilgrimage of Grace.

1536 - THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE

For the first twenty years of Henry 8th's reign he was the handsome youthful monarch who charmed his subjects. Though undoubtedly a cultured man, he ebulliently overindulged his extravagant tastes. His desire to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boylen entailed a split with Rome. His ambitions in France led to expensive wars which got him no where. The state of royal finances plummeted, and the country began to look on him less favourably. What turned all these factors into a people's rebellion was the dissolution of the monasteries. 

It's hard for us, in our more secular times, to realise quite what an upheaval to the social fabric of 16th century England the dissolution was. Though the people had their issues with the way the monasteries behaved in relation to the local economy, these were institutions deeply embedded in their spiritual and economic lives. Monasteries provided social support through distributing alms, it's infirmary dispensed medicines and cared for the sick, besides generally ministering to the spiritual needs of the local area. The economy of a village or town undoubtedly thrived through supplying monasteries with goods, and bought bread and ale from them in return. Monasteries often became the site for a local weekly market, usually in its outer courtyard. The dissolution happened incredibly swiftly, within the space of roughly five years all of the monasteries were brought into the state of being ruins. Some buildings were converted into barns, parish churches or cathedrals. It was as though a wrecking ball had been swung through the heart of English society and it's religious culture smashed.

The rebellion,The Pilgrimage of Grace, had hence a multiplicity of economic causes, aggravated by the removal of monasteries from the local economy, without a thought for what the knock on consequences of that would be. The Pilgrimage of Grace became widespread with a rag bag alliance of grievances riding under one spiritual banner. It tapped into a huge amount of suppressed discontent in the country. Thomas Cromwell, as the designer of the dissolution, was the focus of it's ire. But let's be clear here, Henry was no longer that popular, nor held in high esteem by his people. His divorce was widely disapproved of, as was the split with Rome. He was becoming increasingly tyrannical, so it maybe not be deference, but more likely fear that made the rebels resist openly criticising him. 

What had started as a little local difficulty in Lincolnshire, easily suppressed in the October, then broke out in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham. Robert Aske a London lawyer from North Yorkshire was chosen to bring leadership to the incipient rebellion. Under his guidance 9,000 rebels marched south and occupied York with relative ease. By the time they'd reached Doncaster the number of rebels was approximately 40,000. This was by far the largest rebellion of the Tudor era. The Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Shrewsbury were despatched to negotiate at Pontefract Castle. Aske helped the rebels compose their requests to the King. A document called 'The Commons Petition'. This contained twenty four demands, and was given to the Duke of Norfolk in December 1536.

It's estimated Norfolk and Shrewsbury's forces together totaled 12,000 men, so with a growing rebel force three times that, they faced being massacred if they were to try suppressing the rebellion. Norfolk attempted to placate the rebels by disingenuously stating the petition would be presented to the King, that there would be a general pardon, and the monastery closures would be halted til Parliament had met to discuss them. With these promises Aske was persuaded to disband the rebellion. Sir Francis Bigod, rightly as it turned out, was not convinced the King would honour Norfolk's promises. Without taking Aske's advice, he led his own minor rebellion in February 1537. This was the opportunity that Norfolk was looking for, brutally suppressing Bigod's rebellion, arresting both him and Robert Aske. Aske was hanged in chains in York. Bigod was hanged at Tyburn in London. A total of 216 rebel activists were executed, many if them nobility. Martial law was imposed across all the regions that had partaken in the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Historians argue about to what degree this was a popular revolt arising out of a genuine disquiet, and how much the involvement of significant nobility gave it more credence and hence popular backing from the common people. I would say choosing Robert Aske, a lawyer, to lead them had significance in this regard. That he was able to help in the formulating of 'The Commons Petition' a properly drawn up document from the people to their King, presenting their demands. It was more likely that Catholic minded nobility were piggy backing on the people's revolt. The more they were seen as instigating the people to rebel, the worse it would be for them. The rebels saw themselves as The Commons, the common people, with a common land, and a common faith, as a remnant of the medieval Catholic society that they saw the dissolution as casually defenestrating  A petition from common people to their King, was the only way  to present their views. 

Sure, this was not the first time rebels had proffered a petition to a King, but there was something distinctly intentional and formal about how this one was being presented as coming from 'the Commons'. What we see in the Pilgrimage of Grace, is that this was not primarily a revolt over unfair taxes, but the beginnings of common people demanding their views be heard and taken into account in how society developed. After all, their lives and belief system had been completely upended, with no thought given to their feelings, wishes or the effect upon their lives.The disquiet here in 1536 amongst ordinary common people, only becomes more frustrated, intemperate and demanding over the next century.

Next episode - 1549 The Kett's Rebellion 

ART N AB ART - Asteriodia - Salthouse Church Exhibtion

 

Having seen the promotional flyer for this I had my interest and expectations peeked. There are a lot of events happening alongside this installation which I can only describe as ritualistic, which seems an interesting idea. Basically there is a difficulty here for me. What the actual thing itself these events are based around. struck me as - not that impressive. Made from a huge number of dried out starfish, composed into a circular form. It hangs across the nave, but it does not dominate it, which it really should do, its size aught to overwhelm. There was a desire in me for this to be much much bigger in scale, a sphere, or even better a dome you could sit beneath and look up into, not a medallion shape. For it to be lit dramatically, to really wow me with awe and wonder.

Scale alone is not the fundamental problem. This simply feels half baked conceptually, this stars above and stars below thing, the linking of the heavens with earth, the transcendent and the terrestrially grounded. Some how this feels far too light weight and the installation required much more imaginative effort to be brought to it. To dig a bit deeper than applying some basic imaginative associations to it. My overall impression was -  of being underwhelmed, and when informed what the artistic premise of the installation was, still more underwhelmed. Remind me again, what is this supposed to say to me, because I really am not feeling this in my mythic gut?

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

FINISHED READING - Don't Forget We're Here Forever by Lamorna Ash

After completing reading a novel, I press the pause button on literary imaginative fiction, and deep dive into a book that is literal, about something current and vital, that I in someway care about. Lamorna Ash's, Don't Forget We're Here Forever was such a book. An investigative endeavour that takes the temperature of Christianity and researchs the reasons for young people's recent renewed interest in it. It is rare these days to pick up a book, that becomes so all consuming you need to read whilst the hunger for it is still raging.  This is an extremely honest, yet kind hearted book, written with great care and sensitivity towards it's subject matter. My interest  in Christianity has never quite gone to the extent that Lamorna pursues here. Obviously she was writing a book, so she has that as her driver, initially it's her desire to understand more fully the variety of forms of Christianity she encounters, underneath this is her own nascent faith seeking for a place it might rest. 

This book is not then another crude hatchet job on Christianity, that puts it one book nearer to obsolescence. You can tell she is open to the experience of whatever she finds is there. Yes, she has her doubts, even in situations and with people she loves, she has her own self interogating questionings. She meets everyone where they are with a degree of respect and a desire to understand where they are coming from. There are interviews with committed Christians, recent converts, people who left and then returned, people who have had visions, inexplicable encounters with God, those who run Alpha courses or lead Christian retreats. She covers the broadest gamut of approaches from Quaker, through Pentacostal, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, to newer worship phenomena like Soul Survivor, Youth With A Mission or One Church. And many of these organisations are, or were, far from perfect and she doesn't hide or excuse that. But they are all, whilst not exactly reviving, are receiving more interest these days from younger people of Lamorna's generation in their mid to late twenties. Open to Christianity as something that might fill a significant gap in their lives, that society has nothing substantial to fill it with, other than more distractions and analgesics.

The thoroughness in her writing, keeps digging for something one step deeper than a quickly dashed off sketch will provide. The process by which her task to document her own generations struggle with a world apparently going to pot, and the solutions it is trying to find  is a journey that is fluently and compellingly written. It is also full of humanity, with all the flaws, clumsy feelings, cackhanded efforts to engage with a new form of prayer or communal practice. We all recognise the self consciousness and awkwardness of being in unfamiliar contexts. Gradually as you progress through the book, you get a clearer sense of Lamorna as an individual seeking personal answers, as well as the eloquent descriptive writer. As she discovers the contexts she's been unknowingly searching for. She finds herself standing up in a silent Quaker meeting and 'ministers' for the first time. There are obviously those situations and people she has an instant rapport with and those she does not. But you the reader are always with her.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

ARTICLE - Malcolm Guite - Talking About The Imagination

Malcolm Guite is a poet, singer song writer, Anglican priest and academic. He is also one of humanity's natural enthusiasts, and even if you're unable to fully align with his religious perspective, you can find yourself being swept up in the sheer verve and lively momentum of his conversation. He has an unusual and engaging presence. Plus a phenomenal memory for poetry to boot.

In a hour long conversation available online (a link to which is at the bottom of this transcript)  he recounts the influence of his Mother reciting poetry at the drop of what, his own appreciation for Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, folk tales, and of his new ballad rendering of the Arthurian legend. He also talks beautifully, with great clarity about what the imaginations role in human creativity is. Here are a few salient extracts from that conversation on this subject matter, which I have judiciously edited where I felt necessary for improved comprehension.

"The world itself is a language."

"We have been so busy weighing and measuring (things) for the last three hundred years, we've forgotten what they mean."

" You could say your whole life could be seen as a slowly evolving poem.... You are God's poem."

"We live in a world where all kinds of analogies, parables, symbols and metaphors are naturally and richly available to us. But there is a reason why that rational analytical mind doesn't get how to do that, it can't make that leap. That is the imaginations business. The imagination is precisely to see the thing out there, and recognise that the visible thing out there, is more than itself. That it provides you with an image through which to think about what is in here ( in us)."

"The imagination is the faculty by which we apprehend meaning, not just information."

"How do we get from apprehension to comprehension, of things that are true, but not divisible or a weighable part of the material realm? We have been used to seeing the imagination as something that just makes stuff up. It's some airy fairy little whimsy of our own, that has no purchase on reality, as it really is.

And it is true we can make up things that have no purchase on reality. But it's also equally true that when we tell stories, when we paint pictures, when we write poems, we can create a verbal or visible form which embodies, which bodies forth things we need to know, and might not be able to know in any other way.

In fact, the idea that the poetic imagination enables a certain kind of knowledge, that it is a truth bearing faculty is clear when Shakespeare says 'imagination bodies forth things unknown.' They are there, they are real, but they are unknown to us, and we only faintly apprehend them."

"Essentially, when we read a great poem or look at a great painting, its as though things half known or reached after or faintly apprehended have suddenly come and made a home in this place. You walk through the door of the poem into the local habitation of the poem, and you meet them."

Malcolm Guite - Discovering Joy With The Imagination

FINISHED READING - The Emperor of Gladness

Hai is walking along the bridge over the river, he knows what he intends to do once he reaches the middle. However, just as he puts an uncertain foot towards its precipitous edge, a voice cries out from beneath him to come down this minute. It's an elderly woman living in a dilapidated house near the river bank. She is a Lithuanian refugee from the war, called Grazina, and she is about to save and turn Hai's life around. Hai's emotional resilience has reached rock bottom, his lover has died, only the UPS jacket he wears is a physical reminder. He's grown distant from his Mother, because he continues to perpetrate a lie to her, about being at university learning to be a doctor. Obtaining a job in the local Home Market takeaway through his cousin Sony, a whole bunch of characterful individuals become his oddball chosen family.

Ocean Vuong's second novel is notably more assured and steady in its tone, than his debut. The Emperor of Gladness has these astonishingly vivid runs of prose detail. Taking you on a compelling walk through the houses and businesses that constitute the town of East Gladness. Presenting you with a panoramic sense of the idiosyncratic and traditional nature of small town America. The ordinary straightforward people who live there, and their distinct ways of making the humdrum nature of their lives bearable. They may talk about leaving, but they belong here, they know who they are by living here. 

The emotional core of the book is constructed around Hai's relationship with Grazina. She is prone to incidences of dementia, becoming lost in reliving her own nightmarish memories. Hai builds a rapport and learns how to play act alongside these distressing recollections, to help her escape from them. Most of the deeply heartbreaking scenes in this novel are between these two, as Grazina struggles to maintain here sense of reality and independence. Capturing the mutual need that both of them have, to reconcile themselves to their past. 

Like his debut, The Emperor of Gladness casts an autobiographical shadow. In both novels the central character lives estranged from his Mother, with oblique foreshadowing references to him writing a book one day. Vuong has developed an easy satirical wit, that is kind but knowing, about the mildly eccentric absurdities of his characters lives. Painting a droll humourous picture of a downtown takeaway that has become slightly grubby and past it's best, with it's longstanding petty rivalries towards other fast food joints. The novel is a celebration of the plain ordinariness of these people's lives. In a place where few other options are available, they make the most out of whatever life serves them. 

One vividly described scene is a side hustle a group of them go on. The psychotic effect on them of repeatedly shooting hogs in the head in a butchers abbatoir, is genuinely disturbing. From its opening pages this is a masterly written novel, seeming to drift into moments of uncertainty in the middle, that then recovers it's sense of direction with a heartbreaking conclusion. This structural unevenness was present in his debut. On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong appeared to suddenly discover the magical tone of his own authorial voice mid novel. 

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading both of his novels. I find I feel much fonder of them in retrospect, than I often do when I'm reading them. The colourfulness of the world he portrays, lingers in the back of my imaginative recall. The struggles we all go through to create something out of our prosaic short lives, is presented through them with such an appealing and good natured fondness.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

2026 PLAYLIST No 15 - Simply Are by Arto Lindsay

Simply Are - Arto Lindsay

Currently excitedly rattling through the back catalogue of Arto Lindsay's music. I first encountered Lindsay in his 1980's New York No Wave phase as the extremely freeform noise guitarist in DNA and Lounge Lizards. That sophisticated type of angular noise and art jazz that Lounge Lizards personified, has since led him to bossa nova and samba rhythms and a style of gently expressive jazz singing remeniscent of 1960's Brazil. Born and brought up in Brazil, Lindsay does have an instinctive feel for the form, which enables him to push the musical envelope a bit further than you might expect, And what's more make it work. Music reviewers struggle to place him, so basically compose a list of rag bag terms some of which might fit -art pop , bossa nova, tropicalia, jazz pop, experimental rock. Undoubtedly he brings all his art rock noise baggage with him, so it takes a few delightfully surprising turns. There is a sonic adventurousness here, unique to this style of easy on the ear Latin inflected jazz. And I am becoming quite deeply obsessed with it. Simply Are, is probably the most accessible song from this period of Arto Lindsay, taken from his third solo album Noon Chill released in 1997. I love his style of smoothly dead pan low key singing, it is so laid back and chilled.