Available Light

The Universe seems to me to be a giant consciousness making machine. It throws up ever more complex organisations of matter and ever more complex and self aware ways of being. The Universe does this by evolution; the complex forms arise out of the less complex; they don't just appear. One place where this is seen is in the most complex single thing known to humankind: the human brain. This wonderful instrument of being didn't just arrive fully formed but developed from less complex brains, and they in turn from less. It seems that God doesn't go back to the drawing board and redesign from scratch. God develops by adding things on, and changing what is already there ('redemption', we call it, in Christian jargon). This growth is seen in the structure of the brain itself which has "layers". At the core, in the physical centre, is a brain stem which is similar to the brain of a reptile and is responsible for those functions we share with animals of about sim...

First the easy bit: How am I? Well, I'm home a day or two before anybody expected, and it's snowing. Thick, soft gentle snow settling on the roadway outside my window and on the leaves and on the window itself. I am making good progress, though my body constantly reminds me it's taken a fair old hammering lately. In fact, I am still in the middle of a fairly serious and complicated medical procedure, which will end on Friday week when Mr. Samalia removes the last of the temporary plumbing. The smallest task exhausts me, including some, for example eating breakfast, or having a shower, that I never really regarded as tasks before. I have learned that, disappointingly, bionic bladders are not as much fun as they are cracked up to be. I seem to get a whole lot better every day, although I'll have to be careful of overextending myself. One step at a time. I've learned, with a vengeance, that I am mortal. I've learned something else, too. Or at least relearned it. ...

Hello all, Catherine Wright here writing on behalf of one whom because of his current position, cannot make contact himself. After many weeks in a state of limbo, yesterday morning my father had the surgery which would remove his troublesome prostate and make sure we will have him round for a few years yet. My mother and I drove him to the hospital at around 9am where he was promptly fitted with an attractive gown and special leggings to prevent blood clots. All he was lacking was a pair of heels and he would have given Liza Minnelli a run for her money. At 10am he was given a pill to make him drowsy before he was given anaesthetic. He told us all that these sort of medications never work on his alert personality and was promptly snoring within five minutes. A little after 11 a team of very kind nurses wheeled him into theatre where he was nipped and tucked for about four and a half hours. During this time Mum and I had a quiet lunch at a lovely cafe by the beach then sat in the famil...

I'm ready to go. I've seen the surgeon and the anaesthetist. I've had my drink of fleet (DON"T ask. But let me assure you it works very well indeed). I've packed my bag - all the important things: * Bible * Cellphone charger * Ipod charger * PDA charger * Bits of gear to attach to the above * Pajamas, Dressing gown and slippers * Toothbrush and shaver and all that stuff Now the tricky part. What books to take? It's only 4 days or so and I'm going to be unconscious for one of them and queasy for the rest, so let's not go overboard. * A couple of New Scientists (thanks Alan) * Playing God (a book of poems by Kapiti Coast doctor and poet Glenn Colquhoun.) * Love Poems From God. Twelve Sacred Voices From East and West (Spiritual poems from a variety of religious traditions) * All Shall Be Well. .. (a novel by Tod Wodicka) Poems you can give as much time to or not as you please. Let them make you think or just appreciate the...

I have always been pleased with this shot, even though it's not your classic ornithological portrait of a shag. Today this guy left the following comment on it: "“The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.” – Kristnamurti. I want to add to that and say that the day you give the child a camera, the child might see the bird again." It's great when someone gets it.

The day after tomorrow I have an appointment with a very sharp knife and tomorrow is sort of dress rehearsal day. I have to have a blood test: if the guy with the knife sneezes or I otherwise spring a leak, they want to know what to top up the sump with. I also have to meet the guy with the ether and the gauze cloth, exactly why, I'm not sure. It's been a long time coming and I'm almost glad it's finally here. I can honestly say I am not frightened or even particularly worried about the outcome; we'll face hurdles as we come to them, and I'm sure God has enough things left for me to fiddle around with to delay my departure for at least the medium term. Since I wrote this , I have had an amazing gift of time for reflection and thought. The undeniably tentative nature of my own existence has been a background to that, and perspectives have been considerably rearranged. While this inner stuff was chugging around things have been happening in a universe far far away...

More important than the question of how Meister Eckhart used the scriptures is the question of how Jesus used them. This morning my set readings led me to continue to plough through Leviticus, and I suddenly saw something which has been right there under my nose these past thirty years but unnoticed; overshadowed by my own preconceptions about the meaning of scripture. Leviticus was written in the exile by the priests, and has a great concern for regulating priestly behaviour and for making sure that the priests get well provided for by the sacrificial system: a concern, which, as a priest, I heartily approve of. There, in the middle of chapters devoted to making sure that the holy blokes are pure enough to offer the peoples' sacrifices are some regulations about touching dead bodies. Corpses are ritually impure, and the priests are told, unless it's your immediate family, don't. And in ambiguous cases: what part of DON'T do you not understand? Scripture is just as uneq...