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We are born into community. We grow inside another human being and spend the first few years of our lives in absolute dependence on that person and on the others who closely surround us. The ones near to us provide us with more than our bodily needs. Our very self - our sense of who we are - is primarily built as we see ourselves reflected back in the words and behaviour of others. Before we can talk, this reflection is, obviously, non verbal. It is kinesthetic. In the way we are held, in the regularity with which we are fed and cleaned, in the warmth -physical and emotional - of our surroundings, we find the earliest information about the world and how we relate to it. Later, we listen to the words said to us and about us. Later still we observe, and with a growing theory of mind, are able to perceive other people as separate personalities with their own points of view, and we are able to build ourselves by comparison, identification and imitation. As our perception broadens we t...

When I was growing up we had plenty books in our house but not a lot of poetry. In fact, I doubt if we had any. At school, poetry was the rhyming stuff you had to learn off by heart about the boy standing on the burning deck when all around had fled and the highwayman who came riding, riding, riding. I have the sort of memory which could get the poem pretty much off perfectly with one or two readings on the day before the teacher asked for a recital, but which let the RAM get overwritten by next Tuesday, so none stuck around for long. This meant poetry never meant much to me through all my childhood and teen years. One man changed all that. Roger McGough, the first poet I ever read for the sheer pleasure of it. In my late teens I discovered him. He was (is), one of the Liverpool poets . He was a little older than me, but definitely of my generation. He was in a band called The Scaffold, whose other members counted among themselves Paul McCartney's brother. He wrote about family lif...

Theres a game I play with my two daughters, which doesn't have a name, but involves one or two or all three of us competing in who can tell the most preposterous lie. A session might start soon after watching a "Lord Of The Rings" video, for instance and go something like this: "You know those Lord of the Rings films? You might have seen them mentioned in the news? Well, I made those. Wrote, produced, directed. I starred in them too. All the major parts are actually me. It's a triumph of make up and special effects. I did that too. And all the sets and costumes." "Oh really? Well, I was having lunch with Peter Jackson just the day before yesterday, and he had quite a different story about who made them." "Well of course he would. Pete and I had a wee chat some time ago about what he should say to you if you ever asked. How's Fran and the kids by the way? I haven't seen them in weeks...." I guess for a lawyer, an actress and a cler...

I tell stories. I like doing it, and sometimes I do it well. I know what a story is; stories always have the same structure and pattern. Every story begins with a tension - usually the dis-ease caused by two seemingly irreconcilable opposites - and moves through time until the tension is resolved. Stories can be based in actual events or not as the case may be but all stories are fabrications. Think about it. Of all the hundreds of incidents that occur in the course of any given day, why do you tell some as stories of the day, and let the rest slip into oblivion? The fact that you are telling a story at all means that you have made a choice of one incident over a range of other possible ones. And then, as you tell the incident you won't tell every detail. You will select and choose, highlight some details and downplay others. Your story will be told in such a way as to bring about some purpose: to arouse interest, get a laugh, illustrate a point, evoke sympathy... whatever. In ot...

I'm grateful to Janice for sending me this clip of the Guangzhou acrobatic troupe performing Swan Lake . The clip is roughly 7 minutes long and I advise you to watch to the end (or at least until the annoying German MC comes onstage): the real magic is in the second act. The ballet has been performed extensively in China and in many other countries. Everywhere it is greeted with rapturous critical and popular acclaim. Watch the video and you'll get an idea of why. When I saw it, the question immediately rose, "Is this circus or is it ballet?" The answer is "yes". I know I'm simplifying this, but ballet is an art form where movement is used with music and story to present a unified and aesthetically pleasing whole. In ballet the extreme skill and athleticism of the dancer is a tool used to present the artform. In many ways the talent of the dancers and the sheer grind required to prepare for the performance are hidden: all appears effortless and ...

I'm glad to say everything is excruciatingly, boringly ordinary. Like a lumberjack I sleep all night and I wake all day, which is a welcome return to normal service. I'm walking most days, except for ones like today when the forecast high is 6 degrees. I have a very neat but nevertheless impressive scar which is rapidly learning an invisibility charm. I know which muscles to flex before I sneeze and mostly I remember. I'm on sick leave for another ten days: that looks about right. I expect to be back at work on Monday 4 August.

I was ordained in my late twenties and became an assistant in a large city parish. When I had served the customary three years I had the expected interview with my Bishop. Alan Pyatt, walking out of church with me one morning put his immense arm around my shoulders and said, "My boy, I'd like you to consider the Parish of Waihao Downs." That was it. There wasn't much to consider. The real meaning of his words, as anyone serving in the church in the late 1970s would have known, was, "My boy you're going to Waihao Downs. Pack your bags." So I followed the only course open to me. I went home and got out an atlas to find out where Waihao Downs was, and I packed my bags. What followed, for Clemency and me, for infant Nick and for Bridget, who was born there, was the most wonderful few years, spent in 1000 square miles of the sort of country I have photographed above, and amongst gracious, spiritual, practical, alive people: the sort of people a city boy like ...