Matilda

On the one hand, I AM glad Mansfield are working to make more housing available in the city, rather than taken up by students! On the other hand, if the housing in question is the Ablethorpe building, I seem to remember it being extremely studenty - cramped single bedrooms and a shared bathroom ...

me a week ago: Oh isn't it great that this 'compare the translations' Hebrew essay is only 1,000 words, that'll be super quick and easy!

me now: 1,000 words is not enough to adequately express my Disdain and Loathing for the English Standard Version

I don't know what you're talking about, five books is entirely reasonable for a two day trip.

(in my defence, two of them were for an essay)

any local clergy and/or ordinands feel like practising their deliverance ministry? we've managed to break two mugs and a wine glass this evening and i'm starting to worry the flat is haunted.

currently feeling a lot of love for the @westcotthousecam.bsky.social community. I've injured my leg and can't walk at the moment, and no fewer than five separate people checked in to make sure I'd still be able to receive communion at our community Eucharist

it's an extremely dangerous shop that one

Funnily enough this was also the conclusion we came to 😂

real talk now, which do we think contains more rosaries: the goth club or the theological college?

Needs more Mary ;)

I keep using the phrase 'surprisingly unproblematic'.

A paragraph from a book, reading: 'Liturgical reform (for that is what it was) using art and artists to bring colour and inspiration into the Church; finding strong and suitable ssongs for the people of God to sing; affirming the unity of the ministry of both men and women in the priesthood; ministering to bodies as well as mnds and spirits; confrontin those who saw Christian faithand belief as only to do with personal morality and nothing to do with the needs of society as a whole; this sounds like a challenging programme for the Church in a new millennium. Yet these were the aims and concerned of this Church of England priest at the turn of the previous century.'

Writing an assignment on Percy Dearmer and realising he was significantly more based than one might expect.

(Text is from Donald Gray's biography, Percy Dearmer: A Parson's Pilgrimage)

Sincerely delighted to discover, 45 minutes into this nearly-wordless three-hour documentary about French monks who take vows of silence, that among the reasons they *can* talk is "to make sure the monastery cats know when it's mealtime by making little kitty-calling noises at them."

A great thread explaining why you should probably block (and definitely not follow!) those "cute animal"/"funny meme" accounts on here. (Or anywhere, ever. If it's not Amazon ads it's suddenly turning into a crypto account - or worse - and putting that bs on your timeline.)

2025 YEAR OF THE WEBSITE

nora.zone/manifesto.html

excellent choice - cheers! you made it! 🥂🥂

three glasses of whiskey in front of the bottles - Laphroaig 10, bulleit bourbon and Glenfiddich 18

#clergymaltclub here is actually a three way combo clergy/organist/ordinand malt club. and of course we all went for different drinks 😅

Merry Christmas! 🙏

#KeepMassinChristmas

ahh yes the spiky fire balls, our favourite children's tradition! (though fun fact it's actually Moravian in origin!)

The Backwater Sermons — Jay Hulme Published: 2021 Publisher: Canterbury Press In this new poetry collection, Jay details his journey through faith and baptism during an unprecedented world-wide pandemic. As he finds God in the ruine...

I'm a big fan of Jay Hulme's stuff! The backwater sermons made me cry multiple times.

jayhulme.com/shop/the-bac...

will have a think for more (there's many poets I'm aware of but haven't actually gotten around to reading yet, to my shame 😅)

how do you feel about Christianity in your queer poetry? (a genuine question, because I have a lot of Christian poetry recs and not much else 😂)

I do understand why visiting family for the holidays is difficult for many neurodivergent people, but for me it's always meant going to the place where everyone is just as weird as I am - but they can also afford to turn the heating on.

a tabletop in a cafe with a smoothie, a cake and an open notebook

sneaking out to a cafe on Christmas Eve to write tomorrow's sermon, despite having had a month to write it already. How's everyone else's day going? 😅

a miniature nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, a donkey, a plastic toy horse, and a beholder balanced on the top of the stable.

'I put your dad's miniature beholder in the nativity scene. I thought it looked enough like a biblically accurate angel.'

a photo of the book 'Orientalism' by Edward W. Said. This copy is rather battered.

Book 36! Orientalism by Edward Said. The first and last sections are electric and everyone should read them. The middle, where he's talking about a bunch of c19th Orientalist authors, is... a bit of a slog 😅

I thought the exact same thing and was very angry about having to wish good tidings to a monarch before someone explained it to me!

oh that sounds very positive! hope you're able to enjoy some expanded culinary options soon 💛

🙏🙏

a photo of a book. the text on the front says 'God's justice: The Flourishing of Creation and the Destruction of Evil. Holy Bible: NIV'

Cardiff has some great secondhand bookshops

a screenshot of the cover of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, taken within the Libby app. The cover is an old fashioned illustration showing a little girl comforting an anxious looking lion

book 35 was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, because I went to see Wicked last week. If never read it before and honestly found it delightful - the sort of book I would love to read with kids. Significantly weirder than the film (... which I've also never seen all the way through).