Temple Cloud

In the five years since I met my partner, and especially the three and a half since we got married, I have suffered less from depression than at any time in my life.   I have far more reason to be happy; I live with someone whom I love and who loves me, and who doesn’t expect me to leave home when I grow up.   Also, I know that when I make myself miserable, it makes him miserable, so I have more reason to try to overcome my problems. However, for most of the past week I’ve been suffering worse depression than I have for over a year.   For the first time since last Christmas, I woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep, unable to see anything to hope for, unable to do anything but cry and (eventually) distract myself by playing computer games. A large part of the problem, and one that may be unique to me, is that I can’t quite believe that God doesn’t want me to be depressed.   There are a number of books and web articles aimed at Christians facing depression, inclu

Probably like a lot of people, following the murder of George Floyd , I have been researching campaigns to end police brutality both in America  and Britain , or call for justice for victims of police violence, such as this one . In the unlikely event that you haven’t been reading the news (or, more likely, that you have seen so many news reports about riots that the original reason for the riots became obscured), Mr Floyd was an American man who was arrested for allegedly using counterfeit money.   Derek Chauvin, the policeman arresting him, decided, after he was already handcuffed, to force him face-down on the pavement and kneel on his neck until he died of suffocation, and to keep on kneeling on his neck even as emergency medical workers tried to revive him.   Two other officers held Mr Floyd down while this was going on, and a fourth stopped onlookers from intervening. Mr Floyd was black, Mr Chauvin is white, and the murder was, as many protesters around the world have notic

This blog post was going to be a celebration of pilgrimage walks in Lent.   It was going to point out that, while church services might be cancelled due to the coronavirus, churches themselves are still open for prayer.   I was going to argue that not having to arrive at a set time could make for a good all-day walk themed around exploring churches in villages further afield than the one I normally go to – which can be a good excuse for exploring new parts of the countryside. I did actually do one of these walks, on 22 nd March, because I woke up and it was such a beautiful day from dawn onwards that I couldn’t wait to get out. I set off while the day was still cold and crisp, and every leaf of every plant in the fields was still decorated with frost. Some of the flowers were looking as if they wished they hadn’t got up yet. Early on in the walk, I spotted a sheep lying on its side in the corner of a corner of a field, who seemed to be just sleeping, but who I th

Since I last updated this blog with two Lenten resolutions, the coronavirus crisis has escalated.  On the one hand, this has made it much easier to stay off caffeine, as most of the gatherings that I would go to which would normally require caffeine to keep me as alert as possible have now been put on hold.  A friend I would usually have lunch with needs to minimise social contact while looking after his sick uncle.  The bookshop where I work   is closed for the duration.  Quiz nights, drama rehearsals, and even the small group of us who meet for Dungeons & Dragons, have all had to agree to stop meeting, as more and more people need to self-isolate. By the same token, however, this has meant that I’ve been walking much less, simply because most of the things I would normally walk to are no longer happening.   During this Lent, our church had been planning to run several mid-week prayer meetings, as well as coffee mornings and soup lunches to give people more opportunities t

Are you giving something up for Lent, or taking something up?   I’m on my third day of trying to curb my dependence on endless mugs of tea (made easier by the fact that we had run out of teabags). I’m trying to rely on herbal ‘teas’ as a substitute.   My caffeine-deprivation may be why I spent Wednesday afternoon asleep – or maybe the camomile tea was just more potent than I realised. However, I suspect it’s more to do with having decided to take something up as well: specifically, walking wherever possible.   Over the last couple of months, I’ve been getting lazy, and I want to get out more.   After all, it’s a horrible waste of being both healthy and in Somerset not to get out of doors whenever possible, and maybe even climb some trees. And at this time of year, when winter is starting to turn into spring, it’s even more of a waste not to go out and see the trees budding… Or in blossom… And the snowdrops giving way to daffodils… And three-cornered le

Five years ago, my life was a sadder, lonelier place than today.   I had never been in love.   I had never lived in Somerset.   And I had never heard of Lois McMaster Bujold.   When I met my partner, I felt that I had come home, both to this part of England and to an assortment of fictional worlds I had never encountered before, and their inhabitants.   Bujold has created some immediately engaging heroes and heroines, but she can also make us care about and sympathise with characters we don’t expect to like, especially here: Mirror Dance     ‘Some people have an evil twin.   I am not so lucky.   What I have is an idiot twin.’ Brothers Miles and Mark are genetically identical, but their lives couldn’t be more different.   Miles Vorkosigan is a feudal lord on the planet of Barrayar, son of the Prime Minister, and cousin and foster-brother of the Emperor.   True, it isn’t easy for him as a disabled person on a planet where disabled children are traditionally killed at birt