In a book published two years ago Alain de Botton, an atheist philosopher, suggested a secular, irreligious equivalent of Christian worship, mainly based on the Catholic ritual of the Mass but deprived of any religious meaning. He constructed this idea on the assumption that non-believers can have a similar communal experience to that of believers. Similar ideas have been put…
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Shortly after I’d come to Elgin as a parish assistant, I realised that many of my compatriots living in that area were struggling because they didn’t speak English. Dealing with simple, everyday hurdles caused problems, as their inability to speak the language required massive hand signals or finding an interpreter. The solution seemed obvious: help them to learn English. So…
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In a series of three meetings last Advent, we were considering different aspects of the story given in today’s gospel: the journey of the wise men to see the newborn king of the Jews. The meetings were pretty interesting and a bit controversial a couple of times – someone even told me that I had ruined their Christmas. My guilt…
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Last Sunday night I was planning my route in the Scottish Hills for the next day. Despite being a very keen hill walker I felt a rather peculiar reluctance and unwillingness. I was weighing up all important factors, but eventually my gut feelings prevailed and I decided not to do any serious climb on Monday. Instead I went for a…
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I’ve been taking photos for over 20 years, with very few exceptions as my very personal hobby, not for my living. I present the pictures I’ve taken on my humble, rather simple website, where visitors cannot rate them, so I rarely hear people’s opinions on my photos. But sometimes I have such an opportunity, and then the viewers express their…