One module in my master’s course covers a variety of classical authors. I was blown away last week when we read Puer Iesus, written by Thomas Aquinas. He extrapolated all sorts of things from one short verse about Jesus sitting… Read More »One little verse
It’s been an interesting day. I learned the Greek root words for hippopotamus, why cats stretch and the way gorillas carry their young. We have commonalities with certain animals, yet we are distinct from them. In some of my classical… Read More »Following the herd
A baker proudly opens the oven and steam rushes out to meet them. Momentarily, they’re distracted because they can’t see; their glasses have fogged up. Baking forgotten, they remove their glasses, wipe the lenses and replace them before proceeding to… Read More »Foggy lenses
An instruction, written on a temple in Ancient Greece; its insight valuable enough that we still quote it today. Know thyself doesn’t ask who you would like to be, nor who you wish you were. It encourages the practice of… Read More »Know thyself
If you’ve ever watched rugby, you might recognise when the teams form a scrum. The forwards from each team bend down in rows and ram forward, locking heads and shoulders with the forwards from the other team. This is a… Read More »The standoff
I had two twelfth birthdays. It was great, I spent the day at school with my friends then went to the airport and got on a plane to Hawaii. The international date line sits between here and Hawaii. I left… Read More »Vices
There’s a high chance that some of you are trying to make unoffence (or unoffense for you Americans out there) into a word right now. How about ‘no offence’ or ‘unoffensive’? ‘No offence’ often precedes the word ‘but’. So, “no… Read More »What’s the opposite of offence?
We grew an eggplant this summer. It was not the first time we grew one, but it was the first time the unripened fruit literally looked like a hen’s egg hanging off the plant. When I look at aubergines I… Read More »It seems so simple
One of the beauties of living in a surfing capital is the number of languages you hear in the streets. Tomorrow, the World Surf League kicks off less than 5kms from where I am sitting. Seasoned surfers are gushing about… Read More »It begins
We have all sorts of influences on what we expect in a relationship. We watch how our own family interacts and that makes a big impression on us. As we grow, we visit other homes and see how other families… Read More »What do you expect?