Kester Brewin

Through a good friend Barry Taylor I started reading some stuff on Simon Critchley, and was struck by this interview over at Full Stop, in which he talks about the roots of philosophy: Philosophy begins with a death, but it doesn’t just begin with a death — it begins with a political execution. He is [...]

  “We fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that’s the end.” Hamlet, Act IV, Scene III In the previous post I tried to set out a distinction between death (which can remain beautiful – a frozen moment just beyond life) [...]

Micah Redding has an interesting post bouncing off some of the thoughts I’ve posted here, which reflects on baptism, and whether this represents a ‘ritual to signify the end of rituals.’ My immediate thought was of the lines from the Bhagavad-Gita, made famous by J Robert Oppenheimer in an interview in which he recorded his thoughts [...]

Dead Today, there is no hope. There is no resurrection, no looking forward to a Sunday which does not yet exist in even the wildest imaginations. There is no prayer no solace no point. God has died. It’s over. Finished. Give up. Go home. Return to work. The best you can do is carry on [...]

I’ve been thinking about Jeremy Rifkin’s talk on ‘The Empathetic Civilisation’ which he gave at the RSA last year. It sparked my interest because of this quote: “There is no empathy in heaven, because there is no mortality. There is no empathy in utopia, because there is no suffering.” This made think a little about [...]

There has been some interesting discussion around Steve Jobs’ unfortunate temporary withdrawal from Apple due to ill health. Jobs is perhaps unique in that he is a genuine figurehead – and as Apple is the world’s largest company, that’s important. If he goes, what will remain? Andy Crouch quotes Jobs speaking in his Harvard Commencement [...]

Been quiet here recently – just been taking it easy and working on some other writing, plus enjoying Christmas etc. But ended up musing this morning, connecting up a few random thoughts which I thought would make a timely post at the death of the year. New Year’s eve is always a strange time I [...]