Kester Brewin

“In the first half of my life I fought the Devil. In the second half, I fought God.” Nikos Kazantzakis Angst about sin and purity; worries about traditions and who’s in and who’s out; individuation, desperation to innovate, neophilia. And now something… other. I am exploring. Technorati: Jung | Kazantzakis | Rohr

The ever-brilliant Believer magazine – the highlight of my reading month – carries a wonderful dual essay by Scott and James Browning about their respective trips to the North and South Poles with their mother. Scott Browning’s piece on the North Pole trip is wonderful. He describes the utter non-place-ness of it. There are in [...]

Tragically, last night a 3rd boy was shot dead in South London, the latest victim of a possibly-connected spate of black on black youth killings. The police have responded by saying they are going to have armed patrols on the streets now. Like that’s going to work. Two of the boys were shot in their [...]

Off tomorrow to Ventura, CA, for the Solition Sessions. Big thanks to the generous guys there for offering to fly me over. What with being off there and other recent trips, it’s felt like a bit of a busy, travelling summer. But it was great to catch up properly with Nic the other night. One [...]

I volunteered to be part of the ‘grid blog’ flagging up Mark Yaconelli’s book ‘Contemplative Youth Ministry’, and duly received a copy to read from the publisher. It’s very good. We were traveling up to Iona with some friends, one of whom was also reading it, and she was also very positive. A quote I’d [...]

On Meaning [1]  | On Meaning [2] In the previous two posts I have been trying to set out why I still hold to a position that absolute truth exists. The discussion began as a meditation on meaning and language, and I’ve tried to make the connection between these and truth. I ended the last [...]

It’s been a knackering week, so this is going to be even more lacking ‘meaning’ than it’s going to anyway, but here we go with part two. In response to the previous post ‘on meaning’, Nic wrote: [I want to react against] some sort of pre-ordained meaning, rules of engagement or ‘isness’- a divine database [...]

Just been to see Grizzly Man. It’s fantastic. For those who haven’t heard about it, it’s a documentary cut by Werner Herzog, using footage shot by Timothy Treadwell on his summers living among Grizzly Bears in Alaska. It wouldn’t spoil the film for you to know that in his 13th summer there, he and his [...]

Links: Neophilia [1]  |  Neophilia [2]  |  Neophilia [3]  |  Neophilia [4] Anyone been finding blogging more difficult than it used to be? Lost the novelty a bit, and now what seemed so easy and freeing is more of a chore at times? Lots of people I’ve read seem to have done recently… Welcome to [...]

Links: Neophilia [1] |  Neophilia [2] |  Neophilia [3] Over the last few posts I’ve been proposing that the Emerging Church needs to be aware of the dangers of ‘Neophilia’ – being in love with newness for newness’ sake. Neophilia is a revolutionary mode. It tries to effect quick change, but fails to settle on [...]