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Getting real


As some of you may know, and those who don’t are about to find out, I am hugely inspired by the work of Caravaggio. His art is immediate, raw and passionate, it jumps off the canvas and down your throat; while other artists painted the classical form—perfect, aspirational, inspired by the great sculptors of the past—he painted real people with an abrupt and powerful urgency. Dirt on fingernails, weather beaten faces. At the centre of this drunken brawler’s work was the message of the gospel; not men elevated to the form of God, but God taking the form of man. But this post isn’t really about...
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And Now the Good News


Marathons are all about good news, though if you tell me that at three o’clock on the 24th April I may disagree. But, on a fundamental level, the marathon’s origins are more about the telling of good news than they are about athletics. In September 490BC, Pheidippides burst into the assembly in Athens, informed the gathered leaders that their army had defeated the Persians at Marathon, and then promptly collapsed and died. He had ran from the battle with one job — to be a messenger of the good news. The marathon was born. People run marathons for many reasons, some for...
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Here Now


I love the way old cameras work. I’ve a beautiful vintage Olympus film camera at home; there are no menus, buttons, or screens, and everything is adjusted by rotating the lens in different places. Each section of lens has a different texture and the whole experience of photography becomes very tactile. As you rotate the lens, you can watch as the world seen through the viewfinder goes from blurry and out of focus to suddenly become crystal clear. I had a moment like this during the worship at church on Sunday morning, a moment where everything seems to click into place...
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Reflections along the way


I’ll never forget walking up to Hősök tere, Heroes’ Square, at about ten thirty on my last night in Budapest. In 1989, 250,000 people had gathered in the square for the reburial of Imre Nagy – alongside the heroic Pál Maléter and others – but that night I found myself alone amidst the indescribable beauty and grandeur of the millennium monument and its colonnades. I wandered to the middle of the square, exactly central, sat cross legged on the ground and relaxed; a lone rollerblader glided gracefully by and circled the monuments, as if sent by some benevolent choreographer to perform a silent ballet and add to the...
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Forever Grateful


I’ve come to realise, in recent months, that I’m quite the expert on the subject of eternal gratitude. The realisation came to me while driving. I had pulled over to allow another car to pass and they passed without a wave, a little flash of the headlights, a wiggle of the indicators, or even so much as a precursory glance in my direction. Naturally I was furious; surely an appropriate response would have been for them to acknowledge my kindness, maybe look up my address online and send a gift hamper, or have their first born cycle eternally in front of my...
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