A sermon for Candlemas: thoughts on God at the centre and on the edges. open.substack.com/pub/liturgic...

Hereford Cathedral hosts Creative Cloisters yesterday and today: people are invited to come and be inspired by our gardens and buildings. My creativity is word-based rather than the paint or pastels type, so a haiku a day. Bumble buzz, stone dust Fountain’s cool, printer’s heat Far-felt organ thrum

Today’s big flowers.

Hereford Cathedral hosts Creative Cloisters today and tomorrow: people are invited to come and be inspired by our gardens and buildings. My creativity is word-based rather than the paint or pastels type, so, a haiku a day. Seaside heat, gulls cry Hoverflies sip hollyhocks Ancient stone shimmers

Astonishing hydrangeas in the cloister garden.

The first agapanthus is out.

A floor tile from St Michael’s Tenbury where we took the cathedral choir for an evensong visit today.

I re-strung all of these today.

Very proud to be part of this www.herefordcathedral.org/news/st-thom...

The Succentor says: 'Wish you were here: come to Evensong at Hereford Cathedral!' @englishcathedrals.co.uk

Another creature that shares my workplace.

Another creature that works in the same building as me.

You can get used to having a world-class choir singing back when you intone the words 'O Lord, open Thou our lips'... I was not ready, however, for yesterday when the response came from the combined choirs of three cathedrals! Three Choirs Festival preparation Evensong was quite something.

It is not often one gets to preach with a full orchestra as a soundtrack! This is a sermon on the texts of the day, but also a personal manifesto, and a theological love letter to the place where I work. liturgicallyheldbreath.substack.com/p/sermon-for...

The dispensers of holy oils at the Hereford Chrism Mass.

This colleague is strangely like a parrot for Herefordshire…

Another creature from my workplace... a foliate sort of lion head.

Please do let anyone who might apply know about this.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.4 A representative pair of the birds that perch on many of our tiles.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.3 A jolly pig/boar in the Dean’s livery with an acorn.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.2 A melancholy angel.

I often forget how much I love short stories, particularly collections that are slightly threaded together. ‘Boys, Beasts, and Men’ by Sam Miller is just marvellous.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.1 A tapestry-bearing wolf from the shrine of Thomas Cantilupe.

New sermon up: learning to put ourselves on the line for others as God does for us.

A stunning bucket excavated at Zerzevan Kalesi in the Diyarbakır Museum.

Micrography in action Bodleian Library MS Kennicott 1; 'The Kennicott Bible'; 1476 CE; La Coruña, Spain; f.318r @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

From a confession for Lent; this feels a lot like the job currently: 'free our hands to welcome others into the radiant splendour of your love.'

The Magic Spells That Herded Medieval Bees For European beekeepers, “swarm charms” were once a tool of the trade. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/swa...

The beauty of small city ministry, an anecdote. Walking to evening prayer in cassock and cloak I pass a group of teenagers. Their spokesperson walks towards me and I get ready for... 'I like your dressing gown, Albus Dumbledore!' I hope they were thinking Jude Law era Dumbledore, but I'll take it.

One of the peculiar, melancholic aspects of moving house is stirring up and re-encountering all the sediment of once future projects that didn’t come to fruition.

``` #art #oc

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 2/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 1/20 #20bookchallenge

Some of the superb music that our choir make, on a daily basis, for the glory of God, can be heard here. Straight recordings with no editing. Come to a service, they sound even better live. soundcloud.com/herefordcath...

Triumphant victory dance after finally taking several bags of books to a charity shop. Stalled by the realisation that I have just given away two of the household's best bags...

Weddings, heaven, water, wine, and putting in the work.

Sometimes the hyperconnected world we live in provides small joys. Heard a beautiful psalm chant on the CoE's daily prayer app, couldn't find any details... emailed the choir that sing for this, was forwarded onto the composer whose son, it turns out, sang in the same cathedral as me as a child.