E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

This wouldn't be an Eyewear blog without a review of a Simple Minds album. In rear-view, none of the recent, critically lauded comeback LPs have been truly as great as that run from the 1980s - but usually as pompous, majestic, grandiose, religious, and shimmering. My love for this band is in their sure-fire surges of greatness cranked up to 11, and utter refusal of irony - they are the sincerest, and most engaged of bands - emotive, political, passionate - lacking nothing in the way of conviction. In terms of launching into the crowd with dedication to songcraft, pulse of inspiration, and faith in a better future - this is maximum uplift. Now, 40 years after 1982's New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 - the greatest new romantic/ new wave LP of the 1980s, tied with one by Echo & The Bunnymen maybe; and arguably one of the most romantic and religious works of Scottish poetry and music ever composed, their latest is back - more bombastic than ever. In terms of grandeur, and rock dr...

I have come to think that, of all the moral, ethical, religious, spiritual, and philosophical precepts, none is more extraordinary, radical, or powerful, than forgiveness. Forget love - love comes, at least sometimes, naturally. To forgive is the most difficult thing we can ever do. I don't mean to forgive someone for stepping on our big toe (though that hurts) - but to forgive the unforgivable. To forgive murder, rape, incest, hate, racism, war, slaughter, torture, evil. In the past, only kings and mighty rulers could pardon the guilty - what would otherwise be called the unpardonable. Pardoning the innocent makes no sense. The true power is to unshackle and accept the criminal, the guilty. It's an almost impossible task. It disgusts every fibre of our being, the being that calls for punishment, to destroy our enemies. It is, of course, the central idea of Christ's vision for humanity, and the promise he claims he can make on behalf of his Father. But even if one is...

THIS MAN KNEW WHERE ALL THE BODIES WERE BURIED IN HOLLYWOOD.... I was sexually harassed by an actor when I was a young teenager, after going to an audition with him, so the recent revelations about the great and the good of Hollywoodland and its outlying tar pits were hardly going to leave me cold.  Like a lot of people online at the moment, each accusation against a star, producer or TV actor, ricochets all over the place. But none of the downfalls has hurt as much as Kevin Spacey's . I have taken flak online the past week for criticising the cynical, and to my mind, Orwellian, decision to reshoot film history and cut Spacey out of the new Ridley Scott Getty film. The Onion had a joke about the whole industry being repopulated with Christopher Plummer clones (some began to misbehave). Even to mention sadness at the news that Kevin Spacey's acting career is over was apparently tantamount to mourning the death of Satan. However, I have a long and complicated relation...

France has a history of seeking secular neutrality among its citizens - and a more recent history of violent attacks on its citizens by foreign fighters associated (by themselves and others) with a particular form of fundamentalist religious belief. None of this should permit the sort of scenes that unfolded today in Nice - sadly a recent victim of a horrific mass slaughter - when police officers surrounded a woman on a beach there, and ordered her to remove a piece of clothing she was wearing.  A "Burkini". This is wrong for many reasons, and we here count four: Firstly, France is the home of international fashion.  The very ethos of fashion is that while some styles are in vogue, many outrageous, outre and shocking styles can be worn publically. The bikini itself is, in many ways, a product of the cinematic glamorous Cannes lifestyle that sexually-provactive French culture has long endorsed in its more liberal phases. French fashion also has a disturbing historica...

SOME WERE MURDERED ON THE BEACH WHERE THEY READ AND SUNBATHED, BY EVIL MEN President Obama is a great orator, and he more than rose to the occasion of his eulogy for the nine killed in their bible class in Charleston by a racist youth. He went beyond the call of duty, and gave a speech that is the equal to some of Lincoln 's. It touched on issues of morality, and decency, and in some ways, reminds us that though life can feel meaningless, those who feel touched by God's grace can find healing purpose even in tragedy. Ending with the song 'Amazing Grace,' which he sang, President Obama fittingly, and movingly, brought his eloquence into the form of address most suited to the occasion, a song that all in the great African-American church could sing along with as well.  He exemplified the power of words to move into song, into community, and to spread ideas of communion, and goodness. It is a matter of record that, meanwhile, the world is being ravaged by a religi...

There is no argument to restrict marriage to heterosexual citizens, even in churches. Tradition is a poor blueprint for a more just or modern world. Should we still burn at the stake? There is no explicit permission from God in the Bible but neither does God give permission for liberal democracy or hydro-electric plants. Homosexuality was a sin because all sexuality outside of marriage was a sin. So bring the homosexuality into marriage and Hey presto! That sin problem go es. Meanwhile the idea that only a man and woman can be married because only they can procreate - well not all of them can. Any couple can adopt and raise children as well. As for the argument that only married heterosexuals are truly able to be loyal and loving well sadly too many shelters for battered women tell another tale. Wedded bliss is not automatic for any gender or sexual bias. If Ireland votes No today it will be an embarrassment and a tragedy which is Hard to manage. But they managed it in the body o...

I was very moved today to listen to Archbishop Justin Welby on BBC Radio 4's famous Desert Island Discs . What comes across - and I cannot say I agree with all of his theological positions - is a highly-intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive person - who reflects upon the mysteries of faith, the afterlife, and injustice (as we might expect) - bringing to bear upon his duties the full weight of a proper 21st century education. Further, his unhappy childhood with an alcoholic father means that he is never merely a happy story, but a complex one.  He knows sorrow, as all of us do.  However, so close to Christmas, the over-arching message is this - it is feasible to be a fully-intelligent, well-rounded human being, and to still believe in the good news of Jesus Christ .  At a time of radical well-organised doubt and antagonism towards religion, this is a welcome gift, from the BBC.

As long time readers of this blog will know, I love Simple Minds , because of, or rather irregardless of, their arch-pomp and poetic mannerisms. The Scottish alt-rockers have had a rocky career, but a fascinating one, of six stages.  From 1979-1982, they were a young new wave synth band, producing albums as beautiful, strange, and artful as any by Joy Division , New Order , OMD , or Depeche Mode - their natural equals. At this stage, they were heavily influenced by German music. Without Kraftwerk , no Simple Minds. This period culminated in arguably the most romantic, visionary and poetic album of the last 35 years - New Gold Dream , which famously promised us a miracle. The second stage of their career followed right on the heels of the massive American success of 'Don't You Forget (About Me)' - a John Hughes film song that has become synonymous with feel-good 80s pop. This led to several LPs - the best of which like Sparkle In The Rain - yielded number one hits that ...

I wrote once of Christ swimming on the cross. A friend suggested I stop such things - and now I can't recall if the image was stolen, probably from Hill.  I wrote about Christ often when eighteen. I loved the spring. It came violently in Quebec, then. And I had been born on a Good Friday. If Christ swam on the cross, he didn't drown. He took the wood as a boat. Water was always good to Christ. God flooded the world easily. When the ferry overturned it took hundreds of kids into a place without breathing. They did not walk up out of there like Jesus. I don't blame God for disasters at sea. I do, though wonder at prayer, at praying, when it seems God rarely hears. But back to Christ on his oars, rowing his lungs back to crushing his own breathing down.  He drowned on the cross in the blue air of spring. But it would have felt like summer in the heat. He dove into his crucifixion like it was a lake clear as a promise to be kind. To be good. ...

We live in the Renaissance of the Dramatic Television Series - everyone knows the list to trot out: The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, Damages , even Game of Thrones, Homeland, House of Cards (American version), The Killing, The Bridge , and, of course, the badass Shakespeare of our time, Breaking Bad . This is not news. This is the given world of our time - television drama is as good or better than any novel or play a contemporary master can throw at us. There is no book by Philip Roth , or Martin Amis , or Atwood , or play by Stoppard , or Wilson , any better than The Wire or Breaking Bad .  Maybe as good.  Not better. I therefore did not expect the crowning achievement of this whole excess of excellence to be an 8-part series starring two actors who I rather disliked until a year ago - Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey . Then came True Detective . There will be no spoilers here.  I am not going to say much - it has all been said.  But let me say ...

The recent disaster in The Philippines - which may be the result of man made global climate change on some deeper level - is also a nail in the coffin of an interventionist God.  My Catholic theology has wavered, and it now is blown over by yet another assault on my sensibilities.  No God I know would massacre thousands in a windstorm.  But then, I do not know God.  I can only know what he is not, so feeble is my human ken.  At any rate, the universe moves in remote, strange and often cruel ways.  All we can do as mortals is try to pick up the pieces when nature, in its broad brutal swathes of dumb action negates us.  We must gesture towards what a kind presence overbearing all would do.  We must try to be God in the curious absence of one. Those poor people!

I always found Simon Schama vaguely annoying - but no more.  His Story of the Jews is a masterwork of TV history.  This is hardly new territory.  Few stories are more familiar than that of the exodus during biblical times; and the Holocaust is a known tragedy.  However, Schama finds a series of through lines - tropes, images, concepts - chief among them the book, language, itself - to trace the journey of the Jews.  Never boring, often exceptionally moving, and invigorating in its intellectual muscle, Schama trembles, berates, mourns, laughs, observes, and finger-wags - he lives - the processes he explores.  Indeed, last night's episode (Episode 3) became like a the best kind of moral thriller - a terrible historical tragedy - as we saw Moses Mendelsohn , that great mensch - build bridges with German culture and society - a bridge snapped in two by Wagner in 1850, with the repellent publication of Judaism In Music - and from there, anti-semitism re-emer...

What will you give up for Lent?

Apparently, as we all know, the Mayan calendar tediously predicts the end of the world this Friday - or, rather, tediously, the media of the West has inundated us with stories and films about this for the last few years.  The end is rather an anti-climax.  Except, a horrific massacre of children in America reminds us that doom is not farcical, but horrifically potential, in all our lives as individuals, if not as whole communities; after all, America is in mourning but it has survived this onslaught.  Calls for gun control are worthy but a little naive, though gun control is an essential step for America as it seeks to become a mature and civilised nation - naive, because American culture, and by extension, the cultures of Britain, Canada, Australia, and Europe - are exceptionally violent.  As Frankie Goes To Hollywood said about thirty years ago, "sex and violence are the new gods."  Not quite new.  About as new as the Mayans, probably.  However, the ...

I had felt I had lost my faith over the summer.  Post-PhD lapse - or simply the intolerance of some aspects of the current Vatican policies - had exhausted my patience.  Then I went to Mass today in St John's Wood, and was surprised to discover the Year of Faith begins this coming Thursday, October 11.  A year to reflect on faith and faithlessness, on the vacillations of the spirit.  Now, I can't promise miracles, but I feel somewhat renewed today by this happy convergence of my own doubts and needs, and the official programme of the coming year.  Meanwhile, and just as importantly, Hans Kung , a dissenting priest, is raising vital concerns about the future directions of the Church.  There looks like a very enriching debate about renewal to be had in 2013.

The West has no monopoly on civilised behaviour, as the new shocking report into the Hillsborough tragedy reveals - where police officers colluded to demean the reputations of the dead (including children) with multiple false allegations; and worse.  However, at least the British PM has made a statement to clear the air, and there have been apologies from newspapers and the police - and criminal charges may still be laid.  On the other hand, the events in Libya on 9/11 the other night are revelatory of a problem that, frankly, liberals in the West usually shy away from - that of barbaric, endemic "street" outrage, usually triggered by "blasphemy". Again, the West has fundamentalist lunacy at its core - one thinks of Mitt Romney 's running mate; or those who burned Beatles albums years ago.  One thinks of the KKK and John Birch Society.  One shudders at intolerance.  Still, there is something deeply wrong with a culture that can encourage, or at least turn a bl...

Today is the feast of St John the Baptist , one of only three days in the Catholic calendar given over to celebrating the birth of someone.  It also marks the occasion of the national day in Quebec.  St John the Baptist, the last prophet, bridged the Old and New Testaments with his preaching of the coming of Christ, and the full immersion in the river Jordan.  I last night saw Prometheus , a well-made, often terrifying, and sometimes thoughtful, prequel to Alien , directed by Ridley Scott , with enough theology and myth in its subtext to raise Joseph Campbell from the dead.  I note the grim humour in the naming of the infertile Christian heroine, Elizabeth, who is subject to an unwanted and horrific precursor pregnancy.  Of course, the Baptist's mother's name was Elizabeth and she too was barren, until God made her pregnant.  In the inverted, fallen world of the film, where men and robots play god to the destruction of many, the tentacular ur- creature tha...

Call for Submissions The Poet's Quest for God: 21st Century Poems of Spirituality Edited by Dr.Oliver V. Brennan and Dr. Todd Swift For Publication by Eyewear Publishing 2013 Deadline for submission: August 1, 2012 Eyewear Publishing is publishing an anthology of new, previously unpublished or recently published, poems, written in English, concerned with spiritual issues in this secular age, by persons of any faith, or none. Submissions will be welcomed via email as word documents, containing no more than three poems, and including contact details and a brief 100 word biographical note about the author. One of the characteristics of our contemporary culture which is generally described as post-modern is the human search for the spiritual. The advent of post-modernity has been accompanied by the dawn of a new spiritual awakening. Many spiritual writers say that desire is our fundamental dis-ease and is always stronger than satisfaction. ...

Somehow, the definition of mainstream has slipped, via the liberal media, over to the fringes.  As a Catholic with a leaning towards Liberation Theology, I am on the far-left of the Church, and find many of Rick Santorum 's positions unwelcome - he makes Mel Gibson seem like Rowan Williams .  However, whenever the British media like the BBC describe Santorum they call him the "anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage" candidate, as if these positions were utterly alien and horrific in and of themselves.  Not so.  For there to be sensible and credible democratic discourse the liberal media must be willing to acknowledge the large subsection of the American populace (the majority?) for whom abortion is an evil; and so on. Further, the positions that Santorum espouses are mainly those of the mainstream Catholic Church as typified by the current Pope, Benedict .  It is true they are shocking and offensive to feminists, Marxists, and most college professors on the East Co...

There are three songs in the March 4 2012 BBC Top 40, I have heard today, that each contain direct reference to the most famous German philosophical maxim of all: 'Whatever does not kill makes me stronger', which as Hitchens has argued, is a load of crock.  Maybe, but it has certainly entered popular culture with a vengeance (one recalls it was promimently in A Fish Called Wanda ).  But what are the odds of Kelly Clarkson 's 'Stronger', Ed Sheeran 's 'Drunk', and No. 2 new arrival, 'Rockstar' by Dappy each taking such grim cheer from this old saw?  Nietzsche must be rolling in his grave.  Or perhaps not.  For the second most famous German sentence is 'God is dead'.  And the same man wrote that.  Surely, FN is the Shakespeare of Germany, not Goethe .  His influence is vast and expanding, in direct exponential relationship to the shrinking of the enchanted, God-filled world. For, in the absence of direct religious consolation availabl...