Preface: Prejudiced Politics & Peace Education: Recent political events in the United Kingdom have included those surrounding the Conservative ‘shadow’ justice minister, Robert Jenrick, who has been ‘on manoeuvres’ since losing the party’s leadership contest a year ago. As part of his campaign, he has taken to ‘social media’ with a series of issue-based amateurContinue reading “Homage to Handsworth – Immigration & Intercultural Integration in Birmingham and the West Midlands”
Category Archives: Bible
Heritage not Hate – The True Spirit of Glastonbury
The sacred site and settlement. Long before its relatively recent appropriation as the site of a major music festival, Glastonbury in Somerset was intimately connected with the two linked legends of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur. Both were fully recorded in written form for the first time in the twelfth century, but they drewContinue reading “Heritage not Hate – The True Spirit of Glastonbury”
War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Epilogue – Three Faiths, Two States & One World.
Hope for a Future without Children Dying: The prospect of a better future like that in Isaiah’s vision can tempt us to lose sight of the tasks of the present. Hope for a future in which no more children die can be a sin if we meanwhile neglect to do our duty for children dyingContinue reading “War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Epilogue – Three Faiths, Two States & One World.”
War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Part Two – ‘Shalom’ & Resistance:
Traditions of Shalom: Emerging from the Judaistic readings of the Hebrew Bible, which I dealt with in part one of this two-part article, there was a strong biblical tradition, both in the Psalms and among the prophets, from the earliest to the latest times of the kingdoms of Israel, that the Lord is a godContinue reading “War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Part Two – ‘Shalom’ & Resistance:”
War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Part One – The Hebrew Bible.
Prologue – A Time for Every Purpose: For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what has been planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a timeContinue reading “War, Peace & Justice in Judaism: Part One – The Hebrew Bible.”
Majesty & Grace V: The Lives & Times of the Windsors – King, Country & People’s War, 1940-45:
‘Ribbentrop’s War’ – The Assault on the West: After the defeat of Poland, Hitler wanted to wage a winter campaign in the west, but bad weather prevented it, and both sides sat through a winter of ‘phoney war.’ For this reason and with some justice, the Second World War has been called ‘Ribbentrop’s war.’ AlthoughContinue reading “Majesty & Grace V: The Lives & Times of the Windsors – King, Country & People’s War, 1940-45:”
Personal Recollections of Prince Charles as Chancellor of the University of Wales, 1979-80 & Reflections on his Elevation to King Charles III.
The Troubles & the Tragedy, 1966-79: On August 27, 1979, in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, on the western coast of the Republic of Ireland, a massive 50lb remote-controlled bomb exploded on board the fishing boat Shadow V, killing Lord Louis Mountbatten, his grandson and two others while they were boating on holiday off the coast. Lord Mountbatten wasContinue reading “Personal Recollections of Prince Charles as Chancellor of the University of Wales, 1979-80 & Reflections on his Elevation to King Charles III.”
An Epilogue for Beren & Lúthien: Tolkien’s Last Years, 1966-1973 & The Work of Christopher Tolkien (-2017).
The Road Goes Ever on – Headington to Bournemouth: Although life retirement sometimes seemed ‘grey and grim’ to Tolkien, it also had many elements that suited him. For one thing, he and Edith, at last, had enough money. However, the tax authorities took a large proportion of his earnings, and on one occasion, Tolkien wroteContinue reading “An Epilogue for Beren & Lúthien: Tolkien’s Last Years, 1966-1973 & The Work of Christopher Tolkien (-2017).”
Faith, Fantasy & Fairy Tales – Tolkien, ‘Jack’ Lewis & ‘The Inklings’, 1926-66: Part Two – ‘Shadowy Abstractions’
There was a good stretch of time between Jack Lewis’s conversion on the way to Whipsnade and his writing of the Tales of Narnia. Throughout this time, while Tolkien was writing his Hobbit stories, Lewis was musing on the physical similarities that men and beasts have in common. This is why he felt that Kenneth Grahame, in The Wind in the Willows, made exactly the right choice in giving his principal character the form of a toad
The Making of an English Mythology; from Reality to Fantasy and back again, 1917-1954: Tolkien’s Creative Years.
Following his recovery from the Somme and ‘trench fever’ on his return from France in 1916, Tolkien was determined to create an entire mythology for England. He had hinted at this during his undergraduate days at Oxford when he studied and wrote of the Finnish ‘Kalevala’:
“I would that we had more of it left – something of the sort that belonged to the English.”
This idea now grew during his recuperation until it reached ‘epic’ proportions. This is how Tolkien expressed it when recollecting many years later:
“Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen), I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large to the cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply: to England, to my country. “
Andrew James 