The dearest freshness

Our per­son­al Baby-exit could hap­pen any day now. Hope­ful­ly, it will be eas­i­er and less fran­tic than the Brex­it. It might help that there is lit­tle room to nego­ti­ate; the baby is now the only one with deci­sion pow­er. And he has a few more weeks to make his entrance into the world. Obvi­ous­ly, hav­ing a …

No one is forgotten

On World Ani­mal Day, I would like to share a quo­ta­tion that I found in a book about ani­mal rights from Andrew Linzey. It is a vision that was record­ed by Julian of Nor­wich, a remark­able woman from the 14th cen­tu­ry who lived as a her­mit in Eng­land. The text is old Eng­lish and has an appropriately …

God with us

This Sun­day will be the start of Advent, which prob­a­bly also means the start of Christ­mas stress for all moth­ers in the UK who have to get their fam­i­lies through the fes­tiv­i­ties with enough food, presents and dec­o­ra­tions. No Christ­mas Car­ols and High Street shop­ping for us this year, because we cel­e­brate Christ­mas in Chile. The …

Theology at sea

Last week, we have been sail­ing on the Dutch IJs­selmeer and the Wad­den Sea. We enjoyed the panoram­ic views with beau­ti­ful cloud for­ma­tions. Birds could be seen every­where, look­ing for fish or busy keep­ing an eye on their chil­dren. The moon rose full and bright orange when we anchored at the Lorenz locks. The weather …

Christians and animals

Any­one who takes up the task of explain­ing the ethics behind veg­an­ism, draws their main argu­ments from the book Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion by Peter Singer. Time to read this clas­sic from 1975 for myself. Singer is a util­i­tar­i­an, which means his ulti­mate goal is to min­i­mize the amount of suf­fer­ing in the world. Oth­er moral signposts, …