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John McLuckie

South London

priest, reader, listener

Interests: Jazz, novels, contextual theology, cities, paintings, healthcare, biblical studies, buildings

Recent Activity

The Bible Tells Me So...?

I listened in yesterday to a debate in the Church of Scotland's General Assembly about the place of gay ministers in that church's life. The Assembly arrived at a compromise position that strikes me as an awkward solution that is unlikely to persist for very long. I suspect that the... Continue reading

Posted 8 hours ago at Justluckie

0

Living Contemplation - An Invitation!

For a while now, I have been planning to start a very simple contemplation group at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, and this is advance warning that it will start soon! Here is the plan: There will be a 30 minute session every week which is open to everyone, whatever... Continue reading

Posted 5 days ago at Justluckie

1

We Need Solitude in the City

It seems to me that people who, like me, live in a city like Edinburgh, need solitude a great deal more than we often think. I remember the delight of visiting a Jain temple in Delhi in the heat of summer, with its cool marble tranquility, or the hushed mosque... Continue reading

Posted 6 days ago at Justluckie

1

Drones, Evil and White-Collar Violence

In a radio report on the key issues in the forthcoming elections in Pakistan, I heard repeated references from all side in the elections to the drone attacks carried out by the US against targets in Pakistan. These have resulted in numerous civilian deaths and have, unsurprisingly, created a powerful... Continue reading

Posted May 9, 2013 at Justluckie

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What Makes Liturgy Work?

Priests don't get enough chances to experience liturgy from the 'receiving end' so being on holiday is a good chance to rectify that and to remember how liturgy feels from a different perspective. A week past Sunday in my mother-in-law's place in southern France, I took the opportunity to revisit... Continue reading

Posted May 7, 2013 at Justluckie

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The Democratisation of Writing

There is an excellent new series on BBC 4 looking at the writing revolution of 17th century England, a time when there was an explosion of new ideas, significant social turbulence and the beginnings of what we have come to see as modernity. Adam Nicholson presents The Century That Wrote... Continue reading

Posted Apr 18, 2013 at Justluckie

1

The Trees Our Sisters

It is a commonplace to assume that Christianity has not been kind to the non-human world and extreme versions of this assumption would have Christianity bear a great responsibility for the despoiling of the natural world by regarding it all as usable and consumable by human beings, who are commanded... Continue reading

Posted Apr 15, 2013 at Justluckie

0

Emotion and Serenity in Religious Imagery

Towards the end of his life, while on his journey through Asia, Thomas Merton experienced a powerful spiritual awakening at an ancient Buddhist site in Sri Lanka. Here is how he described the impact of the massive statues of the Buddha at the 12th century rock temple of Gal Vihara... Continue reading

Posted Apr 11, 2013 at Justluckie

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In Praise of Second-Hand Books

I love second-hand books. They're cheap, they can bring us wisdom and entertainment that the publishing world has lost interest in and they have a story all of their own. They have been places, been read by someone else and may even bear their marks or their name. They fall... Continue reading

Posted Apr 10, 2013 at Justluckie

3

Writing our Lives

When I read Jeanette Winterson's memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, I was struck by the honesty with which she described way in which a writer can write or rewrite their own story. On a day when many people are offering their recollections of or reflections on... Continue reading

Posted Apr 9, 2013 at Justluckie

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Seeing the Other Side of the Mountain

Thomas Merton was a constant writer and his journals show the extent to which he thought and prayed through the medium of writing. The last words he ever wrote are contained in the journal he kept during his trip in Asia in the couple of months leading up to his... Continue reading

Posted Apr 8, 2013 at Justluckie

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Engaged Contemplation - Urgent Lessons from Merton

I have been rereading a lot of the books by Thomas Merton that I bought as a student over 25 years ago and it strikes me that his voice is as urgent now as it was in the 50s and 60s. He understood the spiritual predicament of modern Western culture... Continue reading

Posted Apr 4, 2013 at Justluckie

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Where, in the desert, is the Cross?

I find myself drawn to the wisdom of the Desert Mothers and Fathers during Holy Week. This is surprising because they make very little mention of the cross or of Christ's resurrection. It is clear that these early hermits did observe the Easter feast as this is mentioned a few... Continue reading

Posted Mar 27, 2013 at Justluckie

0

Threnody - an Image for Holy Week

I simply want to offer this painting as a contemplative focus for Holy Week without much comment. Robin Philipson was fairly reticent about any his personal engagement with the image of the crucifixion but the title of this piece (a word that evokes the biblical texts we call Lamentations and... Continue reading

Posted Mar 26, 2013 at Justluckie

0

Threnody - an Image for Holy Week

I simply want to offer this painting as a contemplative focus for Holy Week without much comment. Robin Philipson was fairly reticent about any his personal engagement with the image of the crucifixion but the title of this piece (a word that evokes the biblical texts we call Lamentations and... Continue reading

Posted Mar 26, 2013 at Justluckie

0

The Desert for Today

If you believe the blurb on the back of his books, Thomas Merton considered more than one of his large output to be his favourite. The Wisdom of the Desert has a credible claim to that position. As one following a call to a life of solitude, it is not... Continue reading

Posted Mar 25, 2013 at Justluckie

0

Pope Francis' Sermon - Discernment and Purity of Heart

Pope Francis preached a clear, direct, simple and powerful sermon at his inaugural Mass yesterday. Set in a liturgy marked by simplicity which showed a lightness of touch that only comes from a deep confidence, his words moved me in a number of ways. Above all, he focussed on the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 20, 2013 at Justluckie

0

The Deep Cave of our Consciousness

In Kathleen Jamie's wonderful book of reflections, Sightlines, one chapter captured my imagination more than any other. She describes a cave in Spain with palaeolithic and neolithic paintings of animals in the most simple and evocative lines - horse, bull, ibex. She describes the experience of going deeper into this... Continue reading

Posted Mar 18, 2013 at Justluckie

0

Pontifex Maximus - a very short wish list

As an Anglican priest in the Catholic tradition of our church, I feel a very keen interest in the election of a new Pope. He is uniquely placed to represent that Catholic tradition of our Christian faith to the world and the way he does that has an immense impact... Continue reading

Posted Mar 13, 2013 at Justluckie

0

I Heard the Voice of God

I heard the voice of God. It was a voice of unmistakable clarity, a voice of utter reassurance and authority. It had beauty, richness, depth. It was a voice which, when it spoke, changed things - a creative voice. It was at once familiar and utterly strange, known, yet unknowable.... Continue reading

Posted Mar 11, 2013 at Justluckie

2

Merton, Tao and Gospel

Thomas Merton is said to have identified The Way of Chuang Tzu as his favourite among the dozens of books he wrote. It is a lovely, subtle reworking of some of the writings of the ancient Chinese sage, whose thinking directly influenced the development of Zen Buddhism. This short piece... Continue reading

Posted Mar 7, 2013 at Justluckie

0

The Church: Power, Abuse, Renewal

I hesitate to write much about the Church, because I really don't think I have anything sensible to add to what others say more eloquently. Some of the most thoughtful comments on these problems from a Roman Catholic perspective can be found in Sr Catherine Wybourne's blog, ibenedictines. I make... Continue reading

Posted Feb 27, 2013 at Justluckie

2

The Church: Power, Abuse, Renewal

I hesitate to write much about the Church, because I really don't think I have anything sensible to add to what others say more eloquently. Some of the most thoughtful comments on these problems from a Roman Catholic perspective can be found in Sr Catherine Wybourne's blog, ibenedictines. I make... Continue reading

Posted Feb 27, 2013 at Justluckie

6

Remembered Bodies

Pressed into the shining black hardness of this marble altar, the remembered bodies of sea creatures from a time of the earth's youthfulness; carapace, exoskeleton, membrane, the brittle white contours of life in its primitive simplicity. And on the surface of this rock, the excised symbol of the brutal extinction... Continue reading

Posted Feb 25, 2013 at Justluckie

4

Remembering our Dust

Kathleen Jamie is a writer of poetry and prose of unusual clarity, thoughtfulness and attention. Her most recent prose work, Sightlines, is a series of 'meditations' on the phenomena of our world, big and small, and on our reactions to them. She does not restrict her range to the phenomena... Continue reading

Posted Feb 21, 2013 at Justluckie

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