The images of Christmas are astonishing and even, when looked at closely, subversive. The child in a crib, between the ox and the ass, with the adoring kings from the orient, this doesn’t mean that the powers are worth a single grain of respect. There is lèse-majesty in this old

The old myth of Christmas, through its images, tells us something great. More often than we suppose, every day perhaps, a son of the Spirit comes into the world between an ox and an ass. His mother, a simple soul, and his father, a little uncouth, adore the tiny king

I know of a number of good minds who are attempting to define Democracy. I have often worked at it myself, without arriving at anything but trite remarks which, worse, didn’t hold up against severe criticism. For example, someone who defined democracy as equality of rights and responsibilities would define

It’s not surprising that All Saints Eve and the Festival of the Dead, which are just a single festival in two thoughts, should be placed at this moment of autumn, when it‘s clear that all is coming undone and that yet nothing is forecast. Everything is erased by the ceaseless

A child kills himself ­– that’s something painful and almost unbearable to imagine. Let’s try to think about it clearly and find some order within this disorder. Life is good above everything; it is good in itself; reasoning adds nothing. One isn’t happy through travel, wealth, success, pleasure. One is

I remember a Christmas in the artillery. It was the first Christmas of the war; no question yet of oranges, cigars, nor bottles of wine. Still, we had money and links to headquarters through liaison officers who came to make observations from our gun emplacements, from which we had the

The cult of the dead is a fine custom; and All Souls Day falls where it should, at the moment when the visible signs make it quite clear that the sun is abandoning  us. The dry flowers, the red and yellow leaves under our feet, the long nights, and the

Christmas is spring for the mind; it is all promise. In June our joys will burn brightly; the middle of the year will soon tilt to the other side. Beginnings are always more beautiful. Anyone who measures these long shadows now will know they will lengthen no further. At the

Some things we have to accept without understanding; in this sense, no one lives without religion. The universe is a fact; reason has to bow down before it and resign itself to falling asleep before completing its count of the stars.  A child is annoyed by a piece of wood

I think of Shakespeare in his theatre company as a carpenter in his workshop, looking through his stock of wood for a suitable piece, a man who makes tables, wardrobes and chests according to public taste, and even to order, who freely decorates all these things, following his own genius,

Action is the basis of what we enjoy, not being acted upon. Sweets give a small amount of pleasure; all we have to do is let them melt in the mouth, and many people would like to taste happiness in the same way, but they are quite mistaken. We receive

On the jetty at Dieppe I saw a man fishing for seagulls. He let a long line float on the green water, its hook baited. His clear eyes followed the flight of the gulls. They swam in the air with slow movements of their wings; you could see their round

The end of winter is a festival of light. The sun reaches into the depths of the woods. The trunks cast blunt shadows; the stream sparkles; the blue of the sky appears violent in the forks of the trees. Solid masses in the distance are lost in a golden mist.

Knowing that the earth revolves around the sun doesn’t take us very far, not for happiness, not for wisdom, not for justice. A subtle man, well versed in the sciences, wanted to conclude from this that a lot of fuss was made over Galileo, a lot of fuss over not

Our distant ancestors were no more stupid than we are.  Like us, they had all their experiences to hand; like us, they were within experience; their slightest movements changed the total experience, as ours do; even their thoughts were within the large melting-pot, just like ours. This is why they

Plato has said some marvellous things on self-government, showing that this interior government should be aristocratic, that is to say, ruled by what is better over what is worse. By the better he means what in each of us knows and understands; while the people, within us, are our angers,

Yesterday evening the Great Bear stretched out along the edge of the horizon. Cassiopeia lifted her lanterns in a zigzag on the far side of the North Star. Vega, the blue star, was shining at the summit of the sky. Towards the west, Arcturus descended; between the two the Crown

There are marvellous joys in friendship. This is easily understood if we notice that joy is contagious. If my presence gives joy to a friend, the sight of this joy is enough to make me feel joy in turn; so the joy that each person gives is returned; at the

There is a dining hall smell, which is the same in all dining halls. Whether it is monks eating there, or trainee priests, or schoolchildren, both boys and girls, a dining hall always has its dining hall smell. It can’t be described. Greasy water?  Mouldy bread? I don’t know. If

One day, by mistake, Jupiter gave a human soul  to a dog about to be born. At first the dog followed its dog’s instincts, which had already developed within his body. So he was able to suckle his mother’s milk without having learnt how. A little later, with his dog’s

Dawn light bears no resemblance to evening light.  Sometimes they have the same colours, but it’s doubtful whether a painter can show, by light alone, the difference between earliest morning and latest evening; it’s because he halts the sun. In reality, dawn grows lighter from moment to moment, which is

Midnight mass on the 25th of December, what does it mean? I think of it as a festival of the sun, and a kind of farewell to the night. It’s the time when the sun is no longer declining, and is about to begin mounting a little higher each day,

“The chaffinch, a nice subject”. So said the school inspector, a gentle man who had published a book of poems in his youth. Whether it was entitled the Ivory Plectrum or the Silver String or the Nine Holed Flute, no one remembers; but he hasn’t forgotten; he smiles at his