Crannóggy Island

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  "I am a horrible evil person... I AM EVIL I DID THIS." "I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them." "I'll never have children or marry... I will never know what it's like to have a family... despair." We will never have a full understanding of what drove Lucy Letby to harm and kill vulnerable infants under her care; to know what urged this dark desire and the enjoyment of the pain she inflicted on parents. What has struck Happy Jack is the absence of any substantial Christian commentary on this. Should we try to understand this undoubted manifestation of evil? Or is it best to just accept Lucy Letby's own explanation - that she is evil and deserves to die?  Let’s here what Justice Goss had to say in sentencing her: "You acted in a way that was completely contrary to the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies … The babies you harmed were born prematurely a

Post with permission from our resident Professor from his blog  Parkinson's is not a journey This struck a cord with Happy Jack who experienced two losses in very quick succession a few years ago. Change is a part of life bringing with it loss, regret, sorrow and grief.  Thank you to Clive for sharing this with us. About 17 years ago, at an early music course I bumped into an elderly pupil of my wife. He was a pleasant, kind individual who loved to corner you and give you his life history. He could have been a bore but wasn't. "You know the saying 'no one dies wishing they had worked later on a Friday', well it's true. I wrecked my life, selling my soul to the company and I wake up everyday and regret it. It destroyed my marriage and alienated my son's who now have nothing to do with me." I was sad for him. I smiled sympathetically, although Tbh there has always been little chance of me becoming a company man, I'm fundamentally too lazy. ”I worked

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Mike Starkey writes :  " Drag Church is now joining the inventory of new missional expressions of church, such as Messy Church, Café Church and Forest Church, in contextualising mission for particular groups in a diverse society."  He documents its march into the Church. One such  Drag Church   hails its mission as " provid(ing) a non-judgmental sacred space for people to express themselves proudly, through drag performances and other creative expressions of spirituality… Worship in drag is permission-granting, encouraging individuals to be their authentic selves, exactly as God intended them to be."  St James’s Piccadilly recently hosted a drag night called  Preach! , billed as " a sparkling evening" , which  "welcomes drag icons from around the world to perform beneath its ornate gold ceiling, showcasing some of the biggest names in the art of drag, as well as fresh talent."  Earlier in 2023 another Church of England church, St Mark’s Southend,

An article written by  Fr. Jeffrey Kirby:   The Shame of the Cowardly Shepherds (The Faithless Shepherd ) There is a spiritual battle going on within the fallen heart of humanity. We have been created by and for God. Our soul naturally longs for him and the things that surround him. Our fallenness, however, desires the passing things of “the flesh,” the disordered love for pleasure, comfort, and power. The battle rages within us. The battle reflects the two roads described by the Lord Jesus, one leading to eternal life and the other to perdition. (Matthew 7:13-14) It’s the tension behind the way of the Spirit and the way of the flesh described in many places by Saint Paul. It lies behind Saint Augustine’s two cities, Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s two standards, and – more recently – Pope Saint John Paul II’s two cultures. The battle is real, tangible, and observable. The spiritual battle is the reason for a culture war in our contemporary world. As in the fallen human heart, so in society

Last week, Sinéad O'Connor was found dead at her flat in South London, She was 56 years of age. Some basic background facts on Sinéad  from an article on her in Wikipedia. These speak volumes and help us understand her. - She was born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor in 1966 Dublin. She attended Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock, County Dublin. - Sinéad made repeated accusations of physical, emotional and psychological abuse against her parents towards her as a child. - In 1979, at age 13, O'Connor left her mother and went to live with her father, who had recently remarried. - At the age of 15, acts of shoplifting, as well as of truancy, led to her being placed for 18 months in a Magdalene asylum in Drumcondra, run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. - On 10 February 1985, when O'Connor was 18, her mother Marie died in a car accident, aged 45. - O'Connor was married and divorced four times. She had four children. - On 7 January 2022, two days a