Increasingly, our postmodern generation prefers its communications to be in as few words and as many images as possible. Hence, the curious success of both Facebook—a medium of images—and Twitter—a medium of words. Hence also the success of iPhones and texting, and the continued proliferation of cable television, in-home film delivery services (Netflix), comic books, and film in general.

Our generation relishes a communications diet of visual images seasoned with a few words. Some, such as Neil Postman, have worried that this trend away from verbal communication toward visual images will destroy our ability to communicate meaningfully.[1]

Images and words have factored in human communications from the beginning of civilization. Spoken words reinforced by written words, arranged in a variety of forms (oral history, poetry, songs, plays), can be found in virtually every society, no matter how primitive. Art, sculpture, architecture, fashion, and more have supplemented the verbal images of each generation with visual representations. These can be so powerful as to freeze in time the zeitgeist of an entire generation (compare medieval iconography with nineteenth-century Romantic painting).

But Postman worried that, in our day, the increased hunger for visual images threatens to replace, or, at least, to minimize, the role of words in human communication, thus jeopardizing meaning. He saw this as a most undesirable trend, given that human beings are uniquely identified as the creature that speaks and uses sophisticated language. Thus, our retreat from words into the realm of visual images constitutes a retreat from humanity itself, into a more animalistic world ruled by passions and instincts, rather than by reason.

Of this fair volume which we World do name
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
Find out his power, which wildest powers doth tame,
His providence extending everywhere,
His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare,—
In every page, no, period of the same!
But silly we, like foolish children, rest
Well-pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribbons; leaving what is best,
Of the great Writer's sense ne’er taking hold:
   Or, if by chance our minds do muse on aught,
   It is some picture on the margin wrought.[1]

Drummond complained that, rather than seek to understand what God may be saying to us through the revelation in creation (Ps. 19:1–4), we prefer to get what knowledge of him we need from the pages of Scripture only. And even if we do pause and take the time to meditate on some wonder of glory from the world around, we regard it merely as a kind of illustration of the “real” revelation in Scripture.

My own sense is that this feeling that we “don’t have time” for poetry—or many other arts, for that matter—is a matter of culture more than anything else. Something about our materialistic and secular age discourages people from thinking that the arts are of much real significance for us average Joes. I recall reading an article in the Journal of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development some years ago entitled something like “Art: the Fourth ‘R’,” which was an appeal for public school educators to try to recover some meaningful place for the arts in school curriculum. If we are not taught to “make time” for the arts—including poetry—during our formative years, it’s not likely we’ll value them much once formal schooling has ended.

All that notwithstanding, I want to argue a case for making time for the arts, and, in this particular instance, poetry. Is the explanation, “I’m just too busy, and I don’t have time to read verse” really valid? The assumption behind that explanation is that really busy people, people who are always active in important matters, are already doing everything they can to live a meaningful and contributing life. But my experience watching such people respond to a lesson in poetry leads me to conclude that they think they’re missing something by not spending a little more time in this subject. Can really busy people find a way to make time for verse, and should they expect to benefit from doing so, perhaps in new and deeply satisfying ways?

Moore’s law both extended and pushed human thought and possibilities. Computer scientists and their collaborators were forced to discard certain mental barriers and open their mind to radical change. And many did.

History is now chronicling breathtaking changes across virtually all human undertakings that can be aided by computer analysis and the use of relatively low cost computing and network power. The exponential reduction in the cost of processing power has paired with venture and research capital to cause rapid change in industries as disparate as energy, medicine, and optical displays. And as much as we Americans like our lists of this and that, it would be irrational to attempt a Moore’s Law list of innovations.

It can be argued that the breakthroughs we are experiencing will both lower the risk profile of life and add to our happiness. Assessing risk and reward requires both passage of time and exhaustive research, yet even now it is clear that Moore’s Law effects are not without their dark side.

Of course, the problem with that is I’m getting someone else’s interpretation of all that technical language, since I’m not able to appreciate the nuanced, concise, and highly precise meaning of all those Latin terms, medical definitions, or scientific summaries. I’m interested, to be sure, because (like Richard Dreyfus) I know “this means something.” But I have neither the time nor inclination to learn the language of the lab so that I can decipher such reports for myself.

So I depend on summarizers and reporters I think I can trust, especially those who enable me to understand the everyday implications of whatever discovery, breakthrough, or new development may have been the substance of the latest report from the scientific or medical community. I always feel like I’m missing something, though at this stage in my life, I’m just going to have to live with it.

“Slow down!” the refrain pleads, “Baby, now you’re movin’ way too fast.” The Fab Four were singing about a love relationship that was getting a little ahead of itself, but their message is good advice for our hectic, fast-paced generation: “Slow down! Don’t get ahead of yourself! Make the most of the moments of your life!” We hear this heart-cry in various ways: “You gotta stop and smell the roses.” “Take it one day at a time.” “Don’t be in such a hurry.”

Human beings seem ever to be rushing to the next event, situation, duty, or meeting. In the process, we take for granted the moments of our lives, seeing them as little more than stepping stones to the next big thing. In the process of rushing through our moments to get to the times that matter, we miss the beauty and truth of much of what is happening around us. And it is precisely here that poetry can help us to slow down and learn to discover the glory of God hidden in our overlooked moments.

One of de Botton’s central ideas is that of an alignment between the visual and ethical realms. That is to say, we find architecture beautiful because it corresponds to our ideas about “the good life.” Beautiful buildings, de Botton suggests, correspond to virtuous and happy people. Of course this is not always the case, nor is it a causal relationship; while architecture may suggest such ideals, it doesn’t necessarily bring them about. De Botton notes, “Not only do beautiful houses falter as guarantors of happiness, they can also [fail] to improve the characters of those who live in them.” While architecture undeniably possesses moral messages, he says, it “simply has no power to enforce them.”

However, de Botton insists that beautiful buildings convey a moral attitude, which recalls the claim of the great nineteenth-century critic John Ruskin that buildings speak to us “both of what we find important and what we need to be reminded of.” De Botton writes that architecture invites us to emulate its spirit, offering values it encourages us to adopt as our own. “It is architecture’s task,” de Botton says, “to render vivid to us who we might ideally be.”

Professor Nigel Biggar presented this talk at a December 2009 event for the Westminster Forum of Trinity Forum Europe. The talk that evening was followed by a response from Lord Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.

Among the hill tribes of southern Afghanistan, I am told, talk of forgiveness and reconciliation connotes grubby compromise and dishonour.[1] For many people the issue that ought to arise after conflict is that of justice, even vengeance, not forgiveness and reconciliation. And their point is not merely that justice should have priority, but that talk of forgiveness and reconciliation actually confuses matters and hinders justice.

While some people admired Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s urging victims to embrace perpetrators during the amnesty hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and while they marveled at a process that aspired to reconciliation rather than retribution, others were uneasy and skeptical. The public shows of reconciliation seemed unnatural and forced. And didn’t such forgiveness let the torturers and killers off too lightly? Didn’t it trivialize the terrible wrongs they’d done? Worse, didn’t it triviliase the victims themselves?

At a conference I ran just over ten years ago on Burying the Past after Civil Conflict, we started off talking unselfconsciously about forgiveness and reconciliation, until a young woman, who had been twice imprisoned by the communist authorities in East Germany for dissident activity, stood up. “What on earth are you talking about?”, she said. “What’s all this talk about forgiveness and reconciliation? I now live on the same street as the man who informed on me. I didn’t know him then and I sure as damn don’t want to know him now. What do you mean by ‘reconciliation’?”

Why Forgiveness?

And what do I mean by forgiveness in Northern Ireland? Why do I even raise the matter?

Well, in part, it’s a reflex. I’m a Christian, and the obligation to forgive wrongdoers is a very prominent one in the teaching and example of Jesus. So Christians are pretty much bound to consider what forgiveness requires, when faced with the business of righting wrongs. Talk of forgiveness is not unique to Christianity, of course, but it does seem to be uniquely pronounced there. And I say that, not, I think, out of Christian chauvinism, but on the ground of observations made by a number of Jews—observations that are often more critical than approving.

What are these signs? Where, how and why are they surfacing? They will not be detectable to anyone looking for the magic religion of Woody Allen’s quip, “If only God would give me a clear sign: like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank”.

Maybe this is because banks, like so many other former landmarks of reliability, have become part of tomorrow’s problem. As tomorrow is the age of anxiety it is natural that many people should have begun their own processes of questioning today’s failing certainties. What is being discarded is the aggressive secularism, political correctness and militant materialism of the-me-and-my-bonus mindset. The search is on for deeper meanings, better values, and that “need for something more” which seeks a spiritual dimension to life.

Winter can be unforgiving, especially in a world occupied by both bees and beekeepers. Bees know their job. They organize for it with sublime results. But my job as beekeeper is not without consequence.

One of the true joys of life is that first spoonful of honey following the harvest. But that moment of joy is now two seasons away for me. I could have harvested honey in September, but not without risking the delicate balance that is the crucial natural link in our relationship.