The Church Times Podcast

In the fourth episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Winter Swans” by Owen Sheers, published in his collection Skirrid Hill (Seren Books, 2005). “Those with a religious belief are as human as everyone else,” Mark says. “They live with the ebb and flow of the heart, as well as the pain of what the past is up to in the present. "Deep within the heart of Christian faith, though, is the belief that human beings were made for relationship, and that, although many things work against this — past traumas, present stresses, future doubts — it is an elemental part of the human adventure to seek to place our relationships in good order, integrated with honesty, freedom, and mutual concern.” Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. His book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press) won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Artwork by Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the third episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Love (III)” by George Herbert. “Over my years of reading Herbert, I have come to see him as the poet who most expresses our relationship with God as a friendship,” Mark says. “I’m not talking about friendship in terms of the 600 ‘Friends’ we have on Facebook, but rather the one or two people who have changed our life for good and maybe at some cost to us both. “Thinking about these friends can dare us to reflect, as I think did Herbert, that our life with God is a friendship that asks of us a mutual freedom. Friendship deepens as honesty deepens. We cannot put the other on a pedestal. We must try and prize off the mask that has begun to eat into our face. We need to be brave in hearing what we don’t like or saying what we have never dared. “Friendship requires courage enough to stop skating so quickly over our own thin ice in case we disappear through the cracks. Instead, we face the fact that we need support and connection and that, also, we have much to give as well.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. Artwork by Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On this episode of the Book Club Podcast, the Revd Alexander Faludy, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Published in 1940, Ernest Hemingway’s war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is set in 1937, near Segovia, during the Spanish Civil War. The lead character, Robert Jordan, is a young American teacher who volunteers to help a group of guerrilla fighters blow up a bridge to stop the advance of Francisco Franco’s fascist forces. The drama evolves over three days at the cave hideout of the guerrilla fighters in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra. During that time, Robert Jordan falls in love with a Spanish girl, Maria. As tension mounts and death seems certain, the book’s title, derived from one of the metaphysical poet John Donne’s meditations takes resonance: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee.” Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an author and journalist, and is celebrated as one of the leading American 20th-century novelists. For Whom the Bell Tolls is published by Cornerstone at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-0-09-990860-9. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the second episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Don’t give me the whole truth” by Olav H. Hauge (1908–1994). The poem is published in Hauge’s 1996 collection of the same name, published by Anvil Press Poetry, an imprint of Carcanet Press. “Here in this poem, Hauge prays that he will only be given enough in life to keep him going,” Mark says. “He doesn’t want all that there is. Like birds who only carry off a few drops of water from the stream, or wind that only takes a grain of salt from the ocean, he doesn’t want to possess everything or understand it completely. “Instead, he asks for glints, epiphanies, droplet recognitions that feed us enough to keep us exploring but not enough to make us feel we have arrived. It is the prayer of a pilgrim.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. Artwork: Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

We are pleased to present a new poetry podcast for Lent, in association with Canterbury Press. This week, Canon Mark Oakley reflects on “Paternoster” by Jen Hadfield. "Paternoster" is published in her collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize. We are grateful to Bloodaxe Books for giving permission to play a recording of Jen Hadfield reading the poem. bloodaxebooks.com. “‘Paternoster’ is, to my mind, one of her most beautiful poems,” Mark says. “It is a prayer of a draughthorse in which she reworks the texture and rhythm of the Lord’s Prayer through the horse’s heart. . . If you want a glimpse of the beauty of a prayerful, intimate litany from a tired but hopeful heart then I recommend you listen to it as well as read it. Hadfield’s poems are mesmeric and are meant, as are all poems, to be heard.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John's College, Cambridge. Artwork: Emily Noyce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The General Synod voted this week to welcome the Bishops’ proposals to provide prayers to bless same-sex unions in church — but with a last-minute clarification that their use would not contradict the Church’s current teaching on marriage. On the podcast this week, Francis Martin speaks to different Synod members to hear their reactions to the vote — from both those who welcome it and those who do not. Picture credit: Max Colson/Church Times Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Rachel Mann, who has written this month’s book club essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The Inseparables is published by Vintage at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78487-718-7. The Inseparables is an autobiographical novel that was never published in Simone de Beauvoir’s lifetime, as it was considered too intimate for publication at the time of its writing in the 1950s. It covers the real-life story of de Beauvoir’s adolescent relationship with Zaza, which had a profound effect on the philosopher’s thinking and writing. Zaza died at the age of 21. In the book, Zaza is represented by the character Andrée Gallard, and the author appears as the narrator, Sylvie Lepag. Set in France just after the First World War, the story follows their ten-year relationship from the age of nine, describing their in-depth discussions about equality, justice, and religion. Their teachers deemed them “inseparable”. The late Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) is heralded as being one of the most important philosophers and feminists of the 20th century. She worked alongside the French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and became one of the leaders of the existentialist movement. Her writing included work on philosophy, feminism, fiction, autobiography, and politics. Her books include the novel The Mandarins (1957), which won the Prix Goncourt. The author is best known for her influential philosophical work The Second Sex (1949) — a work of feminist philosophy which was put on Vatican’s Index of Prohibited Books. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester from 24 to 26 February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Music for the podcast is by Twisterium

On the podcast this week, the writer and activist Symon Hill talks about protest and Christian faith. Symon was arrested on 11 September during the Proclamation of the King’s Accession in Oxford, after shouting “Who elected him?”. The charges against him were dropped earlier this month (News, 13 January). He talks on the podcast about the importance of the right to protest peacefully, as well as about why he believes that forms of non-violent direct action are often necessary in the pursuit of justice, such as when campaigning against the arms trade. He also talks about his new book, The Peace Protestors: A history of modern-day war resistance, which the Revd Fraser Dyer described as a “richly detailed and thoroughly readable history of the past forty years of peace protest in the UK” (Books, 23 December). An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times, as well as a feature by Symon on activism and Christian faith. Read here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/27-january/features/features/symon-hill-my-arrest-for-querying-the-king. The Peace Protestors is published by Pen and Sword History at £25 (CT Bookshop £22.50). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk As well as being a writer and activist, Symon works part-time for the Peace Pledge Union and teaches History and Religious Studies for the Workers’ Educational Association. https://symonhill.org Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the writer and comedian Cariad Lloyd talks about her new book, You Are Not Alone: A new way to grieve. The book is a distilliation of what she has learned through her award-winning podcast, Griefcast. “I think we don’t talk about death enough, basically,” she says. “Even if we’re better than we were, say, 50 years ago, we don’t give space to grief. We don’t allow people to be sad. We kind of expect people after a year, maybe two years, to stop going on about it, even if we never say that out loud.” You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury Tonic and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk https://cariadlloyd.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Picture credit: BBC/Fremantle Media/Talkback

The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, short stories by Omer Friedlander, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, he talks to Susan Gray, who has written this month’s book club essay about the book (read it at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club) The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is a collection of 11 short stories. They are all set in modern-day Israel, transporting the reader to the lush orange groves in Jaffa, the arid Negev desert, and the narrow alleyways of Jerusalem. The stories are set against the conflict in the region, but the focus remains on the individual characters with their own tales of love, heartbreak, loss, and strife. The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is published by John Murray Press at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49); 978-1-399-80394-6. Omer Friedlander is a young Israeli-born writer who now lives in Brooklyn, in New York City. He was born in Jerusalem in 1994, and grew up in Tel Aviv, before studying English Literature at the University of Cambridge. From there, he continued his studies in the United States, and achieved an MFA from Boston University, supported by the Saul Bellow Fellowship. His writing has achieved global success in Canada, France, Israel, and the US, and his short stories have won many literary awards, including first place in the Baltimore Review Winter Contest, and the Shmuel Traum Literary Translation Prize. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Picture creidt: © Yab Traiber