tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37323603267291927892024-03-05T23:22:52.748+11:00Vagaries, auguries and encountersThe ramblings of a teacher, poet and painter who looks for the beauty in things and talks about it at length.Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-33901154090974435762021-03-14T11:26:00.001+11:002021-03-14T11:28:10.668+11:00The Mediaeval Cathedrals of England - Part 2Here is a video about nine of England's beautiful Madiaeval Cathedrals. They range from tiny little Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which is only as large as a parish church, to Norwich and Peterborough which are 48o feet long. All these cathedrals have been extensively restored during the 19th century, but all of them are substantially intact ancient buildings, with the exception of the spireTamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-71716238132820306672021-03-05T04:23:00.003+11:002021-03-05T04:24:34.848+11:00The Mediaeval Cathedrals of England, Part 1One of the delights of my life is visiting old churches and cathedrals.
Firstly, what exactly is a cathedral? Is it just another name for a very large church?
No. A cathedral is a church with a very special function - it contains the seat of a Bishop. From the Cathedral, the Bishop administers the churches of a region known as a Diocese.
The Bishop is not actually the Head Priest at the Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-68297341011389223542017-04-03T08:38:00.001+10:002017-04-04T10:11:58.555+10:00Together, we can work for good, or for evil.
What if your cow falls down the well on a Sabbath?
Luckily this cow survived!
I do not hold with much Evangelical teaching. I believe it is focussed too much on referring to a book, reverently known as "The Word of God" and much too little on the teachings and examples of the Christ, referred to by John the Evangelist as "The Word of God".
I have been advised against "hardening Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-59028915474250906202017-03-29T08:56:00.001+11:002017-03-29T09:13:37.683+11:00What is the Old Testament really about?
What is the Old Testament really about?
I know that fundamentalist Christians are not going to like what I say,
but if you hang in there and absorb this, you will realise that you can
go right on believing, while still changing your view of the Bible, and
accepting a more rational one.
The Old Testament is a wonderful LIBRARY of ancient Jewish literature of
all sorts. It includes: Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-63131025107494667902017-03-24T09:10:00.000+11:002017-03-29T09:01:33.439+11:00Jesus, did he exist? - thirty-three teachings that have stood the test of time
Here
are some of the teachings of a 1st century man, described in
literature, but claimed, by some, never to have existed. The teachings
seem very humane and sensible, and apart from the mentions of "God",
quite devoid of superstition. Taken on merit, these teaching are
evidence of a highly enlightened mind.
1. That God is a loving Father.
2. That like any loving father, God has Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-77866278076411718782016-01-13T07:42:00.000+11:002017-03-29T09:02:33.182+11:00Homosexuality and the Bible
Homosexuality and the Bible
My suggestion, as always, is get back to the "Word of God".
Not that Jewish library of myths and legends, histories, law, old sayings, erotica, allegory, poetry and prophecy. And not the collection of letters by members of the early Christian Church, of whom Paul might well be seen as a "Doctor of the Church" along with Augustine, Gregory and the Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-75950687315467791142014-06-30T17:02:00.000+10:002015-08-02T00:18:05.109+10:00Women of Faith: in Australia and the Sudan
Susan Carland, Australian spokesperson for Islam
Meriam Wani (nee Ibrahim), Sudanese Christian
NOTE: This blog is posted with the express intention of alerting young women who may be attracted by the modesty and apparently high values espoused by those who have adopted Islam, to look at the realities.
I was prompted to make a comparison between these two Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-14152230135794797212014-06-15T15:30:00.002+10:002014-06-17T12:33:33.426+10:00Another poem
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Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-56133250620038139002014-03-16T21:07:00.000+11:002014-06-17T12:34:25.790+10:00The Lord's Prayer
Mike Taylor
My brother Michael Taylor died last year, a few days before his 73rd birthday. He had lived in a nursing home for six years, keeping the staff entertained and on the run, with his loud, cheerful and demanding voice, and his infectious laugh. In the last months his health deteriorated rapidly. Always a gourmand, when he was no longer able to go to Gilmore's Hotel for Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-80347300923424307072014-03-16T20:20:00.003+11:002014-05-27T07:23:51.766+10:00Let all the World, in Every Corner, Sing!
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Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-12244334549923744042011-11-26T17:12:00.030+11:002011-11-30T20:57:55.550+11:00Love: 1 Corinthians 13
As verger of St Stephen's Anglican Church, Newtown, I attended innumerable weddings. The Reverend Don Meadows and I made a good team. While he welcomed, reassured, celebrated and preached, I parked cars, secured slipping veils, took flower-girls to the toilet, retied sashes, sorted out spats between mothers-in-law, distracted the odd drunk from disrupting the service, Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-14281787852156237182011-11-06T12:37:00.015+11:002014-06-17T12:33:54.793+10:00The Wandering Monarchs
Life in Newtown, No. 1
I lived with my small son in a little two-storey Newtown terrace house with a cheerful yellow kitchen where the low winter sun poured in through the window and across the table on frosty mornings. I had a little yard where roses and lavender and white daisies grew, as well as an enormous pumpkin vine that fed us all the winter.
Into my garden Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-52181735213802099532011-10-21T21:27:00.006+11:002011-11-30T11:08:43.316+11:00Italian poem No 11.
The Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua
Pilgrimage to Padova
Do you remember Sant' Antonio's?The domes and towers and pinnacles and sky;two ancient nuns who, limping arm in arm, each bore a portion of her sister's load,pied against the orange bricks of noon,a focus of intensity and eye?
Gattemelata by Donatello
Do you recall the warrior on his steed,so purposeful, yet humble, lookingTamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-38861414118842479952011-10-15T00:41:00.005+11:002011-11-30T11:09:21.975+11:00Italian poem No 10.
The Millstream
I am fishing in the millstream in the brown and frothing current;
foam a-swirling, leaves a-twirling
on the mountain's rushing torrent.
Our poor Gwen fell off the culvert
in the dark and stormy night,
soaked her clothes
bruised her knees,
spilt her handbag, grazed her elbows,
gave us all a nasty fright!
Now I'm fishing in the millstream
for her wallet, purse and keys,
the goldTamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-8236711810641771592011-10-11T13:18:00.008+11:002011-11-30T10:57:51.125+11:00Italian Poem No 9.
Molino Revisited
"Here's the place!" I say.
We stop the car
and from the grassy verge look just below us in the valley
where an aged limestone building squats,
an old beret of terracotta tiles
pulled on its head.
It has green shutters
at the upper window where,
so many years ago, I slept.
The millstream curves around
and though the wheel
is long since Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-76668074330636516552011-10-08T22:59:00.008+11:002016-02-04T21:15:43.178+11:00Italian poem No 8.
"The Funeral of Santa Fina", Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1485
NOTE: The story of the painting and the origins and iconography of the poem are to be found at ".....favourite things....." in the blogs "Tea with Mussolini" and "Santa Fina and the violets"
Santa Fina
for Dame Judi Dench
Little maiden
with your flaxen hair
and forehead neatly plucked,
(bearer of Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-41448888564926648502011-10-07T12:57:00.003+11:002011-11-30T10:47:50.774+11:00Italian poem No 7.
 Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-56825707349209241262011-10-06T12:57:00.007+11:002011-11-30T11:11:33.411+11:00Italian poem No 6.
Flowers for Larry
A boy kneels down before the Primavera-
Rome has passed him by:
a symphony of roaring cars and tooting horns
and rattle of a thousand motor bikes
punctuated by a policeman's whistle.
At the Trevi Fountain
spray was blownTamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-7374437844281256002011-10-03T14:19:00.003+11:002011-11-30T10:50:17.882+11:00Italian poem No 5.
Liberty
The eyes of David,
the eternal vigilante,warn the approaching tourist
from beneath their jutting brow.
Stone cold flesh
glows palely in the sunlight.
Herakles is pausing for a moment
before he murders Cacus
and not far away
Judith, the Queen of Israel,
slits the throat
of one Holofernes,
while on his almost-Nouveau pedestal
the hero Perseus
holds up the frightful head
of the MedusaTamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-28201482066853938902011-10-01T11:31:00.007+10:002011-11-30T10:52:01.277+11:00Italian poem No 4.
The Watchman of the City
The young man stands so seemingly relaxed, weight on one foot, the other leg is forward, loose at the hip; his huge stonemason's hand is gently resting on his thigh. &Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-67332126319714260882011-09-29T16:38:00.006+10:002011-11-30T10:52:39.446+11:00Italian poem No 3.
The psychiatric unit of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence treats between ten and twenty people each year who are so overcome by certain supreme masterpieces that they suffer disorientation, palpitations and sometimes manic or depressive symptoms. Among the artworks that trigger this response are Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Michelangelo's David. The condition is known as Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-85025330438111469482011-09-27T23:27:00.003+10:002011-11-30T10:33:45.290+11:00Italian poem, No 2.
Piazza della Repubblica
Rome by night
the arching blue-black dome
above the roaring screeching endless noise
and glaring lights illuminating rain
fragmented images and flashing road
and swirling hissing spraying water
and the noise
and in the midst
a brazen nymph back-lit against the streams of gushing diamonds
blithely bathing in the fountain.
© Tamsyn Taylor Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-15587061847884025952011-09-27T22:18:00.003+10:002011-11-30T10:53:43.325+11:00Italian Poem No 1.
Afternoon in Venice
Italy
You promised me Italy-the dream of bumble bees, the hazy loaves of Tuscan hillsand colonnaded shadows deep with wine;Steep streets with red checked tables cut to standwhere no chair ever could;Pale shutters faded to the shade of autumn grass;Light, iridescent glinting sparkling twinkling in the long rays of the pale autumn sun; Pale frescoesfaded to the pink of Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-37095500315639426612011-09-17T21:02:00.018+10:002012-10-19T22:24:33.892+11:00A guide to Anglican Liturgy for young Sydney Anglicans
NOTE: Some Anglicans from beyond the boundaries of the Diocese of Sydney might be bemused that I should write this, but trust me, there are many young people in Sydney who go to Anglican churches regularly, but have never attended a liturgical service.
This is for young persons who don't understand the role played by Anglican prayer books and those "old-fashioned" church services &Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3732360326729192789.post-56061851760912202892011-09-04T13:52:00.003+10:002011-09-06T11:27:10.708+10:00Is this REALLY the face of Jack the Ripper?I have observed with a growing sense of alarm, the highly selective processes employed by those who create forensic reconstructions of faces.
On 30th August 2011, on the eve of the broadcast of episode four of the TV program National Treasures Live, the BBC published an article about the recent forensic reconstruction of the face of a man thought by some to have been Jack the Tamsyn Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12881458574931777675noreply@blogger.com0