A number of people ask about our vestments and the colours of them, so here are a few thoughts. However I preface them with two cautions: It doesn’t really matter that much, but if you’re going to do it, you may as well do it consistently and correctly. Whole libraries have been written about this, and it’s only a short Facebook post, so it doesn’t contain all the world of scholarship. Initially, try and think of a liveried servant in a country house in the old days, or an army regiment now,...

The nonrecognition of Jesus by the Disciples can seem unusual, difficult to understand. Context is of course important to any recognition – if you’re in what is thought to be the ‘wrong’ place or in the ‘wrong’ clothes, it might be easier to be uncertain who you are. When I lived in London, this was telling – it’s a big place and you might catch a glimpse of someone and not be sure who it was, and if you are to be confused anywhere, a busy capital city with millions of people walking around...

There used to be a blog called ‘Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things’, I was a great fan. It showed the leader of North Korea being taken to see things, and he would look at them with a degree of interest, depending on the Thing he was presented with. Sometimes, one of his (rather obvious) body doubles would take his place, and their look of sheer incomprehension of what they were being shown could be telling, a little like when a mechanic shows me what is wrong with my car, I simply don’t know what...