What can I say. I want to communicate what a great time I had at Poets, Prophets and Preachers and how grateful I am to Rob Bell for not only inviting me to speak but standing side by side with me on the stage in an act of solidarity. In the battle for what Christianity will look like in our current epoch Rob Bell is an important figure and one who I hope we heed. For, as I hinted at in one of my talks, some of the alternatives are frightening in their impotent violence.

Anyway, there were a couple of practical things that I wish I had mentioned at the conference but totally forgot about. The first concerns the album I mentioned called ‘Hymns to Swear By’. Lots of people have been asking me about it. I am hoping that Pádraig Twomey (the singer/songwriter) will have it recorded by October and that we will be launching it during my pub tour. However ikon has produced a CD called ‘Dubh‘ (Irish for ‘Black’) on which Padraig has a couple of songs. Here is a taste of Pádraig on the CD (it is not by me, despite what it says on soundcloud),

The second thing i wanted to remind people of is that I am running a parable competition as part of the launch of my new book, ‘The Orthodox Heretic‘. There is still a few weeks for you to write something before the deadline so please do get writing. More information here.

People have been asking if I am thinking of doing an audio version of The Orthodox Heretic. The answer is that, while I would like to, I have to wait to see how well the book does first.

However I am working on an exciting DIY project at the moment with the musician Dubh provisonally entitled The Cimmeria Chronicles: An Anthology of Half-Forgotten Fables. This album will offer twelve parables (some new ones I have written that are not in my books and some that I have collected over the years) with ambient dub overlayed. Each track will be ideal for personal or collective relfection.I am tempted to use the subtitle Bedtime Stories for the Soul, as the restful tone of the work will be ideal to listen to late at night as you prepare to sleep.

There will be more information on this little underground project in the coming weeks. However, for now I thought I would gather together the readings I did on this blog in the run-up to the release of The Orthodox Heretic, so that they could all be accessed from the one place.