Showing everything tagged as Revd Dr Sam Wells

Two weeks ago I sat in the deanery garden of St Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, with Godfrey Harwood, who was dean from 1986, during the transfer of power, and who had become a close friend of Geoffrey Brown, vicar of St Martin’s during the same period.

Last week in the US Open tennis championship, the Australian Nick Kyrgios, at that point a set and 0-3 down, let a couple of serves pass him without attempting to play them. The hugely experienced and respected umpire Mohamed Lahyani, wondering whether the player was having a physical spasm or a mental meltdown, got down from his chair and said to him, ‘You’re great for tennis. But this isn’t good. It’s not you.’

When I was at an American university, each year the head of undergraduate studies would give the same address to the entering class: ‘find your passion.’ It gave the impression the faculty offered a beauty parade and the students surveyed the catwalk and eventually decided – ‘That’s the one for me.’

Anger is back in fashion. The Trump supporters are angry. The Trump opponents are angry. The Brexiteers are constantly angry: angry with Europe, angry with Remainers, angry with mild Brexiteers, angry with each other. The Remainers are angry that more people don’t seem to be angry enough about it all.