New Year, Old AKMA

@akma.bsky.social

2389 Followers 441 Following

AKMA is a priest, lecturer (New Test., Greek, Early Church, Crit Theory), writer, gamer; Glasgow, Oxford, now parish ministry in Abingdon-on-Thames. Will not try [in vain?] to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever. http://akma.disseminary.org

A crowd of young men in Mario Brothers cosplay outfits
The Bull from the Durham (Bulls) Athletic Park
Fuschia banner with white letters that read ‘All Power to the Workers, Babes’ displayed across the front of the Ruskin School of Art in the High Street, Oxford, expressing sympathy for USU action at Oxford University, May 2022
Small blonde Yorkshire terrier looking at the camera with big eyes, wearing her Dogs Trust collar and thinking 'What's wrong with walking around on humans while they're trying to sleep? How else does anyone get any rest?'
A grey and white Maltese/Lhasa apso mix looking down and to her left in front of a grey-haired clergyman who’s trying to read from his laptop screen while Flora (the dog) has decided that this was the time for her to climb into the lap desk the vicar is using.
Sunny day with blue sky over the River Thames in Abingdon, narrowboats lining the banks, a small motorboat approaching the camera on the left and a row of geese and goslings swimming from the right to left.
Saint Benedict of Nursia, holding a book with the title ‘Regula’ (for the Rule of St Benedict) and a crosier, with a crow at his feet.
Grey-haired, bearded clergyman dressed in all black, wearing a black homburg, valiantly absorbing as much heat as possible so as to cool the environment for his neighbours, next to charming 4yo in a pink floral dress, who is in turn next to a nattily-dressed young theologian in blue blazer and red diagonally-striped tie.
First two-page spread of an article on Anglican biblical interpretation, by the skeet-er.
Grave marker of Eric Arthur Blair, b/k/a George Orwell
The reverse side of a packet of Minstrels, with the banner headline ‘Share & Enjoy!’ — which was an advertising slogan of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Online quiz that identifies my politics with those of Zohran Mamdani
A hefty three-legged White Shepherd dog with a mitt on its single rear paw.
The lyrics of ‘God Save the Queen’ — the now outdated anthem of the United Kingdom — credited to the members of the Sex Pistols.
A list of early modern social identities which [supposedly] match the responses I gave to the online quiz. No argument here.
Poster for a 1977 exhibition of the works of Saul Steinberg at the Galerie Maeght, depicting a yellow taxicab in Steinberg’s distinctive style, with embossed gold and silver panels over the windscreen.
A poster with colourful signatures of major European artists, headed by the invitation ‘Besuchen Sie uns in Der Neuen Pinakothek’ (‘Visit us in the New Pinacotheca’, one of three major galleries in Munich. It is dedicated to art of the 18th and 19th centuries.
A Player’s Cigarettes card depicting Charles II of England.
Three turkeys standing outside The Friendly Toast, a breakfast cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Two turkeys enjoying breakfast ion the pavement in Cambridge
A Nativity scene from the St Joseph Chapel of the Aylesford Friary of the Carnelite Order
Photo of interior of an elevator with emergency aid cord extending all the way to the floor.
The Little World of Don Camillo and Grogu
Old coot wearing a Taylor Allderdice High School Class of 1975 t-shirt being photographed with his race number, in front of the Meadow Building at Christ Church, Oxford.
Alasdair Gray's painted slogan 'Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation', from the staircase at the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow.
This mage depicts a typescript page from the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Biblical Studies, a chapter entitled ‘What is Interdisciplinarity? An Introduction, Overview, and Justification of the Concept for Biblical Studies’, by A K M Adam. The abstract below it reads, ‘This chapter clarifies the meaning and value of interdisciplinarity by distinguishing it carefully from disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and the uncritical expansion of a single discipline’s authority. Drawing on theorists such as Bourdieu, Klein, Geertz, and Culler, the author argues that disciplines confer coherence and legitimacy by organising knowledge through shared conventions, institutions, and standards of evidence. Multidisciplinary work juxtaposes such disciplines without challenging their internal priorities, whereas genuine interdisciplinarity emerges only when multiple disciplinary perspectives interact transformatively, destabilizing inherited assumptions and producing insights unattainable within a single field. The chapter then applies this framework to biblical studies, showing it to be a historically hybrid field shaped by philology, history, theology, and literary criticism. The author contends that biblical studies has no unique disciplinary essence but gains vitality precisely through interdisciplinary risk-taking that unsettles its dominant historical conventions.’
The image displays the title page of journal article entitled ‘A Brief Introduction to Anglican Interpretation of the Bible’ by A. K. M. Adam, with a portion of the abstract that reads ‘From one perspective, there is nothing distinctive about Anglican biblical hermeneutics; Anglicans parse verbs and compare language usage, ascertain context, and discern intention in the same ways as do other readers of the Bible. Another perspective, though, looks for lines of continuity and regulative practices that would insure congruity between the interpreters from the early years of the Church of England to the interpreters in the Anglican Communion today. Of course, the early Anglicans disagreed, but in retrospect coloured by today's bitter controversies, it can seem as though they disagreed agreeably. This introduction argues contrariwise, that the early years of the Church of England experienced divisions and hostilities over biblical interpretation just as fierce as today's.…’
Church of All Saints, Sutton Courtenay - (West) Tower, churchyard in the foreground, blue sky with clouds in the background.
White cake in the shape of a lamb, with white frosting, with eyes made of chocolate chips, sitting in front of grass (coconut flakes dyed green) and a single rose.
A holy card by Pustet, depicting a sleeping soldier, an amazed soldier, and a sleeping resident of Jerusalem? as Jesus emerges from the tomb with a cross staff and banner. He looks very fit and tan…
A Midnight MacBook Air, the manuscript of a sermon, and a dram of Lagavullin whisky (in a Glenrothes glass).
Reeves’s muntjac in Ock River Park, Abingdon, twilight 1 April. Wide shot to make sure I got something.
Minke, the blonde and grey Yorkshire terrier sleeping on a pillow with a black pillowcase; concealed under her lies sleeping Flora, the Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix, only her contours visible under the pillowcase
Grey and white Maltese/Lhasa apso mix (Flora) curled up with blonde and grey Yorkshire terrier (Minke) in shaggy grey dog bed.
Dune promotional image altered to a blue spectrum with the legend ‘Duke Basketball’, Paul Atreides beside Chana, holding a basketball hoop aloft.
The signature image of Paul Atreides and Chani silhouetted in front of a dark blue sun from the film Dune: Part 2, with the distinctive Dune typeface over their heads spelling out the words 'Duke Basketball'
The signature image of Paul Atreides and Chani silhouetted in front of the sun from the film Dune: Part 2, with the distinctive Dune typeface over their heads spelling out the words 'Duke Basketball'
The signature image of Paul Atreides and Chani silhouetted in front of the sun from the film Dune: Part 2, with the distinctive Dune typeface over their heads spelling out the words 'Dunkin Donuts'
Two small dogs (a grey and white Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix, and a blonde and grey Yorkshire Terrier) curled up together on a fluffy dog bed, the Yorkie’s head resting on the Maltese’s shoulder.
A black-and-white magazine advertisement for Sapolio soap featuring a white-robed goddess standing in front of a US flag, shedding light from a bar of soap onto an inscription that says 'The strong right arm that holds for peace / Shall with our nation's emblem go / To darker lands beyond the sea / And light them with Sapolio'.
A dog named Flora, a grey-and-white Lhasa Apso/Maltese mix with a tragi-comically offset lower jaw, gazing forlornly at the camera.
A depiction of a Christian martyr in rags about to be beheaded by a sword-bearing executioner, with words reading 'Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things' and 'Happy Valentine's Day'.
A sign for Vincent Family Butcher wherein the stresses on the wrong leg of the “V”
Illustration of naval flag, red squares in the upper left and lower right, white squares in the upper right and lower left, that signifies ‘You are running into danger’
A bar chart itemising Paul Foster’s informal survey of the ‘votes’ for actual Pauline authorship of the various epistles, showing near unanimity that Paul wrote Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon, with mixed results on Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles.
A bar chart itemising Paul Foster’s informal survey of the ‘votes’ for actual Pauline authorship of the various epistles, showing near unanimity that Paul wrote Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon, with mixed results on Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles.
St Helen’s Church, Abingdon, in light snow (Epiphany 2026)
Rumpled old codger in t-shirt (Bob Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways tour) and sweatpants in a wingback chair reading John Darnielle’s book This Year (reading the We Shall All Be Healed pages) with a Yorkshire Terrier named Minke and a Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix named Flora in his lap.
Flora (grey and white Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix) lying on our sofa, with Minke (pale brown-gold Yorkshire Terrier) resting her head on Flora's back.
Do not let daily to-ing and fro-ing To earn what we need to keep going Prevent what you once felt when wee, Hopeful and free.
The Little World of Don Camillo, by Giovanni Guareschi. The book cover woodcut illustrates a stout, smiling priest wearing a satorno on the left, across from a man lying on the road having (apparently) fallen off his bicycle.
A jam-jar glass of icy gin and tonic, beside the small sample of Procera Blue Dot Gin and an empty can of Fever-Tree Tonic Water cafrefully balanced on a textured black lap desk.