Archive
Author: Alasdair Renwick-Hale
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The Need Nearest You Is Usually Unglamorous
I remember sitting in a cramped hospital waiting room years ago, listening to a well-meaning volunteer explain how “community engagement” was the silver bullet…
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Tools Are Not Neutral in Their Effects
I remember sitting in a quiet, sterile room in the oncology ward, holding the hand of a man who was more frightened by the…
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Honest History Includes What Was Done Badly
I’ve sat through far too many seminars where academics and activists use increasingly dense, polished language to signal their virtue, as if a more…
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Repetition Usually Marks the Structure
I remember sitting in a dimly lit hospital ward late one Tuesday, listening to a young man try to explain a grief that had…
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Grief Outlasts the Casseroles
I remember sitting in a small, sterile hospital room in the late nineties, the smell of industrial floor wax heavy in the air, watching…
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Contentment Is Trained, Not Discovered
I remember sitting in a small, dimly lit room in the hospice during my final year of chaplaincy, listening to a man who had…
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Mission and Empire Were Entangled and Not Identical
I remember sitting in a cramped, dimly lit hospital waiting room years ago, listening to a young man try to explain his profound grief…
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Owning Less Is Easier Than Wanting Less
I spent most of my years in hospital wards, sitting in the quiet spaces between a patient’s breath and their inevitable questions, and I…
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Cheapness Usually Has an Address
I remember sitting in a sterile hospital corridor years ago, watching a young administrator frantically explain how a “streamlined” logistics system was supposed to…
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Reading a Letter in One Sitting Changes It
I remember sitting in a quiet hospital corridor late one Tuesday, the air smelling faintly of antiseptic and stale coffee, watching a young man…