Author Archives: Gerry Lynch

St Pancratius, ‘s-Heerenberg, and the ‘Gestapo Window’

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

St Pancratius (de Pancratiuskerk) in the little Dutch market town of ‘s-Heerenberg (population 8,000) and literally a ten minute stroll from the German border. At first blush – another pretty, ornate, but unexceptional post-Vatican I church in the south eastern … Continue reading →

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What Is A Man? The Question Asked by a Memorial to Forgotten Wars

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

The memorial to the fallen of the 1860s Wars of German Unification in the Rheinpark in Emmerich (Kriegerdenkmal, Emmerich). Emmerich is a sleepy little river port on the Rhine, literally within a casual afternoon stroll of the Dutch border.   Completed … Continue reading →

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The Opioids of the People

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Crossposted at Slugger O’Toole… The United States government has launched a new anti-opioid campaign featuring true stories of people so desperate that they inflicted gruesome injuries on themselves to get another prescription. Such stories have already been more effectively told in … Continue reading →

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Presbyterians, Salvation, and God

Posted on June 9, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole. We cremated my friend James on the freakishly warm Friday before St Patrick’s Day, between the two bouts of even freakier snow. We did this after a celebration of the Supper of the Lord Jesus Christ … Continue reading →

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St Nicolai, Kalkar

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

St Nicolai’s Church in the town of Kalkar (115km north of Cologne, 150km SE of Amsterdam) on the German Lower Rhine – a wonderland of woodcarving from the late 15th and 16th Centuries, where a remarkable cast of woodcarvers found … Continue reading →

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A Tallinn Memorial from the Days before Nationalism

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Our past was at times profoundly different from our present in ways we little appreciate; this memorial in an Estonian church survives from a time when nationalism was not a given, not too long ago. Continue reading →

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Mariken van Nieumeghen aka Little Mary of Nijmegen

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

This bronze statue has been on Nijmegen’s Grote Markt, by the entrance to the Stevenskerk, since 1956 and was executed by Vera Tummers-Van Hasselt. It represents Mariken van Nieumeghen (Little Mary of Nijmegen) one of the symbols of the city … Continue reading →

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Why This Liberal Catholic Will be Praying #ThyKingdomCome

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

The last thing the disciples are recorded as saying to Christ on Earth: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” After all they’d been through, they still didn’t get the point. They were looking … Continue reading →

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Meet the Box-Setts: the Demographic that Will Decide Britain’s Future

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Originally posted at Slugger O’Toole… David Box gives his partner Seema Sett the dorky, Mr Bean-ish look, with the back of his tongue poking out of his gob that he knows always makes her smile when she’s had a rough … Continue reading →

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Boxing, Sculpture and ‘Degeneracy’: Joe Lewis, Max Schmeling and Rudolph Belling

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Bronze “Der Boxer Max Schmelling” by Rudolf Belling, 1928. The divergent fates of sculptor and subject of this work are fascinating. Belling held radical views on the theory of sculpture, and his works were damned as ‘degenerate art’ (entartete Kunst) after the … Continue reading →

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