This is a memory of a Conference given by Timothy Radcliffe OP to the Religious of Arundel and Brighton in my early days in Hastings. He walks into the room looking like he fell out of bed in his clothes – a well worn aran sweater, the tail of his shirt hanging out, hair tossed. He tells us he intended wearing his habit but when he picked it up this morning it had too many coffee stains, so he dropped it. And I find myself in admiration of this unworldliness, this total lack of vanity! It's as if humility himself walked in the door. Vanity clings to me like a disguise, a cover for my interior shabbiness and I'm thinking that Timothy Radcliffe must have great interior strength, a man so self-possessed that he doesn't require the kind of nice exterior appearance that many of us think we need. Here is a man at home with himself. His eloquence becomes his clothing and I could have listened to him all day. He's very polished in the way he speaks, well read, very intelli...