During the first Melbourne lockdown around Easter 2020 I began baking bread. One of the first items to start disappearing from supermarket shelves was bread (after toilet paper…) and with shops overwhelmed by panic-buyers rushing in to get everything they needed for the apocalypse it was generally easier to make do with what we hadContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Daily Bread”
Author Archives: Matthew Pullar
The Lisping God
God, Calvin said, speaks like a nursing mother lisping to her child, making room for “our feebleness”, as though cuddling us with words. And so I turn to the comfort of Psalms where the wounded Christ opens His arms to make room for my wounds, to the God who calms a lamb sleeping by aContinue reading “The Lisping God”
Ordinary Wednesday: In Between Poems
Heaven’s chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last; Earth’s sands are slow, but surely dropping thro’: And much we have to suffer, much to do, Before the time be past. Christina Rossetti, “Heaven’s chimes are slow” One of my favourite stories is a little-known work by J.R.R. Tolkien called “Leaf By Niggle”. ItContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: In Between Poems”
For all your unwritten poems
This one has a stone wall that you saw driving north at sunrise on your last day at work. You thought, “I’ll write a poem about that”, but by sunset it was lockdown again and you went home to stay home. No poem. This one has a glimpse you caught of your face reflected inContinue reading “For all your unwritten poems”
Ordinary Wednesday: Spring Hesitation
Poets have never fully trusted spring. e.e. cummings likened it to a “perhaps hand”, hesitant and uncertain. T.S. Eliot called April “the cruellest month” (a class I taught once decided it was because he had bad hayfever). John Mark McMillan recently sang that “Spring without permission rages on again”. And Christina Rossetti had this toContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Spring Hesitation”
Keeping It Reel: Thoughts on authenticity and social media
I was filming my sons engaging in a science experiment they had learnt about on Play School – mixing bicarb soda and hair conditioner to make snow – when I realised very quickly that this was not something I would be sharing on social media. The twins shovelling handfuls of bicarb-conditioner-mess into their mouths whileContinue reading “Keeping It Reel: Thoughts on authenticity and social media”
Ordinary Wednesday: Natural Theology for Pre-Schoolers
This is a conversation I had with E, my nearly four-year-old, at breakfast yesterday, about why the porridge was not ready yet, even though he was yelling at it and telling it that he wanted it to be ready. Me: It’s like in Basil and the Branch [a kids’ book that he loves about aContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Natural Theology for Pre-Schoolers”
Ordinary Wednesday: The New Ordinary?
It’s a curious thing, keeping ordinary time these last two years. In some respects everything is very ordinary. We don’t leave our homes very much; each day feels much like the previous one; we see the same people, the same walls, the same garden beds. Yet in other ways nothing is ordinary. We long forContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: The New Ordinary?”
From the ground
“Dada! Find wiggly-woo!” the twins cry,exultant at the chance to dig fingers in earthand find its inhabitants in their hands. And so, on my lunch break, I fossickin our newly dug garden bed,each patch of earth yielding a companion for these delighted fingers,and I store the moment like compostto ferment within, to wriggle me alive.
Ordinary Wednesday: Rising, Setting
“From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised…” (Psalm 113:3) I have struggled to find the words for today’s reflection, because across Australia lockdowns continue and many I know are weary and broken. I am wary of what Australian writer Kathy LetteContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Rising, Setting”
