The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailedContinue reading “Advent with the prophet Jonah: Day 2”
Author Archives: Matthew Pullar
The Rage of Being Flesh: Advent with the prophet Jonah
But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”(Jonah 4:9) Advent devotionals do not usually start here, with the prophet Jonah angrily beneath his vine, wanting to see Ninevah destroyed and his vine restored. But I’m beginning hereContinue reading “The Rage of Being Flesh: Advent with the prophet Jonah”
Poem after a line from Auden
Prayer, like poetry, makes nothing happen,if “make” means controland “happen” means an instant, an event.No incantations with prayer, no spells;nor with poems. You leavescratching your head,ambivalent to what has transpired.Sometimes forced, sometimes fluid,never simple, unless void of allmeaning save the surface.But prayer and poems both deal in depths;they refuse surface and befuddle the hurried.And poems,Continue reading “Poem after a line from Auden”
Starting in the garden: NAIDOC 2020
As many Australians have come together over the past week to recognise the first Australians for NAIDOC week, I’ve been challenged to think more about how I walk with indigenous Australians day to day. This is a small beginning: a reflection of what it means in my own backyard.
Excerpt from “Plague Year”
But we venture on. Newness at least is inthe air, on Capitol Hill, in the fruit jumping out of trees. We cannot slow thisif we wanted to. Shopping aisles charge ontowards Christmas, while my heart craves Advent.I could use the dark, the waiting, to bendsoul’s joints back into shape, could use the longsilence to learn againContinue reading “Excerpt from “Plague Year””
My Monastery
Order unravels quicklyfrom sleepy first breath tooutbreak of chaos.I cannot controlthe unfolding of the day, but Godof the singularity andmultiplicity teachessingle-heartedness ifI take this momentto listen.
Broken, new
Everything breaks,is broken, orsticks underfoot like porridge.Voice grows tired, andheart turns wildat the endless, savageprice of love.Crushed underfoot,I learn Eden and Golgothawhile I wipe the floor again.Body breaks, is broken,tomorrow is new.
The Gospel Reading
The day had gone on long enough.First the Pharisees and their questions,then the intruding children,then the camel and the needle’s eye,so that, when they cried out,”Who then can be saved?” it wasas much from the weariness of the day’s debates as the thought that riches could keep an earnest man from heaven.And so, right whenallContinue reading “The Gospel Reading”
Wednesday
Learning the names of days, my sonasks each morning for the signs that distinguishone from the next: is thisthe day the rubbish truck comes?Does Dad go to work?Is it music class today?And this day, one withoutany special markers, leaves mebereft of news to give him, onlythe name – Wednesday – and the thoughtthat days likeContinue reading “Wednesday”
Day Zero
On this dayI still wrestled my childreninto their clothes,still raced out the door too late for comfort,still pricked my finger with a rose thorn,still feared that all my labour’s in vain,and found the evening slumpa little close to despairyeteverything changed, while nothing changedand mustard seeds of life were at workwhether we noticedor not.
The Consolations of Writing 