In preparing to lead the service at my church this Sunday – looking at Revelation 10-11:14 – I’ve found myself reading some of Christina Rossetti’s devotional commentary on Revelation, Face of the Deep. If you’re looking for a systematic unpacking of a complex book, probably don’t go to Rossetti, but if you want to readContinue reading “Litany, Rossetti and Cardiphonia-style”
Author Archives: Matthew Pullar
Podcast Episode 1: Poems from Prison
Well, I’ve been promising some new features at The Consolations of Writing, and am pleased to announce here my first podcast, exploring the prison poetry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Click here to access the podcast, and be sure to subscribe to the channel at iTunes if you like it!
New Season
Fig Season? The garden holds promises, and I visit them daily: minuscule at first, fluffy, unsure, like hesitant children, awaiting the world. This is not quite their season: the Rabbi knew as much, yet visited expectant nonetheless. And, as frost and dew recede, there they are, peeping and proffering garden-bound joy. Too early toContinue reading “New Season”
Krateo
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s… (Acts 3:11) Why cling? Fear, perhaps. The crowd, after all, lunged and lurched about, amazed hands raised, indignant, astonished; how might this seem to eyes which had beheld, rejected, hands which had held andContinue reading “Krateo”
Cathedral
Originally posted on Sprawl:
If churches must meet in warehouses, why not kit them out in full industrial splendour, with workers clothed still in their daily labours and soot and sweat the incense of the day, while smokestacks pushed to outer rims lift up glory like it was built for ones like these?
Astronomy
…the dread of something after death – The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn No traveller returns – puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of… (William Shakespeare, Hamlet) What dreams may come when we set out for stars? What will we findContinue reading “Astronomy”
August
I gather moments like raindrops, like snowdrops: these microscopic buds of spring tricked by sun to come out, one by one; I see how hesitant can be can be the grandest glimpse of things and sing. I catch the way your moments dance from distance – yetContinue reading “August”
Westgate Pulses/Don’t Phase Me: After Steve Reich
Eikon
No mirror to reflect, no voice, only dust, sculpted by hands, crafted by plan. No self-stirring spirit, no knowledge, no thrust, only dust, fingerprinted, moulded – with tears and with blood and with sweat – now we stand, heart and body, earthenware image, dust reflecting in praise.
Diakonos
Gather dust. Run, speedy feet, and kick up dust. Kick up, gather: dust we are. O dust, return. Be turned. Gather, sheep. Be gathered, sheep; make ready feet. Unglamorous and matted, poor: gather all. All dusty sheep, return. Gather us. You gather dust, reviving us, and send us out, in cloud ofContinue reading “Diakonos”
The Consolations of Writing 