This week’s poem comes from the largely forgotten African American poet James Weldon Johnson whose book “God’s Trombones” takes as its task to preserve the language and cadence of the African American preaching tradition. The collection begins in a prayer for mercy and then moves through Biblical history to arrive at the final judgement, aContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy: Week 4”
Author Archives: Matthew Pullar
40 Days of Mercy Week 3: Mercy for the safe
This week I lost NBN connection and was locked out of my Google account while trying to buy an eBook of Ilya Kaminsky’s “Dancing in Odessa”. Today I found myself in the impossible position of trying to convey to an Optus consultant why it was no use telling me to download the Optus app toContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 3: Mercy for the safe”
40 Days of Mercy: Week 2
In the last decade of his life, Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) turned to a paraphrasing a number of Biblical psalms in a work known in English by the title “Psalms of David”. Many of his paraphrases take these ancient songs and prayers and apply them to the griefs being experienced by his people underContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy: Week 2”
40 Days of Mercy: Kyrie in the ashes
This Lent, the world worn down by two years of pandemic, war unfolding in Ukraine and hearts anxious and troubled, I am turning to the poems of others to reflect on what it means to cry out for mercy in this time. Today’s poem is from young Ukrainian poet Les Beley, and it is accompaniedContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy: Kyrie in the ashes”
We keep finding hearts
We keep finding hearts- tiny golden plastic ones left over from Epiphany craft,not adhesive yetclinging wherever they are scatteredlike stars on the floorboards,the craft table, the living roomto welcome our guests.Nothing scatters so readilyyet sticks so fervently, as thoughsome symbiosis depended upontheir placement on woodand I must spendconstant delicate moments prisingthese hearts from the floor,Continue reading “We keep finding hearts”
A year of magical reading
2021 has been many things, most of them not what we expected or hoped for twelve months ago. But one positive thing that happened to me this year was that, in an effort to cut back the control of Amazon’s algorithm on my life, I got rid of Goodreads and started to keep my ownContinue reading “A year of magical reading”
Ordinary Wednesday: Cocooning
At bedtime tonight two of my boys started playing with their bright green IKEA tunnel, climbing into it to lie down and pretend to sleep, as though it were a cocoon. Watching them I caught myself thinking, “Yes! That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to build myself a cocoon and lie in it,Continue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Cocooning”
Ordinary Wednesday: Waiting for fruit
The gap between Easter and Advent has seemed especially long this year. Perhaps this is because of the discipline I’ve undertaken of writing a weekly reflection throughout all of Ordinary Time, perhaps the slow drag of lockdown. But this year I have felt every week of Ordinary Time as though it should be over andContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Waiting for fruit”
Ordinary Wednesday: Do not grow weary
It is almost impossible to ever characterise the spirit of a time with one word, but if I were to characterise how the community around me feels this year, I would say, weary. We have not always been weary. In my city at least we started this year hopeful, and remained that way for someContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Do not grow weary”
Ordinary Wednesday: November Rain
After a day of near-summer heat, my home town returns to rain. And it falls gently around my house, on the grass and the trees and in the garden beds, and coming to the end of a tiring day I am soothed by the sounds it makes. Rain reminds me that God is good: HeContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: November Rain”
The Consolations of Writing 