Today was the first proper summer day of the year in my home city, and the first in several weeks, so I and many other Victorians migrated to the beaches to enjoy it. And the beach is not a bad place to see in the last day of Christmas, particularly if you want Shakespeare’s TwelfthContinue reading “On the twelfth day of Christmas…”
Category Archives: Art
On the ninth day of Christmas…
Fittingly, after yesterday reminded us that Jesus was – and is – fully God and fully human, today we remember one of the early church leaders who did much to ensure the church held on to that truth. January 2 in the western church calendar remembers two of the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great andContinue reading “On the ninth day of Christmas…”
On the fifth day of Christmas…
The story of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and assassinated in 1170 by King Henry II, seems altogether irrelevant to Christmas. And the fact that the church calendar remembers him today stems simply from him dying on December 29. But when we read the full Christmas narrative in Luke and Matthew’s gospels, there’s something fittingContinue reading “On the fifth day of Christmas…”
On the fourth day of Christmas…
We come now to a day that has understandably not remained in our public celebrations of Christmas, the day when we remember all the children who were killed at the command of Herod the Great. It is possibly the most painful day of the church year. As a father of young boys I almost can’tContinue reading “On the fourth day of Christmas…”
40 Days of Mercy Week 6: Mercy at the Cross
As we move closer to the time of remembering Jesus’ death, this week’s poem comes from Ukrainian-born poet Anna Akhmatova, whose poem sequence “Requiem” explores the grief that she and others witnessed of the height of Stalinist rule. One striking image that Akhmatova returns to continually throughout the sequence is that of a mother mourningContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 6: Mercy at the Cross”
40 Days of Mercy Week 5: Mercy out of dust
I’ve wanted for a long time to write a series of reflections on the poetry of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs. That will have to wait for another time, but this week’s poem comes from a sequence of hers called “In the Habitations of Death”, where imagery of death, dust, longing and encounteringContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 5: Mercy out of dust”
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”
Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 7
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. Jonah 1:17-2:1 There’s a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that has particularly held on to me since I first read itContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 7”
And who is my neighbour? Part 3
Being a neighbour is fraught at any time, but in a time when suburbs, states and families are being isolated from one another, it is even harder. As an Australian, being part of an island nation has much impact on how we view our own place in the world, and in this time of remindingContinue reading “And who is my neighbour? Part 3”
The Consolations of Writing 