“…dirt [is] matter out of place.” (Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger) When the day’s settling is done, I seek order in domestic chaos, restoring categories I never previously held: that these trains belong together and those trucks do not; while this bus driver does not fit that car, nor does that book belong in theContinue reading “Daily Reset”
Category Archives: Devotional
A Mindlessness Prayer
These days when all of the socks are odd and all your thoughts are scrambled eggs and, try as you might to talk to God, nothing much makes any sense, for the rubbish awaits in noisome piles, the bills are due and so’s the tax and the laundry measures its depth in miles and theContinue reading “A Mindlessness Prayer”
“Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble?”
When David’s son scannedthe spiritual wreckage that was His houseand delared, “Destroy thisand I’ll raise it in three days,”He meantwhat He said not asmetaphor – which my students all knowis a kind of lying, a hedging of bets –but as Truth, both in symbol and fact.Daily they destroyed this house, and He,the true house, wouldContinue reading ““Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble?””
Instruments: For Francis of Assisi
Today the church remembers St Francis of Assisi, so here is a sneak peek at a new poem I wrote based on his life and ethos for The Swelling Year. Instruments (For Francis of Assisi) All our instruments tend to dischord. We turn away from harmony in search of our own tunes. Brother Jesus, inContinue reading “Instruments: For Francis of Assisi”
“Consolation” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I don’t normally share other people’s work here but I read this gem this morning and it was so precious – especially the ending – that I thought I had to post it. Consolation – Elizabeth Barrett Browning All are not taken; there are left behind Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make theContinue reading ““Consolation” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning”
Memento Mori: After Chris Wallace-Crabbe
And Adam, seeing that immortality had not clothed him but left his glory naked, felt in his body the future ache of all who would toil and moil their mortal days, and taking Eve’s hand, he hid their rude-awakened flesh in the quiet of a deceitful glade while the immortal searched to clothe them andContinue reading “Memento Mori: After Chris Wallace-Crabbe”
Bloom
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. (Psalm 126:5) You’ll be glad to hear your tree is sprouting leaves and in the midst of blossom, tiny fruit. Your little brother’s learning all the names for almond, flowering gum and bottlebrush; yet you by now will know far more than this. TheContinue reading “Bloom”
My own garden I have neglected
Gather your spiritual bouquet… (Francis de Sales) Plenteous winter rain left the backyard a grassy forest where mallow and clover ran riot and kikuyu spread its runners wide. The rhizomatic tangle, lush and unbeatable, enfolded in itself a toddler’s trucks, a sandpit shovel, a bouncy ball, a peg, and I, bent on order yet atContinue reading “My own garden I have neglected”
The first day of spring
began with honeysuckle and clover, the constants of the winter yet rendered more redolent by the scents of September and a bee buzzing about a flowering cactus and ended with a downpour that sent me rushing to the clothesline while my son stood in his raincoat and listened to the rain with all things –Continue reading “The first day of spring”
Noah’s Ark: For Eli
I. Delighted by animals, God and rain, my son finds kinship in Noah’s ark, commentating the story as I leaf through his Bible: “Rain! Giraffe. Boat. Noah. Wet. Monkeys!” How to convey what a rainbow’s about, or how I long for him and his brothers to be kept safe in the ark as the floodContinue reading “Noah’s Ark: For Eli”
The Consolations of Writing 