For this demon who harms men and corrupts them is particularly anxious that his servants not gaze up to heaven but instead that they be bent over to the earth and make bricks inside themselves from clay. (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses) At the moment of exhaling, he sanctified the clay he shapedContinue reading “Testimony of Earth”
Category Archives: Devotional
Sabbath
This afternoon, though I’d planneda much-needed rest, many tasks overtook andsomewhere amidst assembling IKEA furniture I foundthe afternoon gone and dusk charcoaling the sky,so instead I walkedmy toddler to the compost heap and therewe shredded paper scraps to balance the mixand pulled weeds from the side garden whilemy son trialled his latest words and declaredContinue reading “Sabbath”
Learning to ask
Little Flowers
“Not too many poets has it been given…to live one of their own poems.”(G.K. Chesterton, St Francis of Assisi) If I would be Francis, troubadour to God,before I can sing Creation’s canticles, I must tendto the sleeping children in my roomand die again, again to the selfthat craves to be higher than them.Only then canContinue reading “Little Flowers”
Evening Prayer
“Our life does not consist in making up beautiful phrases but in performing beautiful deeds.” Athenagorus
George Herbert at Bemerton
I am the man who has seen affliction… (Lamentation 3:1) His portrait would have him serenely contemplating a garden, one hand raised beatifically like the saints of old. Often I would have my days like that, passed in that perfect serene of green, spirit quiet within like the waters without, no trouble straining pastoral brow.Continue reading “George Herbert at Bemerton”
Happy birthday church
Today is Pentecost Sunday and a chance to revisit the poem I wrote for this day many years ago. I’m sharing a snippet here as a preview of what you can expect from the upcoming book.
Miracles of Grass
A devout gardener, my eldest comes out hereeach day, to inspect, to water.Sometimes he waters the concrete, sometimesthe soil. Most of itis sapped up by unseasonal sun,some soaks in. Butas we persist, he and I, we seethis transformation, likea renewing mind: creeper grassstretching outgreen tendrils into a former wastelandand I am mindful to watchthe miracleContinue reading “Miracles of Grass”
Toddler-speed
Only when we are going somewhere does he dawdle, suddenly eager to investigate every fencepost, every garden paver. When we’ve all the world’s time, he hurries, as though life might catch him before he is done, as one learns to do when small and only grown-ups can open doors for you, where moments must beContinue reading “Toddler-speed”
Flesh
So the word of God became a human being and lived among us.(John 1:14 – J.B. Phillips Translation) By any standard it would beextraordinary to findthe infinite, immortal constrained in time but to find Divinity where it knew full wellthe hearts of manand how they turned, mostly away – to find the all-sufficient taking onthisContinue reading “Flesh”
The Consolations of Writing 