We travel through cosmic debris. All the time a war wages – starshower missiles, misguided asteroids. The mayhem is our doing. Harmony – meant to be sung – ended with us. Begin again with us. From ashes we stand, cupped hands opened to receive, to re-enter Your orbit. (Inspired by this translation of Nelly Sachs:Continue reading “From dust and ashes (After a poem by Nelly Sachs)”
Category Archives: Devotional
“The chariots and horsemen of Israel” (For the end of Epiphany)
The heart seeks Tabernacle: on mountain-top, by river-bank, it longs to settle, to hold the Presence safe, within arm’s reach, just the length of an Elijah’s-staff away. Yet the false Tabernacles we weave as curtains against truth turn Transfiguration to self-help session and seek double portions to allay the moment’s loss. Day turns to night.Continue reading ““The chariots and horsemen of Israel” (For the end of Epiphany)”
Learning Father
History has few exemplars to be proud of. The Greeks did well with Priam, at least, willing to face “iron-hearted, man-slaying Achilles” for the sake of a son. My own culture’s replete with absent men, “bronze Anzacs” taught from birth not to cry. The Biblical witness, too, leaves something to be desired: most too busyContinue reading “Learning Father”
Epiphany: The Implications of Light
At first darkness you saw it, Light looming large on the horizon, transfiguring and sanctifying all that it struck. Yet you were drawn, contrariwise, to a glistening object that, no light of its own, could only reflect or, at worst, refract. Distracted by prismatic brilliance, you answered the wrong call, saw charisma and grabbed atContinue reading “Epiphany: The Implications of Light”
Broken Epiphanies
Save me, O God: for the waters are entered even to my soul. I stick fast in the deep mire, where no stay is: I am come into deep waters, and the streams run over me. (Psalm 69:1-2, 1599 Geneva Bible) Is it, as Bosch would have it, a sinking scene, hut scarcely erect, while in the background knights andContinue reading “Broken Epiphanies”
Epiphany: Godswept
An error in the typeface, no doubt: a missing space between God and swept, as in, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Yet, in that mistaken instant, my mind glimpses God sweeping, baptismal waves enfolding me, Godswept, swept up in God. Was it like this, at Jordan, or at Ephesus,Continue reading “Epiphany: Godswept”
Epiphany: Heartshine
“What can I give him, Poor as I am?” Christina Rossetti Today is one of the most important days in the old church calendar, but also one of the most widely forgotten: the feast of Epiphany. Today we remember the wise men visiting Jesus, but we also remember what this represents, that the Gospel hasContinue reading “Epiphany: Heartshine”
Christmas 12: “The rich and poor meet together”
On this night in Shakespeare’s day, there would have been wild revelry to celebrate the twelfth night of Christmas. He even named one of his plays this, a sign perhaps that it was to be performed on the twelfth night, but also a possible nod to the ways that Christmas switches around our ideas ofContinue reading “Christmas 12: “The rich and poor meet together””
Christmas 11: Upsidedown
One of the more curious lost phenomena of Christmas was the late Medieval custom of appointing a so-called “Lord of Misrule” (or, as called in Scotland, the “Abbot of Unreason”). This involved either a peasant or an unimportant figure in the church being appointed to oversee the Christmas revelries. A related or parallel custom involvedContinue reading “Christmas 11: Upsidedown”
Christmas 10: Sit at my right hand
“The LORD says to my Lord…” (Psalm 110:1). These are surely some of the more mysterious words to appear in the Bible. Who is the second Lord to whom the writer, King David, is referring? Who could even be understood to be David’s Lord apart from God, the LORD? David, after all, was king ofContinue reading “Christmas 10: Sit at my right hand”
The Consolations of Writing 