Heaven’s chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last; Earth’s sands are slow, but surely dropping thro’: And much we have to suffer, much to do, Before the time be past. Christina Rossetti, “Heaven’s chimes are slow” One of my favourite stories is a little-known work by J.R.R. Tolkien called “Leaf By Niggle”. ItContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: In Between Poems”
Category Archives: Devotional
Ordinary Wednesday: Spring Hesitation
Poets have never fully trusted spring. e.e. cummings likened it to a “perhaps hand”, hesitant and uncertain. T.S. Eliot called April “the cruellest month” (a class I taught once decided it was because he had bad hayfever). John Mark McMillan recently sang that “Spring without permission rages on again”. And Christina Rossetti had this toContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Spring Hesitation”
Keeping It Reel: Thoughts on authenticity and social media
I was filming my sons engaging in a science experiment they had learnt about on Play School – mixing bicarb soda and hair conditioner to make snow – when I realised very quickly that this was not something I would be sharing on social media. The twins shovelling handfuls of bicarb-conditioner-mess into their mouths whileContinue reading “Keeping It Reel: Thoughts on authenticity and social media”
Ordinary Wednesday: Natural Theology for Pre-Schoolers
This is a conversation I had with E, my nearly four-year-old, at breakfast yesterday, about why the porridge was not ready yet, even though he was yelling at it and telling it that he wanted it to be ready. Me: It’s like in Basil and the Branch [a kids’ book that he loves about aContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Natural Theology for Pre-Schoolers”
Ordinary Wednesday: The New Ordinary?
It’s a curious thing, keeping ordinary time these last two years. In some respects everything is very ordinary. We don’t leave our homes very much; each day feels much like the previous one; we see the same people, the same walls, the same garden beds. Yet in other ways nothing is ordinary. We long forContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: The New Ordinary?”
From the ground
“Dada! Find wiggly-woo!” the twins cry,exultant at the chance to dig fingers in earthand find its inhabitants in their hands. And so, on my lunch break, I fossickin our newly dug garden bed,each patch of earth yielding a companion for these delighted fingers,and I store the moment like compostto ferment within, to wriggle me alive.
Ordinary Wednesday: Rising, Setting
“From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised…” (Psalm 113:3) I have struggled to find the words for today’s reflection, because across Australia lockdowns continue and many I know are weary and broken. I am wary of what Australian writer Kathy LetteContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Rising, Setting”
Ordinary Wednesday: Unfinished Business
As a teacher, I have strange dreams. Often they involve classes wildly out of control, or me being absurdly late to a class. The schools in which I teach are often an amalgam of all the schools I have known: the primary and secondary schools that I attended, as they were in the 90s, andContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Unfinished Business”
Elements
Since awe sometimes is out of reachand mind strains in its own finitude, I will take the elements, the staples of the day’s endand breathe in their meaning: grace like the sourdough I stir through the bowl,holiness like the wine I savour though kids tip their food and yell,a table ripe with Godeven now.
Ordinary Wednesday: The slow work of God
Today my city came out of its fifth COVID-19 lockdown in two years. Time functions differently when you’re in lockdown, partly because you cannot do many of the things you’d normally do, and because weekdays and weekends bleed into each other, but also because we slow down and notice what we wouldn’t normally. I spendContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: The slow work of God”
The Consolations of Writing 