The day had gone on long enough.First the Pharisees and their questions,then the intruding children,then the camel and the needle’s eye,so that, when they cried out,”Who then can be saved?” it wasas much from the weariness of the day’s debates as the thought that riches could keep an earnest man from heaven.And so, right whenallContinue reading “The Gospel Reading”
Category Archives: Ordinary Time
Wednesday
Learning the names of days, my sonasks each morning for the signs that distinguishone from the next: is thisthe day the rubbish truck comes?Does Dad go to work?Is it music class today?And this day, one withoutany special markers, leaves mebereft of news to give him, onlythe name – Wednesday – and the thoughtthat days likeContinue reading “Wednesday”
Day Zero
On this dayI still wrestled my childreninto their clothes,still raced out the door too late for comfort,still pricked my finger with a rose thorn,still feared that all my labour’s in vain,and found the evening slumpa little close to despairyeteverything changed, while nothing changedand mustard seeds of life were at workwhether we noticedor not.
Unbound
My twins’ favourite gameis to grab a Bible each and rundelighted round the room shouting,”Bible! Bible!” as thoughtreasure has been found.Their Bibles are ragged and worn from rough handling;binding broken, the Word opens up,unbound, into the mess of life.
Compline: After Christian Wiman
Man is what he is and he is everything that he is in the decision of faith Karl Barth And faith, or belief, is moredirection than assentto a thought or a fact; it ismovement towards the thing from which others turn,and from which you may have turned,will have turned,for hole-hearted love is never whole-hearted,and yetyouContinue reading “Compline: After Christian Wiman”
Vespers: After Louise Glück
Once I believed in You,still do,though belief is often evasive, often abstract,like air, which itself defies graspyet needy lungs clutch at it with the certaintythat this, this alone they must have.And I believe likethe fig tree believes in the soil,sometimes wilted, sometimes refusing fruit,always held, always known to the roots.And at the vesper light, Ibelieve,Continue reading “Vespers: After Louise Glück”
Ubi Caritas: For World Mental Health Day
What happens, he wonders,shattered by the mess, by the day,by the constancy of demands,by the ever-present lesson of patience,by the daily failure to learn this patience -What happens, he asks, when my love is broken?Nothing happens. The day goes on,all is reset as night arrives;all but the weight that pulls at his shoulders,that sags likeContinue reading “Ubi Caritas: For World Mental Health Day”
Acedia
“… how we perform these often dispiriting duties, from the changing of a baby’s diaper to the bathing of an aged parent, reveals what kind of God we worship.” Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me Weary, yet itching for greater things,Longing to change the world whilemy own heart lies stony and stagnant,I turnfrom the trifles ofContinue reading “Acedia”
Matins
O God,As the sun rises, again,a little sheepish, overthis hesitant day,prepare the wayfor my often straying feet.May my yesterdays not repeatexcept in the way Your grace has of givingevery new day for new ways of living.Keep me. Make me new:I have not lovedas I ought to have loved;I have not taken the good as gift;IContinue reading “Matins”
Chesed
To thinkwhere darkest nights have taken this soul,and how thinthe membrane between lifeand death, how loudthe Accuser has screamedto pierce the membrane and throw me through;yet hereI stand, with no reasonbeside You and the sheerleap into faith that saved,the softbelly of love into which I fell;so hereI stand, with myeldest in my arms whilehe reachesContinue reading “Chesed”
The Consolations of Writing 