Catechism 28

If last week’s catechism question was hard, this week’s is vastly harder, and it’s with great trepidation that I approach setting this to poetry. But the question of divine punishment of sin is one from which we cannot escape if we want to grapple with what it means to live before a righteous God. MyContinue reading “Catechism 28”

Boab

Upside-down-like, you bulb from earth – your beauty breaks in root-like branches. Spindly fingers reach to sky, gaunt and stretching, delicate, your certain trunk a monument, a stout and stolid testament to passing years, millennia. Shedding pods to paint; a home, yet prison; sacred; den for slaves – drawing, standing, reaching out – a signContinue reading “Boab”

Catechism 27

This next question from the New City Catechism is a hard pill to swallow. It touches on what for me has long been one of the toughest questions of faith: the doctrine of election. The Bible is full both of invitations for all to come and also clear teaching that not all will come, and indeedContinue reading “Catechism 27”

Imago: For David Malouf

Who knows by what mysterious means the body moves to its ends? (David Malouf, An Imaginary Life) Half right, Ovid: we metamorphose, yet Not so wildly. There are leaps which we may Never take, gates which bar the backwards way. Infinitesimal, our movements, but breath Charges with possibility each step. We perish like beasts, toContinue reading “Imago: For David Malouf”

From Ashes 12: Metamorphosis and Sophronismos – Neuroplasticity and the Renewed Mind

As I approach my 30th birthday, which brings with it much reflection on all that God has done in my life so far, I have found myself drawn again to one of the most well-worn parts of my the Bible – Psalm 139. For many, this is their favourite psalm, and it is certainly oneContinue reading “From Ashes 12: Metamorphosis and Sophronismos – Neuroplasticity and the Renewed Mind”

Catechism 26

What else does Christ’s death redeem? Christ’s death is the beginning of the redemption and renewal of every part of fallen creation, as he powerfully directs all things for his own glory and creation’s good. (New City Catechism) Yet the cost went deeper than souls      into soil and weathered the tree-trunks      and witheredContinue reading “Catechism 26”