Many of the poems that I write here come out of my struggles with mental illness. This poem, I hope, is a testament to the power of writing to help us order our inner turmoil and offer it up as a kind of prayer, refined by the process of writing. Safety The threats you cannotContinue reading “Safety”
Category Archives: Poetry
Otherwise
As it is, my wheels get stuck And spin around in deep ravines, While I rehearse dark thoughts and lies. The dusk wears down dawn’s hopeful pluck And clanging thoughts know where I’ve been; I wish it could be otherwise. You may knowContinue reading “Otherwise”
Hold, Release
The week has news which wounds and time can seize on moments; the inner life of frantic mind occupies its own time. And sometimes grooves are deep and take us back to moments where this was said and that was heard and there we held on tightly. Echoes shout when walls are here with dullContinue reading “Hold, Release”
Grace, eight or nine years old
Samuel the priest, leading Israel through a process of repentance and then seeing them defeating their old enemies the Philistines, set up a stone monument where they had been victorious and named it “Ebenezer”, meaning “Stone of Help”, declaring that “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” In the midst of our busy and oftenContinue reading “Grace, eight or nine years old”
Qui Habitat Part 4 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)
A father had two sons. One wished his father dead and demanded his inheritance now. And his father gave it to him. Squandering his father’s money, the son found himself starving and, without friends or resources, he returned, tail between his legs, to seek his father’s forgiveness. The father welcomed him back as though heContinue reading “Qui Habitat Part 4 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)”
Prepare Your Hearts (For Sister Emma)
Sometimes my “year of writing liturgically” (see here for more information) leads me to read and write about people with whom I do not immediately feel an affinity. Today’s poem is for Sister Emma Crawford, an Australian Anglican sister whose theology would be, I suspect, much closer to Catholicism than mine is. But her societyContinue reading “Prepare Your Hearts (For Sister Emma)”
Wounded Heart, Open Heart (For John of God, Worker Among Sick and Poor, Spain)
Stop, the priest said. He does not ask you to beat yourself. Your heart is grieved; that is good. Now turn your heart to Him. Leave your prison, he said. They trap you here and scourge you, but You can love those who are scourged. Your heart is wounded; turn your heart, Turn your heartContinue reading “Wounded Heart, Open Heart (For John of God, Worker Among Sick and Poor, Spain)”
Joy
Sometimes it defies me and I am left groping about in the basement, the exhaustion of yesterday’s staircases sending me downwards in silence and damp. But there are eyes that see the bruises which I stroke and faces which know bruises worse than any I have known today and kept their smile. And there isContinue reading “Joy”
On That Day (For Chad, Bishop of Lichfield and Missionary)
For the Lord moves the air, raises the winds, darts lightning, and thunders from heaven, to excite the inhabitants of the earth to fear Him; to put them in mind of the future judgment; to dispel their pride, and vanquish their boldness, by bringing into their thoughts that dreadful time, when the heavens and theContinue reading “On That Day (For Chad, Bishop of Lichfield and Missionary)”
Temple Prayers (For George Herbert)
Today’s poem is for one of my most beloved poets: George Herbert, the seventeenth-century Anglican minister who also wrote poems of breathtaking honesty and beauty. Herbert wrote extensively in Latin, but his English poems were only published after his death when his friend Nicholas Ferrar ignored Herbert’s request to have them all destroyed. I couldn’tContinue reading “Temple Prayers (For George Herbert)”
The Consolations of Writing 