After a day of near-summer heat, my home town returns to rain. And it falls gently around my house, on the grass and the trees and in the garden beds, and coming to the end of a tiring day I am soothed by the sounds it makes. Rain reminds me that God is good: HeContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: November Rain”
Tag Archives: common grace
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”
Improvisation: Rain
In these days of lockdown (my city, Melbourne, is experiencing the toughest restrictions of anywhere in Australia so far), I have been finding myself drawing increasing inspiration from the small things that I notice in my local environment, looking ever closer and closer to the consolations of the everyday. This video poem came from aContinue reading “Improvisation: Rain”
Quarantine Morning
What the day brings is anyone’s guess:Students in masks, temperature checks at the front gate,But what else? Prognoses and rules change by the minute;What yesterday was harmless today may destroy.Brave new day that has such features in it.And so, the day lying openLike a box, like a question,I rejoice to see vermilion horizonThat smiles onContinue reading “Quarantine Morning”
Birdsville, Werribee
This morning a bird I could not name spanned a sun I could not tame and on the road the dazzled day turned and turned its winding way. Through chicanes, past milkbars ran the path to work, the time to plan, but I was struck by birds in view on Kookaburra Avenue. And God I’mContinue reading “Birdsville, Werribee”
When we’re no longer burning
All day the hazardous haze,yesterday too. I feared to takethe children outside; even the gardenwas clothed in the smoke of elsewhere on fire.Discomfiting, yetwe saw the world,a greenbluebrown orb of God’s graceheaving with the death of itand caught the surgethrough smoke-drunk eucalyptsof a day that will come yet bids us fightfor the day when we’reContinue reading “When we’re no longer burning”
“Do not despise the day of small things”
On days of frustration, beware the futile fury that burns when queues are as long as red tape and parking spaces are few. On days when nothing’s achieved, beware the muted rage that despises the stranger for taking your place in a lane or a line, that resents the day for passing. On these dogContinue reading ““Do not despise the day of small things””
Unownable Things
It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to write gratitude lists on my birthday, yet each year it feels like I am discovering gratitude anew. While I always remember doing it the previous year, it never comes naturally to me. Instead, I find myself thinking that another strategy might be better this yearContinue reading “Unownable Things”
Nocturne
Dance the night amidst the mist and hover cloud above the earth; sing the streets in silent vigil, sleep the world aright. Water soil, the dew of nighttime, watch the sleeping grasses grow; let the nocturne song surround you as you come and go. Rain falls on the just and unjust; nighttime fallsContinue reading “Nocturne”
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”
The Consolations of Writing 