One of my favourite moments in the Bible is the little, anticlimactic story after one of the big show-stopping stories. It comes in 1 Kings 19, immediately after Elijah has triumphed over all the false prophets of Baal and the land-grabbing wicked King Ahab. God has shown up in an undeniable way to give ElijahContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Not in the fire, not in the quake”
Tag Archives: depression
Neurochemistry
I’m not sure how science describes it butsometimes a neuron seeking safe passage yetfinding nonesimplyenters black spacewhere nothing is thought or feltas reprieve from thinking,feeling too much.And in that spaceis only staticonly the humming oflost signals.Emptied, what canspeak or console?What can reconnect?Devils silenced, but sothe voice of angels.In this deadness no strong manneed cast theContinue reading “Neurochemistry”
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”
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”
Changeless
Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Collect for Compline, The Book of Common Prayer Full of contradiction, I am buoyedby the blossomContinue reading “Changeless”
Conversation with my son
At the sink he perchesatop his two-stepped seat to watcha morning routine that’s utterprose for me, discovery for him:how I wetthe shaving brush, lather soap,then smooth the jawlineof my beard, and howI brush my teeth withoutprotest, without needingto eat the toothpaste with each brush.And then how I openthe mirrored cabinet and takemy pill-cutter, splitEscitalopram inContinue reading “Conversation with my son”
Ash (Lent 1)
Black Dog Barking
Day upon day is a rising struggle, a bark in the dark and a claw at the leash. If you see me blackdoglike with my paws scratching frantic, then take my dull aching in hand til I’m still.
Clutching at Light: For Leonard Cohen
…everything that is illuminated becomes a light… (Saint Paul) Too dark, Leonard. Just after Solstice, the days still short, the dark surprised me in its early arrival, and your first song grabbed me with its midnight-pitch grip, and Isaac bound by demons, crying, Here I am, Lord. These days are dark enough; I turned fromContinue reading “Clutching at Light: For Leonard Cohen”
The Consolations of Writing 