“Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.”St Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises Even this, Ignatius?When all are in retreat in their homes,when consoling and desolating spiritsvy for the attention of every moment,when truth is in short supplyand what truth we have isContinue reading “God in all this: For St Ignatius of Loyola”
Tag Archives: hope
Tidings
Listen: the almond has something white to announce…(Chris Wallace-Crabbe)Tiny white heralds like angels burstfrom coronawinter barren branch,whispering, echoing, promising.Listen:The time is slow but gives glimpses.The promise is faintbut continual.The season’s sure that waits in the whispers.Truer than winter, truer than spring:the eternal soon.
Bone Winter
Reduced to its skeleton, the treeremembers days of birds in bowers,leaves atwitter,branches bent with the weight of fruit,and now bent with the wait of dayswhen flourishing’s a memory.But still the soil nurtures.Still the roots draw deep and branchesin their stasis grow in strength.Still rosehips bud where flowers didand the eagle,grace in his pinions,takes twigs andContinue reading “Bone Winter”
Advent 15: Over Jordan
I’m only going over Jordan,I’m only going over home.(“Poor Wayfaring Stranger”, trad.) Truth be told, I hardly think of it,the end of my roaming, except perhaps as sleep,or when, longing for an end to all ending things,I dream of new creations. Yetthe sum of my longing is not halfway close,bound as I am by myContinue reading “Advent 15: Over Jordan”
Advent 13: But I said, “I have laboured in vain”
The sun beating heavily on our heads, we feltthe agony of things straining against themselves,felt the longing but not the reward and grewweary of the day. When I spoke, it was gravel in my throat.“Show me,” I demanded, “the length of these days.Show me the end.” And the sundid not relent in its frenzied beamingwhileContinue reading “Advent 13: But I said, “I have laboured in vain””
Advent 9: No despair
…we are almost ready to fall in love with our own desolation. (Christina Rossetti, Seek and Find) Whether height of summer or bleak midwinter, there’s death: in bare-branched trees or brittle grass. Fire or frost, the end’s the same, both killers and destroyers alike. And the greatest foe of all’s despair, the sickness blighting notContinue reading “Advent 9: No despair”
Advent 2: The Shoot
When You come back again Would You bring me something from the fridge? (Steve Taylor & Peter Furler, “Lost the Plot”) Remember praise? It fed your roots back when you learnt to crawl, back when you burrowed into soil eager to receive all the earth had to say. And today? Defeat is the last refugeContinue reading “Advent 2: The Shoot”
Watching Grass Grow
I for one enjoy it: the slow, steady bursting from soil, those optimistic points of green poking sunward, the outward spread of tiny tufts, the promise of patience rewarded. And so daily I take my little son outside to see the garden, to “check on the grass”. All moments are wonders to him, yet IContinue reading “Watching Grass Grow”
Christmas 7: Rejoice in your new clothes
2017 is almost over, and today we have two choral pieces to conclude our year with, one early, one modern, both settings of one of the readings for the first Sunday after Christmas, Isaiah 61:10-62:4. The first is the delightfully joyous “Gaudens Gaudebo in Domino” by the 16th century German composer Philip Dulchius. The textContinue reading “Christmas 7: Rejoice in your new clothes”
Christmas 6: Nunc Dimittis
The story of Simeon has given the church one of its oldest hymns, called the “Nunc Dimittis”, after the first two Latin words of the song: “Now dismiss…” There have been many musical versions of Simeon’s song, but today’s poem takes as its inspiration a modern setting by the living Swiss composer Carl Rütti. Rütti’sContinue reading “Christmas 6: Nunc Dimittis”
The Consolations of Writing 