O God,As the sun rises, again,a little sheepish, overthis hesitant day,prepare the wayfor my often straying feet.May my yesterdays not repeatexcept in the way Your grace has of givingevery new day for new ways of living.Keep me. Make me new:I have not lovedas I ought to have loved;I have not taken the good as gift;IContinue reading “Matins”
Tag Archives: morning
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”
Morning Miniature
Pink Cotton Promise (Glenroy Lent #10)
Even in new homes, morning has old narratives formed by other mornings, by schedules, by delays. So I approach the day as though it’s been before, as though its parameters are fixed, its possibilities known. Adam beheld the first sunrise, called himself inventor. I almost ignore the miracle, too entangled in strands of ground toContinue reading “Pink Cotton Promise (Glenroy Lent #10)”
Debt
Acknowledgment sounds with our morning yawn: We have been in need; we have been held safe. And the quiet of the dawn routine declares That we are weak, are strangers to this day. Awaken slowly. Infants in the world, What will you do now? Fresh from the night’s grace, Will you shake your horn’s fistContinue reading “Debt”
Damascus Road Prayers: Saphro (Morning Prayer)
When you are able, bend your knees, when you cannot, make intercession in your mind, ‘at evening and at morning and at midday’. (St Ephraim the Syrian) From the rising of the sun – whatever morning reveals – to the setting of the same – You remain. What ruins lie at our feet – whateverContinue reading “Damascus Road Prayers: Saphro (Morning Prayer)”
Westgate Pulses/Don’t Phase Me: After Steve Reich
Homecoming
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? (William Shakespeare) To the untrained eye, nothing has changed: smoke still billows from chimneys; mornings are dark; alarms wake too early; the mad prince still fools the diplomat with his madness, the sane with his sanity. To the untrained eye, all these cloudsContinue reading “Homecoming”
All the birds of the freeway
I journey between factories and billboards and trees; needles of light pierce the morning sky, and in the east the vermilion city wakes. Spanning the distance, birds fly in sequence, sweeping sheets, kites, giant gulls across the horizon. When I arrive I will be static, and spark at friction from those who start their dayContinue reading “All the birds of the freeway”
Psalm: Chorale (The Cornucopia of Heaven)
Early on Saturday morning, the fire brigade was called to my church – a 150-year-old heritage-listed building on the corner of one of Melbourne’s most iconic streets, and the building which my fiancée and I recently booked to celebrate our marriage. That day, the Bible reading my church family was looking at in our devotional timesContinue reading “Psalm: Chorale (The Cornucopia of Heaven)”
The Consolations of Writing 