It is almost impossible to ever characterise the spirit of a time with one word, but if I were to characterise how the community around me feels this year, I would say, weary. We have not always been weary. In my city at least we started this year hopeful, and remained that way for someContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Do not grow weary”
Tag Archives: pandemic
Ordinary Wednesday: Small Steps
I have always been one to leap ahead. When I was thirteen and a half I declared to my family that I was “nearly fifteen”. I spent most of my childhood planning what I would do “when I grew up”, and now that I am a grown up I wonder when I will feel thatContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Small Steps”
Ordinary Wednesday: Will you even know yourself?
So yesterday I handed in the final assignments for my Graduate Diploma in Divinity, bringing to a close 12 years on and off of study at a theological college. I wish I could share with you here the photo of myself on my student card when I began. Disshevelled, full head of flowing hair andContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Will you even know yourself?”
Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 13
The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Jonah 3:5-6 One thing that hasContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 13”
Learning to Splash
To prepare my children for a world of puddles,I must learn myself what to do with puddles,how to take the mud with the joy,how to wear the shock of the wet,how to delight in the splash.To prepare my children for a world of shadows,I must learn how to see the sun in the shadows,and howContinue reading “Learning to Splash”
Frontline (For the pandemic teachers)
Check temperature before you leave;Second guess that winter sniffle.Hand-sanitiser with your markers,Enter the ever-shifting classroom space.Greet the students in masks.Watch attendance, but don’t be afraid.Be calm. Reassure. You may mention the warBut know how to read the faces before you.Keep life normalWhen nothing is normal.Plan.(Nothing will go to plan.)Admit when you are not okayBut faceContinue reading “Frontline (For the pandemic teachers)”
Letter to my children – a quarantine preview
I’m looking forward to sharing a number of videos of poems from my upcoming book Les Feuilles Mortes in the coming weeks, including several from my friends and readers across the world. Here is the first, a letter written in quarantine to my young children.
The Consolations of Writing 