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”
Tag Archives: tree
Advent 1: The Stump
If no good as a tree – no fruit budding, no birds to rest in its shade – then cut it down. The wood may serve for a building or, at the very least, a fire. Get in first before inferno comes; better to be a stump when the fires rage. Resignation rests in theContinue reading “Advent 1: The Stump”
Going Without (Glenroy Lent #9)
And so, the first breath of autumn hovering above the freeway ramp, the breeze has blown the top of a leafless tree, all severed head, onto the road where cars, eager to catch the green, dodge that bunch of twigs and race. I too have raced, and now I race – in head, in heart.Continue reading “Going Without (Glenroy Lent #9)”
Catechism 50
What does Christ’s resurrection mean for us? Christ triumphed over sin and death by being physically resurrected, so that all who trust in him are raised to new life in this world and to everlasting life in the world to come. Just as we will one day be resurrected, so this world will one day be restored. ButContinue reading “Catechism 50”
My Jonah Heart
Recite this catalogue of wrongs: I loved this tree – if you loved me I always knew – I told you so… And all the while in Ninevah the people weep in ash. Uphold your cause; God may forget the hurts you hold, the wounds you bear. The tree’s shade is your natural right. ShakeContinue reading “My Jonah Heart”
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
For most people, Christmas is now over. The supermarkets are already stocking hot cross buns. But in the traditional church calendar, today is the last day of the season of Christmas – a season lasting twelve days, as we remember in the old song. Why remember Christmas for twelve days instead of one? If nothingContinue reading “On the Twelfth Day of Christmas”
Shoots and Stumps
“At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.” (Job 14:7) And new life sprouts where old life is cut down: See little shoots burst forth from severed trunk; The earth is singing where its joy was sunk; The smallestContinue reading “Shoots and Stumps”
Boab
Upside-down-like, you bulb from earth – your beauty breaks in root-like branches. Spindly fingers reach to sky, gaunt and stretching, delicate, your certain trunk a monument, a stout and stolid testament to passing years, millennia. Shedding pods to paint; a home, yet prison; sacred; den for slaves – drawing, standing, reaching out – a signContinue reading “Boab”
The Consolations of Writing 