over the water

A world of miracles

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Do you also want to be his disciples? asked the man.

Then try this: Listen.

Listen to the stories of the one you have walked by

a thousand times in as many days

dripping with pity without breaking your stride.

Open your eyes to the mundane miracle:

Mud, water word;

ingredients that made a world

and some body to see it, and love it

as God intended.

Open your minds to mercy, your hearts to healing.

He shook his head. I have never seen the stars, he said,

but night is coming.

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” – John 9:24-27

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged #preparingforSundaywithpoetry, John 9:1-41, Year A Lent 4 | 2 Comments

Dramatic irony

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Dramatic irony, it was taught to me,
is when the audience, we,
have intelligence unavailable
to the characters at play.

The author knows more.

You do not know the day,
says the Word, nor can you create it
out of war, out of loathing, out of thin, cold air,
however close you think it comes to heaven.

Yet the hour is now here, the Word has spoken,
who speaks it into being with a breath;
the hour of spirit and truth.

The trouble is that we still do not see it:
the Spirit that moves where it will,
the truth that whispers beneath its breath,
that Love is God, waiting in plain sight
beside the well, and all else irony.

I find myself drawn to the contrast between reports this week that some military commanders are framing the war against Iran as an effort to bring about the end times, as though we may decide these things for God, in our wisdom; the contrast between that and Jesus’ words to the woman that the hour is already come, quietly, unnoticed over a cup of water, when reconciliation happens, and the truth of God’s love for the world, in all of its invented factions and fractions, has been revealed.

Posted in poetry, lectionary reflection, prayer, current events | Tagged Armageddon, dramatic irony, Jesus, John 3:1-17, John 4:1-17, Samaritan woman, war, woman at the well, Word, year a lent 2, Year A Lent 3 | Leave a comment

The well

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Fed by generations, torrents of history
running wild within the earth, the holy ground
shaped and watered by the tears
of war and weddings, piety and pity.
Still waters run deep within the earth,
seep between the shoulders of the land,
shrugging off the stories that we tell,
shifting and settling, remembering
when it was all, when all was shapeless
as water, and void, before he spoke,
“I am thirsty.” Thirsty for love, a peace
that brooks no derangement, defies
creation, spirited and true,
the stuff of life, if we but knew it.

He came to a Samaritan city named Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink” … The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” … Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying otherwise you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.'” (from John 4:5-10)

Image: Christ and the Samaritan woman drawing water, Catacomb of Callistus, 2nd century AD, from the from the book Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, plate 29, via wikimediacommons. Public domain.

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged #preparingforSundaywithpoetry, Jesus, John 4:1-17, living water, Middle East, peace, Samaritan woman, war, woman at the well, Year A Lent 3 | Leave a comment

Amongst the Babel of war

Posted on February 28, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

We too often misunderstand, I think, what it means to become like God.

We build our towers, our satellites in the sky, posing as heavenly bodies, the better to crater and control the earth.

We rain down judgement as though it were wise, and fragments of pity as though they were manna.

We remember the Flood instead of the rainbow.

We remember the Exodus without its cost, not only in the lives of the Egyptians we discount, but in generations spent in the wilderness, the period of God’s mourning for our enemies, made in the very image of the living God.

The image of God whose property is always to have mercy.

The image of God who was born in humility, who lived with love, who died because we too often misunderstand what it is to be like God. Whose life destroyed death, not other lives.

Too often, we think that God is in the rushing wind that rips through the air that we have torn apart to let God in, instead of in the silence, the sheer stillness, those moments suspended as though out of time, before the baby begins to wail again, like a siren, like a warning, like the child of God.

I commend to you this letter from the Archbishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem:

Image: The Tower of Babel, print, Anton Joseph von Prenner, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, via wikimediacommons

Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon preparation, story | Tagged Genesis 11:1-9, Iran, John 3:1-17, war, year a lent 2 | Leave a comment

Nicodemus has insomnia

Posted on February 24, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

He couldn’t sleep for the moon
light streaming through creation,
for the sound of the wind sighing
over a sea too deep for words,
for the shiver when he heard him speak
liberty as though it were at hand,
the shock of justice overturned,
the taste of mercy submerged in wine,
dangerous world-defying love;
that shiver shook him awake.
He found him, he would remember
later, swaddled by the fire,
as though he had been waiting
for him since the beginning of time.

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged Jesus, John 3:1-17, Nicodemus, year a lent 2 | Leave a comment

The Fast

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Is it this, that I would choose,
to undo the latches, throw open the doors,
empty the warehouses, let in the light,
let out the breath, let in the light,
let out the breath of the people bated,
bated too long,
to fast from the bread of bitterness,
scatter its crumbs to the crows
and watch them rise, the people free
to watch them rise, the people free?
Watch them rise

… Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to hit with wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
    will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a rush,
    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
    and a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. …

Ash Wednesday, Isaiah 58:4-8

Posted in current events, holy days, poetry, prayer | Tagged Ash Wednesday, fast, Lent | Leave a comment

Stay (Transfiguration)

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Less a trick of the Light
condensing out of the cloud,
each droplet its own world
of shapes and shades,
ghosts of the martyred,
those sidekicks of salvation,
dissipating with their breath

than the Light of the world
condensing creation,
ancestors and angels,
witnesses and wantons
in one bright moment of hope,
burnt into the retinas of their souls
for all the valleys to come

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Matthew 17:1-9

Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged Epiphany, hope, Last Sunday after the Epiphany, light of the world, Luke 9:28-36, Mark 9:2-8, martyrs, MAtthew 17:1-9, Transfiguration, Valley of the shadow of death | Leave a comment

Nor the moon

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

By night, soothed

by darkness those for whom

visibility is treacherous

stretch out their palms to God

who clouds the stars.

The waters of creation still

bring life from beyond

the hills, the hopeful distance

Psalm 121

Posted in current events, poetry, prayer | Tagged Psalm 121 | Leave a comment

Prayers have been shattered into pieces

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Rosalind C Hughes

Each line or fragment is from the Daily Office: Morning and/or Evening Prayer Rite I.
Inspired in part by the social media account, BCP minus context.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
Behold and see
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow
which is done unto me.

We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,
we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,
we have offended against thy holy laws,
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.