Category Archives: meditation

“Do not be overcome by evil”

… “but overcome evil with good.” Continue reading

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Unbabel

Slab-flat vowels like a block of dough slapped down on the kneading board; sibilant aromas of spice and fruit from afar off mingle with crisp consonants. Syllables roll like oranges through the early morning marketplace; polyphonic strangers drawn by the … Continue reading

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Sabbath sunrise in suburbia

In the dying of the dark, quiet resounds: a cat rasping food from her bowl; the whining clamour of electrical connections picked up by the antennae in our teeth. Dawn shatters on street lamps, security lights. Shadows decline over the … Continue reading

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The second last word

“Today, you will be with me in paradise…” I went to paradise once, before it was washed away. The Flood that was never meant to happen again consumed the golden sands, devoured the prayers of Allah’s faithful people. Their floating … Continue reading

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The first last word

                                          Father, forgive them   – not yet, Jesus. Give us time.  We are in no hurry for new life. Give … Continue reading

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A word about music

For TrebleFest 2016, Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio; in these or other words: Singing is a profound example of how we are made in the image of God. Whether we come to it through the science of the body, the breath … Continue reading

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An Ash Wednesday meditation

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. That much is true, and yet it is not the whole truth. We are dust. We are accounted as dust in the scales of creation and God, of the nations and … Continue reading

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Creation, stillborn

Broken waters heave; Spirit gasps, shrinks, shocked breathless, breeching the shore, still.

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Heart healthy

If I am working into the evening, I try to get out around four or five o’clock for a walk. It’s cheaper than caffeine, and it doesn’t keep me up all night. So I found myself contemplating our contemplative prayer … Continue reading

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Seven Last Words of Christ

He was quoting the twenty-second Psalm, a prayer already centuries old. It is a cry as old as time. It is a cry that echoes all around. And yet, it perseveres, it is repeated only because at its heart, at its depth, at the height of its agony it holds out hope against hope that someone is still listening. That God will, in fact, return, to comfort us.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Continue reading

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