Category Archives: prayer

(Holy Saturday)

How to carry the world’s pain – the cries of the children, the palsy of their great-grandparents confused with the tremors of memory; the subtle, internal turmoil that turns digestion upside down – violence is not a visitor but an … Continue reading

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Yesterday is closer than it seems

Yesterday I walked past a fallout shelter sign in the “historic district” of a run-down part of town, its triune logo sunny against the greying day, repainted, no doubt, as an artefact of interest; but yesterday is closer than it … Continue reading

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What is good news?

God showed me a robin in the snow, so I hung a feeder from my window: so far no one has used it but
the cats live in hope. Continue reading

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Flotsam

There is a thread that ties the sparrowto the hair on the pillow in the morning;There is a straight line from “My thoughtsare not your thoughts,” through,“There are more things …, Horatio,than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”There is some … Continue reading

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A memory in black and white

A memory so ancient, it could be in black and white. I met the vicar on the street, in his white collar. He said, “J’accuse!” He did not.  He said, “It has been too long since you received Communion.” I … Continue reading

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It was the sea

It was the sea,salt and water,the press of the tideand the undertow;the frightening mysteryof jellyfish; the shells,whitewashed tombs yet evidence of enduringbeauty I remember oncewe went outin a rubber dinghy,daring the waves to drown us,and they did.Beneath the boat,I held … Continue reading

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Is it joy?

Is it joyor curiosity that binds them;astonishment in discoveringthat Godhas made another, unalike,incomprehensible if somewhatfamiliar? Is it joy,the flick of the ear,the tic of the tail,a frisson of fur filledwith staticelectricity,the stuff of life? Who would not enjoythe vast and … Continue reading

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A Song of Anna

What would it sound like, what would it feel like, if we had Anna’s song, too, to sing as our prayers rise like incense at the end of the day? Continue reading

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Decade

Ten years a priest.
I should have something to say,
but I have let words trickle away, 
at funerals or weddings,
during mundane Monday 
phone calls, meetings … Continue reading

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A prayer on the threshold of the year

Dear God, are we ready for a new year? Already it is at hand, already it has arrived on distant shores and makes its way towards us like a steam ship, like a migration. Time, your creature, our sibling and companion, orbits us.
How will we greet it: as a child of your mercy or an angel of your justice or an incarnation of your endurance? Continue reading

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