Category Archives: prayer

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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Holy Innocents: transferred

There must have been others who retracedtheir ancestors’ footprints over Sinai,although no Moses basket launched upon the Nile;instead, the Innocents wakened from a nightmareby the whisper of a blade, the fadingmemory of mothers’ final, ululating lullaby… Innocence today plays with … Continue reading →

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Emmanuel

Emmanuel Away from the crush of the crowd and the hubbub of the inn, aside in the stableChrist is born;in the silence that prepares for his first breath,God speaks: “I am with you.”

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The longest night

Morning after the longest night,like the first day of creationwhen evening fell before the dawn;as the dream goes before awakening,the linened tomb before resurrection,the twilight womb before the birthof the Christ, all partand particular to his Incarnation,this nurturing dark that … Continue reading →

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Because love is the miracle

Love is what it takes
to make the other
miracles true… Continue reading →

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