Category Archives: prayer

A parable for the anxious

Her voice rasped like a struck match from crying out her wares: Oil! Get your oil here! Don’t run out. She spent her days like a candleburned at both ends, her core alight with the vision of a strip of lamplight creeping from beneath heavy … Continue reading

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Blessed

Blessed are those who know God’s poverty:             the emptying out of all that is not God.  Blessed are those who grieve with God,             who know the sorrow of heaven,                         who nestle in God’s bosom. Blessed are those who have the mind of God,            not … Continue reading

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Stop the bleeding

Dear God,we cry, dear Lord,how much blood can humanity shedbefore we become something otherthan the body that you formedand the spirit that you breathedand the image that you calledvery good? My Christ,can we lay down our weaponsand crawl beneath your … Continue reading

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Regret

What happens when we stop asking questions? What if instead we had kept on, like a child of God asking why? why? but why? If we had trusted enough to stay in our cautious curiosity, allowed our anger, even outrage to feed a sceptical hope. He was our … Continue reading

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The flight to Egypt (through Gaza)

I can only imagine that you went that way, searching the skies by night for a sign of Herod’s madness overtaking, or a message from the Magi flashed through the heavens; at twilight I scan for the satellites that bring news and war to stream down like … Continue reading

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Render

Give to God what is God’s, he said, and some, taking him at his Word, went out to prepare the holy sacrifice.

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God head

Note: this week’s #preparingforSundaywithpoetry takes non-random words from the Gospel and pairs them to unearth (or undermine) the meaning of the exchange. These words appear in the NRSV translation. Continue reading

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Burned

This week’s #preparingforSundaywithpoetry is informed not only by the Gospel and its parable of rejection, revenge, celebration, and their cycle, but inevitably by the images it calls up of contemporary violence, war, and burning cities; God save the innocents. After … Continue reading

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The witness

And in the dirt between the rows a single grape transfixed my pity, split, seed spilt on unforgiving earth, ragged skin torn from purple flesh; like a dog, I wanted to kneel down and lick the wine from its tender … Continue reading

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The middle man

#preparingforSundaywithpoetry
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