the waiting country

For the apparent disorder of the broken woods there are reasons enough, although we do not know them all or their pattern, but by reasons is...

“Blessed are the poor in spirit” A beech tree in winter, white Intricacies unconcealed Against sky blue and billowed Clouds, carries in its ...

After the bitter nights and the gray, cold days comes a bright afternoon. I go into the creek valley and there are the horses, the black and...

We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see Ahead, but looking back the very light That blinded us shows us the way we came, Along which ble...

Christina Rossetti - Double Sonnet of Sonnets, No.11 *** Lifelong our stumbles, lifelong our regret, Lifelong our efforts failing and renewe...

The nights are drawing in, schools are set to re-open; it must be time to reflect with Wendell Berry (as well as Jeremiah) that the summer i...

Leaders who are looked up to constantly, who give out answers competently, who everyone assumes are living what they are saying, often have ...

To Den  We have walked so many times, my boy,  over these old fields given up  to thicket, have thought  and spoken of their possibilities, ...

Commenting on Ezekiel 6:8-10, Peter Craigie wrote, In Ezekiel’s prophecy, the blunted stimuli of memory are to be revitalised in the experie...

(This was written during the pandemic - as will be obvious - but I'm only just getting around to posting it) The point has been made, wi...

Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy thyng, though hit be smal…(*) However just and anxious I have been, I wi...

The second feature of God’s incomparable Word is the mystery of its doctrines. It acquaints us with  things far above our reach. “O the dept...

I thought I'd posted this here a long time ago but apparently not... Back in late 2017 I was invited to the church poetry group. Bring a...

The incompleteness of Samson’s story, and indeed the incompleteness of the entire book of Judges, is an invitation to hear the book of Judg...

Today, I’m grateful to live in a space between subsistence and decadence, between scarcity and consumption. It feels like a gift. I can work...

But perhaps you would argue that, since you want to be a contemporary poet, you do not want to be too much under the influence of what is ol...

This comment by Mary Oliver regarding poetry might also be usefully considered in relation to how we see and understand people and their sto...

[Eugene] Peterson’s various insights into the vocational benefits of reading are nowhere more compelling than in the places where he writes ...

Unacquaintedness with our mercies, our privileges, is our sin as well as our trouble. We hearken not to the voice of the Spirit which is giv...

Someone asked me, If Jesus couldn't do many miracles in Nazareth, but he raises the widow's son without any active faith, then what...