March 2024 – Prayers, Poems, and Christian Ponderings

A Thin Place

The poet Robert Crawford describes the Isle of Iona, in the inner Hebrides, as a place where“spirit, imagination, and physical exertion mingle” The photograph above is of the replica of St. John’s Cross. The original high cross stood on Iona from the the late 7th century, and today fragments of this original cross can beContinue reading “A Thin Place”

“Candle against the wind”

As I promised in my last post, I return to more of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems. The poems below can be found in his book Leavings and these Sabbath poems are dated 2005-2008. Berry asks the question, How may a human being come to rest? For all too many of us “rest” does not comeContinue reading ““Candle against the wind””

“I go among trees and sit still”

During the long period of isolation of Covid 19 I found inspiration and hope by taking walks and hikes in Bernheim Arboretum Research Forest, (photo above) a few miles south of Louisville, Kentucky. It was only a 20 minute drive to this wonderful forest which during Covid I called “my happy place.” Some 41 yearsContinue reading ““I go among trees and sit still””

Why is the sky so tall…?

As children we have all drawn the sky. We have painted the top half of a page blue and the bottom half green and in between we have squeezed people, or buildings, or things, or everything! Some days we forget the sky is there, at times reminded only by the amazing colors of a sunriseContinue reading “Why is the sky so tall…?”

In need of a skylight!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, know my joy and delight in the poems of Seamus Heaney. Every time I go back and read a poem over and over again, new things happen. Noticing the line breaks, or hearing the sound of the words as you read themContinue reading “In need of a skylight!”