The conversation had rippled and sparkled. My doctor friend and I juggled theological ideas as they tumbled out and into the space between us. But as he got up to leave my heart sank. ‘Oh no’, I thought, ‘after all…
Category: Prayer: the cry of the human heart
Last time I saw Sam Hunt perform I was drunk in a pub in Wellington. We all were, him too most likely. It was what you did at those gigs where poetry and plonk were like riding a bicycle for…
Professor Sir Mason Durie is a seasoned presenter. One slide with three points and he had the standing room only crowd in his hand at Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre. We were a willing audience having gathered to hear his…
I’ve been thinking about the most wonderful keyhole in the world as debates about public prayer have been on the agenda of city council meetings in Bideford, England, and Whanganui, New Zealand. To look through this keyhole you have to…
Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who had suffered a great loss. There’s nothing novel about that. Most of us have the experience at some point or another of staggering about life, arms wrapped around grief, loss or…
I was just 21 when my mum died after a long illness. For the last month of her life, we nursed her at home, which turned out to be one of the defining experiences of my life. Perhaps it sounds…
God of measured metre, rhythmrising from the iron, soaring down the fairwaypulsing through the drill, healing places of decaypounding the pavement, a liturgy of cadenced paces. See here your servant, Paddyfull of life, connection, relatedness.May you be to him all…