A poem for the times when God’s people find themselves walking in the dark:
Don’t fight the shadows
My child
When they fall on your way
Obscuring the warmth and
The light of the day
When they cause you to shiver
And stumble
And grope
When they cause you to question
Your reasons
For hope
It’s traditional in Ireland to give chocolate selection boxes at Christmas, with a variety of different treats inside. I can’t share chocolate with you over the internet, so I’ve put together a different kind of selection box for you, full of different kinds of Christmas treats from different kinds of people. Enjoy!
Continue reading A Christmas Selection Box 2021A poem, based on the encouragement of Zechariah 4:10 and Galatians 6:9:
Do not despise the day of small things
The everyday normal that every day brings
As he is working, the robin still sings
For meaning and purpose are not just for kings
Science has limitations. It can tell us what things are made of, but it has trouble telling us what they are made for. Sometimes, if you want to explain the world fully, what you really need is a poem. Most of my poems come to me while I’m walking home after dropping the children to school, looking around at the world and trying to see the familiar things that surround me for what they really are. That’s where these three came from:
Continue reading You Can’t Explain The World Without PoetryThere will always be the haters
The biters in the back
The baiters
The ones who only talk and never listen
And always know exactly what you’re missing Continue reading The Test // A Spoken Word Poem
This poem is an old one, which I posted here on my blog three years ago (it’s hard to believe the blog has been going that long). I am re-posting it today because most of you wouldn’t have seen it back then, and also because I’ve been thinking about these ideas a lot recently as I’ve worked on the manuscript for “Dream Small.” When the book comes out, you’ll see that one of the chapter titles uses a phrase from this poem—I’ve called it, “The Upside-Down Ladder.” I have to say, though, that the original inspiration for this poem came from a scene in “Hind’s Feet on High Places,” by Hannah Hunard, a book I highly recommend.
Continue reading The Song of StreamsThe history of Ireland is written in stone—crumbling stone—in the ancient walls and castles and cottages and churches dotted all across her landscape. I find them constantly fascinating, which I’m sure has something to do with the fact that I came here from a country that wasn’t covered in such tangible monuments to the past. When I look at them, they remind me that life is short, history is long, and the possessions and power that humans collect here on earth are only temporary.
Last week, our family stumbled across the ruined mansion of a man who was powerful and important, in the extreme. It was enormous. Even in ruins, it still impresses. But among the ruins, there was a statue that had toppled from its place in the Big Wind of 1839, and when it fell, the head broke off and was never recovered. Psalm 146 tells us to put our trust in the Lord, not in the power of mortal princes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more vivid picture of this warning than that statue of a man who was the head of all of Ireland, whose head has never been recovered. As I thought about what we had seen, I wrote this poem:
Continue reading The Headless Head Of IrelandIt’s counterintuitive, but it’s true: a generous soul is a rich soul, while those who only look after themselves actually end up impoverishing the very selves they work so hard to look after. We simply were not made for ourselves. The sooner we can get our heads around it, the better. When our focus shifts upward to God and outward to others, a whole new world opens up—a world of happiness beyond circumstance, purpose beyond self-gratification, and real, genuine satisfaction. I’m not saying life becomes easier this way (it’s more likely to become harder), only that it becomes better, by far. I tried to catch a little taste of that in this short poem:
Continue reading Something To GiveYou can’t stand still
You’re always moving
Toward the person
You’re becoming
Life goes on
And choices come
And something grows
With every one Continue reading You Can’t Stand Still
If you really want a loyal friend
Then find someone who’s loyal when
The friend they’re being loyal to
Isn’t you
If you want a friend to keep your secret
Find someone who will not gossip
Even if the one who asked them to
Is you
Continue reading If They’ll Do It For You, They’ll Do It To You
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