Remembering that it happened once,We cannot turn away the thought,As we go out, cold, to our barnsToward the long night’s end, that weOurselves are living in the worldIt happened in when it first happened,That we ourselves, opening a stall(A latch thrown open countless timesBefore), might find them breathing there,Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,The motherContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 25”
Tag Archives: Grace
#adventapertures2025: day 24
On the first day of Christmas, they hauled you from me with the forceps while a crimson Santa blinked outside and made the rain new blood. The second day, I washed with frankincense, fed you thin gold, summoned by the high star of your cry. The third day, milk came swaddling-pale, shepherd’s flock white. TheContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 24”
Blue Christmas: for mourning
Grief is a response to an irreversible loss… To generate grief rather than sadness, the thing lost must carry great emotional weight, and it must pull back the veil that covers a transcendent aspect of the world. Breathe out to push the fog away from a brilliant pinpoint of light. … Gravity holds my feetContinue reading “Blue Christmas: for mourning”
day 16: for healing
Mutuality means learning to lean into [angels’] wisdom for us and seeing angels as partners in the journey of spiritual transformation. We allow them their full agency as they allow ours. Over time, as we begin to see patterns of support emerge in our days and feel their presence in our prayer moments, trust isContinue reading “day 16: for healing”
day 14: for acceptance
I still believe mainly in the opportunities afforded by acceptance. Robert Adams If you have ever been frustrated, trying to photograph the beauty of the moon or a sunrise, then you will know that a snapshot is a mere recreation of what the human eye sees. It can’t do justice to the beauty we behold.Continue reading “day 14: for acceptance”
day 7: for discomfort
She loves the wind. There on the edge of the known world, at ninety, In her tall house, any wildness in the elements Is as welcome as an old friend. When the surgically patched elms and sycamores Crack off their heavy limbs in the freak snow storm Of October, she rejoices; the massy hail ThatContinue reading “day 7: for discomfort”
day 6: for fear
I wonder why you brought me to these splintering days, this age of dearth-death and default extinction and the smothering of constellations nostalgia claws at me screaming send me back then I sense a fire that doesn’t consume, a cloud of breath-taking holiness passing across the face of a mountain and it says I putContinue reading “day 6: for fear”
heart of stone
Once again it is my honour to contribute a reflection to the ‘monk in the world’ blog of the Abbey of the Arts. This piece was first published on May 15, 2024 (although it was written in May 2023). all words and images by Kate Kennington Steer I arrived at February 2023 in a post-viralContinue reading “heart of stone”
well or w/hole (part iv)
I meant to write this in September 2023, but it is now February 2024. I am recovering from a reanimation of the chest infection I caught before Christmas, but it has wiped out this month. I am attempting not to fight the bouts of vertigo and dizziness which sideswipe me, even as I sit perfectlyContinue reading “well or w/hole (part iv)”
whole: day 21
We must reverse our lenses. Too often we have allowed them to lead us into a dark past. Looking through the right end, we see how that dawn had the brightness of flowers. It is the future is dark because one by one we are removing these paintings from our exhibition. We walk between blankContinue reading “whole: day 21”
image into ikon 