QuietMoments
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Ritual of the evening tea
There are grand liturgies in cathedrals, and there are quieter ones at kitchen tables. Ritual of the Evening Tea was written out of that smaller sanctuary—the hum of the kettle, the red box of Thompson’s on the counter, the amber pour into a waiting cup. In the simple making of tea, I find steadiness, warmth,… Continue reading
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Pancakes made the quiet way
Pancakes Made the Quiet Way is a gentle celebration of ordinary ritual—the kind of small, steady act that steadies the soul as much as it feeds the body. In simple measures and unhurried movements, the poem lingers over flour falling, batter smoothing, and pancakes turning in the pan, finding in each step a quiet grace.… Continue reading
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The star that keeps watch
The star keeps watch above it all, A calm, unblinking friend, Continue reading
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The hum of lines
The poem explores survival, love, and choice amidst chronic illness and its challenges. Continue reading
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Otto. Lancelot. Allen.
Three plush companions provide comfort and protection during restless nights, embodying safety and resilience. Continue reading
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Writing in the Small Hours
This poem was written in real time, in the small hours of the night—not at a desk prepared for “creative work,” but wrapped in a teal blanket, slightly breathless from the stairs, listening to the cats settle at my feet. There is a particular honesty to writing at 3am. The house is quiet. The nervous… Continue reading
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A Quiet House, A Returning Train
Today I found myself writing two small Common Metre poems—companions to one another. Andrew was in Dublin for a course, and the house felt different in his absence. Not lonely exactly. Just altered. Softer around the edges. The Sunday light lay still. The cats took up their posts. The kettle hummed. Pancakes became a small,… Continue reading
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Across the Barrow Viaduct—Writing Between Water and Iron
This evening I found myself standing between layers of movement. The river flowing dark and slow. The canal holding the last of the light. And high above, the long stone ribs of the Barrow Viaduct carrying a train across the fading sky. Across the Barrow Viaduct grew out of that layered stillness. The engine in… Continue reading
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Singing Psalm 98 in an Irish Key
“Sing to the Lord a new song…” Psalm 98 is not shy. It is tidal. It calls rivers to clap their hands and hills to sing for joy. It insists that creation itself is caught up in praise—not as backdrop, but as choir. In the Anglican tradition, Psalm 98 can be used at Evensong as… Continue reading
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Writing a Hymn—and Learning Stabilitas Overnight
This hymn didn’t emerge in a chapel. It came overnight. In silence. In storm. In the unbuilt monastery of the mind. “Wild winds rise fierce across the plain,My refuge be.” The imagery came quickly. But the deeper formation came slowly—as most Benedictine things do. I’m part of a Benedictine community without walls. We are dispersed… Continue reading
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Half the parish
Waiting on a haircut, tea on the tray, pen in hand—and “Half the Parish” found its way onto the page. ☕✍️ There’s something about the hum of a café and the simple coming and going of people that turns into poetry if you sit long enough. Firecastle, Kildare. Simple time well spent. Half the parish … Continue reading
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🌿 Morning Reflection for 25 February
Inspired by the appointed readings and psalmody The morning opens gently, the way dawn often does in Ireland—grey first, then slowly revealing colour. The psalms speak of trembling bones, weary eyes, and the long nights when the pillow is wet with tears. Anyone who has ever lain awake listening to the rain on a Kildare… Continue reading
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Coffee Quiet.
Over lunch with my husband in our local café, I settled into the gentle rhythm of the room—the soft sigh of the coffee machine, the low hum of conversation. Around us, friends chatted and colleagues worked, all our different lives briefly sharing the same warm space. As one half of the gay pair from the… Continue reading
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Divinity in Difference: The Window That Says What We’ve Been Trying to Say
Every now and then, an image comes along that says in colour and light what pages of writing have been circling for years. This stained-glass window feels like that. It gathers the heart of NeuroDivine—the essays, the fiction, the hymns, the poetry—and holds them up to the light with one steady claim: Difference is not… Continue reading
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The Pharmacy of Praise
This morning I wrote a hymn about pill boxes and blister packs—about Sundays spent sorting seven small doorways for the week ahead. It’s personal. Andrew and I both live by the rhythm of medicines, colours divided into morning and evening, lids clicked shut in quiet preparation. Sorting tablets isn’t a small thing in our house;… Continue reading
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Stay with me in the waiting.
There are days when Jeremiah’s cry—“My anguish, my anguish!”—feels less like something from long ago and more like the body’s own truth. In the dialysis unit, with the soft beeping of the machines and the hush of people doing their best to get through another session, you can hear that same ache. Jeremiah speaks of… Continue reading
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The Knot of Grace: A Lorica for the Wired Mind
I wrote the hymn in English first. It came out of lived places. Hospital corridors. Strip lighting. The hum of machines. Motorways. Rain over stone. The strange ache of being surrounded and alone. It wasn’t theory. It was my nervous system on paper. There are days when my brain feels like too much input and… Continue reading
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A hymn inspired by 1 John 4:18: “Across the bog and standing stone” (DCM)
The hymn expresses the power of perfect love to dispel fear, connecting Celtic faith with the assurance that love meets us amidst our complexities and challenges. Continue reading
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In the Thin Place of Forty Days
Rooted in the landscape, spirituality, and imaginative tradition of the Irish midlands, the text interweaves the great biblical “forty” journeys—the flood, the exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, and the risen Christ’s forty days—with the sacred geography of Kildare and its surrounding boglands. Drawing on Celtic Christian imagery and the rhythms of creation, it invites worshippers to… Continue reading
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Arrival
“Arrival celebrates finding grace in ordinary moments and connections amid vulnerability and everyday life.” Continue reading
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