One Day, by R S Thomas

In that day language
shall expose its sores,
begging for the alms
we can not give. 'Leave it'
we shall say, 'on the pavement
of the quotidien.' There is
a cause there is nobody
to plead, yet whose sealed lips
are its credentials. What
does the traveller to your door
ask, but that you sit down
and share with him that
for which there are no words?
I look forward to the peace
conferences of the future
when lies, hidden behind speeches,
shall have their smiles blown away
by the dove's wings, fanning in silence.

From A Mass for Hard Times, available here.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, by Belden Lane, is one of the best books I've read in the last 5 years. It is a very moving reflection on the tradition of desert and mountain spirituality in the Christian tradition, interwoven with the author's personal experience of watching his mother die slowly in a nursing home. It has been particularly powerful for me because my own mother is towards the end of a very long and slow decline into incapacity in a care home not far away from where I live.

Click to read more ...