I’ve been asked to put some thoughts together for an article on prayer to go in the forthcoming edition of the AFES Salt Magazine. I thought I’d try a few of these ideas out online in a series of posts entitled “Approached by God”. I’m finding that writing essays and…

St Philip’s Church was in the news last weekend. There was a brief article in the Sun Herald about a new Service we have been running during the week called Commuters’ Church. Commuters’ Church is a series of 3 ten minutes Church Services that we are running on Wednesday mornings…

[This post contains an image and a poem depicting an event that was utterly abhorrent, and that some people may therefore find offensive] Les Murray is a poet of the voice. His genius lies in making strange that most familiar sound, capturing it and presenting it on a page. Often…

“Because I do not hope to turn again”… that’s the first line of T.S. Eliot’s poem, Ash Wednesday, and I can’t get it out of my head. My Grandma died on Saturday, my sister got engaged on Saturday. I’m not sure where I’m up to yet. This is going to…

I. Walk the trail ahead of me into the wild country at the southern end of Namadgi. An unprepossessing trail head — the first sign of beauty is the alpine swamp — but the light of the late mid-winter afternoon is already turning the moments golden. The snow grass lies crushed…

Today I took a day off work and went walking. I teach the opening two weeks for each new cohort of fellows at LMI. I always emerge from these weeks feeling emotionally raw. Teaching stretches me between an agony of inadequacy that I can’t convey the beauty, scope, and effect…

A pigeon bobs between the table legs with a shawl about its neck like oil while dogs gaze with an entirety of purpose, the sharp lines of their bodies — noses, ears — converging on a human, its figure or absence. Looking at the doorway of the cafe where the…

For Evie When you see what I have seen And see it better When you love what I love, and better, Then let my hand slip from yours Do not grasp And let me fall behind you on the strand And pass Let me see one last thing you have not seen or loved You in your flower And I will be well.

For Nat, in his 9th year. Follow Rossi Street to its terminus and you’ll find an unexpected fold in the land. It marks one possible end of the town of Yass. A geological circumstance—a fault—swallows the river and on either side the lolloping hills of the Southern Tablelands become momentarily…