It’s been a difficult year my friends. So I do the only thing I know how to do, Like a stubborn frustrated buddha, I sat. I knelt. I prayed. And as always, I cut. Quickly I became aware of two things: Pain And time. Two things that translate strangely to the screen. Knowing, I’ll forget the pain: the cold floor, the bruises, and the way my legs screamed ‘be here’.
And I’ll forget the hours I sat, now condensed to minutes. Seconds depicting moments. Leaping into the future Fitting tightly into the screen. I have been thinking about time a lot. How people say, in hindsight, it took me 10 years to really know what that period of my life was about. And how that simple sentence erases seconds of self doubt, minutes of struggle, and hours of tears. I’ve been doubting, and struggling, and crying. A lot.
I know why I cut paper, it helps me find my edges. It hedges me in when I start to leak out I just cut away what isn’t there. The stuff that isn’t ‘the thing’. Until only ‘the thing’ is left. And yet, I will always know the perimeter of what has been discarded than the evidence that has been left behind.
Mostly, I cut in silence. A quiet prayer. An emptying. A time of no self. As I mark out the thoughts, broken lines of poetry, and old traumas. I thought about the word ‘present’ and the word ‘present’ being all a game of inflection and yet how differently they speak to the world. Because I know I can present well, it is a safety net that has gotten me through the last difficult long year. But I also know that someone that presents well, can present as present. And how I can only get better at the latter as I let go of the former.
So here I am, And I’m thinking about Moses now. And I’m thinking about this burning bush that I am carving. Be here. Be here. I am, I am. I am that I am. I’m always thinking about God. And the way I am entranced by a tree branch as much as the light that filters through And the dappled shadows cast underfoot.
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Pearl Taylor is a Melbourne-based visual artist, art therapist and Uniting Church youth facilitator, invested in the ways faith forms our personal narrative. Pearl’s art practice is informed by a pinch contemplative traditions, a healthy dose of the radically-inclusive, and a touch of humour. As she dabbles in theological spaces, it is through creativity that she expresses, connects, and invites others in. She lives on Wurundjeri land.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, The Apostle Paul, c. 1657. Oil on canvas, 131.5 x 104.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
It is disorienting how a space so beautiful and lovingly fragrant has the life-indwelling potential for such a magnitude of pain. Like summer days sitting in the shadow of a wild rose, pressing one’s nose into the sun-kissed petals of smooth velvet.
Covered in the yellow grains of life-producing possibilities the closeness brings visceral reminders that home, like roses bring pain to those who have been so near and then pull away.
Thorns break into flesh when your presence is left. Time with you appeared to have no end, the young were confident in this. Years passed, service, mission, duty, and love beckoned us to foreign lands requiring an unperceived and misunderstood sacrifice as we tread a well worn path.
Why must these woody cells with pointed intentions persist? Year after year they’ve remained comfortably under the folds of our skin obstinate towards the desires for forgetfulness.
Scar tissue envelopes their presence, covering over reminders of what once was. Slight pressure applied by a seemingly insignificant force ushers in once more aching pain that consumes the senses, disorientating the best laid plans.
Can one not walk away from the enjoyment of your presence without consequence? Does a thorn ever complete its task; reminding one of the beauty journeyed from? ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’ is a wretched truth.
To behold home once more as the memories insist upon being true is an impossibility brought by the metamorphosis of time. Returning overlays the deepest of memories overtop unknown changes, conjuring up moments of confusion and feelings of foreign.
And yet we yearn again for a moment with the fragrance, presence and place, if only for fleeting and hurried relief from the ache. All the while knowing that the time will come when we must pull away, left with another thorn in the flesh.
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The poem found above has been something in the works for over the past three months and is most likely a guttural reaction to the strong lockdown Melbourne has had to endure. Being an expat for over fifteen years, I and others like myself have often struggled with the strange heart reaction of homesickness that ebbs and flows with the passage of time and events. Recently, I’ve been wondering about Paul’s thorn and whether it could have been something as often overlooked as homesickness. We like to assume that Paul’s thorn was persecution or perhaps some bodily ailment as that is perhaps a more holy possibility. But what if it was something as simple as his longing for home? Perhaps he was wrestling with the pulls to go home and the calling to go elsewhere, working within the broader church family? Maybe it is a bit arrogant to presume that someone called by God for such an important task as Paul’s could share something in common with me? I don’t know for sure but I like to wonder.
What I do know is that many of us expats are struggling with the affliction of homesickness in the current Australian climate due to being told that visiting home is not an option. The latest news from the Prime Minister is that the Australian borders most likely won’t reopen to many SARS COV2 infected countries until 2022. That seems like forever away and is hard to accept when our family had plans for a visit in the next eight months. I have found in my experience that many whose roots have never shifted from their homeland do not understand the difficulties around homesickness or the lingering pain that home imbeds within the hearts of those who uproot. This is something I try to shed light on in Paul’s Thorn Illuminated.
This poem intentionally does not end in hope. There are moments when answers should not be hurried and instead we need to acknowledge that the emotions of the present conflict are real and difficult. After a time, we can move on from that recognition of pain towards the hope that God provides in God’s Word. For the expat, that hope is found in our eternal citizenship and home. Texts like Psalm 68.5–6a (‘Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home’) and Philippians 3.20 (‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ’) remind us that God understands the need for home and belonging. God cares for the lonely by providing a home. God reminds us that God is making one for us where we are the citizens. In our eternal home, there will be no ‘rings of steel’, curfews, or border restrictions. Presently, we may feel the physical pain and loneliness of earthly separation, but we can find comfort in knowing that even now God is thinking of our need for belonging and rootedness by providing us with church family when our biological families are beyond reach and the promise of an eternal home to come.
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MEGAN FISHER SERVES AS A MANAGER IN THE MCKINNON REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HOMESCHOOLS FOUR OF THEIR FIVE CHILDREN, AND TEACHES ENGLISH AND CITIZENSHIP CLASSES FOR WOMEN IN THE MELBOURNE AFGHAN COMMUNITY. SOMETIMES SHE IS SUCCESSFUL AT FINDING JUST ENOUGH SILENCE TO CREATE THE ART THAT IS RUMBLING AROUND IN HER HEAD. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
Corona came shouting STOP! You heard Greta Thunberg say, How dare you! Dear David Attenborough agreed then Jane Goodall said she was going to plant five million trees. Stop the traffic, stop the pollution, the bombing, the rocket launches, the oil tanker spills, the logging and manufacturing all that junk. Corona said, And most of all stop torturing and killing animals in the way you do as if they can’t feel pain, as if they don’t experience love, bawling, chasing the trucks carting away their newborn to be slaughtered. Lamb of God! They are sentient, intelligent, the essence of beauty. Listen, Clean your house, take care with people, watch yourself because if you don’t I just might kill you. Smoke haze over the big cities clears, In Delhi you can see the Himalaya again. America burns. In the sanctuary of the Wombat forest, I rake the debris on the forest floor and burn off praying that summer will not breathe her fiery breath on this place, all hell breaking loose. Under the ancient trees where the Dja Dja Wurrung women gave birth, I see an archway, something moves amongst the leaves, the wind perhaps. The spirits of the those not considered worthy of life, chanting their song of the Dreamtime, The trees remember them. Listen! I place my head against the gnarled lumps of bark about the size of an infant’s head. The hollow interior of the tree is quiet. The sun shines his rays through the great lofty branches of the dense forest that meet like a vaulted ceiling of Gothic architecture. This is my chapel, this is my cathedral.
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FRANCES GUERIN IS A CERAMICIST AND PAINTER, AND FORMER COUNSELLOR. SHE LIVES ON DJA DJA WURRUNG COUNTRY, WHERE SHE SENSES THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST ELDERS IN THE ANCIENT TREES AND THE ROCKS, AND SHE ACKNOWLEDGES THE PRESENT AND EMERGING CUSTODIANS OF THE LAND.
These paintings and poems are a map of archetypal symbols which appeared over a period of time in spiritual direction. This enigmatic experience was so gripping that I researched the symbols as they evolved and painted them to find meaning in what I was witness to. On this journey, I found a friend in Colin McCahon, New Zealand painter in the 60s and 70s exploring themes of faith and the Tau cross, which is later taken up by the Australian artist Imants Tillers.
Frances Guerin, Crossroad and Blue Signpost, 2016. Pastel and ink on Fabriano paper, 120 x 50 cm. Artist’s collection.
All power resides within the cube, all mysteries in three pure vessels.
I arrive at a cross-road with many tire marks turning right, with a small Celtic cross at the center of the intersection. A signpost marked Eudaemonia, creative spirit, indicates the way.
Frances Guerin, All Power, All Mysteries, 2017. Digitally-altered drawing. Artist’s collection.
In the night a disembodied voice announces
‘All power resides within the cube!’
‘All mysteries of the universe in three pure vessels’.
the cube is a vibrant electric force
the vessels are vivid white mandorlas, signs of the feminine
The three graces, the three Marys at the foot of the cross.
The play is dynamic, four intersecting circles, create three mandorlas
like the three thrown into the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar
in answer to their prayers, a fourth appears who cools the flames
The eye of Christ looks through a mandola
and transforms into Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
The cube unfolds into a bright red T
the tau cross, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Frances Guerin, The Initial Symbols of the Finished Painting, 2017. Artist’s collection.
Clophas, the husband of the third Mary
one of the two men walking to Emmaus on Easter Monday
meet a stranger they do not recognize
until the resurrected one breaks bread with them
Ichthus, the vessel of the fish.
Then three women called Shannon
clothed in extraordinary white robes,
embroidered with Celtic symbols
stretch out their hands radiating a mighty force
that nothing can stop.
Like the flow of a river from its wellspring
I am pulled into the stream.
Frances Guerin, All Power resides Within the Cube, All Mysteries in Three Pure Vessels, 2017–19. Oil on canvas, 130 x 75 cm. Artist’s collection.
The Daisy and the Sun, 2018
During a Council of all Beings workshop developed by Joana Macy and John Seed, a group of friends came together to find a new relationship to the natural world in this time of climate crisis. We were guided to meditate alone and allow ourselves to be drawn by something in the natural world and to listen to what it reveals to us.
I noticed a small white daisy whose golden heart reminded me of the sun rays when suddenly the sun spoke: ‘Beware, hubris humans, you have harnessed my power for your use but forget I am a god’.
Then a vision splendid arose. I passed through a gateless gate formed by the legs of the massive figure of Jesus Christ, his arms outstretched in an all-encompassing embrace, standing on the edge of a swirling cosmos composed of diaphanous holy beings singing with one voice, ‘Amen Amen, such is the power of kindness’.
Then one of the mysteries of alchemy is revealed, the treasured translucent pink glaze which occurs exactly at the golden ratio point on a test plate of mineral mixtures for a .8 limestone ceramic glaze.
Frances Guerin, The Daisy and the Sun, 2019. Oil on canvas, 75 x 50 cm. Artist’s collection.
Crossroad, Return from the Mountain
The beautiful landscape of Hepburn Shire is the subject of the four paintings.
The rich volcanic hills are planted with vegetables and vineyards,
Vast golden canola fields amaze the eye in spring
Kangaroos and ducks, blue heron, and magpie
Echidna, skink and foxes
live between forest and human houses.
At some point the wild land and the unmanicured forest
the pale moon in the colours of twilight
became the source of my happiness.
Frances Guerin, The Crossroad, Descent from the Mountain, 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm. Artist’s collection.
As the megafires raged in Victoria and NSW in the summer of 2019/20, I took refuge in the greenness of Hepburn Shire, where rain fell throughout summer and were spared any major fires. Celtic spirituality embraces the notion of immanence, the divine presence in nature, and contemporary artists in Ireland borrow from the old and personify immanance as Bridgit’s cloak and in winter, An Cailleach Bheara.
Frances Guerin, Viriditas Crossroad, 2019. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 90 x 66 cm. Artist’s collection.
Frances Guerin, Bridgit’s Cloak at the Crossroad, 2020. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 90 x 66 cm. Artist’s collection.
Frances Guerin, An Cailleach Bheara, Lamgambook, (Mt Franklin), 2020. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm. Artist’s collection.
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FRANCES GUERIN IS A CERAMICIST AND PAINTER, AND FORMER COUNSELLOR. SHE LIVES ON DJA DJA WURRUNG COUNTRY, WHERE SHE SENSES THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST ELDERS IN THE ANCIENT TREES AND THE ROCKS, AND SHE ACKNOWLEDGES THE PRESENT AND EMERGING CUSTODIANS OF THE LAND.
every note
in high or low pitch
up or down accent
silence or noise
composed into a melody
in an ever-flowing river
of life
until
choked on the ground
smothered by the mask
crushed by Houston and Chengdu
suffocated by the pandemics
slaughtered in the home kitchen
…
and every moment since Eden
Megan Fisher, That You Shine Like Stars In The World, 2020. Ink on paper, relief print, 32 x 8cm. Artist’s collection, Melbourne.
Gentle stirrings of chimes herald in a purifying breeze
reminding the caretakers of the world how careless they’ve been.
The starry nights obscured to the watcher’s eye by the wasting of the land,
isolation edicts are an unanticipated jubilee from the Maker’s hand.
Hear the chimes, ‘people of the land submit!’, rippling through
singing a contemplative melody as the asphyxiating smog unknits,
The quickened pace from then to now left Sayers dismayed, of stockings
thrown into decay after one shift, opportunities to change our ways. Will we?
Decimation to the soil has brought groans across a withered land
whispering chimes gather strength as our mandatory solitude continues by,
providence. Bringing the land a Sabbath from the ancient ways
has not been on the minds of caretakers today.
‘Behold!’ the starry nights sing a promise to the generations.
The Father that placed these radiant stars left impressions
of a long-awaited covenant. Can we see? when we smother them with our greed?
‘A rest, please rest’, sighs the breeze as it sweeps through urban spaces
‘come wonder and be still beneath a shimmering celestial glow’
whispering peacefully to the caretakers, for to them this great gift was bestowed.
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Megan Fisher serves as a manager in the McKinnon Reformed Presbyterian Church, homeschools four of their five children, and teaches English and citizenship classes for women in the Melbourne Afghan community. Sometimes she is successful at finding just enough silence to create the art that is rumbling around in her head. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Land.
When I hold your hand
on the crisp white sheet,
I pray with all my heart
for you – deep peace.
When I’m at home,
there’s no one’s hand
holding mine,
and mostly I’m just fine –
but maybe – maybe –
maybe I’m too strong
for my own good?
When I catch your tears
in frothy coffee remnants,
I pray with all my heart
for you – new hope.
When I close the door,
I pour my own wine
to catch my falling tears,
and most days, that’s just fine –
but maybe – maybe –
maybe I’m too strong
for my own good?
When black dogs and monsters
cast clouds across the sun,
I pray with all my heart
for you – be well.
Then, at last, my dog wakes,
pulls me into the shadows;
and no one hears the rawest cry
that I am far from fine –
and maybe – maybe –
maybe I am too strong,
too strong for my own good?
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SARAH AGNEW IS A STORYTELLER, POET, AND UNITING CHURCH MINISTER CURRENTLY IN PLACEMENT WITH CANBERRA CENTRAL PARISH. HER POETRY AND LITURGY APPEAR IN WILD GOOSE PUBLICATIONS AS STAND-ALONE E-LITURGIES, AND IN EDITED ANTHOLOGIES AS WEEKLY PRAYER-POEMS AT PRAY THE STORY. HER MOST RECENT PUBLISHED POETRY COLLECTION IS HOLD THEM CLOSE (RESOURCE PUBLICATIONS, 2018). SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON NGUNNAWAL COUNTRY.
after the ocean wave of silence
colourful shells on the sand
form these musical lines:
entering the fire
dancing in the heart of flames
beating the drum with rhythms
immersed in the liquid love of the Spirit
soaring above the clouds
the shelter of each other where we live
infilling ……….detaching ……….……….uplifting ……….……….……….outworking
harness of God
energy of love
healing of all creation
sacred ground of truth
and mystery
let yeast permeate the dough of our reality
enliven our hearts to reach out
Christ takes shape among us
a new way of being
a unified space
enfolding each other in the Presence
sheer blessings
birds calling
ripples on a pond
go in peace ……….go with justice ……….……….go in love
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XIAOLI YANG IS A THEOLOGIAN, POET, AND SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR. SHE LIVES AND PLAYS ON WURUNDJERI LAND AND IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM.
We’ve misplaced Jesus’ Jewishness.
(It’s a bit embarrassing)
I knew we left it somewhere
Around the farm or in the yard
Between the 2nd temple and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Lost the Messianic in the messy-attic;
We Turned the wrong tables and spilled hope of the Mosaic, everywhere.
So I guess it’s no wonder that we found other pieces
filled in the blanks with what made sense at the time and turned the free salvific into a cost-less grace.
Understand, not, ‘make a stand’.
It’s a gentler salve for an aching heart and we can say it from wherever we sit.
But what would the cows think
out there grazing on the
blessed bounty of the earth?
Do they think that what they die for is more important than their own muchness?
At least someone’s helping to search the top paddock … even as the rains come …
And with all those pieces in puddles
and no Moses to muscle the Reed Sea,
We filled in the picture with culture and reason and it’s no wonder that the hand became its center.
That hand
pointing …
before long we had painted so many pictures that we forgot it was ever a mosaic hope.
… no wonder that here
I AM: confused
But I found a bit today
Back, behind the stove
Behind the boiler and
manufacturing machine,
amidst the tear Gas
and passionate web of solidarity …
And if you fit it in just right you can almost see a new humanity.
The precious darker shades bring out the definition
a picture more gracious in a higher resolution.
So hope? … We are. Aren’t we?
(Eschatological)
Here and now in this new human future.
And somewhere I’m sure,
A bush is still burning.
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(Who’d have thought
we could just say
‘yes’?)
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P. J. BANKS IS AN ASPIRING WRITER AND POET, AND A CANDIDATE FOR PASTORAL MINISTRY WITH THE UNITING CHURCH. HE IS PASSIONATE ABOUT THE ARTS AND THEOLOGY, AND THEIR PURSUIT AND UNDERSTANDING OF CONSCIOUSNESS, MEANING, AND THE NATURE OF REALITY. HE LIVES AND WORKS ON DJA DJA WURRUNG AND TAUNGURUNG LAND.
Secure within my comfort zone,
protected from besieging germ,
I thank good fortune I am well,
and pray I won’t become infirm.
For of the knowledge tree I ate,
filled my pantry, stayed at home,
spent time apart from kith and kin,
immersed myself in Zoom and tome.
And now, in isolation, I
have time to contemplate and rest,
but find reflections weigh me down,
confuse my mind, put me to test.
For others suffer worse than me
amidst lost jobs, elusive hope.
‘Is it my role’, I ask myself,
‘to risk my health to help them cope?’
Then naked in God’s sight I hide,
distance myself from Micah’s call
to humbly walk and kindness love,
and justice do to those who fall.
But as I sit this crisis out,
observing from retirement’s womb
the stresses neighbours now endure,
I ponder on an empty tomb.
For on a cross forgiveness sang,
not silenced by a cruel fate,
not blaming me for selfish act,
but helping me my fears abate.
This fortress offers me some space
to trust the paradox of faith,
that in the midst of death … is life,
and there I find a place that’s safe.
God clothes me well with Eden’s skins
to help me learn to live Shalom
amidst Creation’s groaning sighs:
Your Kingdom Come adorns my home.
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Inspired by Genesis 3, Psalm 46, and Micah 6.8.
I write poetry to explore the ineffability of faith, almost paradoxically using words to cast light on faith’s mysteries, ambiguities, and challenges as humanity engages in a restless quest to understand the Divine.
‘My Journey’ is the third poem in an unplanned trilogy (following ‘Sophia’s Lament’ and ‘Gaia’s Revenge?’) written in response to 2020’s catastrophic start – bushfires, floods, COVID-19, and economic collapse. Where and how do we find God in these events? The divine, earth, and human perspectives unfolded as I put pen to paper.
Knowledge … home … distance … love … justice … neighbour … faith … safe … Eden … Shalom. How do we interpret these words and give effect to them in our lives as we face crises? Psalm 46, on which Luther’s hymn ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ is based, provides some insights.
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CHRIS DALTON IS A RETIRED PUBLIC AFFAIRS ANALYST, WITH A PASSION FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY, PARTICULARLY WITH REGARD TO THE ENVIRONMENT. AUTHOR OF REIMAGINING LAND IN AUSTRALIA: FROM TERRA NULLIUS TO BELOVED COMPANION, HE FINDS POETRY A REWARDING WAY TO EXPLORE ‘WICKED’ PROBLEMS. HE LIVES ON BUNURONG/BOONWURRUNG AND YUIN LANDS.
