Category: blog

it’s big.

it’s green.

it’s got the hymn I want in it,

and it’s hiding.

At last.  I can stay.

Nineteen years of background stress gone in an instant.

yet another non-theological post…

but for this:  pondering your death is a classic spiritual discipline.

So, imagine the scene:

me, my car, and a very very steep driveway.

Ahead, a man and his dog.

To the side, a sort of cliff edge.

Below,  perfectly smooth black ice, slick with tension.

We skid slowly and gracefully off the edge of the road, as I tried simultaneously to steer back from the spin and to aim for the rhododendron  (the other option being a car-length drop and flip  into the neighbour’s garden).

All day since, Emily Dickenson on my mind.

(man, dog, car, rhododendron and I are all fine, by the way.  But nine hours later, it still feels all too close.)

I think I have said this before — but I believe deeply and truly that snow is created to make us slow down.

So here I sit, watching the cat watching the birds.

I have declared it a snow day.

There is no reason in the world that I couldn’t do 8, 10, 12 hour work today without setting foot outside.  But that would be to miss the point of this rare white sabbath.

The vestry might — might — get their agenda tonight.  But maybe not.

Tomorrow normal things can resume.