I know it’s all-encompassing, but you know something?
it’ll pass, and we’ll move on
and we’ll try to forget the moments when we thought we could all be goners.

We’ll look forward, quote verses about new things and we’ll be assertive
and we’ll trust God for the future, post memes on our computers
and it is right that we do this with honest good humour

but let’s not waste this season by simply surviving,
simply grinning and bearing, and us hiding our crying.
Let’s not miss these moments, these weeks and months
when it's more honest to pray with tears and sobs,
asking for answers to our cries for life,
for the lives around us,
- for those who have died,

for our sanity cooped up and us barely coping,
our routine getting worn with daily repeating
without much needed hugs and with limited ways
to meet and to sing and to share our long days
with more than these same four walls

Pause

– don’t forget how this felt for you,
cos that's the way we seek his truth
and be better able to rely on him
next time our lives lose their rhyme and rhythm,

when (let’s be honest) our faith gets wonky,
and each one of us alone can be tempted to worry

and sink inside.

Let’s be honest with him and next time
our vision may be better aligned
and we’ll look to him and rather than hide,
we’ll stand that much straighter, knowing our God is so much greater,
our God is wider and higher and untold deeper
and he has this frail life in his two pierced hands that are so much bigger.

I know it's all-encompassing,
but you know something,
he is all Father,
all Creator, all Redeemer
and the all-encompassing more Grace-giver

He is the one holding it all together
and he wants to walk through this grief together

with you.

So, turn down the news,
make some space, seek his face
and let’s pray.

'I hear the Father say,

"Your patience indeed is shallow
- but my restive child, rest and pray,
find in me your refuge,
I am all you need today."

The Lord is harbour. He is anchor.
And once this season passes,
once the channels open
He will be our compass

and we will sail.'

When I first discovered hot buttered toast I caught a glimpse of heaven.
I was 15 and visiting friends.
I had only been allowed stork margerine at home and had grown to tolerate it.
But that was a poor reflection of the real thing.
Now I knew heaven:
Standing by the toaster, with tea in a mug and hot, butter-dripping toast.

Zero cubed has no more value than zero squared,
but has a more pleasant shape and is able to bear greater weight.

It always reminds me of a spell I learned as a teen
from the rag and bone horse who was never in a hurry
and was always happy to chat,
sharing his experience which came from many roads
and long hot summers in the '50s
when he was younger and less careful.

Zero, he told me, is a useful start
to many constructions and worth mastering
if you ever intend to move on to primes.
Primes are slippery, he explained, and require focus.

Zeros similarly require a focused mind, but are easier to build with.

So I spent the summer of '74 getting used
to the feel and the texture of various zeros,
then carefully moved on to zero squared.
By the September, just before school, I'd started playing with zeros cubed
with not a little success.

I picked them up again in the Christmas holidays and then,
almost by accident, I came across the spell:
zero times zero times zero divided by infinity.

It still makes me smile.

The following spring I discovered girls.
And for the next 6 years I put the zeros aside.

But I won't quickly forget Benjamin, 1974
and the smile of magic.

Are those my cream eggs?
Those look like mine.
Where did you find them?
I'm sure I had nine.

Are those my cream eggs?
They better not be.
Cos if they are,
You owe me!

What now?
Where do I go?

Home.

The King and the prince went up to the city,
the King to make peace and the prince to get tricky.
One lived to love and one loved to hate,
one gave his life and one took the bait.

The King and the prince went up to the city,
one stood condemned, one died not guilty.
One spoke the truth and one shouted lies
one knew the plan, one got a surprise.

The King and the prince went up to the city,
one filled with tears and one with no pity.
The prince had his Friday, ‘thought that was the finish.
The King rose on Sunday, his rule undiminished.