BeaMidbar

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

How busy was the tomb?
This vast space falls silent sometimes; I’ve seen it.
Silent with the hum of the hearts and prayers of a thousand warm, living bodies, and silent as the grave, all quiet and dark when only I make my pilgrimage through this great nothingness, this naked vacuum clad in a sandstone veil.

Like Us

Like Us

In the shop where I work, we sell nativity sets. As a few customers have pointed out to me, we sell exclusively nativity sets where the baby Jesus is white.

Womb

Womb

Throughout this time, I’ve found it easier and easier to think about God as my mother. Early on, when I could hardly hear God speak, Charlie prayed for me and received the prophetic image of me as a tiny point of righteous anger curled in on itself, as a baby kicking and screaming too hard and not staying still enough to feel loved, and of God around me: holding and enclosing me, and encouraging me to unravel so that I could feel her holding me, so that I could feel anything other than the white hot rage that I had curled in on.

Lazarus

Lazarus

A real death is the way to a real resurrection.

Death is absolutely terrifying. As modern neuroscientists have pointed out, there is no conceivable mechanism by which our consciousness might leave our body in tact when we die. Humans are not born with an immortal soul. Most likely, death is total oblivion, and if that doesn’t scare you then I don’t know what to say to you.

Mozart

Mozart

Today, I am facing the prospect of having my training suspended. On Sunday, Mozart’s requiem was broadcast on BBC2.