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Poem – prayer – silence: what is that about?  Aren’t words and silence opposites?  It is true that the deepest communion of prayer is silence deeper than thought.  But there are ways of preparing the heart for the silence of contemplative prayer.  

There is prayer in words, such as the prayer of the daily office.  Then there is spiritual reading such as poetry.  Poetry works on the borders of the inexpressible, approaching mystery sidelong by means of metaphor and image.  These things move the heart into a place of receptivity and faith-filled expectation, and ease the transition into inner stillness.

I have used poetry for some years in my work of spiritual accompaniment one-to-one, and I hope that online readers may find the poems helpful as they move from pondering the poem, into prayer to God in words and movements of the heart, and finally into the deep inner silence of abiding in the divine presence.

All my poetry presupposes foundational Christian theology such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the resurrection of Christ, and cannot be properly understood without it.    The poetry also alludes to the Bible, especially the Gospels and the psalms which are my daily bread.  See the psalms page for more on this.  Many Christians are unfamiliar with the full beauty of their faith.  Often difficulties and objections disappear when they find out what Christian theology really says.

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/