IrishSpirituality
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Singing Psalm 98 in an Irish Key
“Sing to the Lord a new song…” Psalm 98 is not shy. It is tidal. It calls rivers to clap their hands and hills to sing for joy. It insists that creation itself is caught up in praise—not as backdrop, but as choir. In the Anglican tradition, Psalm 98 can be used at Evensong as… Continue reading
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Writing a Hymn—and Learning Stabilitas Overnight
This hymn didn’t emerge in a chapel. It came overnight. In silence. In storm. In the unbuilt monastery of the mind. “Wild winds rise fierce across the plain,My refuge be.” The imagery came quickly. But the deeper formation came slowly—as most Benedictine things do. I’m part of a Benedictine community without walls. We are dispersed… Continue reading
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Unknown Paths, Rising Hills: Writing a Hymn for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year A) — “You call us out to unknown paths” (CM)
You call us out to unknown paths You call us out to unknown paths,Like Abram long ago;Through mist along the Barrow’s bends,Your pilgrim people go.You lift our eyes to rising hills,Where skylarks greet the dawn;Your keeping shade, like hawthorn’s bough,Stands guard till night is gone.Not by our striving, strength, or claimBut gift of grace alone,You… Continue reading
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Divinity in Difference: The Window That Says What We’ve Been Trying to Say
Every now and then, an image comes along that says in colour and light what pages of writing have been circling for years. This stained-glass window feels like that. It gathers the heart of NeuroDivine—the essays, the fiction, the hymns, the poetry—and holds them up to the light with one steady claim: Difference is not… Continue reading
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Stay with me in the waiting.
There are days when Jeremiah’s cry—“My anguish, my anguish!”—feels less like something from long ago and more like the body’s own truth. In the dialysis unit, with the soft beeping of the machines and the hush of people doing their best to get through another session, you can hear that same ache. Jeremiah speaks of… Continue reading
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The Knot of Grace: A Lorica for the Wired Mind
I wrote the hymn in English first. It came out of lived places. Hospital corridors. Strip lighting. The hum of machines. Motorways. Rain over stone. The strange ache of being surrounded and alone. It wasn’t theory. It was my nervous system on paper. There are days when my brain feels like too much input and… Continue reading
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Across the bog and standing stone
Inspired by the Bible Gateway Verse of the Day — “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18, Authorised Version. This hymn sets that promise within the ancient landscape of Celtic faith. Across bog and… Continue reading
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In the Thin Place of Forty Days
Rooted in the landscape, spirituality, and imaginative tradition of the Irish midlands, the text interweaves the great biblical “forty” journeys—the flood, the exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, and the risen Christ’s forty days—with the sacred geography of Kildare and its surrounding boglands. Drawing on Celtic Christian imagery and the rhythms of creation, it invites worshippers to… Continue reading
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Waiting
In much of Christian spirituality, waiting is treated as a virtue—Advent waiting, prayerful waiting, hopeful waiting. But that language can sometimes feel abstract, almost decorative. It does not always account for the body. For the nervous system. For the long fluorescent hours in hospital wards. For the way time stretches, distorts, or presses against the… Continue reading
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Ash, Attention, and the God Who Breathes: Writing This Hymn for Ash Wednesday
I wrote this hymn for Ash Wednesday out of a neurodivergent way of praying. For many of us, faith does not begin in abstraction. It begins in texture. In the grit of ash against skin. In the sound of a river looping the same bend again and again. In the stillness of a heron that… Continue reading
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Marked by Starlight, Bound in Love
At NeuroDivine, we know well that the road of faith is seldom straight. It bends and wanders, like a river finding its way to the sea. “Forty Days the Path Before Us” is a Lenten hymn for pilgrims of every kind—for those who travel by valley and high hill, through bogland hush and bright shoreline,… Continue reading
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Memory. Mission. Transformation.
This hymn was written for NeuroDivine as a song of Eucharistic continuity and hope. It situates the community within the great communion of saints of the Celtic world—Patrick’s fire, Hilda’s shore, Columba’s pilgrimage, Cuthbert’s solitude, Bede’s scholarship—bearing witness that Christ has fed his people in every age and in every kind of mind. At its… Continue reading
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Word. Refuge. Faith.
“Write Your Word Upon Our Hearts” is a hymn rooted in Deuteronomy 11, Psalm 31, Romans 1 and 3, and Matthew 7, the readings for today (Proper 4) in the Church of Ireland. It prays that God’s Word would be inscribed not only on stone, but within our lives—shaping faith, grounding us in Christ’s righteousness,… Continue reading
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Rule. Dawn. Praise.
This hymn and stained-glass image are inspired by Chapter 13 of the Rule of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict, in which he sets forth the reverent ordering of the Divine Office at Lauds on ordinary days. Rooted in the rhythm of psalmody, canticle, Gospel praise, and litany, the work reflects Saint Benedict’s vision of a… Continue reading
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Holy. Queer. Desire.
For many queer people—especially those of us who are neurodivergent—the search for connection has often unfolded in the margins: in late-night conversations, in coded glances, in apps that both liberate and exhaust us. Our longing has been shaped by secrecy, by rejection, by comparison, and by the fierce hope of finally being seen. This hymn… Continue reading
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Grace in humble things
In quiet parks at break of day,Your footsteps go before;You bless the paths we daily tread,The commonplace made more.In sparrow-flight and drifting leaves,In laughter on the green,You show us grace in humble thingsWhere You have always been.In benches worn by waiting hearts,In puddles after rain,You sit with those who long for peaceAnd share their hidden… Continue reading
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Before Your holy altar
This hymn was written as a prayer of presence and sending — rooted in the Celtic landscape, centered on the Eucharist, and alive with the missionary fire of the saints. It gathers altar, land, and people into one act of worship: Christ present among us, Christ restoring us, Christ sending us forth. May it be… Continue reading
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Stop. Start. Stay.
Not every journey is straight. Some of us live by detours. Some of us measure time in appointments, recoveries, resets, and the quiet courage it takes to begin again. This new hymn was written from within that kind of landscape. It blesses the roundabout and the restart. The traffic light on a rain-washed street when… Continue reading
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Healing. Prayer. Hope.
This hymn was written for World Day of the Sick, a day when many pilgrims gather in Lourdes seeking healing, prayer, and hope. While crowds pray at the grotto and walk in candlelight procession, many of us keep the day in quieter places—hospital wards, dialysis units, and our own homes. For me, it is shaped… Continue reading
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Incense. Whisper. Hope.
This hymn is inspired by Psalm 141, the Church’s ancient evening prayer: “Let my prayer rise before you like incense.” Set in the landscape of Clonmacnoise, it joins the psalmist’s cry to the Shannon’s air and the long vigil of those who prayed on these stones before us. As night gathers, it asks Christ to… Continue reading
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