NeurodivergentFaith
-
A Lenten hymn – “I waited in the winter rain” (DLM)
A Lenten hymn inspired by Psalm 40, Exodus 9:13-35, and Hebrews 12:14-29 rooted in the Irish landscape Continue reading
-
A New Rhythm: Words, Windows, and the Quiet Keeping
In the Rule of St Benedict, we are told there is a time and a place for everything—a season for speaking and a season for silence. NeuroDivine has expanded over the last year to become a busy intersection of hymns, clinical reflections, and the “sacred imagination” of AI-generated art. As I have prayerfully considered the… Continue reading
AccessibleSpirituality, bible, Christianity, ContemplativeFocus, CuratedGallery, DigitalPilgrimage, Faith, god, jesus, ListeningWithTheHeart, LivingArchive, MonasticWisdom, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, QuietKeeping, ReceivedLight, RuleOfStBenedict, SacredImagination, SensoryProcessing, SiteUpdate, Stabilitas, WonderfullyWired -
A hymn celebrating the Eucharist — “Upon the hill where grasses bend” (DCM)
At the table, heaven draws near: ordinary bread, quiet grace, and Christ present among us—sending us back into the world bearing peace, love, and holy presence. Continue reading
AltarHymn, CelticChristianity, Christianity, ChristInCreation, Contemplation, ContemplativePrayer, Faith, FaithAndHistory, FaithInAction, FaithInTheEveryday, FindingConnection, HeavenOnEarth, HolyStillness, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishSpirituality, LiturgicalLife, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, Pilgrimage, Prayer, QuietMoments, SacredSpaces, Spirituality, SpiritualReflection, TheEucharist -
“At Evening, God Has Spoken”: A Vespers Hymn on Psalm 110 (76 76 D)
110 has long been one of the traditional psalms of Sunday Vespers. My new hymn, At Evening, God Has Spoken, reflects on that ancient text through the quiet landscapes of the Irish midlands—heathered hills, the Barrow’s waters, and the stillness of evening prayer—resting in Christ our High King through the night. Continue reading
AnglicanBenedictine, AnglicanTradition, Benedictine, BenedictineRhythm, BenedictineSpirituality, bible, CatholicChurch, CelticChristianity, Christianity, ChurchOfEngland, ChurchOfIreland, Contemplation, ContemplativePractice, ContemplativePrayer, DailyDevotion, DailyOffice, ExploringIreland, Faith, FaithAndHistory, FaithInAction, god, HeldInLove, HolyStillness, Hymnody, HymnWriting, Ireland, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHymnody, IrishLandscape, IrishReflection, IrishSpirituality, Kildare, LiturgicalLife, LiturgicalMeditation, LiturgicalReflection, LiturgicalRhythm, ModernMonasticism, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, NewHymn, NewHymns, NewSong, PilgrimageIreland, Poetry, PoetryOfPlace, Prayer, Psalm110, QuietMoments, QuietWitness, Reverence, Routine, RuleOfLife, RuleOfStBenedict, SacredRoutine, SacredSong, SacredSpaces, Sanctity, ScriptureAndSilence, ScriptureAndStillness, Spirituality, SpiritualJourney, SpiritualReflection, SundayVespers, ThinPlaces, WalkingIreland, writing -
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
AnglicanTradition, AutisticFaith, bible, CantateDomino, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, ContemplativePrayer, Evensong, Faith, god, Hymnody, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHymnody, IrishSpirituality, jesus, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, NewHymn, PoetryOfPlace, Prayer, Psalm98, QuietMoments, Routine, SacredSpaces, ScriptureAndStillness, Spirituality, SpiritualJourney -
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
AnglicanTradition, AutisticFaith, BenedictineSpirituality, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, ContemplativePrayer, Faith, Hymnody, IrishSpirituality, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, PoetryOfPlace, Prayer, Psalm54, QuietMoments, RuleOfStBenedict, SacredRoutine, SacredSpaces, Spirituality -
🌿 Morning Reflection for 25 February
Inspired by the appointed readings and psalmody The morning opens gently, the way dawn often does in Ireland—grey first, then slowly revealing colour. The psalms speak of trembling bones, weary eyes, and the long nights when the pillow is wet with tears. Anyone who has ever lain awake listening to the rain on a Kildare… Continue reading
-
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
ActuallyAutistic, AuthenticSelf, Autism, AutisticFaith, BenedictineSpirituality, CelticChristianity, Christianity, ChristInTheEveryday, ChronicIllness, ChronicIllnessFaith, ContemplativePrayer, Faith, FaithInTheEveryday, FindingConnection, Hymnody, InclusiveChurch, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHymnody, IrishSpirituality, LiturgicalReflection, ModernMonasticism, MonasticWisdom, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, PoetryOfPlace, QuietMoments, Routine, RuleOfStBenedict, SacredRoutine, SacredSpaces, Spirituality, SpiritualJourney -
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
AnglicanTradition, AutisticFaith, BenedictineSpirituality, bible, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, ContemplativePrayer, Dialysis, DialysisLife, Faith, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishLandscape, IrishLiturgicalReflection, IrishSpirituality, jesus, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, Prayer, QuietMoments, SacredRoutine, SacredSpaces, ScriptureAndStillness, Spirituality -
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
AutisticFaith, BookOfKells, CelticChristianity, Christianity, ChronicIllnessFaith, ChurchOfIreland, CodexCenannensis, ContemplativePrayer, Faith, FaithInTheWard, Hymnody, HymnWriting, HyperfocusAsPrayer, IrishHymnody, IrishSpirituality, IslandFaith, jesus, LatinPoetry, Lorica, MetreMatters, NeurodivergentChristians, NeurodivergentFaith, NeuroDivine, PatternAndPeace, PatternAndPraise, Prayer, PrayerAndPattern, QuietMoments, SacredLanguage, SacredRoutine, SacredSpaces, SacredStructure, SkelligMichael, Slemish, Spirituality, TranslatingFaith, WiredForWorship, WritingProcess -
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
Autism, AutisticFaith, bible, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, Contemplation, Faith, FaithInAction, FaithInTheEveryday, god, Hymnody, InclusiveChurch, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHymnody, IrishSpirituality, jesus, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeurodivergentTheology, NeuroDivine, NewHymn, NewHymns, NewSong, Poetry, PoetryOfPlace, Prayer, QuietMoments, SacredSpaces, Spirituality -
Shepherd. Host. High King.
This hymn began with a simple wondering: What if Christ doesn’t only meet us at the table, but walks the whole week with us? Faith is rarely confined to sacred hours. It unfolds in Mondays heavy with responsibility, Wednesdays full of noise, Fridays marked by grief, and Saturdays thick with waiting. This hymn traces the… Continue reading
AnglicanTradition, AutisticFaith, bible, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, Contemplation, ContemplativePrayer, Eucharist, Faith, FaithAndHistory, FaithInAction, FaithInTheEveryday, FindingConnection, god, Hymnody, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHymnody, IrishSpirituality, jesus, LiturgicalLife, LiturgicalReflection, ModernMonasticism, NeurodivergentFaith, NeurodivergentTheology, NeuroDivine, NewHymn, NewHymns, Pilgrimage, Poetry, Prayer, QuietMoments, Routine, SacredRoutine, SacredSpaces, ScriptureAndStillness, Spirituality, SpiritualJourney -
Claimed. Accompanied. Sent.
I wrote this hymn slowly, paying attention to water. Not water as an idea, but water as something that moves, waits, gathers, seeps, and returns. Water that has weight and sound and temperature. Water that holds memory. Baptism is often talked about as a moment—something that happens and is done. For me, baptism has always… Continue reading
-
Courage. Gentleness. Wisdom
This hymn grew out of listening rather than certainty. It brings together two women who never met, yet somehow recognise one another across time and land. Saint Agatha, standing her ground in the hard stone world of Rome, and Saint Brigid, whose holiness took root in hearth-fire, field, and care for ordinary people. One knew… Continue reading
-
Flour. Aprons. Presence.
For many of us, faith is encountered not first through abstraction or silence, but through texture, rhythm, repetition, and shared work. This poem emerges from the sensory world of baking—warmth, fragrance, patience, and touch—and attends to grace as something embodied and practiced rather than merely believed. Written to be read, prayed, or sung, it traces… Continue reading
-
Silence. Suffering. Steadfastness.
A day of uneasy memory, quiet courage, and layered history. On 30 January, NeuroDivine holds space for complexity, conscience, and the land’s long remembering—and offers a new hymn rooted in Leinster’s fields for those who honour your servant Charles with tenderness rather than triumph. Continue reading
AnglicanCommunion, AnglicanTradition, AutisticFaith, Christianity, ChurchOfIreland, Contemplation, Faith, FaithAndHistory, FaithInAction, FindingConnection, HeldInLove, Hymnody, InclusiveChurch, Ireland, IrishAnglicanVoice, IrishHistory, IrishHymnody, IrishReflection, IrishSpirituality, LiturgicalReflection, NeurodivergentFaith, NeurodivergentTheology, NeuroDivine, NewHymn, NewHymns, NewSong, Pilgrimage, Prayer, QuietCourage, QuietWitness, Reverence, SacredRoutine, SacredSong, SacredSpaces, Sanctity, Spirituality, SpiritualReflection, ThresholdOfGrace -
Threads. Loom. Beauty.
Some hymns arrive not just as words but as sensations—colours, textures, patterns that settle into the body before they ever reach the intellect. The hymn I’m sharing today is one of those pieces. It grew out of my own love for the way creation speaks in colour and form, and how many neurodivergent people encounter… Continue reading
NeuroDivine 