QuietMoments
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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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Arrival
Arrival is a poem about coming home—not only to a place, but to a moment, a body, a ward, a riverbank, a sky clearing after rain. Set along the familiar paths of Monasterevin and Ballybrittas, the poem moves through train platforms, hospital rooms, shared umbrellas, and sudden shafts of light. What might appear ordinary becomes… 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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Thanksgiving on the Midland Line
There are journeys we take because we must, and journeys that quietly give something back to us along the way. For me, the railway through Ireland’s Midlands has become both—a path to healing and a moving window onto beauty. This poem is a small act of thanksgiving: for tracks that carry me to care, for… 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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The rainbow on my wrist.
From Monasterevin’s quiet stopThe morning train rolls west;Past cattle grazing by the line,And rooks that guard each nest.We cross the Barrow’s silver span,The viaduct below;A hare breaks cover in the reedsAnd watches as we go.In Port Laoise-bound and drifting thoughtsI catch a sudden grin—A stranger nods as though they knowSome secret held within.In town, the… 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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A Sunday kept in Love
A Sunday Kept in Love began as a reflection on an ordinary Sunday shaped by absence, devotion, and small, faithful rituals. The poem gathers simple domestic details—the batter left waiting, the organ lifting prayer at eleven, a familiar café table with one chair open, two cats keeping watch at home—and discovers in them a love… 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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Richard. Window. Watch.
In the deep hush of night, wrapped in turquoise warmth, I sit and breathe while Richard keeps his faithful vigil beside me. I sit upright in Andrew’s chair,The window open wide;My coughing stirs the early air,Yet Richard stays beside.Wrapped in a soft Sherpa’s hold,A teddy‑bear‑like hug,I brace against the night‑time coldWithin its gentle snug.Across the… 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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Front room fire
The fire within the front-room glows,A quiet, tender light;The kitchen stove would warm the house,But needs more wood tonight.I know I should step out and fetchA bundle from the yard;Yet here the flames breathe soft and low,And rising feels too hard.But Andrew, steady, kind, and sure,Will bring the firewood in;He’ll light the stove and stir… 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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Andrew, this is you.
Some love stories are written in grand gestures. Ours has been written in endurance. This Valentine’s Day, I honour fifteen years of partnership with Andrew—and ten years of civil marriage later this year—not because the dates fall now, but because love that has lived this much deserves to be named whenever the heart nudges. Our… Continue reading
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Two Sentinels.
Brown Tabby I take my post beside his chair,moon silver on his hair;the window breathes a colder air—I taste it, sharp and spare.He shifts beneath the blanket’s weight,the cough begins to climb;I fix my eyes upon the darkand measure out the time. White Cat I rest beneath his blue-bright crown,lamplight along his face;his breathing lifts… 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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