Poem: Poured out and overturned – Easter Retold: Turning the tables

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Christ chasing the money changers from the temple Raymond Balze

The story of Jesus turning over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple is often told today, as we approach Easter. So, I’m sharing with you again my retelling of the story and a poem that I’ve included in my upcoming collection, The Year’s Circle, Iona Publishing.

Firstly, the Gospel reading from my retelling The Bible Story Retold in Twelve Chapters.

Jesus went into the Temple courts, and found them choked up with stalls and salesmen, ringing with the shouts of hawkers and hagglers. People were not gathering for worship: they were changing their money into special Temple coins, and buying birds for Temple offerings. Jesus grabbed the traders’ tables and threw them over. The money changers and the dove sellers shouted angrily while the coins clattered and rolled across the stone floor. “You’ve taken ‘the house of prayer’ and turnind it into a ‘den of thieves’!” Jesus said, and all fell silent at his words.
Then, the blind and the lame came to him and were healed. And children came, too, running and shounting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The Temple was filled with joy, and the priests and teachers of the Law drew back, muttering angrily.

From The Bible Story Retold, based on Matthew 21

One of the things I found while working on this retelling was that there was always so much more I wanted to explore – so much depth and meaning hinted at, or concealed by years and culture and translations. My practice in writing the book was to read widely, and then to meditate on the passages in the style of Lectio Divina – imagine myself into the story, and allow it to unfurl in my mind – a mind with questions, open to prompting I hope. So with this one, there was so much here about Jesus’ rage at the commodification of the things of God, making what was freely given into a commercial venture. We are so used to everything falling into the realm of money it can be hard to imagine how things could be any different, or how the realm of God might offer a radically different Way. Jesus spoke more about money than about prayer, and yet it’s a difficult subject to explore for us. So many of the ills and injustices and exploitation of the natural world we are currently experiencing suggest to me that something has gone wrong with the way we view and use money. Can we begin to dip into the realm of gift, generosity, and finding ways to do what is necessary and right? I hope so.

The Little Free Pantry at St Andrew’s Church, Melton. An example of gift, of sharing. Apologies for the soft focus!

And so, to the poem which came out of my reflections. The meaning of gift and the exchange that arose in my imagination on reading the passage was many layered, and I hope the poem can be read a number of ways depending on what chimes with you the reader. It draws from the Mattew 21 passage, as above, but also the passage early in John’s gospel (John 2).

Poured out and Overturned

Some things cannot be bought
and yet, they are. See
those neat piles of coins,
counted carefully, those inkmarks
methodically made, those
animals sold for sacrifice,
coins given for prayers, for favour,
for the words and work of God.

His carpenter’s hands gripped
the smooth grained tables and
upended them.  Poured out the
shimmering piles of coins
rolling and chiming
over the stone floor.

Some things, perhaps, once, all
are freely given – life, air, water,
growing things for food, breath,
beauty, favour, love.  So many
things we lay out in rows,
so many tables, so many
neat marks of ink or light.

Bound, we see no alternative,
cannot imagine another way,
and yet, here is a man throwing
coins to the floor, with a whip
to drive out money changers
while wooden tables lie
groaning on their sides.

Set free, then, what happens in
this space, this chaos,
with all our reckoning upended?
The blind and the lame come,
and are healed.
And the children run and shout
Hosanna.
And what is, and what will be
is all gift.
So it is, and may it be so.

John 2:13-22, Matthew 21:12-17

Elisabeth Frink, Chapel of the Transfiguration, St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

I notice that some of you good people are looking up resources for Easter on this blog. Thank you for considering my work. If it helps, here’s a link to a summary……
Please feel free to use my writing in any way that helps, mentioning my name and this blog. And do feel free to let me know, I do love to hear where it gets to!

Edit: Sunday 3rd March.

I’m absolutely delighted to find my poem below at Diana Butler Bass’ The Cottage.  She shares an informative piece on this passage which I’ve found has helped me understand what can be a puzzling story. Do read it if you haven’t already. I hope this link will take you there…..

https://open.substack.com/pub/dianabutlerbass/p/sunday-musings-b9b?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=46vq

Further edit… I seem to be having difficulty clicking through on this link. She has included one of my Mary of Bethany poems in another recent post if I’ve whetted your appetite and you can’t find Overturned…. try this.

If you search for her name on this blog, you will find other poems and other links.

Poem: Before First Light. Easter Retold

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Here is another poem of resurrection – this one exploring the deep, unwitnessed moment of awakening. I’m intrigued by the stirring of seeds, the quiet power of life returning in Spring, and the imagery of spring filled my mind as I thought about Easter resurrection. My forthcoming book – The Year’s Circle, publisher Wild Goose – weaves together poems from the church seasons and the Earth’s seasons. In this piece, I hope, the presence of spring hums through.

I love the way Eastern Orthodox icons celebrate resurrection not as an event involving one alone, but as something including all those needing to be set free…. and gives us an insight into the pattern of life out of death, hope out of despair, new out of old.

Before first light

Out of the earth, the grave,
the tomb, the darkness,
life steps out into a
shining spring dawn.

Out of the seed, the grain,
the stone, the pip, life uncurls
in a shimmer of new green.

We do not see the moment
of breaking, of rising, it is hidden
in the dark womb of the Earth.

But perhaps the ground shakes,
a tremor in the deep, as
the stone rolls away and
death’s imperial seal is broken.

Then, out of a cave
humming with clear
morning light –
no need of grave clothes,
no need of husk and shell
and stone and seal,

No need of the linen napkin
for it is finished, and folded –

Out of the earth who tends her dead,
there is a great greening,
an awakening, a rising up.
Life, and life, and life
is stronger even than the grave,
and love is stronger than death.

And look, and see,
all things are being made new.
Now, and now, and now.

Matthew 27:65-7, Mark 16:1-7, Luke 24:1-11, John 20:1-10

If you would like to use this poem, please do so, giving my name and this blog as reference.

Poem: Mary in the Garden. Easter Retold

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I’m sharing another poem from my collection-in-preparation with you, as promised. I started gathering and writing poems last March, and so this Easter poem – and the one to follow – were amongst the first new ones I wrote. So, quite simply, here it is….

Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre by Harold Copping

Mary in the garden

It was in the garden
that Mary stood weeping.
First light, first flush of green
spreading over the warming stones.
A quiet place, now.

Alone, shocked, bewildered,
she did not see the flowers
opening at her feet, or hear
the song of the turtledoves.

For she is one who stands
by a tomb lost, deserted, 
heavy-burdened with grief –
the weight of a million tears –
as if this grief might carry
the pain of us all.

And seeing you, she did not see,
thought you were like a
second Adam, tending the garden
in this strange new dawn.

Then, you spoke out a name
 – her own name. Mary. 
She knew you then.
What must have risen up in that
broken heart, touched as she was
by your tenderness.
Yet as your eyes met,
her hand stopped
in the warming air between you,
singing with birdsong, shining with light.

John 20:11-18, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

If you would like to read the story, you can find more in the link below….

Easter Retold

James Tissot

Please feel free to use my poem, crediting me and this blog.

Mary and the Angel, Sunday Retold

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by Harald Slott-Moller

The Proclamation of the Virgin Mary by Harald Slott-Moller

Hello blog readers! It’s been a while since posted. I’ve been working on my collection of Poetry for Wild Goose, Iona Publishing, and have now submitted it. It’s been a huge project, taking me just under a year, and I’ve loved immersing myself in weaving together a pattern of words and images. I’ll let you know when I have news of a publication date, but I know it’ll be a little while before they get to it. As a quick reminder, it’s called The Year’s Circle, and it follows the seasons of the year – celebrating the unfolding natural world and the seasons some churches follow in their prayers and readings.

As many celebrate the Annunciation on 25th March, I thought I’d share with you the poem I’ve written for the new book. A meditation on the angel’s visit to Mary. In the book, I’ve placed it in Advent, at the time when we often celebrate Mary. It certainly suits spring too, with the stirrings of new life we see all around. I hope it also reminds us that new beginnings are often hidden, small, and in unexpected places. It reminds us to look beyond the surface of Empire and power, and see what is happening elsewhere. Those things may be more important than we think.

Anunciation 

I see her standing at the doorway
of her home as the earth
quickens at her feet, awakening.

A sudden shaft of light falls on her
and she raises her face to feel it
warm on her winter skin

For one joins her there, on the threshold,
with great wings folded. An indication,
if one were needed, that he comes from
another place, is made of other matter.

And so this strange meeting begins
at the threshold of Earth and Spirit,
Word and Flesh, Eternity and youth.
The shining one greets her
with a song of God’s favour,
of one-to-be-born of her –
as she draws back a breath
into her accustomed room, afraid,

Tests the future with a question.
For this high favour will take
her down a dark path, and a
dangerous one, with sanction
and scorn and incomprehension –
her own too.

Yet, even so, she takes that tentative step
forward, towards the light,
gives her Yes to all this, to being
a God-bearer, carrying the Anointed One
in the closed blood-dark room of her womb.

And so begins this strange folding of
the infinite, the Alpha and Omega,
into a single cell within a slight girl,
the most vulnerable of forms,
this Mary, full of grace.
What strange and troubling
gifts are these to stir the
brightening air.

Luke 1: 26-38

The Annunciation by Domenico Veneziano – Fitzwilliam Museum collection

Many paintings of this scene are strong on architecture. Artists, like Domenico Veneziano, were experimenting with their newly developed techniques of managing perspective. This one has a tiny pinprick in the centre, the vanishing point on which all lines converge. They ususally place Mary inside, or in some kind of indeterminate space like this one – a sheltered, nearly outdoor space. As I was meditating on the passage, I was struck by the image of thresholds, of liminal space, tentative and uncertain but open to possibility. In these early paintings, you often find the angel and Mary facing each other, like this, across the space, and then your eye is drawn to another line directly from the viewer to the background of the image. A window with a glimpse of a view, a door – in this case the door is closed. The closed door is a symbol of virginity, but here, I can’t help thinking of another collection of symbols – the closed off way back to the Garden of Eden, a way out of the confines of law and punishment, a door out into the freedom of a rich and green landscape. This line, front to back, out of the picture, forms a cross with the direction of gaze between the two figures, and that intrigues me. It does seem like an invitation to walk that path out towards the spring, towards new and abundant life.

I notice that many of you good readers are looking at my blog for poems on the themes of Holy Week, so here is a link that will help. I have a couple of new pieces for Easter Sunday, I’ll try to get those up here in the next week. Please do feel free to use my work, crediting me and this blog. It’s so good to know my work is being read in different parts of the world. Thank you for your support.

Holy Week at home – Some readings, poems, and Good Friday resources here on my blog.

Poems: Seven Sentences from the cross



The Little Christmas Tree – selling well

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Thank you, good people, for the interest you’re taking in my Christmas picture book. I’ve been keeping an eye on availability, where I can, and it does seem to be selling well. It goes out of stock every now and again on Amazon, and they rustle up a few more copies.

Local bookshops have it in stock or to order. For local friends, Woodbridge Books have copies, and St Mary’s House too the last time I asked.

So, I’m rather bashfully encouraging you to order a copy if you were thinking of doing so, as they may well be in short supply for last minute shopping.

It’s available in two formats – a hardback and a slightly abridged board book for the very young. Both are illustrated by Lorna Hussey, and her artwork is enchanting and much loved by small people.

You can find out more about the book by searching on this blog, but this link will give you a good way in.

You can order it from your usual online places, such as….

Direct from the publisher here

Online Bookshop.org supporting local bricks and mortar ones here in the UK here

Eden bookshop

I’m delighted that it’s widely available in the USA too.

May you have a peaceful and blessed Advent.

The Little Christmas Tree – the power of kindness

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The new editions of my first story are making their way into bookshops ready for Christmas, and I know that some of you are coming across them. That’s so good, and a little bit exciting!

It’s given me the opportunity to take another read of the story, and think about it in the context of the world we’re living in now, and I’ve noticed something else.

Previously, I’ve thought about it telling a story into our shifting and stormy climate – and you can read more about that here. Today is the first day COP 30, so it seems particularly appropriate to be thinking of the importance of woods to regenerate our land, how important it is to treasure the natural world and give it space and time to return to strength and function. (If you’re not familiar with Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, I would commend that to you as a hopeful, active antidote to political wranglings – necessary as these may be.)

I’ve also thought about it as a version of Mary’s radical, prophetic message in the passage we refer to as the Magnificat, and you can read more on that here. And once again, the contrast she draws between the mighty and powerful, and the hungry, speaks directly into our unequal world.

What’s been on my mind this year is the matter of welcome – how we welcome, or not, those who have to flee their homes.

I love Lorna Hussey’s warm and intricate illustrations. Thank you Lorna!

In the story, a storm rips into the wood, and the animals are looking for a place to shelter. They find one in the branches of a little fir tree, who welcomes them in. When I first told the story to my own children years ago, I never thought such an action might be controversial, or political. It was simply a practice of kindness, empathy, hospitality. These have always been regarded as Christian virtues, and those who read the scriptures will be well aware that welcoming strangers, and treating the poor and the vulnerable with compassion, is commended again and again. These qualities are upheld by ethical systems in all cultures across the world. And yet, here we are.

Of course, the global situation is complex, and it’s vital we have good, fair systems which work for all people. Of course, those who profit from exploiting those who are seeking sanctuary should be prevented and brought to justice. Those things are part of the empathy, and the welcome. It is the shift of heart which troubles me, towards hostility and violence towards those who have in all probability already experienced a great deal of it.

Can we reconnect with our deep, inbuilt response to the troubles of others – to seek to help how and where we can? Just up the coast here in Suffolk houses are being bulldozed as the sea bites ever bigger chunks out of the coast. Of course, there’s no comparison with those in the Caribbean and Asia who are suffering the most appaling tragedies from our changing climate, but it’s enough to awaken some fellow feeling, and to imagine how little it would take to find ourselves displaced and relying on kindness – both the kindness of individuals and the kindness of efficient, just and compassionate systems.

In the story, it is the Little Christmas Tree who welcomes the animals, and we share the warmth and compassion and richness that comes from that simple act. There is real joy in it. The book ends with a kind of party.

We can think too of the first Christmas, where a displaced mother was offered somewhere to have her child, and soon after the family became refugees in Egypt running from a tyrannical and jealous Herod. I’ve written about in the link above.

There is much need of kindness, and it is as precious and profound as ever. Perhaps we can remember times when we have both given and received when in need, how good that was – difficult, sometimes, but good.

As we approach Advent, let’s see if we can cultivate kindness, and welcome, and look for local ways to help people who may need it most.

The book is available in two editions, a hardback and a board book. You can order them from your local bookshop, or the usual online places.

Here are a few links:

Direct from the publisher here

Online Bookshop.org supporting local bricks and mortar ones here in the UK here

Eden bookshop

I’m delighted that it’s widely available in the USA too.

Board book publication day! The Little Christmas Tree

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I’m so pleased that my first story has come out as a board book today. It looks so appealing for young readers and listeners with Lorna Hussey’s gentle artwork of the woodland animals.

The story is abridged a little for the format, just perfect for little ones, and I hope it will find it’s way into many hands.

Local bookshops will be able to order it for you, usually for next day delivery, if not in stock. Also available at all the usual places you get books.  You could try Eden Books

The Little Christmas Tree has arrived! Hurray!

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My new books are here! I’ve just been unpacking them, and I thought I’d share them with you right away.

Thank you to SPCK for these copies, they’re looking delightful. There’s something new, too. The smaller one is a board book. It’s slightly abridged, but still has all of Lorna’s enchanting illustrations. I particularly like the way the sparkles have a texture to them. I can imagine little fingers following the trails of stars across the pictures.

I say my new books, these are new editions of the first book I ever had accepted for publication, and it’s still very close to my heart. I’m so glad it’s been given a shiny new edition.

The story of offering shelter and welcome, which is such a moving part of our Christmas traditions and Nativity plays, seems particularly apt at the moment. It’s worth reminding ourselves of the value of kindness and humility. 

I’ve written about the book elsewhere on this blog. If you’d like to find out a little more, here’s some suggestions….
The Little Christmas Tree – a few pictures!
The Little Christmas Tree – some ideas for 2020
The Little Christmas Tree and Mary’s Song
The Little Christmas Tree – a beautiful BSL video telling of the story.

The hardback is available now, and the board book will be out in a few weeks. I’ll post some links below, but if you are lucky enough to have a local bookshop, they should be able to get them for you for the next day if not in stock.

For now, I’m just going to go and enjoy my lovely books!

Here are some links as promised:
you can order from the publisher SPCK
and from Bookshop – this link is for the hardback, and this for the board book to preorder on the site.
Also, wherever you usually order books.

Thank you for your support and encouragement over the years, I really appreciate it.

Poem: Gaia at Ely Cathedral

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I’m sharing this post again, September 2025 as part of the Season of Creation some Christian traditions are marking at this time. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to work on a collection of poems for Wild Goose, The Year’s Circle – and this poem is part of that work. I’ll be sharing more on that as we go along.

I hope you find this post a helpful starting point for contemplation.

Additional note, 24th September 2023. I am delighted that this post has appeared at The Cottage, Diana Butler Bass’ rich and thought-provoking Substack, this morning. I’ve admired her work for many years, and it’s such an honour, and very exciting for me, to find myself in her company today, under Inspiration. It’s a profound exploration of envy and gratitude, and a reflection on the deep drivers of our climate and ecological crisis. It’s well worth reading and allowing it to do its inner work on us. You can do so here.

Original post, published 12th July 2021, emerging from lockdowns:

As we are beginning to venture out a little more, we thought we would pay a visit to Ely, and the vast indoor space of its ancient cathedral. They often have contemporary art there, which helps the old stones continue to sing, giving a new perspective on ancient truths. We knew that Gaia, an installation by Luke Jerram, was going to be there in July, and so we went and saw this beautiful, astonishing sight. The comparative emptiness of the cathedral space made it all the more powerful as it floated above us.

And as the space is vast, and it takes time to walk up to, around and beyond the piece, you do have time and space in which to allow the work to speak to you, to stir up responses, and to pray. I am sure that one of the intentions is to give us all an opportunity to experience something like “earthrise”, when the astronauts first saw the whole of the Earth from space, and how that shifted their perspective, and began to change the way all of us are able to see our home. The staggering, indescribable beauty of the whole called out my sense of awe, which sat uncomfortably alongside my awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious, unique home.

In the setting of the cathedral, as Gaia hangs in the nave under the painted ceiling which tells the long stretch of the Bible’s story, I found the language of repentance surprisingly, and helpfully, came to mind. Repentance both in our more familiar understanding of sorrow for wrongdoing, and desire to amend, and in the possibly more ancient meanings carried in the old texts, of returning home, and of undergoing a profound change of mind – a paradigm shift in the way you see.

Much of my writing celebrates the beauty of the natural world, how lovely, precious, and vulnerable it is. But sometimes, that love spills over into grief. So the old stones, and the old story, seemed illuminated by our current crisis, and, in turn, those ancient words seemed to express something necessary, and powerful, and, in the end, with the potential for hope.

You can listen to the poem here.

Gaia at Ely Cathedral

She seems to float, lit up with her own light,
slowly turning, blue and blooming with clouds
as we walk up, look up, small before her.

While above our steps,
the familiar painted roof
rolls on, telling its painted story,
from the tree, and the garden,
on towards this

fathomless shining beauty,
the ‘all’ that was so very good
in that beginning.
Now as she turns
we see how she hangs
below the story’s last scenes –
the gift of a beloved child
held on his mother’s lap,
held forward towards us,
loved and given and giving,
and the wounded golden king,
who gives still.

And below, below hangs the whole shining Earth,
dazzling, vast with sea,
turning and flowering with clouds
from the southern ice-shine,
melting although we do not see her weep,

And the land, those small green swathes
and swags, are dressed in white too,
a veil of vapour,
while the deserts spread brown
and red above our eyes.

The lands are small, countries
seem tales we tell.
What is certain is this one great
flow – ocean and ice and cloud –
and the unseen winds that bear them
through our blue, breathing air.

And the people stand beneath her,
lit by ice, and hold up their hands
as if to carry her, or hold her,
or save her from falling.

How beautiful it is.
How strange and wondrous
that we should be creatures
who live within so much living perfection.

And as she turns slowly
under the child and the king,
I wonder, what do those
familiar words mean now,
‘the sins of the world’,
as the stain of our reckless harm
seeps through the blue and green,
through all this living glory,

And is there any hope in our
waking up to beauty with grief
and loss, even as dust and ashes
float across the sky,
across us all, late as we are
in our repenting?


And is there hope,
hope that we might be granted
this grace – time
for amendment of life,
to tend the garden
with its leaves and fruit,
shining and greening,
to take part in the work
of loving and healing,
of restoration,
of making all things new.

Looking at Gaia from behind the communion table brought to mind the words of repentance from that service, and I was aware of my sense of what “the sins of the world” might mean was creaking open a little wider.