Month: March 2026

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