Drip. Drip. Drip.
Each one a hint of something greater,
sometimes good,
sometimes helpful,
but too often not.
Drop by drop it rose,
stealthily, slowly,
obscuring the sources,
hiding the causes,
until all that remained was the storm.
Doing became difficult,
being meant bailing.
It was time to take a break from social media,
but for reasons no one seemed to guess.
Curacy
New Kid on the Block
Standing on the wide open playing fields, amidst the markings of a football pitch, I realise something is amiss. For many such places are a source of joy: the source of cheers and whoops as the ball gets kicked from one goal to another. Yet as I stood there I felt the desolation beyond that which was brought on by the looming thick grey clouds above me. For me the football field is a place of sorrow, a place of hurt, a place of loneliness.
Football was one of the main sports at school. It was also a sport I sort to find my way into a community as I moved from place to place. There were moments of joy: finding myself playing in my favourite position at right midfield, just like my football hero Kenny Daglish, collecting the ball from the defence and then delivering it to the striker near the goalmouth. But overwhelming the joy of football is the sadness associated with it: the memory of being left out in the cold of the sidelines.
Continue readingTheory becoming reality
Father Dougal McGuire from Father TedI have recently been diagnosed with Imposter Syndrome, with two years of my Ordination Training completed and one more year to go. I hadn’t expected it but, now that I think about it, I should have seen it coming. Continue reading
The Pilgrim Explorer 