Tag Archives: Lent

Come Down, O Christ, and Reach Thy Hand

By Robin Bates | Published: March 13, 2021

In Wilde’s poem “E Tenebris,” the speaker feels unable to reach up to God.

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God as a Stern but Loving Gardener

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2021

Herbert’s Lenten poem “Paradise,” about the pruning necessary to ensure growth, literally prunes the line endings.

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Pondering Our Ashness, Hoping for Easter

By Robin Bates | Published: February 20, 2021

Buggeman’s “Marked by Ashes” is a good poem to kick off the season of Lent.

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Lent: The Air Heavy and Thick

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2019

Spiritual Sunday I share today a good Lenten poem by Denise Levertov where the poet finds herself in a funk, albeit not a dramatic funk. She’s experiencing neither a “dark night of the soul” nor a scorching wasteland desert, those extreme moments of crisis that have pushed people to revelation. (Today’s Gospel reading is Jesus’s […]

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Harry’s Lenten Message: Love over Death

By Robin Bates | Published: March 25, 2018

Rowling’s “The Deathly Hallows” can be read as a Lenten meditation.

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Act in All Things as Love Will Prompt

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2018

My lectures on Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, Shakespeare and Sophocles all seem to track back to Lent these days.

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Sorrow, Tears, Emptiness Are Necessary

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2018

Rob finds redemption in suffering and sorrow in “But for Love,” a good Lenten message.

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Flannery O’Connor on Lenten Despair

By Robin Bates | Published: February 25, 2018

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” works as a powerful Lenten meditation upon doubt and salvation.

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The Wind Is Awake (But Will You Stir?)

By Robin Bates | Published: February 11, 2018

John Burt’s poem “On the Will to Believe” sets us up nicely for Lent, a season when we wrestle with our doubts.

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