All posts tagged: heart

The Skin I’m In

Published by

I am white, middle class, Anglo female, and here I stand in front of the mirror lamenting my own skin. The weather is warming and long-sleeves and jeans are swiftly being exchanged for singlet tops and shorts. Yes, that golden, celestial orb is bestowing her warmth and those of burnished skin are reveling in the strip-down. Us of “alabaster complexion”, as my mum fondly names it – we stand in front of mirrors lamenting that the change of season means baring these ghostly limbs, these legs like fluorescent tubes. I reach for the cream, squeeze brown onto my palm and begin to rub fakeness into my pores. This year more than years past, I’m attuned to it. The farce of it. The travesty of altering my very skin colour. It’s hard to say what’s changed. 32 years of life and a daughter who shares my skin tone might be a good place to start. Still, I rub it in, from the tips of my toes to the tops of my thighs, rubbing at my counterfeit skin. There …

Keep Your Heart Soft as Soil

Published by

It’s shaping up to be a dirty year… but perhaps you hadn’t heard. Today we celebrate a special patch of soil we call Australia and I thought it fitting to point out that 2015 is the International Year of Soils – as declared by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. They want us to focus on the foundational importance of soil in producing sustainable food systems. “Healthy soils for a healthy life” is the motto. I like dirt. Dirt is the evidence of fun times on my son’s clothes when I dress him for bed. It’s the earthy womb that bears carrots and tomatoes and potatoes and beans to our table. People tell me it’s a special kind of therapy to sink your hands into it, sun-warmed and smelling sweet with decay, sifting weeds from its rich granules. Dirt is also the substance Jesus used to explain the state of the human heart in his story titled The Parable of the Sower. In Matthew 13 you will read of four different landscapes where …