6 August 2025 – Wednesday
Transfiguration of the Lord Feast
When he sleeps, he enters another world that is as real as his waking time.
Sigmund Freud called dreams the royal road to the unconscious, elevating them to something to be revered, honoured and held in high esteem—even if not easily understood.
In this reading, the dream is of the Ancient One, imagined by William Blake in his painting Ancient of Days. But we don’t have to be famous to engage with our dreams, or with the book of Daniel.
As Jungian analyst Murray Stein writes in The Bible as Dream, “the most essential elements of the Bible are clearly visionary, sublime ideas and images that emerge from the dark background of the mind into the light of awareness” (p. 19).
Just like our dreams. They are to be taken seriously—while recognising that our interpretations are always a work in progress.
Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14
7 August 2025 – Thursday
The image of water—life-giving, elusive, sometimes overwhelming—anchors both the reading from Numbers and Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water. In each, water is more than a physical need; it is symbolic of something deeper: our dependence, our vulnerability, our longing for connection.
In Verghese’s story, water takes life. In Numbers, it sustains it. Yet in both, water reveals a truth: that life is fragile and sacred. The people of Israel grumble for lack of it; Moses strikes the rock. But beneath the miracle lies a deeper question—what do we truly thirst for?
The idea of an internal “river of life” is compelling. It invites introspection. What blocks that river in us—fear, bitterness, pride? And what sets it flowing—mercy, beauty, love? There is no single answer. But the search itself, like the journey through the wilderness, is a path toward transformation.
First Reading: Numbers 20: 1-13
8 August 2025 – Friday
One of the best—and most irritating—things about biblical readings is that they can be so confusing and hard to understand.
Like this one, which suggests that the spiritual path is complicated, a bit upside down and inside out. It’s hard to get a grip on. And even if you do, life is still going to be tough.
What sprang to mind was the increasing popularity of pilgrim walks like the Camino de Santiago. The challenge calls people to let go of what they think they know and to walk into a new way of being.
It’s hard. There is suffering. But in losing one way of life, another—one previously unknown—can begin to emerge.
And even if you never make it to the Camino, you can still walk the streets around your home, carrying whatever cross you need to bear right now.
Matthew 16: 24-28
9 August 2025 – Saturday
Jesus presents as the irritated team leader, frustrated with his disciples who don’t seem to have learned much from his teaching.
This reminded me of how John Carroll describes him in The Existential Jesus. Carroll says Jesus is the archetypal stranger—he appears from nowhere, quite mysterious, always on the move, and soon gone. Despite choosing his followers and trying to teach them, “they remain foolishly obtuse” (p. 1).
As I picked up Carroll’s book again, I began to wonder about the characters within me. The hero that comes and goes, seemingly intent on the mission, but unable to get the rest of me to cooperate—or even to understand what’s going on.
Integrating our complex humanity takes time, patience, and the willingness to discover that only the tiniest bit of faith is necessary.
Gospel: Matthew 17: 14-20
10 August 2025 – Sunday
Abraham set out, but he didn’t know where he was going.
Perhaps those words represent the story of every human life. We come into this world surrounded by the hopes and dreams of others—parents, relatives, friends. But the truth is, none of us has any idea what our life will hold.
The pitfalls, the mountain highs, the joys or the sorrows—none are predictable. Learning to trust, and to trust again when suffering enters the frame, is a complicated process.
Often, it’s not until we are let down by ourselves or by others that the possibility of trusting a power greater than us becomes apparent.
At that point, I love the Serenity Prayer: God, (even if I don’t know what you are) grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-19 or 11: 1-2, 8-12
11 August 2025 – Monday
The writer of Thessalonians encourages people to hold fast to the traditions they have been taught.
But traditions come and go. What is valued in one decade can be completely discarded in another.
As a younger person, I thought traditions were just another way to keep me imprisoned in someone else’s expectations. That is, until I learned to let go of some of my ignorance and mine them for the gold—the wisdom older generations tried to impart through ritual practice.
Like pouring love into cooking for a family, the way my mum did endlessly in her 1940s kitchen.
Then there was the laundry, usually done on a Monday—not in an electric machine, but in a copper.
It seems fitting, then, to remember Saint Clare, patron saint of laundry workers and others.
Second Thessalonians 2: 14
12 August 2025 – Tuesday
Have you ever dedicated your life to a cause, only to find that what you hoped for can never be achieved by you—and perhaps not at all?
The feelings can be overwhelming. They come thick and fast. You find yourself asking whether any of the work was worth it. Did you get it wrong in the first place? Should you have taken another path?
There’s a deep sense of grief and loss as you watch the beloved goal diminish and drop out of sight beyond the horizon.
And here is Moses, at the brink of the promised land, coming to grips with the reality that he will not cross over into it. He must hand over the responsibility to Joshua—his younger self.
Time to take a breath and remember one of our first readings this month, from Ecclesiastes. What matters most is being present, in the moment—trusting.
Deuteronomy 31: 1-8