The Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ According to the Four Gospels

Endorsed by both Rowan Williams and my old friend David Conner, Dean of Windsor, this is a poetic meditation on the events of Easter week, during which I am writing this review. The author studied theology at Oxford and also has a background in theatre. The text consists of prayers and invocations, haikus and longer poetic passages that speak directly to the reader as a fellow pilgrim on the path of life from an orthodox Anglican viewpoint evoking in me many memories of Holy Communion taken in different sacred places. The blood is seen as cleansing power and love, while the human pathos of suffering and departure is wistfully expressed. Here is an example of a potent haiku:

Pilate Yeshua face to face

Shouting, tension, politics, power, the human drama

He asked what is truth

And later on:

Only only in death life remains,

Only, only in love thorn appears….

With the resurrection comes a song of the archangels Michael and Gabriel: 'Sing a new song with joy, walk no more but dance, oh ye whom He love' and the plea to Jesus to 'lead us out of unexamined life with light' then in Ascension Song 4 – 'infinite in finite, finite in infinite/form in formless, formless in form'. This is overall a very powerful evocation and invocation that will speak especially to Christians but also more widely in a spiritually transformative sense, and I look forward to seeing this on stage and perhaps set to music.