lexicon – Page 4 – Sophia Nugent

The Shimmering Otherness of RAIJ

The Shimmering Otherness of RAIJ RAIJ (Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus), the eclectic and multitalented group of musicians based in the UK, recently released their latest album Songs of Yearning (plus a limited edition accompanying album, Nocturnes). Prayer, the last track on Songs of Yearning, has a particular significance for me. It is RAIJ’s lovely arrangement of the simple prayer which I sang driving home from the cemetery one day after visiting Sophia’s tomb.

May 12th, 2020|Tags: Love, Prayer, RAIJ, Ripples, Songs of Yearning|2 Comments

Blogpost in a Plague Year

Blogpost in a Plague Year There is a very real sense in which the coronavirus epidemic is an overturning of the world. Most people are aware—even if only subliminally—that our world has changed forever. Nothing, I suspect, will ever be quite the same again. The death of one’s child gives a profound perspective on the fragility of human existence—a fragility now being borne out to us (as it has

March 22nd, 2020|Tags: Angels, Coronavirus, Plague Year, Sorrow and Certainty|6 Comments

Azure Kingfisher

Azure Kingfisher This past week I have on four occasions seen glorious azure kingfishers, singly or in a pair, in heart-leaping flight over the now-flowing waters of our local creek. No photograph can do justice to these resplendent little creatures. They truly must be experienced “momently”. It made me think of a poem I wrote a long time ago—long before Sophie died, long before she became seriously ill, when she was still a teenager. It

February 4th, 2020|Tags: Azure kingfisher, beauty, living momently, Sophia|2 Comments

Love is eternal. . .

Sophia 30.07.1991---17.01.2014 Loving you always. . . And if this was the world’s last night I should not fear to be undone. Love is the songline of the soul, A cascading radiance, linked like synapses in the brain, Rippling in one scintillant universal thought. For this is grief’s impossible truth, the paradox Lived in deepest loss. Love is eternal. Leaf XLVII by R. Nugent (from Leaves: Poems for my Daughter)

January 17th, 2020|Tags: January 17th, Leaf 47, Love, Sophia|Comments Off

Of Love and Light. . .

Of Love and Light. . . Sophie, age 4, with her beloved Auntie Kaye, stepping into the light, Assisi, Italy This Christmas, Sophie’s article about Christian mission has really been resonating in my mind. The article concludes with the following paragraph: “Jesus didn’t lay out a grand plan for a Christian social system. He came to speak to individual men and women to lead them to faith. By busily searching for the mote

December 25th, 2019|Tags: Christmas, Light, Love, Sophia|Comments Off

Another Spring…

Another Spring. . . Written 2 years ago, the poem below is as true this year as it will be each year of the future you will never see, my darling. But this too is true---that you live in every word of it, Soph. You are in every thought, in every word I write. For one of the things you taught me, beautiful child, is the discipline of choosing light over darkness. . . the

October 30th, 2019|Tags: Sophia, Sorrow, Spring|Comments Off

Quadrant: Sophia’s Poems

Quadrant: Sophia’s Poems Quadrant magazine has published two of Sophia’s poems in their October edition. How wonderful this is! I think Sophie would be very pleased. One of the things that would please her most was that the poems were submitted, and subsequently accepted, with no reference having been made either to her age at the time of writing them or to the fact of her death. The poems were taken from Antiquity, her earliest collection,

October 18th, 2019|Tags: Osiris, Poseidon or Zeus, Quadrant, Sophia's poems|Comments Off

A Beautiful Thing. . .

A Beautiful Thing. . . MTC Cronin's Sometimes the Soul, dedicated to Sophia, has been published in a limited edition of only 22 copies---one for each year of Sophia's life. Each signed and numbered copy is printed on archival paper. The booklets are hand-stitched by artist, Fiona Dempster (who also provided the title calligraphy), and have been wrapped in acid-free tissue paper. They are designed to last for hundreds of years. Sophia was an historian

September 12th, 2019|Tags: a beautiful thing, Booklet, MTC Cronin, posters|Comments Off

A Pause in Space-Time: Sometimes the Soul

A Pause in Space-Time The first reading of MTC Cronin’s Sometimes the Soul, dedicated to Sophia, was given to a small invited audience on September 24th. It was a special event—a wonderful poem read to an appreciative audience under a brilliant blue sky with rainbow lorikeets for accompaniment. It was gentle, intimate, and real—a “pause in space-time” that will speak to those who understand why it matters. Sophia was---and is---a joy and a gift. The poems

September 8th, 2019|Tags: MTC Cronin, Poetry award, Sometimes the Soul, Sophia|Comments Off

Sometimes the Soul

Poetry Reading Sometimes the Soul by MTC Cronin Cappriccio's Restaurant, Riverside Centre, Maleny Saturday, August 24th, 3.30~4,30 pm

August 14th, 2019|Tags: MTC Cronin, Poetry Reading, Sometimes the Soul|Comments Off