Mark Baldwin-Smith

Poet · Theologian · Coder · Contemplative

Via Crucis, Via Lucis

Concerning the Author

Mark Baldwin-Smith is a poet, coder, and creative artist living in Cambridge, UK, with a lifelong fascination with theology, philosophy, and science, particularly in the contested territory where they illuminate each other's blind spots.

Mark is a Christian of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, rooted in the community of Little St Mary's in Cambridge, with a deep love of contemplative prayer shaped by Carmelite, Hesychast, and Zen influences. While his faith is Trinitarian and Christ-centred, he is a student of humanity in all its wondrous varieties, and encounters the divine in beauty, love, and community wherever he finds it.

Here you will find the fruits of that long conversation: poems, theological essays, coding, and occasional syntheses of all three. Offered freely, in the hope that something might be of use to a fellow pilgrim.

Sweet Sophia, Holy Hokhmah

Sweet Sophia, Holy Hokhmah — an illuminated illustration

Sweet Sophia, Holy Hokhmah, Wisdom of old,
By Your angels and prophets foretold.

Seven pillars, facets of the Spirit seven,
And seven churches, Your body, Your leaven.

Your banquet table laid out, bread & wine,
A taste of promised communion, God mine.

Mother of the lost, Sister of the wise,
Under Your loving wings, an eternal prize.

Womb of all creation, Source of all being,
Sustainer of all life; the blind, seeing.

Lover of my soul, redeemer of my pain,
Pained, Yourself, for loving again & again.

Bringing all nations into Your embrace,
Arms outstretched on a cross, in my place.

Made flesh by our mother, the Holy Grail,
Virgin foretold, who witnessed every nail.

Her loving pains and Yours are made ours,
In eternal love, a garden of many flowers.

— Mark Baldwin-Smith

Read the full collection →

Works & Writings

Correspondence

If something here has moved you, or if you wish to discuss theology,
commission a piece, or simply correspond — I would be glad to hear from you.