Norm Reed

Much of my working life has been spent at the edges — at the places where people come up hard against the limits of their circumstances, and where the gospel is either true or it is nothing. A good deal of it has been carried on across the barrier of the prison.

I am a retired pastor. My life has been formed by a long, unhurried practice of early-morning scripture reading, by justice work, and by a single conviction that keeps surfacing in everything I write: that the same God who calls is the God who carries.

The Onesimus Foundation

I am the founder of the Onesimus Foundation in Hobart, Tasmania — a ministry that sustains family relationships across the wall of incarceration. It works to keep absent parents present to their children, and to hold open the ties that a sentence would otherwise sever. In 2014 I was honoured with a Churchill Fellowship.

The Foundation takes its name from Onesimus — the runaway in Paul’s letter to Philemon, sent back not as property to be reclaimed but as a brother to be received. It is a fitting name for work that believes no one is beyond the reach of that kind of welcome.

Hesed Words

Hesed Words is where the reading becomes writing. Hesed — the Hebrew word for the steadfast, covenant love of God — sits under everything gathered here. The reflections, articles, word studies, and books on this site began as private morning work: a single verse held until it gave something up. They are offered now, as the tagline has it, written for the road — for anyone walking the same long way.