10th February 2016
Out of Ashes
Not forehead
signed with ash,
but wholly coated body would be total depravity,
always aware of utter futility,
stuck with a hopeless ancestry
and never stretching upwards.
For while
Creation wakes
and speaks the word freshly taught to say,
alive to promise, green out of grey,
Adameve stuck in Eden day
is never stretching upwards.
Thank God for
God and the wonder,
mist of salvation
embodied in he who reformed the nation.
Israel new through Incarnation
is ever stretching upwards.
11th March 2016
I’d Rather Be
I’d rather be dyed in the water, adding to the stream,
than dyed in the wool, marooned.
I’d rather take the risk of being carried along
to I cannot know where than stay in the certainty
of Here I Stand.
I’d rather make a gift of my questions and doubts
than whistle an old tune in the dark.
Get me in the water,
float me down the stream.
Let me hope that all my fears
are never what they seem.
Castle Eden Good Friday
So cold,
in the chancel of a church shortly to close,
whose altar, as bare as the stripped Christ,
gives no hint of flowering again,
in the shivery shelter from March sunshine
akin to Jerusalem on the day,
in the reading of the Passion that cannot be well spun,
in the shame of respectable familiarity that prevents tears.
Yet the grace of one final observance,
of trying to see sense in the senseless,
allows inside a slant of disclosure
that there is nothing more that can be done to a killed body
save what can be done on a third day,
when all bets are off.
12th April 2016
Flowing Free
Oil of gladness be
upon me,
oil that heals and anoints.
Your new Moses has led me into liberty,
and pierced through the thick darkness.
I bless you, eternal love, who have come to us
and thrown back the hold of evil,
pinning Satan and failure onto the tree,
stopping all usurpers in their tracks.
May the oil
continue its work,
flowing like a river onto all heads,
healing the cosmos, freeing the earth,
setting all the prisoners loose to praise your name.
15th April 2016
Come, Holy Spirit
We can call but not command, invite, but not demand.
Come, Holy Spirit.
He can choose to light our hair or flame the church elsewhere.
Come, Holy Spirit.
He breathes in all that lives, but him himself he gives.
Come, Holy Spirit.
He has no off-limits place yet wears no single face.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Power of God among us.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Love of God within us.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Life of God despite us.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Joy of God to give us.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Wait and pray and wait.
Come, Holy Spirit.
At any time or date.
Come, Holy Spirit.
In him become the place
Come, Holy Spirit.
Where God spreads out his grace.
Come, Holy Spirit.
16th April 2016
Silence
Silence is kept, a shared, bracketed moment of inner hearing,
the prioritising of a listening that moves beyond
the background of noise and intrusion.
Silence is kept.
Silence is held, gift of him who blows where he wills,
who wills to blow like pressure bursting from the earth,
never ending, urgent but also able to whisper.
Silence is held.
Silence, breath that needs no words to be a voice,
is friendly quiet, a meeting point, a thin place and disclosure.
Silence, love's touch and attention,
is not barricade against the clamour of noise
but door opening onto response to the Word.
Silence, love's touch and attention.
18th April 2016
Death of St James, Castle Eden
In Easter we closed the Church
never again to gather there as your holy people.
We sang loud praises for your mercy and salvation.
We gave thanks for the centuries
and their celebration of your life-giving and our ministry,
for faithful people and sacramental grace.
We gathered at your altar and fed at your invitation.
Easter and yet Good
Friday. There was death.
The paralysis of darkness striking deep into hope.
Uncertainty's bewildering, disabling blow at the heart.
We will not seek too soon to be raised up,
before bereavement has been known for what it is.
Let us, O Lord, who took time to stay in the tomb,
express our grief.
Surprise us again with hope,
and breathe on us the way forward into life.
20th March 2016
On Palm Sunday
The Lord has
need?
How can he, complete, say such a thing,
who owns all that lives and breathes?
Even the rocks and the very dust give him all glory.
Humans have to be loved into co-operation with
their God,
and they do it by anger and rejection,
shouting Crucify and putting him under.
What wonder, the
lengths that God will go to,
out-running the measure of hate and sheer evil before hauling us all over the
finishing line into a love that will feel at home in Heaven.
21st April 2016
At the Gregory Chapel, Durham Cathedral
Christ is in the Aumbry;
seeing the lit flame sets faith ablaze
with all the colours of love.
Here is God in particular,
in a cupboard within all that he has made,
he who cannot be contained.
The elements themselves,
reserved for sick and dying,
are the Gospel in précis,
Christ giving himself
to save and heal us now and always.
He escapes all effort to be constrained,
boxed up, made in our own image.
For this is God, and how can eternity be described?
But there are cracks through heaven's wall, and this is one.
We are permitted an impression,
a glimpse and foretaste of the daylight beyond.
When, eventually, we fall through, it will be into endless light.
23rd April 2016
Only in Everywhere
Only in everywhere has God painted on the
canvas of Creation;
in beautiful and in terrifying, in calm and in storm.
There is no place, no person, no thing without the signature of his genius.
From our ignoring, our ignorance, our
deviation
from an open-eyed sighting of all that we needed
already provided in the Garden,
from our wanting the more that was not ours to have,
came our great loss.
Only in particular, in the Proper Man, in
Word made flesh,
in Love that never comes to an end,
in Life its very self becoming Death,
in Death being usurped by a Life yet more powerful and winning,
in the Garden's sealed tomb being burst open and emptied,
has the new and indestructible canvas been painted,
into which step and you are there as from the beginning.
2nd May 2016
Another Big Bang
The Big Bang started as love-making in the heart of God,
rolling out into universes,
compacting stuff into matter and matter into dust
out of which he formed his love child
who, like him, had the as-at-the-beginning freedom to make love.
When love went sour, and at the right-time-much-later,
God set in train another Big Bang which,
imploding in breath-sucked-out as he hung and died,
detonated on the eighth day,
rolling away incalculably more than a stone sealing a tomb,
pulsating on into the life of the ages.
3rd May 2016
Castle Eden Dene
Whoever carved this V shape in rock
left it bleak and bare, scraped barren.
Nature in Time softened, shaped its lack
with earth and seeds and rabbit warrens.
A once mighty river is now a stream,
slow and paltry, job done then but fed
now by the drainage of landscaped dreams,
a castle’s glory when knights of old led.
In the valley sheer rock faces wilderness.
The deer and squirrel avoid man’s intrusion.
Yet, like Eden itself before the transgress,
untresspassed life flourishes in the profusion
Of a gardened sanctuary, a natural confederacy.
There are pathways here. To stray is to spoil
what to tread down is mere conspiracy.
As concrete kills, so life is renewed from soil.
4th May 2016
The Smile of God
Not because he was lonely but because he is lovely
did he create all that has ever been,
and make humankind the crown wearer.
Ever complete in
himself, in fire he blazes, in dance he dances,
but beyond human knowing till he gave the Word,
and the invitation to come close and, coming closer,
to enter through the veil that he himself has pierced,
And to be fulfilled
in all that our longings search for,
ours and all that is made, while now, as we stretch for it,
that great wind which swept over formlessness
blows sin out of us and holiness in,
to cause the music of heaven to be transposed
into justice for all, that all may know the smile of God
April 2016
I-Thou
Why, sometimes, do I call Thee Thou?
Not because I am old fashioned, if I am.
But because Thou art closer to me
than my heart, my mind, my soul,
yet farther above me than infinity.
Tenderness and awe call to me
and provoke me to use the whisper of singular love,
in moments when You will not do.
Yet I know that You do not mind.
You look for love, not religion,
and rejoice at what does me good.
I who am filled with words,
who am fulfilled by the Word,
hope to reach beyond the need for words,
when all chaos and darkness have made way
for the silence of love.
5th May 2016
Ascension Day
Returning where time and space neither exist nor matter,
the uncreated, now fleshed and wounded,
wears our face in heaven, where he prays for us,
waits for us, sends on us again that undivided Love.
Mission ended, mission
begun, seamless story
which only humans divide into chapters. For in Godhead
there is only Love's creative, saving beat.
All our calendars are
provisional.
They supply our means of remembrance,
and spur on observance. Eternal truth thus penetrates
our attention and lifts us there.
Christ is risen, ascended, glorified. Alleluia!
6th May 2016
Silence, Poetry and Purpose
Can I in poetry writing create a silence,
this being said by someone to be its task?
I'm not entirely sure, have never been sure,
and that, I conclude, is why I ask.
But silence may perhaps create in me a poem,
and I may perchance respond in furious haste
to write down what it is that occurred in me,
whether or not, it may be, that it's to your taste.
And silence that is filled, as streams are from the hills,
may flow out into meanings to read or speak,
into some kind of sense or truth that enlightens,
and not just a pious thought bland and weak.
But if it startles, sparkles, takes you somewhere else,
like listening to a good, persuasive debater,
then poetry out of silence can make the heart sing
and the joy of it all immeasurably the greater.
And silence, the already there silence behind all noise,
that waits to be known as a heard silence, a voice still small,
is like when you unshutter a window from blocked-out light
and you see that you can see now, and that is all.
11th May 2016
He Ascended Because
Full in stature he has gone before,
our measure and goal completeness of soul.
Now in the heights,
he was once in our depths,
below and above, the fullness of love.
Distributing
grace till we see his face,
he builds our health with spiritual wealth.
Infancy shed, no
longer misled,
he the truth is our aim and route.
Bound by his love,
the church can now live
as a body that grows, where holiness flows.
Ephesians 4. 7-16
13th May 2016
Age: Reminiscing Forwards
It has taken me an age to reach this point
at which I can see some waymarks. Long “retired”
from a job, I am now paid not to work,
yet still the call to serve is strong. Even stronger.
Looking back over bewildering distress at a time
when life’s intended progress was disrupted,
and my call was rerouted into illness, sadness, darkness,
live seemed to be spelt backwards. But why, O God?
Like a stream finding a new channel down which to flow,
so my health, my well-being, repaired down new pathways
over the decades after collapse, towards reconstruction.
Ever a work in progress, don't call me complete.
But I say this:
Where I was going to I had no idea.
Where I am now I have little to regret.
14th May 2016
Gentle Us
Gentle us, dear Jesus.
Gentle us in thought and deed with meekness like yours.
True us, dear Jesus.
True us in thought and deed with truth like yours.
Health us, dear Jesus.
Health us in thought and deed with wholeness like yours.
Spirit us, dear Jesus.
Spirit us in thought and deed with the Spirit like yours.
Cross us, dear Jesus.
Cross us in thought and deed with the Cross like yours.
Unity us, dear Jesus.
Unity us in thought and deed with the Unity like yours.
Heaven us, dear Jesus.
Heaven us in thought and deed with Heaven like yours.
When our bodies rise, dear Jesus,
When our hearts and souls and minds and strengths rise,
Glory us with the Father, and you, and the Holy Spirit,
One God ever.
16th May 2016
In Ordinary Time
Approaching confession, my stomach tightens,
my muscles hurt,
and yet my sins are so ordinary, so normal, so everyday.
I give them to Christ sinless saviour, he who cleanses,
he, ever clean, the truth, the life, the way.
Pain remains though I am wholly pardoned.
My penance is to pray, to worship, to praise,
through Scripture's word and aware of his creation
to see his glory and the wholeness of his ways.
Frailty, liability, the hold of sinfulness,
though then wiped away at his dreadful cost, ,l
persist as my hazard, I know to my cost.
But loved as I am, I'm forgiven and freed,
and commissioned to serve by the fire of Pentecost.
That fire, touch from the Godhead,
like the bush that burnt to reveal his very name,
let it always cleanse and always grant light,
let it spread though the nations till Kingdom come in his name.
16th May 2016
As I Remember
The smell of bracken, waving or crushed, does it for me.
Walks in the morning of my life in those woods
at Emperor Napoleon 111’s son’s monument,
in such an incongruous setting. But there it was.
I'm with him, my brothers and a dog.
He wears his cap and uses his walking stick,
more out of pleasure than need. Always Autumn,
or so I think of it. The mind plays tricks.
Those holiday journeys, mainly to Wight:
Mum has prepared delights to eat.
We sit on the Downs above the Solent,
then travel on to the ferry. Dad, sunglassed,
smokes his pipe,.
Another journey was awful. The spiralling down into dementia,
through an illness which should have been caught in time.
The few final miles stretched out before mercy released him.
I find that the keepsakes I have catapult me back
in a craft of love and respect. He was singing once, I remember,
and I, so little, looked up in such joy. Handwriting in my prayer book, photos of his different stages, these things reunite us. There were other things I kept for a while and then let go.
I did let him go, of course. He had lived well, and rests in peace.
I in my turn will take my memories with me. But for now they are a part of the continuity that defines us. I am his child, one of his family, and I can't tell you how proud.
17th May 2016
The Winding Road
It winds. How it winds!
And it starts downhill, falling rapidly,
sharply, giddily, turning insanely.
You are sick with it, and never in control.
None of the exhilaration of coasting,
easing off the pedals, catching breath.
This road you travel is dangerous, life-threatening sometimes.
Down in the valley and on the level,
where you feel only flatness, numbed by it all,
you begin again to use your own strength.
And the temptation is fierce to find somewhere
to ride away into nowhere, good old friendly nowhere.
I might have tried many times.
But the road begins to rise and your attention is distracted.
And, climbing onwards till you stop for breath,
there is a bit of a chuckle, a pleasurable and proud chuckle.
It takes you by surprise because you weren't expecting this.
And when you are ready you pedal on upwards,
towards light and sunshine, and towards wellness.
It often winds up like this, and recurs.
19th May 2016
Offering up Pain
Sad news and heartbreak on a May morning,
a bitter herb to taste,
a bewilderment shared
and brought to God in the Cathedral.
A loved one betrayed.
The embrace of God, so vast and great, so warm and kind
in his human faces, blesses, encourages and numbs,
but does not remove today's pain and pain yet to be faced.
Forgiveness to offer and to mean,
understanding that we are all frail.
To a young man here, wishing to make his confession
and to change his life
I declare God's forgiveness, as I am called to do.
How will it work out for us? So many questions,
like traffic in my mind roaring round a roundabout,
so many.
Not yet the answers. For now just to confide in God.
Top of Form
23rd May 2016
The Vision
Where a long-built house
has flowed
down the waves of an undulating hill,
improved and renovated so that hundreds
can visit but in comfortable privacy,
I returned after decades. It was deja-vu at first.
In fact quite ghostly. I heard the voices and songs
of long ago, saw faces and
remembered conversations.
But then came the new,
quickly.
Friends and colleagues, addresses and discussions,
today's laughter and something I said at the table
that was, well, racy, though it was true.
Heads turned.
But they'd never met my Father in Law, had they?
Like the topography, the
Conference was flowing and lovely,
full of surprise and provoking thought.
A touch for each of the senses, like the bushes in flower,
the softness of grass on feet, the smell of feasts,
the sound of happiness from the playing field.
There was the 'Come and get
it' invitation,
outdoors and in.
God, always speaking, sometimes enables
the closer attention that such a setting provides,
outdoors and in.
We were there to Catch the
Vision.
How is sight caught, netted, drawn in and kept?
Yet we landed big fish and sprats,
both to sustain us and to share around
the spreading multitude whom we serve.
Visions often come in
dreams,
and already it seems a dream,
but not one whose point flees the mind
at the wake of day.
Vision granted, reacted to,
acted upon,
the three flowing into one,
as we headed away on Trinity Sunday.
24th May 2016
Stepping Up and Stepping Down
For as long as you are able
it is good to climb stairs,
for the body benefits from the demands
you make upon it.
Tiring as it may be to go up several flights,
it is a healthy tiredness that draws breath from you,
clearing the head as you replenish the air in your lungs.
Monasteries in the Eastern
Church are often
a steep climb to reach, deliberately.
Not merely do they keep the vowed away from the world.
The world has to make the effort to meet the vowed.
Best to be on foot if on pilgrimage, at least some of the way.
It is a different air when you arrive.
There is a time for
stepping up and a time for stepping down.
New challenges call for fresh dedication,
a setting aside of time and energy,
best surrounded by prayer,
the humble saying of Yes but Please Help.
Stepping up is not forever.
That is the way of stagnation.
But while you are there you admire the view
and survey the job to be done. And, time passed,
as much a part of the calling is to step down,
whether or not you have fully realised
what it was that you stepped up for.
New staircases are
everywhere.
Take one. See where it leads.
Time will come when you'll need to use the lift,
or the arms of others to support and carry you.
This is normal life, not failure. The carried have so much to share with the
young stair-racers.
Ask one to stay to help you.
It's all adventure.
28th May 2016
Poor Jesus
Poor Jesus.
He is surrounded by Pharisees and Lawyers,
angry and feeling insulted because
he has spoken truth to power.
They invited him to take dinner with them
but not into their hearts.
Poor church, barracked by politicians and journalists,
angry and feeling insulted because it,
sinful and fallible, dares to speak truth to power.
They love the state occasions and services,
but "Let Religion know its place".
All praise to Jesus,
who for our sakes exchanged riches for poverty,
Glory for insults, life for death.
Sit up and listen, angry power.
You will have had your time at Kingdom come.
1st June 2016
Along the Rhododendron Road
Along the
Rhododendron road,
slow and winding,
all sorts of joys were ours for the looking.
We looked and saw.
It was wonderful to see what a man had caused
to grow on a steep, bare hillside once, long ago.
Strong, tall trees which changed the climate there,
near the old market town.
The bushes, deep in the colours of their flowers.
Lakes supplying water to the engineer's marvel of a home.
Innovations of many kinds.
When we stopped the
children rushed out to play.
Modernity has provided excitements for them,
rest for their adults, and nature obliged with sunshine.
Cragside spells out adventure and
effort as well as joy,
on and off the long, winding road around the estate.
There is a new junction for this family now to take,
which though it may be slow and demanding will have joy and colour.
Above all, we shall see.
1st June 2016
The Cost
How much is it
going to cost?
For some, martyrdom.
For most of us, merely love for the other,
in patience and kindness,
humility in looking for what the other can offer
and rejoicing in the breath-taking slant
that their love brings to us.
All that 1 Corinthians 13 thing.
The cost of discipleship of Jesus is not ever
straining
till unity drops down and we can say It
Is Finished!
Discipleship may rather prove divisive,
if truly we serve Christ as the Lord.
For if he is Lord then Caesar is not.
Bonhoeffer saw that and died
while others served Caesar and lived.
It costs to unite
while still divided;
for each tribe to see and honour Christ in the other,
those in the big tents of Rome and Canterbury and Constantinople saying I love
Christ as I see him in you,
and those within the littler families inside.
For all, the cost
is to receive grace to see in the other
the many faces of the one Christ;
that the one with whom we differ,
sharply perhaps, is no less loved and acceptable.
For if anyone is in
Christ, how dare we ask
Is she one of us?
How dare we withhold from any of his
our full embrace?
Across our barriers of sex and gender,
marriage or Eucharist or priesthood,
Christ raises the banner of inclusion,
the unity that welcomes all who honour him.
True unity divides.
It is seen in feeding the hungry
and welcoming the homeless stranger.
It is seen in the marks of the crucified
willingly worn by those who, like him,
stretch themselves out.
The cost is solidarity with him, and
it is given
before it is achieved.
The cross, and so the crown.
The tombless Lord breathing resurrection air into all.
And so the rainbow.
2nd June 2016
Glad to Be Here
Tears surprise me in the
Feretory as,
kneeling before St Cuthbert, they well up
and demand notice.
I have prayed pilgrim prayers,
prayers that Christians love to pray
and the one the Saviour taught.
Pastors cry as well as comfort,
and I have brought myself as I am to Christ this morning.
I have entrusted to him once again those on my heart.
I thought I was calm,
but tears taught me to be myself,
not in control but guided by him whom I serve
and love and worship.
There in the Feretory I had
had such intimacy,
a closeness which enables and motivates me.
I am glad to be here
2nd June 2016
An Active Memory
Cuthbert, your attractive presence
is another of the mysteries here;
you are an active memory,
as Bede and Oswald are.
The energy of your life, its imprint on our hearts,
the prayers to God generated here
over so many changing times,
amount to talkative holiness, a felt holiness
in this Church where God discloses himself so variously.
As it was for you there then, we make Eucharist
here.
We journey on with Scripture to speak to us,
Psalms and hymns to give us voice,
interceding through Christ and offering Apostolic ministry,
as you did.
You, once the keeper of sheep,
are still gathering a flock for Christ.
God grant that we be faithful, like you,
and welcome all as he draws them closer.
Top of Form
3rd June 2016
Journeys
Ah, destination. That means arrival, obviously.
Or, instead, does it mean further exploration?
For as people do not step off a train and into their homes
in two strides, so arrival means travelling onwards,
more movement, further to go.
In Christ we depart from his arrival.
We journey on from his finish.
Our destination is on the far side of the known way,
and who knows where he will take us then?’
while our this-side journey is no rush to find safety and cover.
Occupied as we are trying to be like Christ to his world,
and forsaking all routes of escapism, we’ll go looking for him here.
Loving him, we’ll mirror his compassion by caring for those he cared for.
the beggar on the side of the track will preach to us.
Africa, Syria and a host of nations whose displaced children
cling to the side of our boat will not be left to die.
And what of us? Drowning in our greed and self-absorption,
we are sinking beneath waves, we are failing to cross the river,
weighed down with what Christ told us to discard.
We cannot ignore another journey, the inward exploration
of our own hinterland, to claim it for Christ and bring it under his control.
The muddled, muddied mystery that we’ll find there
is a lifetime’s work to tame, never worthy of a Royal Visit.
But Gospel! For we shall not run into buffers at journey’s end, so called.
There are ages to come, not yet disclosed to us.
But he will show his unbelievably rich grace then
and take us on the journey that knows no limits.
4th June 2016
Straggling
I have to put the brakes
on, and keep the car
at crawling pace behind the flock.
The shepherds, gaffer and son,
skilfully guide the flock towards the field ahead,
urging on the stragglers that have been entranced
by the smell and taste of long wayside grass.
All must travel and arrive together, none left behind.
So with humankind, our Good Shepherd
will not rest until he has found all lost,
straggling and separated.
And there will be such joy, such joy.
6th June 2016
Meeting Me
I walked up towards
the Cathedral,
looking for whom I might see.
I recognised who was coming my way.
I recognised myself and me.
There wasn't much point in asking my name.
I enquired as to
health and to wife.
And is it well with myself? I asked.
Am I getting good value for life?
I mustn't complain,
but I did so I did,
I rattled off many a woe.
But just to be different I mentioned one joy,
then many others, don't you know.
I
lifted my hat as we parted,
though I found myself followed by me.
I expect that I'll be my companion
for ever. But shall we wait and see?
8th June 2016
Being a Mugwump
On my long journey
I became a Mugwump.
It wasn't an easy, straight thing to do.
There were lessons to learn and baggage to dump.
I really cannot say that others aren't true.
But I'm jolly glad that I'm now a Mugwump,
and it may, of course, be right for you.
It's a tribe of a kind, a political lump,
that doesn't forget there's much work to do.
I will not try to
make you a Mugwump.
Be sure of you own mind if I were you.
I'm not on the side-lines having a grump.
We may not be many, we may not be few.
13th June 2016
Revelations of Divine Love
Shewing the way with your Shewings,
seven hundred years ago,
O enigmatic lady faithfully repeating
the Revelations of Divine Love
that he disclosed to you.
Why you, unlettered and a woman,
so disqualified to dare what you dared?
Why did God choose you?
Were you a mother, like Mary?
Had he prepared you through grief, not just illness,
with a sword that pierced your heart,
so that you were able to receive liberties
which could have condemned you?
A long life walled away from disease and infection,
from disquiets and troubles,
gave you eyes to see that all shall be well
because, Julian, Christ had shown you
what none but you could see then.
Good and faithful servant of your Lord,
how so much do we need your wisdom now!
13th June 2016
Death by Small Thinking.
Death by small thinking.
People reacting with rapidly decreasing imagination,
self on the throne and who cares about the rest?
Nations allowing their own to be massacred
because the Gun Idol is all.
Powers that blast away the lives of innocents
seeking to defeat ideology by main force.
Hate feeding hate against colour, creed and sexual orientation.
Small churches planning to become smaller by playing safe.
Onwards into fantasy, consumerism and the comfort
of an imagined past where everything shone safely!
Lest we remember that courage, sacrifice and selflessness
obtained for us the chance to think big.
16th June 2016
Coming and Going With God
It's so loud! So
exciting!
Here are the school leavers, come to thank God
for all they have learnt, for all their friends,
and to trust him.
The past is so great. The future's a bit scary.
They will be going up to Big School.
Each year the
groups come in turn,
the families so proud,
Mums wondering at how quickly
the years have gone.
So different to
many Cathedral services.
Shouts and screams of joy agree with
the Archdeacon's 'How great is this place!'.
Other visitors are slightly bemused:
'I wasn't expecting this'.
Cathedrals are made
from stone and elastic.
They curve in and out of time and eternity,
mystery and matter.
The same energy flows through it all.
17th June 2016
All This Madness
Their bodies lie side by side;
thousands of drowned refugees,
families killed by ordinance,
LBGT murder victims,
Jo Cox MP, and the next untimely dead,
all are side by side in the Father’s vision,
next to Jesus.
Were they perfect as he is?
Did they sin,
blaspheme,
get disapproved of by peers and
accused of indecency,
cross political divides,
irritate by their frankness,
offend by their urgency?
Who cares? Not you, the God we know,
whose sinless Christ was you, crying, dying
next to all sorts and conditions of humans,
killing death and breathing resurrection breath.
Breathe love through us so that we may bring
some sense into all this madness.
22nd June 2016
On The Eve of The Referendum
In the gloaming of solstice
days
grey, discrete clouds drift high above
this parcel of Earth, eggshell blue sky
above and behind.
How strange the feeling that they precede,
here on the north east coast,
the stormy rain clouds from the Atlantic Ocean,
somewhere else's weather making a strong claim
to be ours after such a perfect, hot day.
Tomorrow we decide our future
but we cannot elect our weather nor climate.
It is not a nation's business.
Were we, though, to act in
unison with others
in the call to repair a broken world, to recondition
the common environment and to bind up the broken-hearted,
who knows whether the ravages of unpredictable changes
that have flooded through us may be turned back?
We decide much tomorrow,
and God remains faithful whatever.
But we live on an island that no longer is an island.
There can be no drawbridge.
God grant us joy at being part of the main.
23rd June 2016
Prayer for the Day
God our Father, Lord of all
Creation
from whom all come and to whom all shall return,
your blessed Son is the King of Kings
who won the prize of our salvation by ascending the cross.
Grant us in our decisions today
to follow him in all humility and right
thinking,
that we may seek the common good before our own desires,
and so to bring healing to our divided and torn continent,
that your Kingdom may come and your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven,
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
24th June 2016
The Day We Stepped Back
Clouds, first heading
towards,
now covering the sun.
The match is over for now,
let us concede.
Yet the rain has stopped.
Those who take no notice
of how Creation speaks to our emotions are in deficit.
Of course skies can clear again, and will.
But each dawn opens a different day
which must be faced according to realities.
Who can and will reunite
us
in this new direction we face?
Will they have eyes for Heaven
as well as earth, this island earth?
Or, seeing only castles in the sky,
will the temptation be stronger
to pull up the drawbridge
and leave the main to shift for itself?
Let Britain thrive again by
returning to its God.
Let service trump self-interest.
Thinking new thoughts on a different day,
let us renounce disorder and that we have made.
28th June 2016
A Sorry State
Being in a sorry state is like
parts of our garden furniture
which a scrub and a coat of paint
and some glue would remoralize.
It could also mean the repentance of a nation
after its war crimes are exposed
as light shines into the dark corners.
Or perhaps the numb shock after a seismic result
has divided rather united a nation,
and knocked its steerage out of control.
The dark evil of racism seizes this moment
to lash and jeer and to line up its targets.
Pray for a nation whose strength
is in love not might, and in humility
to live with its choice
with a generous heart
while caring for lost and least.
1st July 2016
The Year Half Over
There was grunting dread
and pissing fear
as they waited in trenches for the signal,
explosion over there chased by the whistles.
The sun was up and the game was afoot,
and the Generals drank their Champagne.
And the Miners called up from the pits
completed their subversive work
that half-over year,
when the carnage commenced for a million to die.
We remember them now and the sun is up
on a scene of complete disarray.
Have the Generals gone mad?
Have they got any plan?
Do they know what on earth they have made?
The battle is raging, the casualties great
among Generals and Tommies alike.
The outcome's unknown in this half-over year,
nor what might be gained or be lost.
4th July 2016
In Reply
Since I cannot begin to
describe you
or speak into your very essence
like some space probe discovering surprises
about a planet,
I must begin in silence, and allow you to speak first.
And because I am so easily distracted,
waylaid and scatter-thought in mind,
I rely on you to catch my attention and grip it.
You wave at me in sacred word and place,
in little local Jerusalem,
in the rhythms of both familiar and strange,
and in my neighbour the beloved of God.
And it is you, I find, who
is praying in me
so that I may pray and make reply
to grace-bestowing, life-giving first words,
so that conversation catches fire,
the flames refining mere clay into precious metal.
5th July 2016
The Day Before Chilcot
Nostalgic for the old certainties,
the tyranny which might slay your family
but spare you, it must be hard to read
the spinning compass of anarchy
when armies battle in the Mesopotamian plains,
taking apart the cities, destroying ancient
monuments
and putting the innocent to the sword.
Such a dangerous freedom, unasked,
forced upon them by blundering, far away
interferers,
requires now flight and escape,
the risk of life lost, all lost. But what now to
stay for?
There is no mercy in staying, little welcome
ahead;
and evil follows across the sea to the cities of
the safe,
the places of those tainted and treacherous
in the dark eyes of evil.
There must be hope; not of replacing as it used
to be,
as if what has been set loose can be put back
in the box from which it came, for history is
written,
but located in God
who is there as everywhere. But with hope,
sorrow and shame for such a high price paid,
and the unravelling threads of pride.
Above all, let there be truth.
8th July 2016
Glory, Reflected
And the blackbird, at Evening Praise,
sang Glory, Glory, Glory, as the heavens do,
and the wood-pigeon, far away, echoed
what we humans in Durham had heard and discussed,
and loved to hear and loved to discuss and loved to realise.
For God radiates, not just through the sun,
not just everywhere and through every thing
but in some particular way;
a painter,
a sculptor,
a poet,
a composer,
an artist
or someone faithful just being faithful,
and love is delighted at the pro-creation,
and evil slinks away.
15th July 2016
Weep and Act
Pray for peace in Nice,
in the silence after atrocity when shock and grief paralyse,
in the clamour of outrage where decency condemns.
Pray for peace in Nice.
Love the peace in Nice
as your heart goes out to adults and children,
as your mind processes the evil of a single man.
Love the peace in Nice.
Work for the peace in Nice
to be reality that exchanges terror for truth,
to be built on God’s kingdom of lasting peace.
Work for the peace in Nice.
16th July 2016
TENSES
Widened people are watching the DVD
of two lovers marrying forty years ago.
Hair has fallen out; what remains is grey.
The cake is cut into the next slice
of what life will bring; grandparenthood and new grace.
Blessed with warm sunshine today,
crowns are covered to protect them
while reminiscences are shared,
introductions made and CVs explained.
The younger generation play
the games of the carefree while
wrinklies boast of past and future operations.
Reunions speak volumes re unions;
the permanence entered into at the altar
prefigures the fullness that lies beyond. The ending
ahead is the start of beyond permanent.
For who can tell how many more years?
Through trust alone can we learn to receive what is promised.
But there is no future in God.
Top of Form
18th July 2016
TUMULTS
When you get close
enough to the yellow sign
you can read its warning but,
if by then your brakes have failed,
you plough on ahead, seeding the shattered wall
with shards of glass and twisted metal.
And when the ground quakes and shifts all around
you,
there is the terror that wraps around you
and speaks death or maiming.
So, too, the quakes
and aftershocks
of the collision of the known and unknown,
the safe and the feared,
and the allure of seeking shelter that affords
the least of all possible risk.
The refuge and
shelter that is God
propels the refugee into the danger of discipleship,
where damage and loss has already met its remedy
and terror is not ultimate.
There is a new
process of navigating
the tumults and riding the storms.
Where to go except to God, and where except with him?
Our help and shelter sends us on our way accompanied.
18th July 2016
Treatment
I am an only
Siamese twin
requiring surgery within
to separate me from me and self
which want to squander all my health.
This operation may be risky.
I'd better take a calming whiskey.
Though that may help to dull the pain,
I fear, alas, more work will remain.
The mind and heart,
seats of the will,
need treatment with the sweetest pill
and that is Love, great test of all, freely given
to restore my health and fit me for Heaven.
20th July 2016
On Pipe Smoking
This little pipe of
mine,
like the light, I'm gonna let it shine
while I enjoy the sensations,
the joy and the game of pipe emission.
Some, I know, hate the smell and the
smoke.
For others, Dad or Grandpa my pipe evokes.
Some people stare and kids are bemused
But there are many dreams, and some are pipeful.
A smoke enables a being mindful and a chance for some consideration,
and pipes, yes pipes, are part of this nation.
21st July 2016
Contemplation
In silence that
sings, ears are cleared and attuned,
made ready for a new knowing of the unknowable,
not yet in fullness but in the glancing touch.
The time taken to hear may be so much shorter
than the time taken to prepare,
to jettison cargo and cast off dead weight,
to look around and yet not be distracted,
to have no agenda that demands.
For God he is our
lover and our love,
our host and our feast.
When he speaks he is not encumbered with words;
his silence is eloquence itself.
The Son's flesh embodied The Word,
but in heaven they converse wordlessly
in the utter unity of love.
The heart in
transformation, steeped in His words,
seeks to go beyond its own into transparency.
23rd July 2016
Pilgrim Hymn
To set the heart on
pilgrimage
and follow our dear Lord
like those of each and every age
who heard his gracious word
is heaven now and in this life
in which we pledge to serve
the needs of all while we have breath
and give what they deserve.
On high and low and every day
the Lord is our desire;
the man for others in whose way
the will is lifted higher.
We mark the lives of those whose face
was turned to Christ alone.
We pray with them and seek the grace
to work till work is done.
So, onwards on our
pilgrimage
till all is reconciled
and justice flows in our own age
for every man and child.
Our hearts will grow as we attend,
and hear his gracious word.
We ask him now our sins to mend.
Let him be truly Lord.