Rediscovery

The challenge: a piece of writing called Rediscovery:

She had lost the music. It used to pulse through her like the rhythms of her own blood, but now there was only silence, or a dreadful, jumbled cacophony of sound. She was not sure which was worse. The unmusical noise lacerated her, until she felt like her very spirit was bleeding, the silence froze her with the grief of unimaginable loss. Either way, there was no song, no beauty, no meaning. She didn’t even know how she had lost it; she only knew that it had gone. And, because she didn’t know how it was lost, she didn’t know how it could be regained.

For a long time she grieved, and sometimes screamed with her frustration, and then heard those feelings mirrored back to her in silence and sound. Something would have to change. Otherwise she would die, from the long, slow starvation of her spirit.

So she began to look at what she could change, and started to realise how many things in her life were things she didn’t actually like, or else things she did for no better reason than because she was afraid. And because she was afraid, she started with small changes. She went to bed when she was tired and got up in the morning when she woke up, throwing out the alarm clock. She stopped listening to the advertisements; after a few months she didn’t listen to the radio at all. She stopped going to late night parties with people she didn’t even like, drinking things that tasted foul, and wearing clothes that were too revealing just because she thought it was expected of her. She went walking in the rain, even though her mother had always told it wasn’t sensible. She grew a flower in a pot on the windowsill, just because it was lovely, and served no other “useful” purpose except to manifest loveliness. She grew out her hair, she dared to wear pretty colours, she started re-reading her favourite childhood books: Winne-the-Pooh, Narnia, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Prince. She impulsively gave money to charity. She turned upside-down beetles up the right way and left crumbs on her windowsill for the sparrows.

And one Sunday, just on impulse, she went to church. It wasn’t a “proper”, theologically correct church like her parents used to take her to, it wasn’t large, didn’t have a band, and obviously didn’t have much money, either. There was no car park, and only one minister’s name on the dingy noticeboard. There were a dozen elderly people, a couple of young women with toddlers in their arms, and a woman with no hair, probably battling cancer. The minister was an old man, with a gentle voice. He spoke without a microphone, and she had to concentrate to hear him. He talked about the love of God as if it was something real, something you could actually experience. And then one of the old ladies got up, stood at the front, and, in a rather quavery voice, began to sing:

“Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling ... come home .. you who are weary come home ..”

She was crying, and as the tears washed down her face she realised that the something inside her had changed. It was the music, soft and low, but clear and absolute. And this time there were words to it: “Because I am loved forever, I can love.”

The Invitation

Challenge for the week: a piece of writing inspired by this picture



Follow me. I know you are afraid. You do not think you are seaworthy. You do not know where I am taking you. You do not know why you must make this journey at all. It is so much easier to stay on the shore, that’s where everyone else is. But you know that it is not enough, your very soul is hungry. The sand rubs your inmost being raw, its grit distresses you; you look around at the others who are so happy on the sand and think it is your own fault, your own oversensitivity, that you are bleeding when others are playing. But it is because I have called you, and I will not cease from calling until you come.

This is not your home, not anymore. The anguish you are feeling is not craziness, it is a divine discontent. I am your home, I am your safety, and I am the only way you will ever reach that home and safety. Follow me.

You look at your ship, and you can count off its inadequacies. You are convinced it will sink, and you are so afraid of drowning. Did you not know that at my command your very feet could skim the waves? Did you not know that I am the one who commands the tempests and can still the storms? And did you not know that you are safer out on the deep ocean in my care than you could ever be in the shallows on your own?

I am your heart’s desire. I am the currents that move you and the wind that fills your sails. I am your harbour, your destination, and the glory that waits for you on the further shore. I am the wild music of the seabirds’ cries that pulses a strange new rhythm through you. You fear the storm on the ocean’s deeps, but there will never be peace for you anywhere else. This sand that you trickle through reluctant fingers – is it worth so much more to you than to sail forth in my fellowship? Follow me.

You cling to so much that cannot last anyway. You mistake familiarity for safety. You are numb to your own pain, you have carried it for so long, and you do not even know that you are crippled. But I see and I know. Where you cannot go, I will take you, and the very waters which you dread will be the waters that bear the weight you cannot carry yourself, and bring you home.

Come deeper, deeper; there is a whole world beyond the horizon, a world I created for the sheer joy of knowing I would one day share it with you. I want to see the wonder in your eyes when the morning breaks upon the waves, I want to feel you lean close into me when the winds rise strong and fierce; I want to see you gain your sea legs and learn to navigate with my glory as your only star. Set sail, cast off into the deep, and see where I will take you. Let me be your courage where your own falls short. Follow me.

On Seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night

The heavens sing: this is their blazing joy
Break forth! Break forth! In wonder uncontained
Sing with the beauty only artists see
Even our soiled world speaks of the unstained.

Here our fragility, our broken toil
Scarce dares to raise its eyes, for once it knew
Beauty and glory will not be denied
Splendor, in white-hot wonder, slicing through

All the dark hiding places of the soul.
This will not let self-pity weave its web
Of darkness, to entrap us in ourselves,
Let go the old defences, let them ebb.

Only the brave man, with his soul undone
Paints with a frenzy of the joy that’s seen
But not yet tasted. This can drive men mad:
The desperate hunger for what could have been.

Yes, there is resolution, but not here,
And not too soon, we first must drink our need,
And own there is a light no night can dim
And it is placed beyond our grasping greed.

Yes! Let the stars be symphonies of light,
Let midnight glow and burn with radiance,
Heaven’s hilarity must overflow
And called the burned and broken ones to dance.

Saving a worm

"Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are"
-Add to the Beauty, Sara Groves

She was a worm. It was the smallest thing she knew how to be and be safe. Ants were smaller, but definitely not safe, always scurrying around out in the open. She wanted small, dark, still and invisible. She would be a worm. Nobody noticed worms, they burrowed into the darkness and everyone forgot about them. Worms were good hiders.

They were yelling again. She hated the anger in their voices and the cruelty in their words. She hated that it wouldn’t stop at yelling. Someone would get hurt. Someone was always getting hurt. She didn’t want to get hurt. That was the biggest thing she knew how to wish for: that it would all just go away, and leave her in peace. Not-hurting was the highest joy she could imagine. She crawled under the bed. Would it work this time? “I am only a little worm,” she whispered to herself.
Once she had seen inside a grave. It was dark there, and she could see a worm burrowing back into the fresh-turned soil. It looked so safe. Maybe dead would mean not hurting any more. She knew where the graveyard was – down the next corner and round behind the little yellow church. She knew she was not supposed to cross the road on her own, but she wouldn’t get into trouble if nobody saw her.

There was a scream, and a crash that sounded like broken glass. Under the bed was not safe enough; it was time to find somewhere better. It was too dangerous to go to the door, they would see her on the way, but if she could just open her bedroom window, and climb onto the sill from the bed it wasn’t far to the ground. All she needed was to take her little blanket so she could cover herself up.
The drop hurt more than she expected, and the world looked so different at night, but it was still a lot less frightening than what she was leaving behind, so she resolutely got up and took slow, careful steps towards the gate. She was just tall enough to unlatch it, and she knew to draw it quietly closed behind her so that it would not bang and be heard.

There was no traffic, and the night was dark and cold and clear. She crossed under a streetlamp, looking both ways as she had been taught, but crouching down low as she ran across the open space. She was safe if she stayed a worm.
The gate to the churchyard was locked, and for a moment that frustrated all her plans. She very nearly cried, but she was used to holding back her tears. Quietness was safety. Then she saw a space under the fence that was just big enough for her to crawl through. Of course, isn’t that what a worm would do?
It was a strange place at night, wanly lit by the streetlights beyond between dark pools of unidentifiable shadow, oddly comforting in its very darkness. It never occurred to her that anything here could be more frightening than what she had left behind; the darkness had always been her friend. She found herself a place on the ground, where fallen leaves had filled in a hollow place beneath the bushes, wrapped herself in her beloved blanket and quickly fell asleep. She could not remember ever feeling so safe before.

It took a moment for the voices to wake her – they were soft and gentle, not at all what she was used to. She was lifted in strong arms, put in a car and taken to what she was later told was a hospital, where more strong, quietly spoken people undressed her, touched her, said sorry when it hurt her, and spoke to each other in slow, sad voices. There were bright lights, and lots of people, but even though she couldn’t be a worm here, she didn’t feel unsafe. They asked her lots of questions and she was proud that she could give them her name and address, and tell them exactly why it was so important to become a worm. One of the ladies, dressed like a nurse, seemed to be crying. That was strange; she’d never seen anyone cry about worms before.

They said she would have to stay in hospital, and then they would find her a new family. She heard them talking to each other using words like “mess”, disaster”, and “too late to save them”. She had no idea what had happened, but it didn’t worry her very much. Someone gave her a big cuddly yellow rabbit, she tasted chocolate, and she learned that there were shows for children on tv, not just grown up stuff. One afternoon a blonde lady who smelled like flowers came and told her that she would be her new mother as soon as she left hospital. “Will I have to be a worm anymore?” she asked.

“No, sweetheart,” said the nurse who had cried who was standing in the room. “I think you’re going to become a butterfly.”

Her one regret ..

The one thing she regretted was the other children. To know that her own was safe and well, and that the others probably would have been too if it wasn’t for her son, was troubling. It seemed so short a time ago that she had been living a “normal” life, and expecting nothing less. Like most girls she sometimes got irritated with the amount her mother expected around the house, and nervous about her planned marriage (would he be kind? Would she feel completely and totally loved? Would he still be pleased with her when he really got to know her?), but life was fairly easy really. She knew what to expect, she was among friends and neighbours she had known all her life, dear and familiar, and the Law of her people seemed good and right to her. She had dreamed of something more of course, she was a sensitive and imaginative girl, but she had been reared to plainness and responsibility, and never expected the deepest longings of her heart to come out and walk the earth in the ordinary light of day.

But they had, and everything was changed forever. And in that moment of total change, not only had her life been caught up and transformed, but her understanding of God, and His real values and intentions would never be the same again. She had expected an ordered universe, where every aspect of life could be regulated and codified, or at least explained, only to discover that the very One who had created it all and given them the Law was the same one who delighted to turn all expectations upside down, to lift up the lowly and pull down the proud..

But where, in this new understanding, could she fit the deaths of these children, who just happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time? At first she had not wanted to believe the rumours that came to them, but the grim look on her husband’s face confirmed that he found them all too believable. After all, there was good reason why they had been warned to flee, this was a king who would tolerate no rivals for the throne that was his glory and his torture. But they were beyond his jurisdiction here, and he, no doubt, believed that his infant rival had been destroyed in that terrifying night of violence. Why, God, why? Why was it necessary that others should die so that her son should live?

It made no sense. Must violence and hurt and horror always appear when the grace of God shone forth into the world? Must the innocent die so that righteousness could be fulfilled? Was this strange, marvellous son of hers going to be someone other people would have to die for? That was all back to front. The gods of other nations were like that, bloated parasites of wood and stone who sucked the very lifeblood from their people. It was the cruel greed of human idolatry that had slaughtered those little ones, the idolatry of a half-crazed king for his precarious throne. But this, her God, the true God, was not like that. Her son was not like that. Instead he had become vulnerable flesh and blood, and he had come to give, not to take. Her mind shied away from completing the analogy. Could it be that He had come to give his very lifeblood? Instead of men dying for their gods, God Himself would die for man? It was too shocking, too enormous to fit her mind around. She was not yet ready to engage with such a thought. And besides, he was her little first-born son, and she would give all that she was to guard his life.

Simeon

1.
So long
I have watched the world turning
Have seen the petty greed, the vanity,
The prideful rage, the hearts that nurse their hurts:
The dragging of the vision through the dust.

They speak the law
With pious lips that never kissed the flame
Of love’s bright glory, tongues untouched by coals.
Words of light
Are darkness at their speaking, nooses spun
To trip unwary men and cause their hurt.
I have seen hate
Nursed, like an idol, in the holy place:
My heart was sick, my very stomach sour.

“Where is your God?” the mocking shadows taunt.

I will keep the faith – though it is not mine, but yours,
The word once given
And never taken back -- I will believe it.
I will stand on ramparts of my soul,
Surveying sorrow,
And let this hunger be my prayer to you.

For I know that you will come
Not in shadow, but substance,
Your word fulfilled in flesh like unto mine
Reversing history with audacious love.
And, though I walk in darkness,
I am blessed.
I shall embrace my God.

2.
Hidden among the crowd: man, woman, child.
The common place pious poor, on a common day,
When the temple groaned with tiredness.
There was no beauty
Particular to them.
No angels sang, the sky stayed just the same.

And yet I knew, I knew my peace had come.
The Spirit’s whisper shouted in my heart,
“This is the One!”
In my weak arms He lay,
Sovereign and savior, yes! My very God!
A little child who’ll wipe all tears away.

The Donkey Remembers

Ok, I know that the donkey is possibly a pious fiction (though not a ridiculous one -- the poor woman was 9 months pregnant after all!) and there's no mention of other animals in the biblical narrative -- but sometimes a little creative licence gives us a fresh perspective.

THE DONKEY REMEMBERS

I never minded the weight. She was such a slight, young thing, even though she was swollen with the child inside. She seemed barely old enough to become a mother, but I guess that’s the way of it, isn’t it? She swayed with me as I walked, and never grabbed or pulled. He was different, older, had obviously knocked around the world a bit, and knew his hay from his thistles, as they say. But when they looked at each other, softly, shyly, there was something so delicate and tender between them that it was almost enough to warm me in the frosty air. And when they looked at each other like that it was as if the years flowed off him and onto her, he seemed awkward, uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she wanted from him, and she seemed completely at rest, as if all the clamour on the road around them never touched her at all.

The journey itself was uneventful, except it was rather slow, there were so many people going hither and yon, as if the whole world was moving house at once. And it was obvious that, for all her quiet ways, the lady couldn’t travel very fast. But he took good care of her, and of me, and every time he helped her back up onto my back he would look me in the eye and tell me to take care, because I was carrying the most precious thing in the world. I supposed that was what every father says – now I wonder ..

It was when we reached the town (and such a little town to be worth the bother of such a journey!) that things became less ordinary. Apparently there was some problem with where they were going to stay; several times the man knocked on doors, had a short, disappointing conversation and came back sadly. We would move to another street, another door, and the same thing would happen again. The lady had grown very quiet, very still, and I could almost feel her pain as her body tensed in silence. After several such conversations, he turned back, looked at her face and then asked, almost whispering, “Is it time?” She nodded, scarce able to speak, and he took her hand and held it for a long moment, then returned to the door that had just closed behind him and knocked again. This time I could hear an extra note of pleading that had not been in his voice before, and apparently the other person heard it too, for a long conversation followed. This time we did not set off down the street again, but went around the back of the building into a room. There were beasts stalled there, and clean straw, and hay in the manger. Everything I needed at the end of a long, hard day. I slept, ignoring the sounds of human bustle.

Hours later, in the cold quietness, the still-point of the night, I was woken by a new sound: the thin, sharp cry of a newborn human baby. The man was holding the child and a long strip of cloth and looking very awkward. “Here, let me do it,” said the woman softly, and proceeded to wrap the child firmly.

But something else was tugging at my senses and confusing me –a soft, faint sound of music. It seemed to be coming from the sky. “That’s ridiculous,” I thought to myself, but I was wrong. Ridiculous or not, it was happening. Soon it was beyond doubtful, every note came with silver clarity. It was the moment when I discovered that even a poor man’s donkey is capable of tears. And in bad moments since then, I have recalled the beauty of that music and found my way back to peace. To know that such music exists, and that it broke through into the world that night, is an incredible gift.

Just as the music was fading away, several men appeared – shepherds by the look of them. It was amazing enough to get any visitors in the cold, pre-dawn darkness, that shepherds should leave their sheep at such an hour, the hour of the wolf, was even more surprising. They were out of breath, and from the look of them they had probably run all the way from the fields.

The man and the woman looked up startled, and the man moved defensively in front of his wife and child. “What do you want?” he asked, grasping for his walking staff.
“We mean no harm,” said the foremost shepherd, still breathing hard.”We have come to see the child.” The man still looked defensive, but I was watching the woman’s face at that moment, and I saw her look up with wonder and sudden understanding. The shepherd, seeing the man still hesitate, went on talking, his tongue almost falling over itself in his eagerness to explain, as if the mere retelling of events would make new sense of them. It was a confusing story, full of angels, and God and someone called David, but one thing was obvious, this was no ordinary baby. Most babies do not have messengers coming down out of heaven to announce their birth. I felt a great wonder, but also a great fear, and as the lady lifted up the child to show them, I found myself kneeling down before the child. It was only some minutes later, when the moment had passed, that I realised that the other creatures there had done the same.

There is much I don’t fully understand, but that chilly night, in that dark little room, in such an ordinary, almost pathetic place, was the greatest moment of my life. I have seen holiness, and I was forever changed by the experience.