The Little Path

There is a little path

Beyond a little gate

Where all smells dark and green,

And trees in silence wait.

That little gate unlocks

Your own heart holds the key

And your feet tiptoe in

With strained temerity.

You cannot see what waits

Beyond that path’s first bend

But it is time to dare

And find where it will end.

So still, you hold your breath,

Yet venture, for you must,

Lest hope should lose its way

And dwindle into dust.

Here lies the hidden way

To those forgotten things

Which you must seek and find,

And build them into wings.

Sweet Revenge

He had had enough. Home was boring. Every time he tried to have fun, his father would smile at him, sure, but he wasn’t imagining the quiet sorrow in his father’s eyes. It made him feel awkward. He needed to go somewhere where those eyes didn’t make him feel guilty just by seeing what he was doing. He needed to somewhere where those eyes couldn’t see him at all, so he didn’t need to even imagine that he might be grieving them. He would have his revenge on guilt and shame – he would go away where his father never had to look at him again! That would be sweet.

Then there was his brother. If his father made him feel sad just by looking in his direction, his brother would go out of his way to make him feel angry. Every time he gave himself a break, every time he so much as stopped to enjoy the blueness of the sky, let alone an extra glass of wine, his dutiful paragon of a brother would have something sarcastic to say about how useless he was, and how he didn’t do his fair share. Well, he’d had enough. He’d go away and leave his brother to do all the work. That would be a fitting revenge. That would be very sweet.

……………………………………………………………

It didn’t work out quite as he’d planned. Oh, it went well at first. But when the money was all gone, so was the wine, women and song. He was amazed that so much money could disappear so quickly. And when the money went, so did his “friends”. Suddenly the far country he had fled to didn’t look so wonderful any more. And there was famine in the land. The only job he could get was looking after pigs. Could he sink any lower? And he was so hungry …

There was nothing for it. In order to survive, he would have to return with his tail between his legs and beg for a servant’s position in the house he had left as a son. How they would mock him! What a sweet moment of revenge that would be for the father he had shamed and despised. But there comes a moment in a man’s life when survival is more important than pride, when envying the pigs for the husks they ate is seen as a fool’s game when he could have a decent wage and a full stomach for the cost of a little humility. (And could his pride hurt any more than it already did?)

So he rose and went forth, and as he walked the long, dragging pitiless miles home (there was no fine horse any more, he had sold it long ago) he rehearsed, over and over, the abject words he would say to try and soften his father’s heart. What if they turned him away? He had given them every right to do so.

 But his father had a sweeter revenge in mind than any his son had imagined. Every day he was faithfully watching for his son, and his heart lur4ched in recognition when his son was still a long way off, a mere blob on the horizon. Forgetting his age, forgetting his dignity, he ran down the road. Nothing mattered except taking his son in his arms and bringing him back home. He did not want apologies or self-flagellation, he only wanted his son. He brought him home with tears of gladness, and commanded a feast in gratitude. The sweetest revenge there could ever be on a wayward son was to have him back where he belonged: in the centre of his father’s home, in the centre of his father’s heart.

The Tears of Tamar

Louder than the world,

She weeps in silence.

Her grief cuts to the heart of things

The blood-soaked mess of life.

Oh weep, my sisters!

Every tear cries out

Like the bitter blood of Abel,

Crying out for justice

As it soaks into the ground.

Oh weep, my sisters!

These are the tears of everywoman:

Violated,

Abused,

Silenced,

Shamed.

Betrayed and made invisible.

She weeps for every woman bought and sold,

Reduced to thing-hood

In the marketplace of lust.

Oh weep, my sisters!

She weeps in the shadows,

Hiding,

From the horror she has known,

And the anguish she has borne.

And the earth cries with her in its groaning,

The wrenching misery of exile.

Oh weep, my sisters!

Nothing matters now,

No beauty, no position,

For he showed no contrition

And her sweetness was as weakness.

Oh weep, my sisters!

As the earth turns,

And the tears fall

And the moon marks months of silence.

As she counts her losses

On fingers too thin to hold on;

And her mind replays the terror

And the emptiness that followed

The rejection that she swallowed

And the silence that was damned.

Oh weep, my sisters!

Let us weep with her

Till the morning breaks

And the glory wakes,

Till all tears are dried

Oh weep, my sisters,

With all the sisters,

The forgotten sisters

Of Tamar’s pain.

Thoughts on a Rainy day

This is the place I breathe

Under the rain’s soft sway

Here in the green of things

Under a sky of grey.

This is the place I rest

Where the rain’s music sings

Gently upon the roof

Giving my dreams fresh wings.

This is the place I smile

Watching the earth renew

Watching each drop bring life

Seeing what rain can do.

This is the place I lean

On the soft weight of years

Thinking how kindness comes

Wiping away our tears.

This is the place I pray

That, as the soft rains fall

Into the thirsty ground,

So You will fill us all.

The Wounded One

She would never sing again. Once she had sung all the time as she moved through her days, as she went about the tasks that were her choice and her pleasure. She was the daughter of a king, how could she not be glad? She was the daughter of the Sweet Singer of Israel, David himself, how could the music of her people not be the music of her heart? She was young, and a princess; she knew that she was beautiful and had believed that she was loved.

But no more. Never again would there be joy, or beauty or laughter in her heart. Never again would she believe any words of love. She had wept enough to water all the deserts of the wilderness, and it had availed her nothing. Nothing could wash such a wound, nothing could ever be right or beautiful again. She had learned that love vanishes when you are besmirched, that words of love are an empty lie that covers, for a season, one man’s lust and another’s indifference. She had been a princess, a sister and a daughter, now she was only the empty shell that held a gaping, repulsive wound.

She had never dreamt that her half-brother hid such treachery in his heart. How could she, when the very idea was an abomination in Israel? But he had played it cunningly, claiming to be sick and asking that his sister cook for him and serve him personally. Alone with him, doing what seemed a simple kindness, she had found herself seized and overpowered and brutally raped. It was an absolute violation of body and soul, and when she had begged him afterwards to marry her, so that at least she could retain some shreds of honour and dignity, he had utterly repudiated her. Like a man who comes hungry to the table, fiercely desiring his food, then, when his appetite is satisfied, regards the leavings on his plate with disgust, something fit only for the servants to remove, so had he treated her. He had lusted after her with a frenzy that was like a sickness in his bones, but when he had used her and abused her to the full reach of his depravity, he no longer wanted her. She was no longer the beautiful, inviolate princess; she was broken, bruised and soiled, worse than a common whore, and he loathed the very thing he had made her to become and drove her from his presence.

And that was not the ultimate betrayal. Surely, she had thought, her father would avenge her injury and restore her honour? She had not understood his weakness, his indulgence towards a son who had done evil, his unwillingness to take a stand in his own family when it needed to be taken. He ignored her plight and offered no consolation, no concern at all for the injustice she had endured. She was nobody, she was nothing, and the God whose praise she had once sung so joyfully, now seemed very far away. Her whole life was reduced to darkness and despair.

She did not know, she could not know, that God Himself is on the side of the broken and abused. She did not know that the day would come when God H9imself would be the victim of man’s most vicious cruelty. She did not know that, unlike her father, God would not stay remote from His suffering children, but would take their place to walk into the very depths of Hell to deliver them all. She did not know how deeply and eternally she was loved.