The Way Back

One more step

Then another

Another,

No! This really is too hard!

Pause …

Rest …

But I can’t stay here,

Here is no place to stay,

And I don’t want to waste the steps I’ve taken.

Pause …

Think … yes, pray!

On a journey as impossible as this

Prayer becomes necessity, like breath,

I breathe in Hope, I breathe out all my fear,

And tears will wash the signposts.

See, a few more steps

Taken, that I hardly noticed,

Breathing, praying,

One foot following the other,

And look how far I’ve come!

But oh!

Look how far I have to go!

Breathe … pray … and weep …

Nobody told me about the angels.

I cannot name their faces, but I feel their touch,

In the helpless chasm of night

When serenity has fled

They are there beside me

And I know in my not-knowing.

This is a difficult climb!

Someone once said, “The descent to Avernus is easy”.

They forgot to mention

That the climbing back

Will scrape off all your skin until you quiver

Like a newborn creature, bare before the world.

Somehow I continue.

I have turned aside and then retraced my steps

Too many times to count.

I am all done in

And yet, each day, somehow,

I have moved forward

On this narrow path whose bourne I do not know

Except it is the only way to go.

Sometimes I see,

In dreams most glorious, my Father’s house,

Waiting there still,

But is there love for me?

But the stranger things become,

The more familiar

The path becomes.

I can almost taste

The bread on my Father’s table.

Why do I see

A nail-scarred hand hold out the wine for me?

And the angels whisper

I am almost home. 

Some Lines on the Present Situation

Always, I want to run and hide,

To cover my eyes and my ears

To disengage

From the hopeless task of rebuilding the world in Love.

This is no time for silence

No time for averted eyes, walking past on the other side,

Caught in the moral vice, we must stand for truth.

And we must kneel and pray.

We must pray for our brothers

And sisters

Churned in the chaos of the times,

We must pray for them all,

For those who care, and those who can care no more,

And those who have never cared.

Seared to the heart by the flame of their own anger,

Calcified by fear,

Consumed, by themselves till nothing remains but pain,

We pray for them.

We pray for those who have never known justice,

The squeezed and the crushed, left bleeding by the side,

And no one stops to help,

The forgotten ones, embarrassing by existence,

Reminding us how shaky are our thrones.

We pray for them.

We pray for those whose skin or sex is wrong,

Forever despised for being who they are:

Broken like us, yet in God’s image made.

We pray for them.

We pray for those we will never understand,

Whose souls are set on an alien trajectory,

Whose words and actions confuse us,

Whose intentions make no sense.

We pray for them.

We pray for those who are vulnerable,

Who watch each story on the news

As the prey watches the predator

Hoping to stay unexposed.

We pray for them.

We pray for ourselves, that we will find fidelity

In a world that is wildly unfaithful,

That we will find that holy ground

Where Truth and Love are joined

And stand there while the waves of chaos swirl;

That we will find our voices

And speak out holy words,

Silencing our own fear to speak

The words that heal the world.

We pray, we pray …

And may God have mercy on us all.

The Vine

The sun beat down on him while he sat there, sweltering in his rage. The whole thing had been a fiasco from beginning to end, just as he knew it would be. That was why he hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. He knew that was how it would end up, and it just wasn’t fair. If Israel were God’s chosen people, why should God give second chances to their enemies? He had done everything he could to avoid this happening – running off towards Tarshish (that didn’t end well – for the rest of his days he would shudder in horror whenever he remembered that time in the fish’s belly!) and then giving the prophetic message as bluntly and negatively as he could. He need not have bothered trying to resist. The Ninevites had repented, and God was going to spare them. It simply wasn’t fair.

But then, feeling almost idiotic, he realised that if he just moved a little bit, he could at least be out of the fierce heat, which was already unbearable so early in the morning.  A vine had grown, and was providing lovely shade as the sun rose higher in the sky. He was sure it wasn’t there yesterday. Ah well, if it had grown overnight, miraculously, then God still had a care for him. Maybe if he waited a few days longer, God would destroy Nineveh after all? He stretched out in the shade and waited …

The next morning, the sun was hotter than ever, but where was his shade? He looked around and saw that the vine which had been so generous yesterday, had withered up and shrivelled overnight. He looked closer. Some insect, some hideous creeping thing, had gnawed at it overnight and destroyed it, and even now was happily munching at its base. He was angry: angry for himself that he was once more exposed to the pitiless, scorching sun, but there was something else as well. He realised that he was actually angry for the sake of the vine itself, which had been his benefactor, and, for its pains, had been remorselessly devoured.

It was then that God spoke, and the message was so clear that Jonah found himself weeping.  There he was, feeling a terrible pity for a mere plant, eaten up because that is the fate of plants. Meanwhile, if he, a mere human, felt such compassion for a mere vine, how did the God of all compassion feel about that great city spread out below.  Sure, there were sinful men and women there, given over to cruelty, idolatry and every form of depravity. But even if such a merciful God ignored their repentance, and God was always merciful to the penitent, they weren’t the only ones to be considered. What about the little children, too young to know their right hand from their left, let alone commit any evil? Even the domestic beasts of the Ninevites were worth more pity than a mere vine!

And Jonah bowed his head, there was nothing left to say.