Vigil

I sit in darkness in the brilliant sun

Deep in the shadows of an ancient fear

And I shall taste its bitter, salty cold

Till you are here.

 

All of mortality sits in each breath,

I cut myself on every broken thing

And wonder that my soul has life to bleed

Or nerves to sting.

 

How does this desert squeeze out frozen tears,

While my whole self is tensioned into prayer?

 I raise a candle in my inmost heart

Till you are there.

 

Still mercy holds and weaves each shaking strand

Into a cloak to wrap my fearful heart

A place of safety till this wait is done,

No more apart. 

Suddenly Spring

 

Suddenly spring –

Sing like the birds of promise!

Lunatic angels, revel with new-found hope,

As soft as under-feathers,

Yet as sure

As little beaks that drink from gurgling streams!

 

Suddenly spring –

Sun, be no more a strange!

Flirt with the breezes, laugh with the ever-sky!

Hold fast to empty air, and find it lifts you

Above the doldrums of a deadened sea.

 

Suddenly spring –

Flowers remember music,

Bending each perfect petal in a curve,

Chattering songs as old and new as morning,

While bitterness departs into the gloom.

 

Suddenly spring –

Taste, o my soul, the perfume:

Symphonic jasmine cascading delight

Into our blossomed senses, our skin yearning,

For the bare warmth of air, sweet in its tasting.

 

Suddenly spring –

This is the dance of ages,

Stepped out afresh, even age does not weary.

Tumbling with laughter, we are become as children.

Suddenly spring.

Prayer for Today (3/6/20)

Holy Word of God, be our breathing.
Rock of ages, be our anchor point.
May mercy infuse us,
Grace reclaim us,
And may justice flow like a mighty river.

Teach us to listen to you, and to one another.
Open our ears to the stories of the least,
And the tears of the exhausted,
And the whispers of the fearful.
Open our eyes and our hearts, and teach our hands to do righteousness;
And may your cross point out to us the road to peace.

I will sit and listen

I will sit and listen

You do not need my words to speak your pain.

Who am I to commandeer

A place I have not been?

Who am I to appropriate

A path I have not walked?

Who am I to presume

To make this about me?

Your words are strong words

Etched deep by the acid of corroding grief,

Scored upon hearts and bodies

By wounds with too-long history.

Let me listen

Let me learn

Till I can earn the right to weep with you,

Acknowledging my privilege

Even as I claim equality

(A claim you have rights to scoff.)

Let me learn from your anger,

Born of too-long patience,

Needing a Samson

To topple down the pillars

Of all that imprisons you.

Show me where I take away your power.

And,

As I sit and learn,

Let us breathe together

The promises of justice.

Mercy Flows

Mercy flows

Down through the streams of earth;

Mercy flows

Through the warp and weft of our being

Through our breathing

Our breathing in and out.

Mercy flows

Through our laughter,

Brittle as crystal,

Robust as flesh

(Hearts that can break and heal,

Hearts that replenish)

And through our tears

(Acid or clear pure water).

Mercy flows

Through touch that is reverent, gentle,

Touch that is holy,

Touch that touches us

Down in the secret places.

Mercy flows

Through words grace-chosen

Shaped with a jeweller’s care

For precision healing,

Gentle as mercy’s self.

Mercy flows

From the stars in icy glory,

The life-burn of the sun,

White-opal moon,

And shadows under trees.

Mercy flows

From mercy’s self,

Holding all aspirations

In one transcendent love.

Mercy flows

From mercy unto mercy

Breaking us,

In order to replenish and to heal.

Mercy flows.

Come!

The door is standing open,

Come, Holy Spirit come!

Bread of my heart here broken

For you, and locks undone.

Here, in the chrismed silence,

I wait your slightest word

To silence my heart’s chatter

(Profundities absurd.)

These bones that creak their dryness:

Bid them arise and sing,

Sing of the love that made them,

Blessing through everything.

Undo my false assumptions,

Shatter timidity,

Weave ragged threads with mercy

Until I can stand free.

O Let us Sing of Turtles

O let us sing of turtles

That flourish in the deep

And rise like ships of wonder,

Bring joy-dreams to our sleep.

O let us sing of turtles

With wisdom in their beak

Complete within their silence

Amazing if they speak.

O let us sing of turtles

O let us dance and sing

And open up our living hearts

To joy in everything.

O let us sing of turtles

Who glide green through the sea

For they have added magic

To the world of you and me.

Chaos theory

They say,

(Or so I am told)

That the tiny flapping

Of the wings of a butterfly,

Somewhere in the Amazon,

Leads to the mighty chaos

Of a wild tornado.

But when I see a butterfly

Move like a blossom’s heartbeat

I see all chaos

Resolved into a moment’s beauty,

Light quivering.

The Rejected

She pulled her old coat tighter around her as she stood there in the bitter rain. Through the window, misted with rain and her breath, she could see them inside, warm and dry, seated at long tables laden with food and drink. She so badly wanted to be inside, but she did not dare. She remembered the times she had tried before, different rooms but the same sort of scene. She had stood there, forlorn, alongside the diners, but they had crowded up together and refused to make room for her. Once or twice, in those painful memories, she had dared to take a vacant seat, unnoticed until she reached out for food. Then they had turned on her. Who did she think that she was? What made her imagine she had any right to be there? She had no answers, and under their onslaught she had retreated outside where only the darkness could see her tears.

Why would it be any different this time? But she had to try, she was so, so hungry! Her wet, trembling fingers could hardly turn the door knob, but desperation drove her. Timidly she crept into the room and stood against the wall, taking in the scene. At least it wasn't raining here, but as she looked at these warm, well-dressed people, she realised how bedraggled and unkempt she looked by comparison. Who would want to sit next to her? At the nearer end of the room there was a table with several empty seats. If she sat down at the end, surely no one would mind? At least she could rest her legs, and there would be just a little food within reach.

But just as she reached that forgotten seat, there was a commotion at the other end of the table. A man was rising from his place and walking towards her. Was she going to be thrown out again?. But no, he was smiling at her like no one had ever smiled at her before. "Come with me," he said, "you belong up here." Too astonished to protest, she let him take her by the arm and lead her to the seat next to his own. Only then did she notice that his chair was a throne. And as she sat down beside him, he tenderly reached across and wiped the tears from her eyes. 

COVID at Easter

This is an Easter like no other!

We cower, solitary,

Without fellowship or celebration,

With fear and grief in too many eyes.

Remember the first one?

They cowered too,

Quarantined in the upper room,

Afraid for their lives,

Afraid of being targets,

For the viral hatred of the day;

Feeling hope drip helplessly through their fingers

Like a broken egg,

Making a mess of their hideout,

Without any expectation

This loss could be restored.

Until they heard a rumour,

Too amazing to believe,

That the world had changed forever

Are we so different then?

Is our faith greater than theirs?

Do we live in holy expectation

While we flounder in our fears?

Remembering death is dead,

Do we take hold of hope’s coattails,

Or paralyse our grasp?

Do we let salvation penetrate

The heart’s cold corners?

Do we still sing hymns of wonder

When our voices rasp?

He who hung in darkness

When the midday sun was gone

Is the light of all the world

And of our darkness too.

Cleansing the temple

He comes to overturn

The tables of our dealing,

With ruthless, ruthless grace

Devoid of proper feeling.

He comes to strike undone

Our comfy compromises,

Allowance for the times,

And cunning mind-devices.

He comes to manifest

This kingdom of his Being;

To rip our blinkers off

And show us what we’re seeing.

He comes to challenge all

Our easy ways of living;

Call us to costly love

And drown us with forgiving.

He comes to liberate

From all false sacrifice.

The love, his love, is free,

And his the given life.

Palm Sunday, 2020

The streets are strangely silent.

No crowds now,

One solitary walker passes by,

Ignored,

And no hosannas split the air.

We don’t expect a rider down the road,

Except, in nightmares,

One on a pale horse,

And fear and loneliness wage silent war

Beneath the screeching of the cockatoos,

And the strange magic of the magpies’ call.

It is not the season now for resurrections.

This autumn draws us in with gloomy arms,

And whispers, tantalising,

“Do you have ...

Enough?”

I have the birdsong, I have the grass,

Green from the blessed, sweet, restoring rain.

And I have shelter, clothing,

I have food.

And I have mercy’s benison each day,

And joy because a king once rode for me

Into the streets of far Jerusalem,

And he rode further on,

Right on to death,

To that strait place where no one walks with us,

The bitter isolation of the tomb,

And flung it wider than a city’s gate.

Therefore, it matters not if no crowds shout,

Or if our Lenten season is prolonged,

Or if we walk on silent, empty paths,

Or if we stand apart, wider than breath,

And cannot mingle in our Easter songs.

The cross he rode to holds all time and space,

And every shattered hope, and every tear

And every aching for the skin’s embrace,

And every stuttered prayer, and every sin,

And every broken moment of our lives,

And every shame and terror, every doubt,

He carried them all with him and atoned.

And, though the streets lie silent under cloud,

For him with ears to hear, the stones cry out.

This is the time

This is the time of silence,

The in-spinning,

When leaves fall quietly,

Turned into a carpet

By some internal breeze.

This is the time of no-time,

The unravelling

Of busy obligations;

Should and oughts

Are shed away

To fall down like the leaves.

This is the time of waiting

Of ingathering

To brush off dusty,

Half-forgotten harvests,

And find the golden wheat

That lies there still.

This is the time of cherishing,

Of remembering

Moments of Midas’ touch

That turned to gold

The ordinary things

Of everyday,

This is the time of praying

Of re-learning

The simple gratitude for common things,

For little stones,

For weeds that grow in streets,

For love that has no measure

And no end.

This is the time of knowing

In unknowing,

Holding the present moment

In both hands,

Because it is the only thing we have

Or ever did.

This is the time for resting

For back-leaning

Into the arms of him who carries us

Through all the years of our mortality,

To birth in us

More glory than we dream.

This little ship

This little ship must sail, it must go forth

From the familiar harbour to the lonely sea

Committed to the rhythm of the waves

The long, heartbreaking, crying of the gulls

The churning of the waters.

This little ship must say farewell to shore

Must leave behind the view of soft green hills

The peaceful ebb and flowing of the tides

The laughter of the children on the shore

The safety of its rope.

This little ship must bear its cargo forth

Not knowing if its freight has any worth

But facing down the sea-wrack and the storm

And here be dragons in uncharted places

Alone beneath the stars.

The Knowing is the Peace

Grant me the peace of knowing

For the knowing is the peace

The understanding

That all things come home to your hands,

And that you hold them

Safe in eternal being,

Safe in love

Where the love and the being are one.

Here, a scent of flowers

Drifts to the sense

And memory, soft, awakens

Past the rub and the nub of things

To the heart that is waiting, waiting,

In the touch and the breath of its springtime,

Though we walk through all seasons and years.

Time is heavy, heavy,

And mortal shoulders droop,

Done down in the burden of being

Where love feels a little like drowning

And the birdsongs retreat into silence

That falls like the twilight of life

As harsh as the clashing of stones.

Only love can carry

Through the loneliness of our breathing

To the peace on the other side,

Where hope has wings,

And the kiss and the promise are one,

And the peace is forever.

Today i grieve ..

Today I grieve for beauty gone

For loveliness made desolate:

All gone, and only ash remains

With bitterness to desecrate.

No trees to rise in majesty

And build a haven sweet and green,

No ferns, no grass, no bushes left

Where little creatures rest unseen.

No bellbirds chime, no whipbirds call,

No little streams go whisp’ring by,

No magpies echo through the leaves,

No kookaburras joyous cry.

No gentle, solemn sanctuary

Where we breathe in creation’s breath,

But just a black and dreadful waste

The acrid, weary land of death.

We grieve with prayer, we sow with tears

And bowed by horror, wear the pain,

And wait still for the miracle:

The blessed benison of rain.

Learning ...

We sit together

In a darkened cave,

Raising up our lanterns

To shine

On one another’s faces.

We leave the sheltered waters

And set forth,

Defying wind and current

On the sulky seas,

To steer true to our star.

We still ourselves to listen

To the song and to the silence,

Hushing our chatter

Until we hear

Whispers of broken hearts.

We love as the wind loves,

Moving mountains of air

Across continents

So that a breeze might caress

One tear-stained face.

We take off our blindfolds

With slow and trembling fingers,

Facing our terror

Of our own nakedness

Until we see glory.