BEHIND THE VEIL

 

In softened pinks, the early morning

Mist belies the worn-out

Sad corrosion of the City or

In  tones of grey, a gracious  

Veil conceals the beauty of her face

As she approaches Eucharist.

So now do I, in pastel tones, ask

What can lie behind this gentle

People's mask of unintended

Silence –

A silence born of fear and

Years of anxious dread, 

Of other eyes and ears that

Notice everything

And by their hidden threats

Anaesthetise

The birth of hope?

 

 

On a visit to Myanmar

December 2010

 

Saharan Seas

 

There is within this arid, endless

Stretch of desert sand a memory:

A distant hint of water bursting forth

From tortured, crumpled rocks,

Cascading to the thirsty plain below.

But there instead of irrigating fields

To life – creation's dream refreshed –

It disappoints, and simply soaks

Into a silent sea of sand,

An imprint of an estuary,

A fleeting primal aspiration

That might have been, but now

Is long since lost. 

 

From above the desert, at 35000'

November 2010

TRANSITIONS

If April is the cruellest month
September is the saddest.
The pulsing beat of rain and sun
Has done it's work, has yielded
Corn and left the fields for stubble:

And now the ambient circling
Of the sun slips to the south.
Greying of skies and turning
Of leaves from green to red to gold:
Rich beauty in their dying;

Low now in the Eastern sky
A misted sun against an azure sky
Defines how hope and sorrow sit
In softened ambiguity: for now
In what is lost is gained

A gift more precious in its parting.

A CAUTIONARY TALE

I don’t do weddings very often these days, but last month I had the fun of marrying the daughter of an old friend and former colleague. The last time I had been at the church was around four years ago, when I had the sad duty of conducting the funeral for the bride-to-be’s mother, so this was now to be an occasion of real joy and celebration – a moment of moving on.

We drove down the day before, to attend a rehearsal and a pre-wedding supper. We had to remember to pack all we needed for the wedding, the rest of the weekend, and then enough stuff for holiday partly on the canals and partly in West Wales: so bags of this, rucksacks of that, a briefcase of clerical tat, and suits and dresses laid across the back seat of the car.

Having forgotten my black shoes five years previously when travelling to marry my own daughter (and had to borrow a pair from my future son-in-law), I made sure this time the shoes were in the car – and even remembered to polish them the previous evening. That was pretty good going for me – ask my wife!

All went well – the rehearsal was fine, the B and B was comfortable, and the evening out was really pleasant. On the Saturday a “full English” breakfast, a walk on the beach, and then back to change and head for the church.

I don’t do “smart” very often, but on this occasion I tried hard: the only instruction from my wife was that I shouldn’t upstage the bride’s father! So on went the modest black suit, and colourfully toned shirt and tie. And then the shoes. I eased my foot into the left shoe, and almost immediately, and to my horror, it re-appeared through the side of the shoe, as one entire seam split away from the rubber. Aghast, as the prospect of walking down the aisle with trainers beneath my cassock loomed before me, I put my foot in the other shoe, where the sole simply parted company with the rest of the shoe altogether and disintegrated on the floor before my eyes.

To laugh or cry? For lack of anything better, we sat on the bed and laughed and laughed, wondering what to do. Too late to go shopping; no potential son-in-law to borrow from (size 12 does present a problem!). Then I remembered I had packed some brown walking shoes for the holiday to come: they would have to do. And do they did. Black suit, white alb, brown shoes – a near perfect colour combination for all but the most discerning clergy-fashion spotter.

Realising, in the minutes before we left for church, that the shoes must have rotted in the cupboard for lack of light and air, I saw an opportunity. Abandoning my prepared sermon, I hastily put the shoes in a plastic bag, and headed for the church.

All went well. The bride and her seven bridesmaids were stunning; the groom turned up – and on time; even the sun shone as we entered the church. Nobody fluffed their lines, and in just a few moments I was proclaiming the couple man and wife. And then I presented the shoes to the happy couple – my wedding gift, I said, since it was hard to find anything for the couple that had everything….

And the sermon? The moral of the tale? Never think you can stuff your love and care for your partner into a cupboard once the wedding is over, leave it for five years, get it out and expect it to be still in working order. Relationships need light and air, time, nurture, even a regular polishing. That way they will last, will shine, and will always be fit for purpose. Get it wrong, and you’ll put your foot in it. And that will take more than shoe-shine to put right.

A PSALM FOR PAKISTAN

How long, O Lord, how long
Will you leave your people drowning
As the surging waters rage, and suck
from fragile lungs their final choking gasp?

You whose tears of compassion used to fall
As gentle rain! They now appear to spurt
In wild lament as mother earth
Cries out at her despoliation.

How long, O Lord, how long
Will you leave your people homeless
In the anguished aftermath of nature’s savage
Trail of wanton, meaningless destruction?

You who before time or matter came to be,
Brooded over the waters, and in gentleness
Called chaos into order: where are you now
As textured lives are washed away to tatters?

How long, O Lord, how long,
Before, beside still waters, you lead your people
Once again? But then within the echoing void
A whisper on the rippling watered wind:

“You are my body now – it is for you to do”.





A lament at the savage destruction
Reeked by the worst flooding in
Pakistan in generations
August 2010

ADVENTURE'S RESTING PLACE

Through rolling hills and
Gentle watered meadowlands
We wend our way to church.
Quiet this serried place today,
This holy, often noisy space:
And quieted our hearts before
The empty space of death
Disguised in unobtrusive,
Lilied, wreaths of love.

What good is this, this slow
Determined dance of neuro-
Disconnection? A fertile mind,
A restless spirit and a
Generous heart imprisoned, yet let
Loose to dance another tempo,
Hum another tune, and ride
A wilder storm, while held in
Love and friendship’s firm embrace.

In Eucharist we give our thanks
And for a friend now gone
Make anamnesis: what courage
We recall, what mystery we explore in
Incensed air of loss and
Inner dereliction! And yet what hidden,
Subtle joy, what reckless hope
Awaits in bread and wine, and in
Pain’s broken circle re-connected?

On returning from the funeral
of Philip Wetherell, friend, priest,
pioneer and adventurer,
who wrestled for three years
with Motor Neurone Disease.
July 2010

A VIEW MORE DISTANT

Tom, I cannot say
I knew you well.

I saw you from a distance,
Heard your name,
Watched, as in a choir
That loved you well
You measured out your harmonies
From a more distant place:

I heard you too,
Hidden at your console,
Talking to us through
Your fingers and your toes,
But not your eyes, which resonated
With some distant, deeper place.

I knew you slightly, Tom,
As in your struggles with an
Ailing body that could no more
Contain you, your parents
In their anguish and their love
Called us to holy supplication.

There is no answer to a prayer
That seeks a simple resolution.
The music of this symphony
Is darker, more profound: it is
The energy of love in counterpoint.
Now yours to play, for

Tom, within the mystery of God
You are known well.



In memory of Tom Wickens,
Woodham Parish
May 2010

A MATTER OF PRIORITIES

Even relentless tropical
Rain relents; the evening sun
Breaks through and colours
The muddied earth to amber.
The yellowjack screams
In anticipation,
As Synod adopts
It's emerging strategic plan.
But while prelates have wrestled

With issues profound,
This bird has his eye
On the Worm
In the ground.


A moment of distraction during a serious
church meeting in a hot and humid land;
and a question about differing priorities!

July 2010

Fw: Facing tough questions

 

The papers are full of economic gloom. Jobs going, wages being frozen, pensions cut, dividends collapsing – uncertain futures.

 

The organisation I work for is currently downsizing. In the interest of fairness all of our jobs are being made redundant; a new staffing structure has been designed and we are all eligible to apply for the new, but fewer, posts available.

 

So I have recently been through the process of looking redundancy in the eye, going for a competitive interview within the new process, and fortunately for me, being re-employed but in a new role. At least I know now a little of my own future: many of my colleagues are still in the midst of the process, and it is never a comfortable one.

 

Interesting that the emphasis – quite rightly – is on the job being made redundant, not the person. Not actually what it feels like, when the letter with your name on lands on your desk.

 

Our Western society pushes too many of us to be identified by what we DO rather than by who we ARE. How easy it is to say "I am being made redundant" – because that is how it feels….. my worth stripped away, my value tossed aside by others over whom I have no control.

 

One of the defining things for me about my Christian belief is that it's about risking living on the hunch that I am valued – loved even – just because I am me. That's what I guess it means to be made in the image of God, to be loved simply because I am.

 

If we could find ways of valuing one another more for who we are rather than just what we do – think what might happen: there might be a lot less blaming of one another, a lot less  high-handed positioning by politicians, a lot more respect for minorities, for those who live on the edge, for those sqeezed out of work, for those who have less power in society.

 

And there might be a lot more reflection, individually and together, on what we might want to become, not in order to prove a point, or to achieve, or to trample over someone else to get our way, but simply to respond in thankfulness for the gifts that are ours, and to seek ways to build each other up in identity and confidence.

 

And the world might just become a little less of a scary place.

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STONES THAT CRY OUT

How hard is this implacable
And unforgiving land.

Only the howling of the desert
Wind, or the swirling of
The southward flowing
Syrian springs can possibly erode
The harshness of this place
And sculpt an ever-deepening
Rift upon the landscape –
And upon her peoples.

Rocks of the wilderness:
Building-blocks of Temple,
Fortress, Mosque and Church -
All sourced alike and quarried
From the hills that separate
A river from a sea.

Stones hurling anger
And abuse; slabs for walls, and
Aggregate for roads that
Only some may travel;
Outcrops, shade for wearied sheep
Or mirrored sheen

Reflecting back the searing sun
While burning all that dares to grow;
Subduing armies trudging through
The centuries, upon their weary march
For destiny, for Christ, for
Jahweh, Allah or for power.

And then this other rock at Abu Gosh.
Chiselled to a miller’s stone for
Making bread; for baking bread,
For fellowship, encounter (and at Emmaus
Too), for breaking of that bread, for
Kneading all the pain and loss,
To forge again a friendship and
A burning hope that redefines

How hard is this implacable
And unforgiving land.

A millstone lies beside the church at Abu Gosh, one of the traditional sites
Associated with the Emmaus Road encounter after Jesus’ resurrection.
Conclusion of a Pilgrimage – May 2010

THIS IS ENOUGH

Galilee at dawn.
Pinks on the eastern horizon
cascade over the hills of Golan
and tumble, scattering shafts
of silver, gold and purple
across the snapshot-still
surface of the lake,

And there is silence.

Night gives way to unrelenting day.
But first the sun’s early rays
Awaken on the blackened rocks
(so recently bereft of water
Stolen for the cities far away)
The lichen, insects, moss and
Fragile lakeside flowers;

And I sit silent and entranced,

Then beckoned by the early warmth
This mother Hyrax comes and settles
On the rock, gathering to her breasts
Six little ones, eager to suckle,
Welcomed: as long ago upon this shore
A stranger stood in welcome calling
In the misted silence

“Come, have breakfast!”




A lakeside encounter,
Galilee, May 2010.
( A Hyrax is a Middle Eastern Rock Dassie)

AS IN A FERTILE VALLEY

From deep within the Syrian hills
Fresh water bubbles irrepressible
And clean, receiving from creation’s
Womb that greatest life-sustaining
Gift: this is the Jordan, gurgling in its
Infancy through sandstone channels -
And onward to the valley far below.
Here we step aside.

What right have we to taste this water
If we will not walk its winding course
Through fertile plain and arid wilderness?
What right do others claim, to seize this spring,
To steal her balm, to irrigate industrialised
Oppression? What rites are there, indeed
That call us to repent, to turn again?
Here we must choose.

And so with cameras, sunshades, hats
And tourist bags, tentative, we speak the
Words: “we choose to follow Christ!”, as
Pilgrims down the years have done,
And done again. But now with water
Sprinkled - Asperges me, Domine – we know
There is no turning back, no easy path.
Here is the via crucis.


On renewing baptismal vows at Banias,
one of the sources of the Jordan River
May 2010.

JUSTICE - WALL TO WALL?

I could not measure how
This wall belies its history.
I have no yardstick to explain
Its tragic thrall, no
Plumbline to define its angled
Reach to heaven, or to hell.

For in these stones, these
Massive slabs of rock by
Herod hewn, there is a welcome
And a cruel rebuff, a symbol
Of a wounded people crying “home”,
Where access is again denied.

Here at this Wailing Wall
Devotion of the faithful is assured
In longing for a temple not a tent:
But on the wind the swallows
Glide, and catch another wailing,
A distant lamentation of another people -

And another wall.




At Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall,
On Pilgrimage among the Palestinian hills.

Zimbabwe Bishop's plea for justice

A good friend and former colleague, Chad Gandiya, is Anglican Bishop of Harare. Follow the link below to read his cri de coeur, and pray for him and those in his pastoral care.

Some years ago a former Bishop fell from grace, and was removed from office when he tried to take the Diocese out of the Anglican Communion, and to ally his and other churches in Zimbabwe more closely with the Mugabe regime. In doing so he seized, and continues to hold, the assets and properties of the Diocese - now preventing Anglican Christians from worshipping in their own churches. As the article shows, collusion from the police, in defiance of court orders, has allowed the government to interpret as a "church squabble", what is actually a major injustice, and a further example of the regime's disregard even for its own laws. As ever, it is ordinary people who suffer.

In the midst of all this, Bishop Chad is seeking to give a firm but gentle lead in seeking justice for the church so that it can continue to serve its many local - and very needy - communities.

The link may take a few moments to download.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-2321-Save_my_church_Anglican_Bishop/news.aspx

An afternoon Haiku

Working for justice
Is no easy option: it
Comes with a price tag!

Night Watch

NIGHT WATCH

The breeze falls still and
Flapping, the foresail
Calls time, the wake
Dies back and oh so
Gently
In the undulating swell
With lengthening shadow
She rounds the headland
And eases into safety,
Into port

And the rock dove hangs
On the evening air
In open-wingèd welcome
Of the dying embers
Of the sun:
As tired men on bar-stools
Lift their glasses
In open-throated welcome
Of the golden tinted nectar
Of their gods.

Amidst the gathering gloom
Now homebound
Gulls track the fading
Ever-deepening blue, yet
Far, horizon:
And I am left at peace
To ponder my mortality:
A crystalline fleck
Upon a soft crustacean
Floor.


An evening reflection
Portocolom,
Mallorca
August 2009

Missing you

MISSING YOU

Pebbles crunching under foot.
Sullen grey and still the sea
Lapping in unusual February calm.
Muffle-wrapped against the cold
I walk alone, as laughing couples gaze
Into each other’s eyes and toss
Their bags of soggy Brighton chips aside.

The Palace Pier is open as it was
When all those fifty years ago and
More (or less) I ran and played or fished
In innocent abandon. Now in measured step
I pass across its ageing planks and listen to
Its one-armed bandits softly peddling
Lies of dreams to be fulfilled.

I reach the pier’s end and pause a while
In conversation with a noble gull
Who gives me just a moment of her time,
Then falls away, and glides across the
Waves in search of food: and I in search
Of you, am captivated by a pool of distant
Sunlight on this laden sea, and feel your warmth.


After Brighton beach
Valentine’s Eve, 2010

Easter in retrospect

Passion Week this year for me was a torrid time. I spent the week first in Brazil, then in Barbados: lucky for some you might think! But I was the bearer of bad financial news for church partners with whom my organisation works. The meetings were bruising, and there was a deep sense of unease amongst us all about the nature of the partnerships we share.

But the Barbadian sun, and the natural warmth and hospitality of her people could not keep me glum for long. Palm Sunday saw a wonderful morning of processions, preaching, liturgy and song, using fresh cut palms and home-made crosses. I really wouldn’t have minded if the BA flight had not turned up... they were on strike after all.

But it came, and I was back in Surrey by early Monday morning. Then the rhythm of Holy Week was lost. I slept on Monday night; rose at 0400 to fly to Edinburgh on Tuesday, returning from a meeting at 2200 that night. Wednesday and Thursday at the office then off to Sweden Thursday night for an Easter break with the family. So I never got to a single Holy Week service at our local church.

That’s not usually too much of a problem for me – never was a great liturgist! – but this year I did feel the gap. Partly because there had been a lot of Good Friday about work issues of recent weeks, with not much hint of Easter. I guess I had hoped for a way of working that through, laying it to rest, putting it into some kind of a tomb.

But it all changed on Easter morning. Not, I might say, because of any wonderful Easter worship: Swedish churches are not renowned for getting excited!

Holy Saturday had been my grandson’s third birthday. He had a ball! His prize gift was a wonderful red fire engine with all the trimmings – flashing lights, ladders, hose pipe, the lot. What he didn’t discover ( and we didn’t tell him!) was that there was a also a water tank you could fill, and a pump for the hose to cause total mayhem around the house, until.....

At around 0630 on Easter morning, there was a little tapping on our bedroom door, and a small voice calling “Grandad – come and see! Grandad, come and see!”

Rude awakening or not, I found myself transported in a child’s world of total wonder: his face radiant, his grin impish, his design on soaking Grandad quickly and efficiently, faultless. So this was our Easter! Here was new life, here was abundant possibility, here was baptism (!) and here was a whole new community, viewing the world as all possibility, and full-on engagement.

Going to church was a positive anti-climax after that.

No wonder “come and see!” has such a place in the theology of John’s Gospel.

Beyond Grief

BEYOND GRIEF


Wails of sorrow echo around
the gathering night,
Air thick with choking dust and flies
Settling on coagulated blood while
Oozing through the aftershock
Of silence:
Life itself runs dry
Or drains away.

For this is Haiti on a Tuesday afternoon
When the deep earth fell
And broke her back:
Paralysis of all that makes the
World go round – and loss
Of life, and loveliness and hope.
“And where is God?”
The people plead in vain.

Yet stoned, and crushed and even
Crucified on broken beams, these people rise
Again defying pain and cracking thirst;
Sockets dry, hearts bereft.
How sadly simple can it get
When Simon says
A rock feels no pain, and
An island never cries?



In prayer for Haiti
January 2010

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

As if in orchestrated, measured
And yet quiet revenge,
A pall of ash is hurled
Into the stratosphere
And tumbles gently
Down from Iceland, closing
All the airports in the land.

As if a bunch of bankrupt
Bankers hatched a plot of
Purposed retribution, displacing
Fiscal meltdown by an underhand
(and one might say underground)
Agreement to engage in gaseous
(but quantitative) easing.

As if the arrogance of modern
Western humankind is
Finally brought down to earth;
As if on beaches, overcrowded
Bars and dim-lit lobbies of hotels
A people glimpse again their
Own fragility when nature farts;

As if God, too, goes on an Easter break,
Upsets the ordered turning of the earth
Cries “not at home today!” and
Chuckling, lays a film of
Heavenly household dust
Across the globe to say
In no uncertain terms “It is enough!”

After the prolonged shutdown of European
Airspace in April 2010