Category Archives: Pentecost

Isaiah and the Seraph

I shame at mine unworthiness, yet fain would be at one with Thee: Thou art a joy in heaviness, a succour in necessity. (Sir William Leighton, 1614) Shame and joy move in polyphonic sway: the vision delights, augments, and yet diminishes the confidence. How can I, with unclean lips, hymn praises without minor chords? MustContinue reading “Isaiah and the Seraph”

Damascus 2: Pentecost

I missed the flames that day, was at my books, learning the whys and wherefores of Law, determined that every subscript iota would not be neglected when I stood before God. The Spirit blows wherever it wills. Mine was the letter, not the wind. When, years later, I clutched letters in hand, I held everyContinue reading “Damascus 2: Pentecost”

Light and Momentary

True – but the wait weighs heavily now. So many delays, and you can expect more road blocks through the coming weeks as rolling closures right across the north-west make violent signs of little worth. Light and momentary? Perhaps; so, at least, we trust, yet faith not sight must rule the game if there’s toContinue reading “Light and Momentary”

In Translation

If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so – as a sort of ‘White Book’ concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God. (Dag Hammarskjöld, in a letter to Leif Belfrage)* And so they sat together, the poet without “a single word of Swedish” at hand, and the translator,Continue reading “In Translation”

No Ordinary Sundays

Before you lies my strength and my weakness; preserve the one, heal the other. Before you lies my knowledge and my ignorance; where you have opened to me, receive me as I come in; where you have shut to me, open to me as I knock. Let me remember you, let me understand you, letContinue reading “No Ordinary Sundays”

Diakonos

Gather dust. Run, speedy feet,                                     and kick up dust. Kick up, gather: dust we are. O dust, return.  Be turned. Gather, sheep. Be gathered, sheep;                                     make ready feet. Unglamorous and matted, poor: gather all. All dusty sheep, return. Gather us. You gather dust,                                     reviving us, and send us out, in cloud ofContinue reading “Diakonos”

Pentecost

What wind swept through the house that day – what dawn arose, what day became? What life shone through the shuttered doors and lit a dancing flame? What trifold truth unloosened tongues – what fractured past now set aright? What joy made sober men seem drunk and woke the town to sight? What destiny setContinue reading “Pentecost”