The Consolations of Writing

Desert Tears

This is the first in a number of poems that I am writing based around psalms that have been significant throughout my life. I am writing them as part of a memoir project in which I am using the psalms as a way of communicating my spiritual journey over the last few years. I hope that you enjoy this sneak preview of the project.

Desert Tears (Psalm 42)

Why so downcast,

O my soul, my soul?

Why drag your heels through day

And scream into my ears at night?

Why eat your tears and drink

The salty air of noon?

Where is your God?

They say, they say,

Showing me the empty sky

And rubbing my face in mockery.

Where is your God?

I ask myself and cry.

I remember years

Long ago, long ago

When I went with joy to sing

And led the people singing too,

I remember and I weep

To see that I have fallen.

Why so downcast,

O my soul, my soul?

Why so anxious, so afraid,

So far flung from where you were?

Why do you rub your face

In the soil of tears?

Hope in Him,

My soul, my soul,

Hope, soul, in the Lord.

Look up from this wilderness,

Look up from your desert tears,

For I will yet praise Him.

Doxology (For Thomas Ken)

Today we remember Thomas Ken, the seventeenth-century British bishop and hymn-writer most famous for writing the hymn commonly known as “The Doxology”, a hymn much-loved to many people and which has had a recent revival in a lot of churches. I’ve based today’s poem around some of the lines of that hymn, in memory of a man who had strengths and weaknesses, like us all, but ultimately rested in God’s grace.

Doxology (For Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Teacher)

All praise to Thee, my God, this night:

Guard me in my coming and my flight;

Guard me amidst these changing things,

The arms of power and the oaths of kings.

Lord, beneath Thine own almighty wings

I will rest and with creation sing,

With all Your creatures here on earth below,

As dwelling in Your arms of grace we grow.

So praise God, from Whom all blessings flow:

He who watches everywhere we go,

Praise Him! When smallest, praise Him most.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.

And when in history’s battles we are lost,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

Who holds all history and will make it right:

All praise to Thee, great God of light.

Common Prayer: A Sonnet for Thomas Cranmer

Even as a picture graven or painted is but a dead representation of the thing itself, and is without life, or any manner of moving; so be the works of all unfaithful persons before God. They do appear to be lively works, and indeed they be but dead, not availing to the eternal life.

(Thomas Cranmer, Homily of Good Works Annexed Unto Faith)

Our hearts, contrite, turn upwards in faint faith.

Though fallen far from grace, we now return,

As ash to ash and dust into the urn;

We lift our prayers in hope of turning wrath

And walk again this old, well-trodden path.

Your men and women, strong through every turn –

Of faith that purifies still as it burns –

Remind us of Your long-forgotten truth:

That in our hearts we cannot reach Your heights

Nor hope to find You through sheer dint of will

Can only fabricate our own despair;

And yet You call the humble and contrite,

To seek Your mercy while it lingers still,

And offer up our broken, common prayer.

The Heavenly Life (For Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Bishop and Missionary)

On the night Saint Aidan died,
You dreamt you saw his floating soul
Carried as he left this earth;
And so you saw the mantel fall
From Aidan onto your small shoulders,
Saw the see that you would take,
Lindisfarne, your home.

They say you wandered through the hills
The warmth within your strong glance drawing
Sin out from its hole.
And somehow you kept your feet
Firmly planted in this soil
Yet your eyes drew always up
To heaven and its joys.

Cuthbert, we are lost at sea.
Our sin lurks in the shadows where
It seldom is revealed.
Yet across the mountains we
Can see bright heaven’s call.
May we walk out as you walked
And find its heights of joy.

The Mystery (For Joseph)

Your first thought was, perhaps, an anxious one:

A vision of your future, spiraling,

Into exclusion and shame;

Perhaps, too, somewhere an inkling of guilt.

(Have I brought this on myself?

Should I have seen the warning signs?)

Responsible, faithful up to the last,

No doubt your spirit still squirmed.

Yet you heeded the sounds of dreams;

When faced with the truth, you listened,

Going to the altar with

The sacrifice of all your pride,

Standing by her while her shame

Bulged for all the world to see,

Knowing only through a veil

What mystery was here conceived.

Festal Garments (For Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Teacher)

Already there is an odour of blessedness upon you, O ye who are soon to be enlightened: already ye are gathering the spiritual flowers, to weave heavenly crowns: already the fragrance of the Holy Spirit has breathed upon you: already ye have gathered round the vestibule of the King’s palace; may ye be led in also by the King! For blossoms now have appeared upon the trees; may the fruit also be found perfect!

(Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Lectures)

Prepare your hearts;

Your feet are at our Temple’s gates,

Your souls are near the threshold.

The King is in His palace here,

Welcoming you in.

Will He find you naked or

Clothed as in your former ways?

Will He find your hearts unchanged

Your feet unfit to stand?

Prepare your hearts,

Prepare your feet;

Clothe yourselves in these new things.

Clothe yourselves in righteousness,

In righteousness and praise.

The leaves are budding to proclaim:

Soon the King’s eternal spring

Will come forth and bear good fruit;

Gird your hearts for spring.

Prepare your hearts;

Your feet are at our Temple’s gates,

Your souls are near the threshold.

The King is in His palace here.

Will you come to Him?

The Three-In-One (For Patrick, Bishop and Missionary)

Today is St Patrick’s Day, a day which, in my part of the world, is an excuse to drink lots of beer, dress in green and orange and wear puffy hats with shamrocks on them. But there is a more meaningful core to this day. Patrick was in fact quite a remarkable man whose honest, rustic faith helped transform a nation. Apart from being famous for (allegedly) ridding Ireland of snakes, he also used the three-leafed shamrock as a symbol of the Trinity, an idea which was at the very heart of his faith, so I have chosen that as the starting point for a poem written in honour of him.

The Three-In-One (For Patrick, Bishop and Missionary)

We…shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.

(The Confessio of Saint Patrick)

Over distant seas He reaches

Into long forgotten hearts

Calling as His people those

Who have not been His people,

Using as His instruments

All the small, unlearned ones,

Those whose speech is rustic, to

Nullify the things that are.

Into distant souls He reaches

Over long forgotten seas

Into tribes who worship suns

And do not know the Son.

Three-In-One is He who reaches

Wide and vast within Himself

And who prays in intercession,

Bleeds and pleads for me.

Over chasms vast He reaches

Into souls and parting seas,

Three-In-One, His love ingathers,

Calls His people home.

Vast and loving are His wide arms,

Spread out on love’s gath’ring tree,

Full and flowing, love eternal,

Spanning every sea.

Qui Habitat Part 5 (Fifth Sunday of Lent)

Today’s poem continues my series for the Sundays of Lent, due to finish next week with Palm Sunday. Each poem draws on the psalm and the Gospel reading for the day, as well as some of the other set readings where appropriate. You can find the readings that it based upon here.

Qui Habitat Part 5 (Fifth Sunday of Lent)

Wait and see:

I will do a new thing here.

In the desert sands, make way;

Forget the former things, for now

Streams of love will flow.

Watch and learn:

Those who sow in tears will reap

With songs of joy upon these sands.

The jackals and the birds sing loud

For I make water flow.

Sing and hope:

I will bring the captives home.

You will swim in desert streams

And wash your selves in blood that flows

From love’s desert fount.

Cleanse and love:

She who is forgiven much

Will break her perfume on my feet,

Anointing me for when I wait

Within the earth’s dark tomb.

Safety

Many of the poems that I write here come out of my struggles with mental illness. This poem, I hope, is a testament to the power of writing to help us order our inner turmoil and offer it up as a kind of prayer, refined by the process of writing.

Safety

The threats you cannot see are real:

Hold my hand and know the beat,

The syncopation of my heart

And how it pounds at thoughts

Unknown to you, while I am caught

Amidst these firing neural darts,

These sounds of permanent repeat

And all the fear I feel.

It seems so easy; then you peel

Away my layers in the street,

As I navigate the parts

I cannot comprehend or sort.

I’ve not chosen, nor have bought

This life of anxious fits and starts;

I have learnt it, like my feet

Have learnt to strike my heels.

Yet my knees can learn to kneel

While the battle rages past.

Learn with me love’s soft retreat

Where grace shall be our fort.

Otherwise

As it is, my wheels get stuck

And spin around in deep ravines,

While I rehearse dark thoughts and lies.

The dusk wears down dawn’s hopeful pluck

And clanging thoughts know where I’ve been;

I wish it could be otherwise.

You may know too what I mean:

That way we have of looping fears,

The circling hum of tired minds,

The darkest shots of what we’ve seen,

The loudest thoughts in breaking ears.

Yet if it could be otherwise…

If it could – we have not thought

Beyond that moment, nor have dreamed

That there might lie more peaceful skies

Than show in our minds’ dark reports,

And truths unlike the ones we scream

As we long for Otherwise.

Listen: you may hear a voice

Which does not yell and does not kill

And does not trade in painted lies;

Let fragile, timid hearts rejoice,

If they have room for praise still,

And sing the songs of Otherwise.