Hold, Release

The week has news which wounds
and time can seize on moments;
the inner life of frantic mind
occupies its own time.

And sometimes grooves are deep
and take us back to moments
where this was said and that was heard
and there we held on tightly.

Echoes shout when walls are here
with dull reverberation;
history says what history knows
and souls sing incompletely.

Yet we cannot cling too tight
to what resounds around us.
Time will pass and time will fade;
eternity sings wholly.

Drop these thoughts into the sea;
His current is your story.
What you hold now, now release;
unclench your frantic fingers.

Grace, eight or nine years old

Samuel the priest, leading Israel through a process of repentance and then seeing them defeating their old enemies the Philistines, set up a stone monument where they had been victorious and named it “Ebenezer”, meaning “Stone of Help”, declaring that “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

In the midst of our busy and often stressful lives, it can be easy to forget the many ways that God provides for us and the many victories that we have experienced through Him. Knowing my own tendency to forget God’s provision for me, I have decided to write and post a series of poems about key moments in the development of my faith over the years. This is a poem I wrote a few years ago but which serves well as a starting point, the first in a series of Ebenezer stones in my life.

Grace, eight or nine years old
 
A lonely night;
guilt like fetters
(unexpected; unexplained)
enclosing.
A burst of tears:
my spirit’s rain;
the knowledge – hard
and sudden – that
this is me:
a sight of me
unknown to me,
a vision of
myself as doomed.
 
Yet from space
and nothing, grace
as lovehand reaches,
takes, embraces
deeper than skin,
deeper than
muscles, and
massages heartstrings.
Joyful, I sing.
(Is this all no
more than the
half-sleeping fancy
of a child
feeling sad?
I cannot tell,
but this I know:
my heart then leapt
rejoiced like
never before.)

Qui Habitat Part 4 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)

A father had two sons. One wished his father dead and demanded his inheritance now. And his father gave it to him. Squandering his father’s money, the son found himself starving and, without friends or resources, he returned, tail between his legs, to seek his father’s forgiveness. The father welcomed him back as though he were a prince, clothing him with honour, laying before him the finest of feasts. The other brother, the good one who had never so much as asked his father for a birthday party, stood on the perimeter of the party, complaining that his father would show such kindness to his reprobate brother. Angered, he called his father out of the party, demanding an explanation. And the father replied.
 
Qui Habitat Part 4 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)
 
My son, all that I have is yours
And yet you never asked for it.
You laboured in the wilderness
But did not eat my bread.
 
My son, your brother that was lost,
Is found; was dead, now lives.
And so we go to celebrate
Yet you watch from afar.
 
Your strength saps in the summer heat;
You waste your bones away.
My son, come in and taste the feast!
But still you wait outside.
 
My son, all that I have is yours;
My arms reach far and wide.
I cast my bread for you to eat.
My son, my son, I bleed.

Prepare Your Hearts (For Sister Emma)

Sometimes my “year of writing liturgically” (see here for more information) leads me to read and write about people with whom I do not immediately feel an affinity. Today’s poem is for Sister Emma Crawford, an Australian Anglican sister whose theology would be, I suspect, much closer to Catholicism than mine is. But her society stood to prepare people’s hearts and lives for Jesus’ return and this, for all our differences, seems a very good thing. So I have chosen to focus my poem today – a meditation of sorts – on this idea and on some of the things that her society sought to address in Australian society.
 
Prepare Your Hearts
(For Sister Emma, Superior of the Society of the Sacred Advent, Queensland)
 
In a world of desert sands,
Raise your hands.
 
In a world with tight-shut eyes,
Look hopeful to the skies.
 
In a world with blinkered minds,
Be generous, be kind.
 
In a world which lingers on
Its own desires, stay strong.
 
In a world which knows Him not,
Cling on to what we forgot.
 
In a world of spirit-drought,
Look to Him; look out.
 
In a world of soulless schools,
Draw from living pools.
 
In a world which turns away,
Hold your gaze and stay.

Wounded Heart, Open Heart (For John of God, Worker Among Sick and Poor, Spain)

Stop, the priest said.
He does not ask you to beat yourself.
Your heart is grieved; that is good.
Now turn your heart to Him.

Leave your prison, he said.
They trap you here and scourge you, but
You can love those who are scourged.
Your heart is wounded; turn your heart,
Turn your heart to love.

And so the broken soldier went
With cloaks to give the naked
And hands to wash the wounded, heart
Enlarged by wounds to welcome in
The broken and the scourged.

Vessels (For Perpetua and Her Companions, Martyrs)

Father, said I, Do you see…this vessel lying, a pitcher or whatsoever it may be? And he said, I see it. And I said to him, Can it be called by any other name than that which it is? And he answered, No. So can I call myself nought other than that which I am, a Christian.
(Perpetua, The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, trans. W.H. Shewring)

There is no other name
for this calling which defines us
and brands us like sheep,
adopts us like children.

No other name for us,
vessels of this love
which sends us out into arenas
and fights for us with beasts.

And no other hope
which guides us through games
and strengthens our weakness
and gives us His name.

No other life
than the one we now go to,
leaving our fathers,
leaving our sons.

No other purpose
for which we may live,
no other family,
no other name.

Joy

Sometimes it defies me
and I am left groping about in the basement,
the exhaustion of yesterday’s staircases
sending me downwards
in silence and damp.

But there are eyes
that see the bruises which I stroke
and faces which know bruises worse
than any I have known today
and kept their smile.

And there is joy
which death has proven strong;
it bears my scars like nails
and stands in wait until I take
its hand into the day.

And there are arms
which reach into my basement and
hold what wounds I cannot know
and light a fire, bright and clear
in the anguish of the dark.

Qui Habitat Part 3 (Third Sunday of Lent)

Today’s poem continues the Lent series based around Psalm 91 (“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High”) and other set readings for each of the Sundays of Lent. Today the readings come from 1 Corinthians 10 and Luke 13, in particular the warnings found in those passages to repent and believe, especially when we feel most secure in ourselves and are therefore blind to the threats around us. It is a sobering warning. I hope that the poem can be a challenge and a blessing to you all today.

Qui Habitat Part 3 (Third Sunday of Lent)

My people O my people you
Dwelt beneath my cloud and drank
My water from the rock and ate
My bread from heaven, from my Word
My people O my people you
Are not safe from harm.

My people O my people learn
From the ones who perished in
Siloam and from Galilee
For you will perish just like them
My people O my people if
You do not learn from them.

My people O my people dwell
Beneath the shelter of my wings
Find your rest in me alone
Find your righteousness in me
My people O my people dwell
Dwell and learn in me.

My people O my people stand
And do not think you will not fall
Your enemy is on the prowl
And you have feet formed out of clay
My people O my people look
Upon me and believe.

On That Day (For Chad, Bishop of Lichfield and Missionary)

For the Lord moves the air, raises the winds, darts lightning, and thunders from heaven, to excite the inhabitants of the earth to fear Him; to put them in mind of the future judgment; to dispel their pride, and vanquish their boldness, by bringing into their thoughts that dreadful time, when the heavens and the earth being in a flame, He will come in the clouds, with great power and majesty, to judge the quick and the dead.
(Bishop Chad, in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England)

Seven days before he died
He heard the air resound with songs:
The voices of the angel host
Beckoning him toward home.

When the heavens shook with storms
And violent winds and rain,
They say he sang the Psalms and prayed
Until the storms withdrew.

When they asked why he did so,
He pointed to the day
When God would shake the earth once more
And all would be revealed.

Seven days before he died
He heard the angels’ song.
He was prepared to join the praise;
He’d waited for this day.

The Hill of Little Things (For David, Bishop)

Do ye the little things.
Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd.
(Welsh saying attributed to St David)

They say in the village of Llandewi Brefi
That David caused a hill to grow,
A hill among the many hills
In Wales’ verdant land;

And though the land had no need of hills
And the tale bears the mists of myth,
Perhaps it shows a truth that may
Grow slowly in our minds:

That sometimes little hills may grow
Just for the beauty that they bring
And sometimes little things may be
The fairest in the land,

That sometimes life may take a shape
Which shakes our expectations and
Defies our thoughts of what we need
And lifts the ground beneath us.