Litany, Rossetti and Cardiphonia-style

In preparing to lead the service at my church this Sunday – looking at Revelation 10-11:14 – I’ve found myself reading some of Christina Rossetti’s devotional commentary on Revelation, Face of the Deep. If you’re looking for a systematic unpacking of a complex book, probably don’t go to Rossetti, but if you want to read some beautiful prayers, poems and reflections by a deep woman of faith, then it’s well worth a read. Here, as a taster, is a fusion of some of her best prayers, modernised slightly to be more easily read today.

I’ve also just discovered this gem of an album from the great folks at Cardiphonia, a collection of songs based around Charles Wesley’s hymns for the Great Litany. It’s not quite the obvious fit for reading Rossetti, but I’m finding it a comforting and inspiring listen.

 

Litany from Revelation 10-11

Adapted from Christina Rossetti, Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse

You who were poor until your baptism was accomplished:

Pity us, accomplish your will in us.

You who finished the work your father gave you to do:

Pity us, finish your work by us and in us.

You who said, “It is finished,” in the ending of your agony:

Pity us, bring us to a good end.

Yes, Lord most pitiful, pity us. Amen.

O merciful Lord Jesus, grant that now your rebuke might enlighten and enkindle us, so it will not consume us.

You who once made yourself as a man in whose mouth was no reproof, rebuke us, but with justice, not in your anger, or you would bring us to nothing.

You who became a reproof among your enemies and neighbours, save us from the reproof of the one that could consume us.

You who know our reproof, our shame and our dishonour, deliver us from our enemies, who are all in your sight.

O Christ, the saint of saints, who called us to be saints: in the day of destruction, save us. Christ our refuge, do not exclude us. Our redeemer, do not despise us. Our safety, do not deny us. Our Saviour, do not destroy us. Our brother, do not reject us. Our friend, do not forsake us. Our all in all, do not fail us. Amen.

Podcast Episode 1: Poems from Prison

bon

Well, I’ve been promising some new features at The Consolations of Writing, and am pleased to announce here my first podcast, exploring the prison poetry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Click here to access the podcast, and be sure to subscribe to the channel at iTunes if you like it!

New Season

image

Fig Season?

The garden holds promises, and I visit them daily:
minuscule at first,
                   fluffy, unsure,     like
hesitant children, awaiting the world.
This is not quite their season:
the Rabbi knew as much,
yet visited expectant nonetheless.
And, as frost and dew recede, there they are,
peeping and proffering garden-bound joy.
Too early to pluck,
too much promise curse.
So I’ll visit them daily
until they can sing.

There hasn’t been a lot going on at The Consolations of Writing for the past few weeks: partly because the busyness of life has conspired against my being able to write very much but also because after three and a half years of managing this site I’ve been in the process recently of rethinking what I use it for. I’m in the midst, when time allows, of an extended writing project centred around faith, mental health and the fragmentation of 21st century life. Some of it is on the down low, but some can be found at a new site I’m trialling, sprawlpoems.wordpress.com. And, as that site slowly takes on its own identity, this site seems to be returning to some of its old roots: the question of how writing can bridge the gap between faith and life.

It’s a question I have asked for a long time, both in my own writing and reflection. And now it has a new shape: a doctoral thesis I am in the throes of, around the links between creative writing and adolescent well-being in schools – a topic close to my heart as both a teacher and a writer. So the new question that I’m toying with is this: what does it look like in my own writing for me to be exploring this topic?

The answer is not yet clear, though some ideas are slowly circulating in my mind. I’ll still be posting poems here, though they may have a different flavour. You can also read the poems I post at Sprawl. But there will also be some new ideas and approaches that I’ll be trialling here in the coming weeks and months. I hope you can all join me in the process!

Blessings,
Matt

Krateo

Nicolas Poussin - Saint Pierre et saint Jean guérissant le boiteux, 1655
Nicolas Poussin – Saint Pierre et saint Jean guérissant le boiteux, 1655

While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s…
(Acts 3:11)

Why cling?
Fear, perhaps. The crowd, after all,
lunged and lurched about,
amazed hands raised,
indignant, astonished;
how might this seem
to eyes which had beheld, rejected,
hands which had held and seized.
Too much too soon;
the world had not the ready hearts
it took to take such miracles to heart…
Clung, perhaps, to wait out the storm,
to see how would the crowd change shape,
and crowd and cloud the truth around him.
Clung, perhaps, for refuge.

Or did he cling as we must cling?
Cling as those before had failed.
Every day, the servant said,
I stood and taught, and never did
you seize me then. The failure spoke
much more than all their loud deeds could:
to behold, daily, yet not take hold,
to have in reach, yet never clutch,
to see open hands, yet never grip.

Now the servant’s servants stood
and he must cling – for life, for safety –
all this – yes –
yet also
joy: at strength in deadened limbs;
and power: for greater things would soon be done;
and trust: above all, trust. The Crucified
had power still!
No silver, no gold in hand; only the Name.
And to that Name        he clung.

Astronomy

"Kepler-452b artist concept" by NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle - http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/soaking-up-the-rays-of-a-sun-like-star-artistic-concept.
“Kepler-452b artist concept” by NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle – http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/soaking-up-the-rays-of-a-sun-like-star-artistic-concept.

…the dread of something after death –
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns – puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of…
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

What dreams may come when we set out for stars?
What will we find when, solar systems pierced,
We gaze beyond the reach of looking-glass?
That our Sun has a cousin much more fierce?
That Pluto’s a planet after all? That we
Are not alone? That man’s an errant knave?
That, mirrored in Kepler 452b,
We see our fate: as rock without any wave?
Still, wave; don’t drown. Light millennia stand
Between us and our twin; no cheap flights
To suss out greener grasses. Best-laid plans
Must prove themselves or else be caught in light.
Hope makes a fool of missions to other spheres,
Always ready when true land appears.

August

image

I gather moments like raindrops,
         like snowdrops:
these microscopic buds of spring
         tricked by sun
     to come out, one     by one;
  I see
how hesitant can be
              can be
     the grandest glimpse of things
               and sing.

I catch the way your moments dance
         from distance –
yet close enough to ring
         the shadows into song
       in soft, legato days  of praise.
   I find
how hopefully we hold
               and hold
      in tentative expectancy
                  to see.

You hold our hope in moments of joy,
          unalloyed.
What we do not expect
          grips tight. I neglect
       too soon what we know.    Let go
     of fears
that pass. Joy is forever,
            forever
       the things that stir our hearts in song.
               Not long.

image

Eikon

No mirror to reflect,
no voice, only      dust,
sculpted by hands,
                             crafted by plan.
No self-stirring spirit,
no knowledge,     no thrust,
only dust, fingerprinted,
moulded –   with tears
and with blood    and with sweat –
now we stand,
                    heart and body,
earthenware image,
dust reflecting
      in praise.

image

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 of dust.
For dust we are;
           O dust, return,
in-gathered, glorious.

image