Words to bridge the gap between faith and life…
Rise from the ash-heap. Rise from Law.
Lift your eyes to see –
Turn your eyes to see
where calluses and pious scabs abound,
where hearts are hardened, hands dried from much washing
which does nothing to purify –
turn. Turn your hearts to purify,
turn to the Son, to the slow rising of the Son.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be consumed…
Your hearts are not so clean;
your hearts are hard, so clean
your hands and turn your hearts towards the Son…
Yes, the seas stir;
the Son, walking atop the waves, does not mind,
a sovereign treading the puddles of his soil.
We, quaking in the boat
or sinking with the self-consciousness of faith,
look aghast and fret. Teacher! The waves consume…
But see how He strides.
See the waves bend and break at His touch.
See Peter stand again, drenched in doubt, shaking with truth.
Do not be afraid.
He remembers we are dust, drifting atop the earth’s waves.
Watch and see: He does a new thing. Rise and believe.
In my last steps of dream, I am running,
carefully conscious of each footstep,
prayers in sync with my hesitant freedom.
Steps unfold as sun gathers mind up;
day summons up the light to enter, to command.
Yet first the halfway time, the thought
that what the day holds in its hands can hurt
more than night, more than the half-death
of sleep. Prayer holds; dream’s footsteps linger
and patter the day into being. Rise:
the night has not crushed, the sun will not harm.
Unknowing morning beckons.
microscopic yeast invading our flatness
prehistoric treasure hid in fallow ground trees unfolding out from roots too deep to see imperceptible life defying noisy death the now-and-not-yetness of ever-active grace.
What does God require in the ninth and tenth commandments?
Ninth, that we do not lie or deceive, but speak the truth in love. Tenth, that we are content, not envying anyone or resenting what God has given them or us.
(New City Catechism)
The one beside you in the field, who labours with hands just like yours, with soul and breath, desires like yours, the one who eats like you – the one who, born beneath the same sun and stars – he too requires the truth which holds you in its stead and says what is and how. The one who has a wife like you, husband, children, dreams like you, the one who sweats and sleeps like you and eats bread like you eat – the one who opens hopeful palms, expectant of his daily bread – must love and must be loved like you; his heart beats much like yours. These yearly, daily, hourly gifts of rain on just, unjust alike cut through your skin-deep, fence-post heart to veins that bleed like yours.
Where is the strong man?
He writhes about as though he had power
but he himself knows he is bound.
What is this power?
It stands before the divided heart,
compelling with its tenacious purity.
Where is the good fruit?
Trees fein their own flourishing,
yet the truth will cast out the rotten.
Who is this healer?
If by the spirit of God he casts out the foul,
then the kingdom stands, flesh-clad, before you.
What is this day?
The lame walk, the blind see, the demons flee –
and silent He does not lift His voice to shout.
While one reed flaps,
the bruised reed stands tall, unbroken;
there’s flame still in the smouldering wick –
Yet the one
who stretched out the heavens with His palms
lifts His finger to His lips to hush…
He will not falter:
the mouth of hell snickers and licks
its lips, yet He walks furtively.
The prison doors groan.
What is this day? The sun not yet risen,
jubilee hanging anxious in the wind…
A reed blows in the wilderness; it flies
and flaps about vacuously.
The lame walk, the blind see:
Are you the one we are waiting for?
John languishes, Herod steams;
The noon is long and dry.
The Son of Man still will not mourn;
He belongs to another day.
The Consolations of Writing 