love

Yes, it takes our freedomsbecause sometimes love does that:for neighbour, for stranger,for one who walks the same streets,walks by your desk,shops where you shop,shares the same air.Sometimes love lays downrights – freedom of movement,freedom of assembly,freedom to smile and have others see -because sometimes love judgesthe more needful thing,the truer way to be free.

And who is my neighbour?

Love, sensing Self flex muscles,Circumvents the question, takes a detourAlong a Jericho road,A thoroughfare often taken, seldom observed.Love stretches the story out,Beyond expectation, beyond our trust,Defeats its stock of righteous men,Then surprises with a foe.Love befriends the enemy,Gives face and heart to the hated one.Love helps us up the donkey’s back,Carries us safe, far fromContinue reading “And who is my neighbour?”

Hour (Lent 38)

Love in the Time of Corona

At the shops and in the street,We look at faces, look at feet,Breathing quickly as we pass,Lest the germs should get to us.Seeking family on a screen,Craving you and us and we.What will each tomorrow bring?(Can we handle one more thing?)In this and each new instance,Can we love, safe from a distance?

You Will Not Fear

Hiding within my son’s clothes,it lay unseen until bedtime whenit scurried out from his sleeve, explaininghis tears through dinner andthe nick on his wrist spottedonly moments before.It was not the night to visit Emergency.Wind and rain buffeted the drive, asunidentified spider in jar beside me,I punctuated my frantic breaths withcomma prayers and apostrophe thoughtsof theContinue reading “You Will Not Fear”

Choose (Lent 14)

This Mess

I stubbed my toe on a London bus;it stood in the doorway, just under us. And by the door a bright Tonka trucklay just where an unsuspecting limb got stuck. And in the night a train might strayfar from its tracks into my way; and you, dear you, might show up rightwhen I would ratherContinue reading “This Mess”

Christmas 2: Never Faint Nor Fear

Today, as well as the day for the year’s biggest sales, is also Boxing Day and, as the mysterious carol “Good King Wenceslas” should remind us, St Stephen’s Day. Most likely the Stephen commemorated today was the one martyred in the Acts of the Apostles, so one tradition of today is to sing carols thatContinue reading “Christmas 2: Never Faint Nor Fear”

Poetic Translations: The King and the Maiden

One of the great mysteries and wonders that we can be reflecting on this Advent season is the Incarnation: the mystery that the God of the universe would become a human, even a defenceless baby. To explore this mystery, Søren Kierkegaard tells the story of a king who loves a poor and humble girl andContinue reading “Poetic Translations: The King and the Maiden”

Resolution (Did You Miss It?)

A New Year’s resolution: to get in the way less, so that love might have more room.