The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.
The blue sky opens out further and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.
I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside 'love' there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!
Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word 'reason' you already feel miles away.
How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.
Monday 6 June 2016
Wednesday 19 August 2015
A little anniversary poem...
It
isn’t always down to the grit,
whatever
they say.Some pearls are ‘cultured’ -
seeded, a bead at the centre
carefully placed.
A
seed of hope -
not
knowing what will be learnt and unlearnt,a seed of faith -
able to stretch and hold
both joy and pain,
a seed of love -
there as a first beginning.
Love,
adding a layer, year by year
each
with its own lustrelit by all we have shared -
homes, people, children
challenge and call,
despair and delight,
layers coloured more deeply
as light falls through each one.
A
pearl beyond price
made
not of nacre’s sheenbut grown from grace.
A wonder and a source of praise -
another on the never ending string
formed in human hearts and lives,
all held in the ocean’s deepest depths of love.
Saturday 16 May 2015
Saturday 28 February 2015
The vicar was called
There aren’t so many local labels left.
Family doctor - off duty,
village policeman - gone with the scrumping boys
but still Our Vicar has a common meaning,
albeit only vaguely understood.
or the other worldly veil of ‘priest’.
It’s an English word, easy to say with
tired and misplaced respect
easier still to spit with scorn
over a Vicarage hedge.
Anachronistic, clinging to a past privilege
impersonal, speaking only of the role
or of the gleefully discovered flaws
revealed by sly tabloids and their wicked rhymes.
Someone who stands in - vicarious
stands in a line of names painted on a board
connecting back this baby squawking in his tiny three piece suit
to one brought here in time of plague, or war
and to the one who takes him by the ancient font
hands tipping the same water onto newborn heads.
Standing before couples from a world and time away
making the same leap into the same unknown.
Standing - each one - at every coffin’s foot
speaking the words, signing with the cross
before the spadefuls of the same earth fall.
What we the church would like to be…?
What this place of living might become
in our best hopes and hearts…?
delighting when we bring one down to earth.
But, maybe, in that place where downward V
and upward reach just touch, and hold
someone who wears an old and unloved label
(uncomfortably tight around the neck)
can dare to stand - to stand for us
and say ‘this is our place’
laughable as it is, with all our fears and flaws
our robes of ridicule and bluster,
still, underneath it all, this poor bare soul
dares to stand here
with one hand reaching up to heaven
and one hand reaching down to earth,
pulled half in two, but holding
saying, ‘I am the vicar - your vicar
standing in for you
- this is your place.’
Family doctor - off duty,
village policeman - gone with the scrumping boys
but still Our Vicar has a common meaning,
albeit only vaguely understood.
Vicar - it’s a hard, ugly word
without the rounded depth of ‘Rector’or the other worldly veil of ‘priest’.
It’s an English word, easy to say with
tired and misplaced respect
easier still to spit with scorn
over a Vicarage hedge.
Anachronistic, clinging to a past privilege
impersonal, speaking only of the role
or of the gleefully discovered flaws
revealed by sly tabloids and their wicked rhymes.
What does it mean, this title not beloved by anyone?
What is a Vicar for?Someone who stands in - vicarious
stands in a line of names painted on a board
connecting back this baby squawking in his tiny three piece suit
to one brought here in time of plague, or war
and to the one who takes him by the ancient font
hands tipping the same water onto newborn heads.
Standing before couples from a world and time away
making the same leap into the same unknown.
Standing - each one - at every coffin’s foot
speaking the words, signing with the cross
before the spadefuls of the same earth fall.
Someone who stands for - what?
What we would all like to believe…?What we the church would like to be…?
What this place of living might become
in our best hopes and hearts…?
A person who stands in for God?
No wonder that we prick the pompous claimdelighting when we bring one down to earth.
But, maybe, in that place where downward V
and upward reach just touch, and hold
someone who wears an old and unloved label
(uncomfortably tight around the neck)
can dare to stand - to stand for us
and say ‘this is our place’
laughable as it is, with all our fears and flaws
our robes of ridicule and bluster,
still, underneath it all, this poor bare soul
dares to stand here
with one hand reaching up to heaven
and one hand reaching down to earth,
pulled half in two, but holding
saying, ‘I am the vicar - your vicar
standing in for you
- this is your place.’
Friday 28 November 2014
Mixed feelings in Snowdonia
After walking the lush green valleys of the Clywd, the Elwy, the Aled and the Conwy, it was sad to see the majesty of the mountains so harshly treated...
Welsh slate
They gouged
deep scars in your beauty
tearing the
skin
blood
flowing hard and grey.
As if in
sympathy
sad terraces
streak your face
running down
to pool
in the
flooded cemetery square.
It’s hard to
see the beauty
under your
disfigurement -
the raw
wounds draw the eye.
The healing
green is slow to grow
on these
dark rocks.
Only the
snow pulls over
a cold white sheet.
Words from a prayer card - by Hub Oosterhuis
Sometimes
your words are like hands
embracing me, enfolding me.
Sometimes
your words are like a sword
piercing to the core of me.
Sometimes
your words are like a net
drawing me in
from the deep waters.
your words are like hands
embracing me, enfolding me.
Sometimes
your words are like a sword
piercing to the core of me.
Sometimes
your words are like a net
drawing me in
from the deep waters.
Thursday 27 November 2014
Retreat gatherings
Sometimes retreats are the settings for profound encounters with God, like the one referred to in this first poem, which was given in the chapel in the picture (and there just happened to be a storm that night). The other poems show the way that 'ordinary life' can take on an extra level of significance to the person on retreat...
Maybe, as I begin to see
Mind This ‘talking with the Lord’ is fine, I’m sure
as long as you don’t think he’s really there.
It was the night of the
thunderstorm
when lightning struck.
In the Woodland Chapel
I sat rooted to my chair
a surprised conductor
of joy.
Happy blending
Silently aware of my
fellow retreatants
in all their rich variety
(which, after four weeks
together in silence, you know)
all tucking into our
vegetable soup
it occurs to me –
God doesn’t hate celery.
Even if, for some of us
it isn’t to our taste
or disagrees with us
- no reference to fellow
diners intended.
Which is good
because I am certainly
some people’s celery.
how much God appreciates
my flavour
that will help me to
acquire
more inclusive tastebuds.
God given
Take a picture
get an experience
steal a look -
our words betray our urgent grasp.
But to receive a gift
requires waiting.
The stream presents its tumbling
notes
singly to the open ear.
The landscape’s complex shape and
pattern
is unfolded slowly to the patient
eye.
The blessing of the birds is laid
gently on the shoulders
of one who pauses under the tree.
Only the heart that is held open -
opened, held -
can receive the slow look of love,
the slow love of God.
Colloquy by Rory Geoghegan SJ |
Inner Colloquy
Mind This ‘talking with the Lord’ is fine, I’m sure
as long as you don’t think he’s really there.
Heart My ‘really’ means much more than what’s
up there
-
I know the love that fills me when he’s near.
Will If I can just let go, then he comes
near
and
answers with his calling my desire.
Soul There is the taste of God in that
desire
and
he becomes the clothing that I wear.
So,
maybe we’ll both differ and concur:
we
know, although we never can be sure.
After the retreat
A wise person once told me about how a retreat marks you. That is my hope...
I know that your soft
hands of love
have smoothed and thinned
the rough hardness around
my heart
to something permeable,
translucent
yielding to the touch.
I know this because
the last yellow leaves of
the hazel
blazing in the hedge
strike joy to the centre
of me,
and the birds collect my
soul
to ride with them
the autumn skies.
In at the deep end
I was sent the first wonderful poem by a friend just before going on my 30 Day Retreat. It stayed with me, resonating with my experience of being wonderfully overwhelmed, with the experience of a fellow retreatant who went swimming every day, and with the from Tagore in a card given to us by our director. The last poem is my own beginnings of a response.
House by the Sea : Carol Bialock
'Traveller, where do you go?'
I go to bathe in the sea in the redd'ning dawn,
along the tree-bordered path.'
'Traveller, where is that sea?'
'There where this river ends its course,
where the dawn opens into morning,
where the day droops to the dusk.'
'Traveller, how many are they who come with you?'
I know not how to count them.
They are travelling all night with their lamps lit,
they are singing all day through land and water.'
'Traveller, how far is the sea?'
'How far is it we all ask?
The rolling roar of its water swells to the sky when we hush our talk.
It ever seems near yet far.'
'Traveller, the sun is waxing strong.'
'Yes, our journey is long and grievous.
Sing who are weary in spirit, sing who are timid of heart.'
'Traveller, what if the night overtakes you?'
'We shall lie down to sleep
till the new morning dawns with its songs,
and the call of the sea floats in the air.'
Going under
We put in a toe
have a paddle
then maybe take the plunge – or fall
into this other way of being.
Barrelling along,
drifting
floating in stillness…
or masked and snorkelled
to look down in wonder at this other world.
Until one day we’re taken by the hand
and gently pulled right under –
discovering that there is no need
for flailing panic or for gasping breath.
This is our element now, and we are in it
fully, fearless and free
gliding with him through the golden light.
House by the Sea : Carol Bialock
I
built my house by the sea.
Not on sand, mind you.
Not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock,
A strong house.
By a strong sea.
And we got well-acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier;
always the sand between.
And then one day
(I still don't know how it happened),
but the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even.
Not sudden and swift, but sifting across the sand like wine.
Less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher,
till it reached my door.
I knew, then, there was neither flight nor death nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling you stop being good neighbors,
Well-acquainted, friendly-from-a-distance neighbors.
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe under water.
Not on sand, mind you.
Not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock,
A strong house.
By a strong sea.
And we got well-acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier;
always the sand between.
And then one day
(I still don't know how it happened),
but the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even.
Not sudden and swift, but sifting across the sand like wine.
Less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher,
till it reached my door.
I knew, then, there was neither flight nor death nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling you stop being good neighbors,
Well-acquainted, friendly-from-a-distance neighbors.
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe under water.
Traveller, where do you go by Rabindranath Tagore
I go to bathe in the sea in the redd'ning dawn,
along the tree-bordered path.'
'Traveller, where is that sea?'
'There where this river ends its course,
where the dawn opens into morning,
where the day droops to the dusk.'
'Traveller, how many are they who come with you?'
I know not how to count them.
They are travelling all night with their lamps lit,
they are singing all day through land and water.'
'Traveller, how far is the sea?'
'How far is it we all ask?
The rolling roar of its water swells to the sky when we hush our talk.
It ever seems near yet far.'
'Traveller, the sun is waxing strong.'
'Yes, our journey is long and grievous.
Sing who are weary in spirit, sing who are timid of heart.'
'Traveller, what if the night overtakes you?'
'We shall lie down to sleep
till the new morning dawns with its songs,
and the call of the sea floats in the air.'
Going under
We put in a toe
have a paddle
then maybe take the plunge – or fall
into this other way of being.
Barrelling along,
drifting
floating in stillness…
or masked and snorkelled
to look down in wonder at this other world.
Until one day we’re taken by the hand
and gently pulled right under –
discovering that there is no need
for flailing panic or for gasping breath.
This is our element now, and we are in it
fully, fearless and free
gliding with him through the golden light.
Pilgrimage meetings
I'm finally getting round to updating the blog with some poems I have written during my sabbatical this Autumn - and hopefully then some of the earlier ones I never put on. Here's the first, inspired by discovering that meeting people (on the North Wales Pilgrim's Way) was even more of a gift than watching the birds...
Watching
You begin
to learn how
if you
just keep your eyes fixed
on that
tree, that group of bushes, where
you
thought you saw
a flash
of wing
a bright
eye looking back
then,
drawn along the line of your attending
from
branch to branch
a
movement in the leaves -
there!
- the
bird will come.
We also
are great hiders,
wary of
the world
keeping
our vulnerable selves
safe in
the topmost branches
or the
deep hedge shadows.
But I am
learning how
if I just
keep my face turned
towards
your face, if I can -
I may
then notice there, with eyes alert
(and
other nameless senses)
the
briefest shadow
or the
flash of fire.
And if I
keep my eyes and heart so still and steady - open
with my
attention fixed and fully given -
then down
along that line between us
may come,
slow inch by inch,
another
such as I
learning
that here is one that can be trusted
teaching
that I can trust this time of meeting
finding
that we can learn to trust together
the one
who watches us.
Sunday 29 September 2013
Ripeness is all...
Plum harvesting
on the day before he leaves for university
We gazed at the spring foam
racing over the branches,
wondering at such beauty
and potential.
We watched anxiously
for the first fruit to appear…
Would they set?
Would the wind knock them off?
The branches looked so fragile.
We caught sight - in unbelief -
of the full clusters, ripening
to warm greens and pinks,
impossibly, suddenly there.
Now the harvesting,
colanders of sweet maturity.
Gathered and shared,
stewed and crumbled,
as we prepare to drop him off
to feast on these autumn days.
And we will wait
thankful, a little sad, and hopeful
for a homecoming jar
of preserves.
Sunday 24 March 2013
Palm Sunday - and afterwards
Palm Sunday
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
from Sounding the Seasons by Malcolm Guite - see malcolmguite.wordpress.com
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
from Sounding the Seasons by Malcolm Guite - see malcolmguite.wordpress.com
Trust
exercise
On looking at the figure of Christ on the
cross in the
chapel of Loyola Hall
Close your eyes.
Put your arms out.
Just let yourself fall back…
He did.
He closed his eyes.
He put out his arms.
He let himself fall.
The ultimate exercise in trust.
And what a catch!
So he can say to us
it’s alright -
God won’t suddenly step back,
he won’t misjudge it,
he won’t take his eye off the ball.
Close your eyes.
Put your arms out.
Let yourself fall…
Dare you?
Friday 15 March 2013
A long way from Bread
Here's a poem passed on by my friend Peter from the wonderful priest-poet, David Scott:
A long way from bread
1
A long way from bread
1
We have come so far from
bread.
Rarely do we hear the clatter of
the mill wheel;
see the flour in every
cranny,
the shaking down of the sack, the
chalk on the door,
the rats, the race, the
pool,
baking day, and the old loaves:
cob, cottage, plaited,
brick.
We have come so far from
bread.
Once the crock said 'BREAD'
and the bread was what was
there,
and the family's arm went deeper
down each day
to find it, and the crust was
favoured.
We have come so far from
bread.
Terrifying is the breach between
wheat and table,
wheat and bread, bread and what
now goes for bread.
Loaves come now in regiments, so
that loaf
is not the word. Hlaf
is one of the oldest words we
have.
2
I go on about bread
because it was to bread
that Jesus trusted
the meaning he had of
himself.
It was an honour for bread
to be the knot in the Lord's
handkerchief
reminding him about himself.
So,
O bread, breakable;
O bread, given;
O bread, a blessing;
count yourself lucky,
bread.
3
Not that I'm against
wafers,
especially the ones produced
under steam
from some hidden nunnery
with our Lord crucified into
them.
They are at least unleavened, and
fit the hand,
without remainder, but it is
still
a long way from bread.
Better for each household to have
its own bread,
daily, enough and to spare,
dough the size of rolled
towel,
for feeding angels
unawares.
Then if the bread is holy,
all that has to do with bread is
holy:
board, knife, cupboard,
so that the gap between all
things is closed
in our attention to the bread of
the day.
4
I know that
'man cannot live on bread
alone'.
I say, let us get the bread
right.
David Scott
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