I have never been, but the very word still has the capacity to raise tingles at the back of my neck. Jerusalem. A city half in this world, half in the next. For most of us, less an address, more an allegory.

Jerusalem is of course known as the ‘City of God’ and like most other manifestations of the divine on earth, it is a complex mess of misunderstandings and theology mixed up with power struggles and misappropriation.

Jerusalem has been in the news recently for all the usual (bad) reasons. It is now a symbol of division, injustice and the oppression of one population by another, each and every oppressive act justified using ancient texts. Enter America’s first fool, making bombastic proclamations and in the process, smashing a decades worth of efforts to make a negotiated peace.

In an age of spin and media manipulation, Jerusalem is another place onto which we project our prejudices. For many Christians, Zionism has mingled with their narrow interpretation of the Bible to mean that Israel can do not wrong, even when what they are doing is manifestly appalling. Others, seeking to follow the way of Jesus, side with the poor and oppressed, soon having to cope with the fact that there are those on the other side who also have blood on their hands.

Jerusalem. The ancient/modern city, around which history pivots.

Two thousand years ago, a different occupation was being undertaken. A different ethnic group was being oppressed. A different empire was in the ascendancy. Other things were much the same.

Jerusalem

Press of people

Each step thwarts to shuffle

Alien accents scrape the ear

Soldiers shoulder imperial room

(Their curses spat out like spears)

A crash course in city etiquette;

Every eye must be avoided

We give (nor receive) no greeting

Gird on your invisible armour

And wear coins against the skin

The blind hold out empty hands

Children dart out and in

A scented woman advertises soft flesh

Stalls clatter with roughly beaten pans

Someone shouts a warning of the certainty of

Approaching Armageddon

The rich are in their castle

The poor cluster at the gate

Meanwhile, the shadows nurture words of revolution

The old walls have seen it all

Before

The city makes some bigger

Others

Shrink

These days, we in the west regard the Middle East with disdain. It is a war zone, riven with in-fighting. The people there are not like us- they follow a different religion, wear funny clothes. They are less developed than us too- many of them live in primitive squalor. Not to mention the fact that they are dangerous, prone to radicalism and even terrorism. We fear that they will sneak in through the backdoor, smuggling toxic difference into our society.

This view persists, despite the fact that most of us know very little of the realities of life beyond our small island. Perhaps it has always been like this- we fear the outsider and this fear converts to hatred if we are not careful.

Then there is the historical perspective. Once, we were the backward terrorist heathens. We marched behind a cross rather than an ISIS flag, but we were every bit as blinkered and bloodthirsty as the Taliban. We were the bogeymen that kept children in their beds. Meanwhile, for thousands of years, civilisations of the middle east had established great cities with libraries and centres of learning. They mapped the stars, made great scientific and mathematical discoveries, became physicians and poets.

The advent story, when seeking to portray the science of divinity, looked not to the West, but to the East, out towards the ancient Persian seats of learning…

Where, we are told, wise men saw signs and portents in the stars and set out on a journey of discovery…

The scientist

Some search for fame, for fortune

But I search for answers;

Who set the stars in their celestial arcs?

Who pulls back the skirts of the sea?

How many the grains of sand in my hand?

What is the meaning of me?

Where does the stream in the desert rise from?

How does the eagle take wing?

How high are the hills that rise to the west?

Why does the caged bird still sing?

Whose massive bones are cast in this rock?

What is the point of a flea?

How did I come to be born here at all?

Can we ever make alchemy?

So many questions for one short lifetime

How then am I being pulled

(Like a magnet draws iron)

Into this crazy quest

Far away from how

Into primitive Hebrew superstition?

I am hooked like a perch

By a worming words of foolish prophecy

My only excuse is that a light came in the west

And it might just illuminate the biggest question of all;

Why.

Advent, day seven.

Yesterday, we woke to a woods hung up with ice and snow. The dark wet brown of the forest floor, wet from so many weeks of rain, was blanketed with white snow. It was beautiful, like a Christmas card.

Today’s poem is an old friend, written many years ago, at a time when the world seemed dark. Depression stalks many of us, but we are not alone.

We are never alone.

Emmanuel

Evening draws in closer

Frost, it hangs like lace

Tired leaves brown and speckle

Then slowly fall from grace

Sometimes it seems that spring is shackled

And summer fell in deep disgrace

In days like these when darkness seems

To swallow light

I offer you, my friend, this blessing;

Emmanuel

God with us

Advent, day six…

Before everything, was there nothing?

Before we were conceived, before seed, before egg,  before cells divided- nothing?

Or was a space waiting, like an empty womb?

Those of us with faith, and those of us without- we live in the same darkness.

We all wait for light.

Unpregnant

In the corner of my gaze something moved

I blinked

Reminded of almost imperceptible stars

In sky almost black like bruises

Punched through with points of light

Did I form you like an idol from some ancient river bed?

Did I raise you up on a pole?

Are you just déjà vu

For the deluded last few

Will science yet prove us all fools?

But the night whispers

Mist of breath on puckered skin

Like the scent of sea to a sailor

It speaks of a yearning

For all those words unpoemed

Paintings not yet painted

Songs not yet sung

Reeds still to be fluted

Strings still to be strung.

The unpregnant womb

Is still waiting.

Continuing our Advent journey, on day 5 we consider how we might come to imagine a different future.

I see the Bible as a magnificent library of books that record how mankind seeks to understand God. There are many ways to read and engage with the texts but one way that I find meaningful is to see the stories it contains as a process of evolution of understanding; humankind starts in innocence, then we stumbled into acquisition and successions of empire building. All through this process however, there were people who saw differently. People who risked everything to speak a different truth, calling us to a more lovely, more beautiful, more loving (otherwise known as ‘more holy’) version of ourselves.

These people were usually called ‘Prophets’. Men and women who belonged to the awkward squad. They were often irritants, weirdos, wild visionaries. Sometimes people in power listened. Mostly they did not.

Notice friends, that we have tended to understand the word ‘prophecy’ to be concerned with predictions of future events, but this is just one way to understand it. The more common use for the recorded prophetic utterances in the Bible was to speak truth to power. Prophets were people who saw things differently and were brave enough to do something about it. Some things have not changed. We need our prophets more than ever.

The Advent story includes an old man called Simeon who had spent a life time longing for things to be different. You can read about him here.

A shuffling walk, awkward

silences,

followed by strange words,

spat out like spears.

Be still my child

for the Prophet speaks.

“For unto us a child is born.

Unto us a son is given.

And the government shall be

upon his shoulders.”

“The Spirit of the Lord will dance within him;

He will turn the power games upside down

The poor will be his priority

Those locked out will be welcomed in

Fools will open their eyes for the first time

To the debtors

He will shout

jubilee.”

The Prophet was rigid

All angles like a marionette

Eyes shining.

“He is coming.”

“He is coming.”

Day 4 in our Advent journey, and today’s poem is a tribute to those of us who plod on, under heavy burdens, because that is what we have been called to do.

Blessed are you, the wage slaves. Blessed are you as you make the monthly mortgage, as you keep the electric meters turning. Blessed is the shrinking margin that you salt away for summer, and for the purchase of pink plastic things for the kids. For this too is holy.

It takes love to be a donkey. Lots of it.

Another day drops with a dull thud;

Dawns yellow from behind my unpeeled eyes.

I sigh.

Still, this old world keeps turning.

Two cups of coffee and a three rounds of toast

Set me on the road-

For the mortgage must be met

There is the holiday to pay for

And the kids need new shoes.

I’ve played these blues

before.

There is a photograph on the dashboard

Stuck fast with love.

For their sake, this weary way

Is sacred;

It is my plodding pilgrimage.

Each hiss of tyre, another chant

Another spin of my holy prayer wheels.

I smile-

This old world keeps turning.

Continuing our advent journey, here is another poem from We who still wait…

The comparisons are rather obvious don’t you think?

The bones behind his face

Are buried deep under all that privilege

Clothed in a royal robe of bloated flesh

Barely bagged by pampered skin

Puffed up by great importance

But I see him; the boy he once was

Shadowed still in the shape of him

Betrayer of old terrors and teenage fears that

All of the subsequently acquired power

Could never fully vanquish

One day it could all be snatched away

The fear of it stabs at his innards

His knuckles are white with all that grasping

And bloodied by keeping it exclusive

How much could ever be

Enough?

The beginning of the Advent story has nothing to do with Joseph or Mary or stables lit by starlight. Rather it centres around a childless woman weeping because what God has not given her.

Sure, the Gospel of Luke tells of a prophecy of a child to come called John who would be a joy and delight to his aged parents. But that was years down the line. She did not know. Her husband did not believe it possible.

There was just emptiness. Barren emptiness.

Elizabeth

They say every flapping scrap of life is

A brand new miracle

– I see them all in the street

Displayed there by their miracle makers

For the rest of us to worship

But I am earth

Not sky

I am dry desert soil

Blown around in the ordinary wind

I am empty

And can never be full

What use have I with all this holiness

If I am never whole?

Meanwhile in the temple

An angel

Whispered

Today, advent begins.

It is a season often out-clamoured by the churn and burn of preparation, in which we have no time for waiting. There is no time for quiet reflection when there are all those presents to buy.

It is an easy criticism because advertisements give us all the cultural indicators that we could ever want. It is they who define the season of advent after all. It seems that we need to order a new sofa and a new carpet for Christmas, and that Christmas is about… football.

But I would like to give you this seasonal invitation;

Take time. Peel back the surface of the season, just a little. Look a little more deeply when you can. Breathe deeply and remember that there is more. It may be wrapped up in mystery, but there is better- there is love. When you look for it, it is everywhere.

And what better to assist us on this gentle quest, than poetry?

So, as the advent season unfolds, I am going to offer you a poem each day- ones taken from this book; We who still wait. (If you should order a copy, you will get to immerse yourself in Ian’s meditations and Steve’s photographs also…)

So, on this first Sunday of Advent, we begin our season of waiting…

Advent 1

Here we are again.

Starting a new journey towards hope.

Setting out in uncertain times

towards a rumour glimpsed only in the shape of the stars

and the smell of something strange

in the changing of the weather.

Have I journey left in these brittle bones

what did it ever mean before?

How many false donkeys and tin foil angels can one man take?

We know that this Messiah fell from heaven not

on feathers, but to the stab and scratch of straw.

I get the humility, but when will things be different?

When will Kalashnikovs be melted into spades?

When will missiles be just fireworks in the shining sky?

When will Lions chose to nurture Lambs?

But here I am again

Starting a new journey towards hope

New moon sighs in sky anew

Younger now than me and you

What are we to do?

Emily is twenty two