Category Archives: poetry

The houses of the Kingdom…

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Been doing more Greenbelt thinking- it is only a few days away after all! If you are going to the festival, Aoradh’s worship slot in the Worship Collective (Used to be called New Forms Cafe) is first up- 7.00pm on Friday.

The GB theme this year is ‘dreams of home’, and we have used this to consider something of the contrast between our house-obsessed culture, and the deeper things of home that we long for- resulting for most of us in a kind of yearning, that might be called ‘homesickness’.

For many Christians, this impulse seems to have resulted in a deliberate focus on ‘heaven’- as in some place that we go to when we die. In doing this, the danger is that we enter into that old dual thinking trap- we split into sacred/profane, temporary/eternal. What seems to have happened at times is that our religion became an escape pod from this doomed planet.

This is not the way of Jesus.

How might our homes reflect this then?

I turn once more to the Jesus manifesto from Matthew chapter 5…

 

Beatitudes for houses

 

Blessed is the house of the poor in spirit (for this home belongs to theKingdomofHeaven.)

 

Blessed is the house of those who mourn (for their homes will be places of comfort.)

 

Blessed is the house of the meek (For their house is bigger than the whole earth.)

 

Blessed is the house of those who long for righteousness (for their homes will be pregnant with grace.)

 

Blessed are houses full of mercy (for love will rest in them.)

 

Blessed are the house of the pure in heart (for God will be ever present.)

 

Blessed are the houses of the peacemakers (The sons and daughters of the Living God.)

 

Blessed are the houses that are broken because of Jesus. (The Kingdom of heaven is no earthly insurance policy.)

 

 

 

Asylum…

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Part of our worship event @ Greenbelt festival-

 

There was a concern in the land

In every town the roads were lined with beggars

There were homeless orphans and widows cast out onto the streets

The lunatics were stoned by children

And melancholics drowned their sorrows with gin

The mess of it all was in the middle of us

The Jesus in the least of these

Was weeping

He had no home amongst us

 

So the good people gathered

“What is needed” they said “Is asylum.”

A safe home where broken people can live out their lives in care-

Protected from all of the mess of life

Fed and warm and watered.

So money was gathered

Stones were shaped and raised

Staff were retained and clothed in crisp starched clothing

And the heavy doors were opened wide in welcome

 

And so they came- the halt, the sick, the lame

The motherless and the pregnant child

All those broken by worry and grief

The shakers and the mutterers

All the awkward squad

The outsiders now came inside

They were home at last

 

It went well for a while

All was orderly and planned

Starved frames filled out

Songs were sung again in the entertainment hall

Gardens were laid and tended

Sheets danced in the evening sunlight

And a bell rang out to warn of the dowsing of night candles

 

But time passed, and shadows fell

Budgets were tight, and the paint peeled on windows

The good folk who had once been so generous had other calls on their coin

A few still visited on feast days but for the most part

Out of sight became out of mind.

 

And there was trouble

The awkward squad was still awkward

The asylum split into‘us’ and ‘them’

 

‘We’ had roles- uniforms and clipboards, rotas and registers

Big bunches of keys danced at our belts

We had dreams- of advancement, romance and families

We had homes away from this home

 

‘They’ stood the other side of our desks

Dirty and lacking in motivation

Ungrateful and manipulative

Un co-operative with our assessments

Lacking insight into the nature of their dysfunction.

They had ceased to be like us

Rather, they lived out regulated half-lives

They ceased to be flesh

And became instead a collection of paper

In manila folders

 

Despite all the material provision- something was missing

Despite all the person centred plans, the person was not at the centre

Despite the close press of humanity, there was no family

Despite all the risk assessments, there was no adventure

Despite all the planned activity, there is no purpose

Despite the safety of the high walls, I am still destroyed

 

So it was that care became captivity

Individuals became invisible

And home became hollow

And toxic

And Jesus in the least of these

Was weeping

 

 

 

 

Poetry workshop…

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I ran a poetry workshop today under the umbrella of Michaela and Pauline’s ‘Blue Sky Craft Workshops‘. We spent the morning talking about/reading/writing poetry, and this afternoon people are creating art from words.

I very much enjoyed my bit this morning- it is a real indulgence to immerse myself in words, in good company. The food was good too!

It reminded me of how important it is to create- but also to create together- sharing our stories and experiencing the vulnerability of exposing our skills to the scrutiny of others.

I asked people to write three lines, then talk about them, and they wrote some lovely things- which I will not recreate without permission.

I wrote this, sat for a quiet moment in the mess of our music room/study-

Kind clutter gathers

All dusty

In this mess

Called love

Thanks Prossers!

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We have just had a road trip down to Leyland for an overnight visit to some old friends. Cue lots of laughter and appreciation of shared stories. Things are rarely better than this- friendship, food and mirth all mingled. Andy and I have been making some kind of music together on and off for almost 20 years.

Our other reason for going down south was to do some recording- Andy has a studio in his garage. The idea was to simply record some poetry- which is to be used for a Greenbelt ‘Silent Pilgrimage’. However we got a bit carried away- using music, soundscapes and all sorts of things to weave some things together.

If you are at GB this year, pick up some headphones at the Angels Lounge and I hope you enjoy!

 

 

Home…

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M and I are off work this week- we are experiencing the strange luxury of a holiday at home.

A strange kind of holiday- as we are working really hard. The list of tasks is long- gardening, painting the outside of the house, and if it rains, there is some plumbing and decorating inside.

An old house like ours always demands time money and energy- which always begs the question as to whether we might do something better with all three. Whether we really should be spending so much time creating a space to live in, rather than just getting on with living.

There is slightly more to this though- we are trying to create spaces for hospitality and retreat, both as a means of making our living, and as a means of living with simple integrity. Whether this might ever be a means to fully sustain our family is unclear, but it is a path we are set on. (See here for more information on what we are about.)

It is an interesting point to be asking these questions- as I am also in the middle of trying to create some poetry for a Greenbelt Festival installation- on the theme of ‘Dreams of Home’. So far I have written a few poems and rejected most of them for the project- which involves the broadcasting of poetry at different points around the festival site.

Here is one of the rejected ones- which I suppose is kind of apt-

Home is where the flowers grow

In neatly ordered style

Well betide the weed or slug

Who seeks to there defile

 

Home is castellated

All English men agree

From high suburban battlements

Old Empires can be seen

 

Home is lit by cathode rays

As the sofa eats the day

Home is when the door shuts tight

To keep the world away

 

Home is where we worship

The gods of DIY

With flat pack chipboard altars

Pastel paints to soothe the eye

 

Home is where the mortgage bill

Lands hard upon the soul

The shadow of satanic mills

Pulls us like a black holes

 

Home is where the children

Are heard but seldom seen

They play the X box all night long

Blasting aliens from the screen

 

Home is where the heart breaks

Where lies the empty bed

Home is where these memories

Are made but now lie dead

 

Home seems somewhere far away

We can’t get here from there

This pilgrim Diaspora

Are searching unaware

 

For home is like a twitch

In a phantom missing limb

Like a prophecy of silence

Before the birds begin to sing

 

Home is hidden low

By folding falling ground

It pulls me like a magnet

It’s a well I’m tumbling down

Eden

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We think we were the first to ever feel

.

The first to dream of higher places

The first to fall

The first to scream at sharp things

The first to feel that indescribable sting called love

The first to make music

The first to feel shame shrinking our callow souls

The first to seek the promised land

The first to eat from the tree

Called puberty

.

We were not

.

Long before light could be conjured by a switch

Men and women sat around fires and

Dreamed of starflight

They rose high above the flat old earth

Pregnant with new possibilities

Favour rested on their fields

Wilderness became their garden

.

But every generation grows and leaves home

Sometimes it seems that you and me

Have spent forever

Looking for a way

Back

Greenbelt beckons…

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Aoradh spent tonight planning for some events we have up and coming- including our worship slot at Greenbelt Festival.

Greenbelt suddenly seems close, and we are still really at the ‘playing around with ideas’ stage. However, this is usually my favourite part of any project- the bit where you get to create things out of next to nothing- and how one idea sparks another, then another. The theme this year is ‘Dreams of home’- we are playing with some themes around the Feast of Tabernacles.

I am also doing some poetry with Proost– recorded and available on headsets around the site. I have not written that yet either! To be honest, I am a little worried about this- my poems tend to be so introspective and private- and these poems have to sit alongside those of two really great performance poets- European poetry slam champion Harry Baker and the equally brilliant Padraig O Tuama.

Oh dear- I can’t do that. Or that. I suppose that as ever, I need to stop worrying about what others do, and just trust that what I am/have is enough. I can do that. I think. Perhaps I will write a poem about it.

Anyway- there is lots of good stuff at GB this year- some music I really like- A Show of Hands, Kate Rusby,  as well as headline speakers Rob Bell and Brian McLaren.

If you are going this year, and you read this blog- drop me a line, perhaps we can share a beer/coffee.

Otherwise, Aoradh’s worship slot is on Friday night this year- 7pm I think…

 

 

Awkward…

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When I was a child I saw as a child

Walking scary streets

Avoiding the pavement cracks

Hoping for a God-who-saves

To save me

.

I watched normality, envious

Each window framed  a mysterious montage

Full of the glorious ordinariness of the other

Performing their small evening rituals

Needing no secrets

.

And me, an alien observer

Hidden in the static noise

At the edge of the radar screen

Tentacles twitching

.

It is the gift of the outsider

To see inwards

To linger in doorways

And enter reluctantly

Welcome but wary

Never quite learning how to belong

Peace to you…

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She was back this morning- with both of the kids.

I know they are eating my plants (although, as you can see, the grass is overdue for cutting) but they are such beautiful creatures.

I am reminded of one of Justin’s lovely poems- circulated as part of our Aoradh daily meditations-

Peace to you. Peace with you.

You that sleep without resting

Wake without rising, Peace to you.

.

Peace with you.

You that have grown distant

From the sparrow, Peace to you.

.

Peace with you.

You that wait in some deep

Valley and know it not yet

.

As the beginning of a mountain.

May you be wholly and holy

Peaceful and makers thereof.

.

And while we are on the subject of peace- here is a picture of Michaela and our youngest guest- little Laurie whose parents are staying in the Annexe at the moment.