Category Archives: poetry

Reviewing the back catalogue…

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I am doing some work on a new collection of poetry.

I have been writing poetry for many years- with spikes and troughs of productivity. I wanted to do something with some of the things I had written. It is hard work though- I find looking at things that I wrote a few years ago quite hard. The emotional meaning that they bring to me is muted by the passage of time, and for me poetry is perhaps above all an emotional thing.

Others may focus on the technical and cerebral aspects of poetry, but I think I am a bit too lazy for all that stuff… although I tinker a bit on the edges.

So rather than doing what I should be doing and organising and editing, I am writing new things.

I did come across this the other day though-

Meaning

.

At the end of it all,

When history finally catches up with its vanishing point

What elements of you and me will still carry meaning?

Are we really no more than a knot along an evolutionary string?

Perhaps near the end

But then again, what a conceit that is-

Maybe we are nearer the beginning

.

Will all things pass,

Or are we elemental

Like the carbon molecules that mould us?

.

What might survive?

Truth
Beauty
Grace
Poetry singing in the soul
The flicker of a rising sun
In an old man’s eyes
The heart stings of hope
And the passing of glances
From father
To son
.
For what value have frescoes?
Icons?
But the truth they speak
Is in the filter
Of the eyes
They fall on
.

I am brought back to the Bible

Like a phantom itch in a missing limb.
.
To the cynical meanderings of the writer of Ecclesiastes.
And the beginning of it all in Genesis.
.
The end described in the wild narcotics of the Apocalypse of John.
.
And I stand still on the promise of a new kingdom
Here on the earth

But interconnected with a mysterious elsewhere

.
And the soft uncertain space

.
Within

English Cathedrals…

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I read recently that attendance at services held within English Cathedrals are growing around 4% each year since the Millennium.

No surprise really. What they offer to post modern people is a connection to something pre-modern- a rediscovery of a liturgical and spiritual tradition that goes back a thousand years. It is made visible in a ancient glass and stone, and comes alive with the continued traditions of worship and seasonal observation.

I love Cathedrals. They are one of the things that I really miss about England. They survived the puritans and the Civil War almost intact, and continue to be at the heart of most of the major cities.

On the way back from out recent trip to Telford, Michaela and I visited Lichfield Cathedral, and attended the end of the afternoon service. There has been a Cathedral here since 700 AD, built to house the bones of St Chad. Fragments of this building remain, along with the Lichfield Gospels which date to around 730AD.

But the impact of the place on Michaela and I was not anything to do with historical facts though. We sat in awe as the light filtered into the ancient building. And the sound of the choir singing away in the distance found a way through the old stone arches.

And we both cried…

Cathedrals make me cry

It was the powdered bones of St Chad

Mingled with the dust made

By the masons in the soaring north transept-

Some of it lodged in my eye

.

Or perhaps it was a glint in the light

Falling through ancient glass

On a flag floor polished into smooth undulations

By the leather of a hundred thousand pilgrims

.

Or perhaps it was the west wing

Stuffed with memorials to men speared and shot

In empire battles long forgotten

Tattered ensigns flying the cross of Jesus over genocide

Or perhaps it was the music of a choir

At first half heard and half imagined

Like the very stones breathing

Then a rolling on me like a wave, lifting me on a last Amen

.

I know not what will bring meaning

To men 1000 years from now

Or what towers they will point towards God

All I know

Is that Cathedrals make me cry

Aliens and the life of faith…

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I was thinking about aliens today.

Like you do…

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

God does not change.

Truth is eternal.

The Protestant adventure is made up of a thousand battles over truth, as if doctrine was ever the most important thing.

But our understanding of God and our grasp on what is truth certainly does change. If it does not, then faith will be broken as perspectives shift. But always there is this tension between those who resist the change, and others who feel drawn into new theological (heretical) adventures.

It was ever thus.

The medieval world view of the nature of the earth and the heavens, and the sun and the stars (gleaned from a reading of Genesis) was blown apart by people who circumnavigated the globe, and others who mapped the orbit of the earth around its distant sun.

The modern age dawned with constant scientific discovery- each one seeming to make God smaller- to force him into the gaps where superstition was yet to be replaced by hard science. And Christians had to accommodate this new age of enlightenment, reinventing faith as a kind of science- with the Bible used as a technical blueprint to engineer disciples.

But back to the little green men…

What if we are not alone in the universe?

What if in all the millions of galaxies out there, there are lots of planets just like ours- with just the right combinations of atoms and energy to make genesis and then to sustain unfolding life?

Or what if the conditions on earth that allowed for creation to unfold are unique? What if we are indeed a kind of one in one billion billion accident? Might there come a time when we know this for sure?

Either way- what implications does this have for the life of faith?

I would suggest that either way- Hebrews 13 verse 8 remains true.

But we Christians might have to rethink the narrow boxes that we tried to place God in…

A time to hate

There is a time for all things under heaven…

.

One summer evening I lay on my back as the light leached from the passing day

And watched the stars slowly flicker into the frame of the darkening sky

At first one here, another there

Then all of a sudden the sky was infinite

Full of fragile tender points of ancient light

Some of which started its journey towards us before there was an ‘us’

And I wonder

Is there someone up there

Raising his tentacles to the night sky

And using one of his brains

To wonder about me?

.

And should this unseen and oddly shaped brother across the huge expanses

Seek contact

What would he make of us?

.

I heard an astronomer speak once about the possibility of life elsewhere

In this beautiful ever expanding universe

He had come to believe that intelligent life will always

Find ever more ingenious ways

To destroy itself

.

And I fear the truth of this

That somewhere in the messy beauty of humanity

We nurture an evil seed –

Grow it in an industrial compost of scientific creativity

Water it with greed and avarice

And hot house it in a mad competition for the first fruits

Lest our neighbours get to market first

And once we work up production

There is no going back

No squeezing back the genie into the oil can

There is only the need for bigger, better

.

And the defending and defeating

And the ranging of rockets

Exploit whoever

Denude wherever

And if anyone should get in the way

Dehumanise

Overcome

Or destroy

Set up barb wire borders

Teach one another

To hate

.

So for the sake of green men

And Scottish men

May we yet stand before the eternal night

And decide that truth and beauty and grace will be our legacy

In this fragile passing place that God gave us

.

May we decide that now is not

The time

To hate

From ‘Listing’.

Aoradh family day…

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Some Aoradh folk met today for our monthly time to eating a meal and worshipping. 18 of us sat around our garden table- including some of Michaela’s family who are visiting from Nottinghamshire.

As ever it was great. We ate, laughed, the kids played and danced.

And it was Paul’s birthday! Hope it is a good year…

After the meal we spent some time thinking about setting out on new journeys- letting the wind of the Spirit blow- and remembering the old practice of peregrinatio.

To help us visualise this, we made paper boats, wrote prayers on them, and set them sailing on the Clyde. Watching them disappear out on the mighty river was magical. We hope this compensates for the little bit of extra flotsam (or is it jetsom?) that we added to the old river.

We read some poems, and a prayer together. I loved this- borrowed from Mark Berry (here)–

Three loads I carry as I walk,
Three packs I balance on my back.
Each one I meticulously packed,
Each I carefully stowed and strapped down hard.
Not one I felt I could leave behind,
Not one could I do without.
Three weights I feel dig in my shoulder,
Each one present and distinct,
Pulling me in different directions,
Making my way harder than it seems,
Causing me to miss my step and trip,
Yet often they feel as one,
So tightly are they bound together,
So long have I carried them.
At times they feel alien jabbing and ripping me,
At times they are part of me.
They are things of great value to me,
Things that make me who I know I am,
Things that give me place and time,
Things that though at time they give me pain,
Are me.

One great sack carries all I hold of worth,
All that I think I love,
All that I hope never to lose.
How could it be possible to leave this bag?
I could no more cut off my arm or leg!
This I bind closest to me,
I wear it next to my back,
This load gives me stability,
It sures me when I feel feeble.
It is my frame, yet still it is heavy.

One carries all my certainty,
That which I have no doubt is ordained.
In each part a word or thought,
A prayer or poem which gives me purpose,
It is what keeps me on.
It holds my map, my itinerary.
How could I abandon all this,
For whom should I walk,
Which way should I go,
How would I know, how could I be sure?

One load binds all three,
It wraps around the other two,
At times holding them,
At times pushing them sharply into my skin.
My fears I carry in this last bag,
My fear of losing the others,
My fear of walking alone,
My fear of being lost.
My fear of being pointless,
Of going nowhere, of being no-one.

But,
All this speaks of me; my loves, my faith, my fears.
My scale of what is valuable,
My sense of what is good and right,
My insecurity.
I am content in each step and yet I count each mile,
I want to pass, to savour each view,
To go the places I could not plan to visit,
I want in each to leave something of me, something good behind.
Somehow, I don’t know how,
I know I must risk leaving parts of me by the road.
I must give up my load,
Lay down my pack.
Not in wild abandon,
But in faithful surrender.

Cricket…

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The grass is too long

Mossed by a hundred wet summers

Rolling in from the western sea

Deadening the bounce

And flattering my feeble attempts

At shape and spin

Cutting out all shots

Apart from sweep and drive

.

But to me and my boy

This too is sacred turf

Our ‘Lords’

.

Where memories are made

By crafty curl of leather

And the joyous crack of willow

As the bat hallelujahs its connection

.

And the trees around the field

Clap their hands

Making visual prayers…

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We spent some time sticking pictures at housegroup last night.

We had gathered loads of clippings from newspapers and magazines, and used them to construct a great big prayer of thankfulness.

And there was much laughter, and much friendship.

Which was a kind of prayer too…

Michaela read this poem by Robert Siegel–

A Song of Praises

for the gray nudge of dawn at the window

for the chill that hangs around the bed and slips its cold tongue under the covers

for the cat who walks over my face purring murderously

for the warmth of the hip next to mine and sweet lethargy

for the cranking up the hill of the will until it turns me out of bed

for the robe’s warm caress along arm and shank

for the welcome of hot water, the dissolving of the nights stiff mask in the soft washcloth

for the light along the white porcelain sink

for the toothbrush’s savoury invasion of the tomb of the mouth and the resurrection of the breath

for the warm lather and the scrape of the razor and the skin smooth and pink that emerges

for the steam of the shower, the apprehensive shiver and then

its warm enfolding of the shoulders

its falling on the head like grace

its anointing of the whole body

and the soap’s smooth absolution

for the rough nap of the towel and its message to each skin cell

for the hairbrush’s pulling and pulling, waking the root of each hair

for the reassuring snap of elastic

for the hug of the belt that pulls all together

for the smell of coffee rising up the stairs announcing paradise

for the glass of golden juice in which light is condensed and the grapefruit’s sweet flesh

for the incense of butter on toast

for the eggs, like twin peaks over which the sun rises

and the jam for which the strawberries of summer have saved themselves

for the light whose long shaft lifts the kitchen into the realms of day

for Mozart elegantly measuring out the gazebos of heaven on the radio

and her face, for whom the kettle sings, and the coffee percs

and all the yellow birds in the wallpaper spread their wings

Ahhh.

I think I like this bloke’s poems.

(Although to be honest, I am not usually that grateful in the morning.)

Conflict…

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It has been a difficult period for Michaela and me. Life has thrown a few challenges our way over the last few months.

Recently we seem to have found ourselves in the middle of more conflict. Both of us are having a hard time at work, and there has been one or two other issues that have arisen closer to home.

I continue to find conflict so difficult. It disables me. I am caught between wanting to rise up and smite the ‘enemy’ with my club, and the strong conviction that we are called to a way of loving and peace making. Yes there is a time to stand up and be counted, but in my experience, conflict rarely brings the best out of anyone, and the ground we defend easily becomes poisoned- even when are relatively innocent parties.

Conflict also tends to reduce us to the core of who we are- the masks come off, and we are suddenly 15 years old again.

I have found no easy answers- and recognise my own dysfunction whilst hoping for better things.

Because conflict will come to all of us in some form, even if we attempt to live an insulated life- but all the more so if we follow the way of Jesus and set ourselves towards living more openly and deeply.

So I do what I often do in the face of the challenge of life, and start to write…

Conflict

It squeezes me stiff and sore

Making my brain beat slowly

Taking me down

Bending me like a creaking tree

In an angry wind

I wish I were stronger

Firmer of each conviction

More able to articulate-

Striped in black and white

Not a million shades

Of grey

But aged 43

The man I am

Always I will be

Soft and fragile

Skin thin and stretched

Too easily pricked

And too anxiously defended

Turn me Lord to tenderness

Teach me to forgive

In this sharp and ragged place

Point my way to peace

Because when I am right, I’m also wrong

This castle

Is built on sinking ground

Peregrinatio…

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Tomorrow we set sail.

I am not quite sure what we will find when we land on Jura.

Neither am I quite sure how the whole social thing will work out- we are forming a temporary community of people who mostly do not know each other.

We are hoping to spend time seeking after God, but he can be so mysterious can’t he?

What I am reminded of is that old Celtic monastic tradition of peregrinatio, or ‘Holy voyaging’, which in practice meant to get in a boat, and simply to set sail. No destination planned, simply trusting to tide, wind and God. The destination of such a voyage was not geographical, but rather spiritual. The goal was to arrive at ones ‘place of resurrection.’ Arriving at journey’s end inevitably meant an actual physical place also however- and it is these places that still hold the memory of these voyages all over Argyll- in the place names, the folk lore, and also in the marks and mounds in the earth out on exposed headlands, or on tiny islands.

So, in anticipation of our own homecoming, I am going to re-post a poem that I wrote a few years ago, dedicated to that great voyaging monk, St Brendan–

Lord stain me with salt

Brine me with the badge of the deep sea sailor

I have spent too long

On concrete ground.

If hope raises up these tattered sails

Will you send for me

A fair and steady wind?