I would contend that any journey worth making will contain elements of the spirit.

By this, I mean that it will often contain a certain depth of meaning – a kind of inherent significance that is often difficult to define and in hindsight is easily dismissed as romanticism or random seredipity.

These moments of encounter are precious, not because they imbue our ordinaryness with something that feeds our own ego; not because we can boast about them on social media or record them on our smart phones for later consumption. Rather because they draw us towards a truer form of ourselves that is not constrained by our bodies.

This is what the mystics have taught for thousands of years and whilst I can claim no great enlightenment, what I have seen and experienced fills me with something that I would describe as ordinary hope.

We are not only this.

There is not only now.

These transendent moments are fleeting. Even as I try to honour them by noting and naming them, even as I try to capture some of them in the things that I write, I must also acknowledge that I often fail to do justice to the light they bring to my life. I too easily fall back on old destructive patterns, old distractions. I too easily fall into the old dualistic patterns in which my profanity seems entire seperate from anything sacred.

Humanity is complex. It is broken and it is beautiful. It is chained and it is free. It is clever but lives in almost total ignorance. It wraps itself up in a cloak of thick cloth in a futile attempt to hide from the consequences of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Today I want to share an old poem with you, written whilst I was on a ten day silent retreat back in 2014. The poem tries to describe an envy of wild things, whose living seems somehow more complete, more connected, more sacred. It was written from the sudden realisation that the religion I was part of had so much baggage, so many barriers and restrictions, so many uncomfortable obligations and compropmises, so much humanity. I longed for a different kind of journey.

May a bird sing an ordinary song of worship and may we hear it, as if for the first time.

The feathered Eucharist

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Happy are these birds above who

never go to mass.

Happy fragile feathered things with

light not stained by glass.

Blessed are they beak and claw; their air

Is ever sacred.

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Blessed be their treetop temple, each twig

a flying arch.

And sacred is each song that choirs

from sparrows and from larks.

Happy are the crows and cranes

Whose Eucharist is endless.

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And may the vaulted holy sky

Be full of wings as birds fly by

On their way to ruffled worship.

This piece was written by Michaela and and speaks of another kind of immanuel…

Often on a Sunday morning, I am the first up. I boil the kettle, tidy up the kitchen a little, feed the chickens then settle with a cuppa and radio 4, in my favourite corner of the kitchen, often listening to the Sunday morning service.

Sometimes I feel no connection to it, but sometimes, the beauty comes through to me.

Either way, Sunday mornings find me sitting, thinking, clearing my head a little, writing down things that need to be done during the week, so I can switch off and enjoy my Sabbath. Then I have a think about whose birthdays are coming up, who has new babies, or new homes or bad news. Who needs a letter or a card or a call…. It is a most comfortable time.

But last Sunday, I woke still feeling agitated from the week’s news. The dreadful deaths of those seeking refuge was hard enough to hear, but to hear it surrounded by political bias, rhetoric, hard voices, accusations, even celebrations that for people to be seeking such danger shows the ‘achievements’ made in closing off the ports. Achievements. My heart broke. My heart breaks.

Then into the anxiety, the fear of what was to come, the hopelessness.. voices from the radio service…

O Come, O Come, Immanuel.

The hope, the pain of longing, the feeling of being held in waiting..

You can hear a beautiful version of the song here by our friend Yvonne.

Or even better, set aside twenty-five minutes. I promise it will be worth it. Hear Yvonne’s song embedded in some beautiful and hopeful words but Katie Emslie-Smith, spoken at the Steeple Church on Sunday.

KE-S Message 281121_0.mp4

Folowing on from Crawfords post yesterday, this poem seemed apt.

It was my attempt to lift my head towards goodness when it had been bowed down in despair.

(By the way, the photo is of a wildfire that swept over a mountainside above Loch Etive a few years ago. It seemed like the end of everything. It was not.)

The laugh

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When you feel despair at the state of the world,

Do something small.

Ignore those voices without or deep within

Calling you fool for refusing a tyrannical logic

Achieved only by cynical wisdom –

Then do it anyway.

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When you feel broken by all the cruelty the world contains,

Reach out, remembering that humanity

Can only be collectively encountered.

Allow empathy to be an umbilical conduit

For a nutrient called kindness.

What else are we for?

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When overwhelmed by the size of the mountain

Walk slower, saving breath for conversation

For miles pass fast in company, then as words fade

Listen for the fat laugh

Deep down in the belly

Of all that is still becoming.

This comes courtesy of Crawford, with whom I have sat around many firesides. Consider it a companion to yesterdays post. He sent me a photo, and some words describing a climb with his son. Let them speak to you as they will…

Here’s a photo. It’s of snow – so is a bit Christmassy.

The footprints you see are Matthews. We climbed a mountain together.

As I followed in his footsteps it made me consider a few things;

He is now stronger than me and more physically capable – that dented my pride and made me proud.

I was happy for him to plough his own route without waiting for me. I didn’t feel the need to call him back. He was enjoying the journey – as was I.

On occasion he stopped and waited for me patiently. without me asking him to.

When the weather turned and we had to navigate off the hill, he followed me down, trusting me to get us home safe. Following in my footsteps.

It was a time spent in the same place, together but apart. 

There was something unspoken between us about the experience, something precious, a bond.

The pandemic put us all in boxes.

It should not have been a surprise- we were already getting used to them. We had been living ever more individualised, isolated lives for decades. We no longer formed or joined clubs, or went to churches. We even drank alone. The community we make increasingly was on-line, which was better than nothing, but none of us can pretend that it is the real thing.

So much for stating the obvious.

I am an introvert and socialise in the way that many exercise – reluctantly – but I mostly end up enjoying it anyway and know that it is good for me, even though I find it exhausting, particularly if I have to indulge in too much small talk.

Nevertheless, like most people raised as an outsider, I have always idealised community. I thought of it as a secret superpower that could rescue and restore. I spent years of my life trying to make inclusive communities with others like me, discovering (unsurprisingly) that community is hard. It strips you bare. It exposes you to all sorts of discomfort and conflict. It is also often dissapointing, particuarly if you are an idealogue like I am, because the reality of these radical communities that I have longed for is that they are often mundane – boring even – riven by small injustices and petty irritations.

The question is then, do I regret all of my attempts at community making?

Not for one moment. There is no better reason for living. There is no better feeling than friendship, no better experience than one that is shared, no better place to be than a crowded fireside.

What has this to do with advent I hear you ask.

Maranatha.

The heart of the meaning of the word is wrapped up in the very nature of our humanity. We are above all things, social. Even people like me. We are made to be with others, not alone. The meaning we find is one that we share, not one that we make alone. The things we value are things to share with those we love (and we are encouraged to love widely).

The God who was distant comes to us, in friendship, to join our fireside conversations. Not so we will be better individuals, but so we might be better friends.

If you think I overstate this, think again.

Forget friendship as a soft power, and think instead of it as a radical force that might change the world.

Small talk

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Sit with me and speak of the drowning

Not in sorrow, but in those stories

Through which we swim like otters

Let our words be a current

To carry us to places

Not yet spoken

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Sit with me and speak of the dying

Not our own, but of last year’s light

Dimmed like an untrimmed gas mantle

But not-quite extinguished

Even sepia’d by distance, it

Still splits the dark skies

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Sit with me and speak of god

Or whatever we may call her

Let us feed sacred cows

Until the new sun rising in the east

Calls us to take the knee, then

Let our breath be prayer

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Sit with me and share that dream

You cherish whilst awake

Clenched like an incomplete pregnancy

For I would be your midwife

I would see the life in you (and me)

Set free

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Sit with me make a new belonging

In a space that lies wide open

A place where hearts beat on sleeves

Where laughter ebbs and flows, and

Where we know love to be profane

As well as sacred

Speak to me and

I will listen

Today is the first day of advent.

Here on TFT we notice things like that because they might become roads we travel, if we let them. If we decide to walk them…

You might like to walk this one in company. There will be a post here each day heading towards the uncertainty of what the feast of Christmas will bring us this year. I intend for this journey to include lots of guest posts from writers/artists/friends because all long journeys are best made in companionship. (If you want to contribute to this journey, drop me a message.)

This advent will be my mother’s last. She may not make the whole journey, but I would not put it past her to see in another Christmas. I say this because this is the background to my advent journey. It gives an understandable sense of urgency, of vitality, of woundedness and a bitter-sweetness to each moment.

In these circumstances, the Emmanuel of God is not theoretical. It is not theological. Death and dying can be neither of these things. I say this not as an attempt to sell you a God of the last gasp, but because in these circumstances we come up sharp against the pointed truth of our own being.

But Emmanuel is first and foremost about one thing; hope. I feel this inside of me as if the hand of a God was resting gently on the small of my back.

This is what this series of writings and happenings will be about – or at least I think so. I have no plan, except just to keep walking forward in to the great wide open unknown, trusting that we walk towards love.

Emmanuel.

It means ‘God with us’ of course, but what does that mean?

What does it mean to our personal situations, right now? Is the best we can hope for some kind of sticking-plaster God who serves up ancient platitudes from haughty distance?

What does it mean to our world situation? To our damaged planet? To refugees forced out on to open sea? To yawning inequality and grinding poverty?

Emmanuel.

God with us.

The Shalom of God that passes all understanding.

The Shambala of God.

The kingdom/revolution/insurgency of God.

Perhaps these ideas, which came to us as opaque mystery, are simply not to be explained or contained. They can only be walked towards.

The fruit of the spirit is peace…

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After the rain squalling

And the bombs falling

After the back stabbing

And the tongue lashing

After love is betrayed

And dreams disarrayed

When the knife cuts and slashes

After sackcloth and ashes

Comes the peace

.

After the tumours

And cruel vicious rumours

After bodies broken

And evil words spoken

After guns cease their shooting

Troops no longer jack-booting

With the grave trodden down

And the trees turned brown

Comes peace

.

Even after the failure

Of life-long labour

And after deadlines missed

After the getting pissed

When the pressure’s done mounting

And it’s all over-even the shouting

When the race has been run

In the setting of sun

Comes the peace

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When anger burns out

After faith turns to doubt

When we give up on walking

And wolf packs are stalking

When the money is spent

Safety curtains are rent

At the end of all coping

Even Polyanna’s done hoping

Even then

Will fall

My peace

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I first came accross the word ‘hermaneutic’ in the conext of trying to make sense of ancient scripture. In that context, it was a helpful way to understand how the ‘googles’ that we wear, albeit entirely unconsciously, affects what we see. In a wider application, this might mean that the dominant world views that underpin our understanding of the cultures we are embedded in prevent us from seeing things that would otherwise be obvious.

One of the most dominant ideas about who we are within arose from enlightenment thinking. We used to believe that evolution was a process of ascendancy in which naturual forces decide, by process of ‘selection’, how progress continues to be made. More recently, this same logic has dominated our economics, in which ‘nature’ has been replaced by ‘the market’.

Hermaneutic #1

Do not think

Trust instead in evolution

To shape the world, if not for best

At least for least worst

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Do not act

Worlds are not built, they

Emerged as tectonic friction

Then were abraded by natural forces

Beyond our control

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Do not rescue

Let weakness whither

Set the fittest free to celebrate

Ascendancy

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Do not regulate

Let greed sow seeds

Like forest trees, then let

Free markets grow

The market, left to it’s own devices, is then thought to be self-regulating and capable of finding the best solution not just to any economic solutions but to all associated human implications.

Climate change has forced us, kicking and screaming in some cases, to re-evaluate this hermaneutic because free market economics is destroying the very integrated natural ecological system that inspired it.

The second hermaneutic also comes from the natural world. We know already how trees communicate with each other through the mycorrhizal network, but the more we look into this, the more remarkable is the relationship between fungal life (thought to be a third of all life on the planet) and the rest of the natural world. It seems that the truth is inescapable- life is found not in the individual spiecies, but in the ways they connect and interact. The ways the co-operate and support one another.

Hermaneutic #2

Tree is not tree without forest

Bird is not bird without sky

Man is not man on an island alone

With no fruit there is no fruit fly

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Fungus is not just about fungus

It carries the world on its back

It holds under soil the truth of us all

It gives out but also gets back

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In places of disconnection

Between the you and the I

Let mycelium grow and let nutrients flow

Lest we both whither and die

I write this post for two reasons; firstly, I am looking for help. Secondly as an act of deliberate vulnerability.

Almost everyone I know who ‘writes’ feels like an imposter. This is particularly true of poets. Partly this is because the value or quality of writing is very subjective. How do you judge one poem against another? How do we ever know that what we write is ‘good’? Frankly, friends are unreliabe witnesses and even if we get some wider exposure, praise can feel hard to accept.

This might always be true, even when we have been ‘published’. One of the wonderful things that I have done is to curate collections of poetry for Proost, which involved giving previously unpublished poets that delicious sense that someone else had read what they had produced (out of the depths of their being) and liked it so much that they wanted to put it in to print. Whilst I hope and believe that this may well have helped some people along their creative path, in my own experience, the boost that this kind of recognition gives can be fleeting.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that confidence and self belief are necessary for artistic expression. In a post about a decade ago I wrote this;

 …I decided that great art does not require confidence (although as in all things, it may well help) but it does require tremendous courage. Because what we create, we create out of ourselves. And once created, it leaves some tender vulnerable part of ourselves out in the open where the wolves still range…

I have been gathering some work for a new project, which will be entitled something like ‘After the apocalypse’. It is a collection of poetry/meditation in three parts; before, during and after. If you have read my blog before you will already know the themes, but this project deliberately sets the pandemic as the backdrop for protest, hope, activism and change. The intention (when courage allows such a thing) is to take this project on the road somehow with a series of ‘conversation’ events- poetry readings/art/music/discussion – in which I hope we can start to dream together of a better way of being. Not that I have all that worked out yet of course…

I asked Si Smith if he was interested in collaborating, and he graciously said yes. If you don’t know Si’s work, then you should check out his blog here. He is fantastically talented artist, graphic novelist and illustrator. He is also a very generous bloke who has done a lot of curation/support of other artists and I often feel that I have simply asked too much of him. The imposter inside tells me that my work should not sit alongside his. This feeling was made keener when the publisher we were hoping to work with informed me that they were not interested after all. All the old doubts, which never went away, flood out in to the open once again.

Finding a publisher for any written material is very hard, particularly for poetry. I have quite a lot of experience in and around the edge of this world and know well that there are now many routes to market through self-publishing and using on-line resources, but still, a pubisher who knows his/her business is what I am hoping for. The problem of course is that so are thousands of others. How on earth do we cut through the noise and find someone who is willing to give this project a chance?

In the spirit of the sort of vulnerable courage described above, I decided to ask for help.

If you have read anything I have written and found it to have usefulness or value, then you already have my deepest thanks. However, if you also have any contacts or suggestions for a publisher, then I would also be very grateful.

Tomorrow is remembrance Sunday, the day when we remember what happens when we allow international relations to decend in to war, and the terrible human cost that has to be paid in the prosecution of this war.

Or at least this is what I think we are remembering, but with a heavy heart, I have to say that this is perhaps not the primary message being communicated within our culture each year in association with this solemn day,

All war is evil. Some are more evil than others. Those leaders who take us to war do so with the explicit compliance of we, the citizens, fed as we are by images of the noble heroic soldier sacrificed in order to preserve our ‘freedom’. This idea has some historical truth, but this truth obscures as much as it reveals.

I am going to celebrate this day by posting this video, because I think we need to hear from an actual soldier.

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Peace be with you #2

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Peace be with the drunks and the punks and the dirty old bums

Peace on all scroungers and wasters

Peace be on you and peace be on me

Peace be on fakers and haters

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Peace to the takers and road-rage tail-gaters

Peace to the internet trolls

Peace on conspiracy theorists and paid-for think-tankers

Peace to misogynist assholes

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May peace come to rest on the council estates

And fall like spring rain on the suburbs

Let peace be sold cheap in our shopping malls

And quaffed by all boozers and losers

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Peace on Mubarak and Jair Bolsonaro

Peace be on Bashar and Trump

Let peace flow right down on the old hallowed ground

Of Golgotha’s garbage dump