Eternal Echoes

Let me love you ( a prayer)

Let me love you, Beloved.

Let me quietly

and with unutterable simplicity just love you.

Let me love you

with every beat of my heart,

every breath,

every stirring of 

my soul,

and then, in the deep, deep

silence

let me love you...

Let me love you, Beloved,

let me find myself caught up

in you, sheltered in the shadow

of your wing...

in the storm on the sea,

let me love you,

let me love you,

let me find myself in you,

no separation,

no barriers our boundaries

only love,

Let me love you, Beloved,

let me love you...

Image mine

Poem inspired by St John of the Cross

encounter in the park...

in a quiet corner,

on an old bench 

he slept,

curled up under his coat, 

pack of sandwiches at his side,

bottle of water by his feet,

he slept

as the world walked by, 

among the glorious autumnal colours

the families enjoying the falling sun

he slept,

slept with the sun warming his face...

I only hope that the warmth will see

him through the

long cold night ahead,

for I know that he has no home,

I know his name,

and he slept as

I walked by him today

and my heart ached

as

among the glory

I found myself

impotent

again...

into the void I whisper

O Lord, hear my prayer

seeker...

seek first,

seek first the truth

the still small voice,

whose whisper lingers after

the clamour has died away

and hush has finally descended...

+

seek first

the deepest longing 

of your heart,

the longing that still churns

after the frenzy of the day

and stillness has finally settled

upon you...

+

seek first,

and you will find yourself,

be found,

only be aware,

beware 

of what 

you

seek

.

.

.

 

when I call you other

I errect a barrier,

de-humanise and disown you,

I proclaim myself more,

more important,

more worthy,

more...

more and more,

and in claiming more for me,

and in pushing you away,

in bolstering my self,

in hiding my insecurities

I become less,

less because I refuse 

our true connection,

our common humanity,

our likeness

 the image of God...

+

when I call you other

I errect a barrier,

de-humanise and disown you...

+

when I call you other,

I deny myself,

loose myself,

loose...

Photo mine

love (?)

I want to love

a stone,

a frog, an ant,

a teabag...

to find myself in the flow

of love

that knows nothing other than love,

and cannot help but love

all that it sees,

I want to laugh with love,

weep with love,

grow and be grown

in love,

I want to know this unstoppable force

of life

setting me free,

I want to rage with love,

rail against unlove

in love, to

seek life's truest path

through love,

to know and be known in love...

+

I want to love

a stone,

a frog,

an ant,

 a teabag...

life!

picture mine

call me ( a prayer)

star-maker, risk taker,

barrier breaker

call me to life,

draw me beyond my

narrow, shallow visions

into your eternal dance

where the possibilities are

open and endless, 

the horizons unlimited,

show me there the scope of love

held in nail scarred hands

poured from an open side,

love that overcomes,

overwhelms,

oveflows,

unstoppable, unquenchable love...

+

star-maker, risk taker,

barrier breaker

call me to life...

Photo mine

watching (?)

we spend a lot of time

at the tomb,

watching, 

watching, waiting,

watching, praying,

watching hoping,

watching weeping,

we spend a lot of time

at the tomb...

+

but now comes the call to enter,

this tomb, the womb of

transformation,

where new life begins

again,  again in 

the dark

+

we spend a lot of time at 

the tomb watching,

but perhaps the only way to life

is to embrace death

+

 

Image mine

bread and wine, tears and hugs... ( at the Comfort Zone)

This evening in the midst of demands and requests, in the midst of hugs and tears and unsaid prayers, in the midst of being unable to meet need for simple things like tin openers and sleeping bags. In the frustration of not being able to help, knowing that our little drop in the ocean is never enough, of trying to close our ears to grumbles and keep on keeping on, we paused and prayed, broke bread and shared wine...

It was not a nice thing to do, not an add on to the evening but a central point that drew us to the point of being there. As I "laid" the table I was aware that in some sense it was being laid in the presence of the enemy, I don't say this lightly but want to call out a dehumanising system that says to somebody asking for help; "I am sorry you don't meet our criteria" or "I am sorry you are in the wrong place, go home they will help you there", but the fact is that this so called civilised nation has disenfranchised many people from applying for help anywhere, that the message  and the stark reality is that too many are simply passed from pillar to post they don't and can't belong anywhere. In stark contrast the message at the table is simple; "all are welcome".

As I laid the table of welcome in the presence of overwhelming need and frustration at the system and myself, as I poured the wine into the Chalice I was aware more deeply than ever before of the power of the blood of Christ, and the wine was not only blood but also tears and sweat.

This evening the response to communion was overwhelming, real raw prayers were said, heartfelt prayers were said, and God was with us, in the bread, in the wine and in and through one another. When a homeless man who you haven't been able to give a sleeping bag to hugs you and says "you've done more than you can know" you know this truth, God is with us, when prayers are offered for the "staff"  and thanks is given, and we ask for simple things like towels and underpants, God is with us...

Our only response together, to sing Amazing Grace and to hug one another, for God is with us... and so we carry on, for God is with us...

Blackpool a place of beauty and of pain...

silence

...silence falls slowly,

slow-ly, slow--ly,

+

slowly the dis-ease within me

clamouring for attention ebbs & ebbs away...

until the gentler pounding of my heart 

keeps time with the rhythm of the universe,

as the waves beat upon the shore...

+

...at last I am still

still,

still...

+

... there, in the silence

I find my truest face reflected,

and

I am awed by love...

+

The centre piece of a recent painting ( mine)

 

a silent longing...

Not for the first time in recent years I have found myself loosing the will to live when it comes to choosing hymns and songs for worship. It has nothing to do with the age of the material available, nothing to do with the musicians, nothing to do with the setting really, but a lot to do with me and how I  find I relate to God.

I find deep within myself a silent longing, a longing so deep that it moves beyond words and cannot call a 5 hymn prayer sandwich, even with creativity, deep worship and while I lead this type of worship service every week and strive to make it meaningful for all concerned, and I know from feedback that this does happen,  I yearn for something more.

I am hungry for God, not a concept or an idea, or a set of how to rules for living, but for the living God who has made and formed me, the God who knows me inside out and loves me anyway. There are times when I simpy want to say to the gathered congregation " let's go climb a mountain and sit and wait, let's watch the sun move across the sky, let's breathe the air, let's simply be."

Or let's share a meal and chew over this Bible passage, let's mine it for treasures together...

...let's watch a fim... let's ponder a painting, a poem, a place, let's look for God together...

I also yearn for silence, both solitary and corporate, a place where I can let the clamour of even my voice(s) fall away and find the still small voice in the depth of my soul and beyond the edges of the universe.

I think this longing comes from a number of needs within me, first a need to connect my life, my real life with the God I worship, to find that God in the mundane everydayness of stuff, in the joys and sorrows, in the frustrations and celebrations, in the big and the small things. 

It also comes from a real engagement with the gritty stuff of life where there are no easy balck and white answers, where struggle is an everyday experience for the people I love and serve and so becomes an everyday experience for me. When we close the church doors on a cold December evening and say goodbye to folk we know ill be sleeping rough religious platitudes are not merely empty they are insulting. Sometimes we find God more easily through our tears and groaning than our praises. When there are no easy answers, where the rubber hits the road I need to dig deep or I will loose my faith entirely.

I find that I am finding God more these days in poetry and art, in creation in films, music ( not hymns), novels, and more. I see God at work in and through others and am often humbled by what I see and encounter...

... and more than anything I want to escape "I", this post is full of I's and ( here comes another one) I want it to be more about God than me; that is my silent longing! I guess it isn't silent anymore.