help me to fall
into the deathless
depths of you,
where light and dark
are one, where I am
found in the losing and loosing
of my finite being
+
help me to break free
from smallness,
from false boundaries,
from self centered
decisions and divisions
that seperate me
from my soul
+
help me
to move beyond control
into the eternal dance of
love and life and light,
where grace abounds,
where healing
becomes more than
possibility
and I become myself
in you
+
Oh that you would
tear open the heavens
and come down.....
+
What use is infant flesh,
fragile vulnerable and mute
from all but mewling?
+
What answer is this
to a world in pain?
+
Why add to our confusion?
What good is this to peoples
destroying one another
and the earth?
+
What use to famine,
disease, dis-ease,
heart-break and war?
+
Shake the earth,
split the heavens
COME!
+
"Follow me"
I hear a still small voice;
"Follow me,
take the downward, inward
journey, the less
trodden path..."
+
TEAR OPEN THE HEAVENS
my heart is screaming....
+
"Open your heart"
the Spirit whispers now...
+
"Open your heart,
for I am here..."
+
"Follow me...."
Image mine
(Isaiah 64: 1)
This is an old post re-blogged, it has been searched several times today, and it certainly struck a chord with me;
Dear God,
I'm finding it hard to talk to you at the moment, I guess I am worried that you will answer me, and then I'd have to acknowledge your voice! But I am lost without your guidance, and wandering this wilderness I keep finding myself in the same places, facing the same questions...
Sometimes I think that what I'd really like is a map, or a set of definite directions, leaving me with no doubts showing me which way to turn and how fast to go...but you answer my questions with questions, and challenge me to think. You leave lots of grey areas, some folk declare them black and white, and draw definite lines and claim to speak for you; but they are often brittle and hard and somehow I don't recognise you in them at all!
There was a time when I found prayer and worship easy, when I thought I knew your ways, and life seemed simple, if not easy it was at least straightforward. But now I don't even know what to call you half the time, and songs once sung so easily stick in my throat....
And yet, under all the confusion that is me I know you are there, and you have not changed, but you have changed me, and the changes have caused me to question, not you so much as my own assumptions, my narrow views could no longer hold your vastness, and the banks of the narrow channel have burst, and you it seems appear in the most unlikely places!
So I need a new song, and a new way of praying, and I guess the enormity of that is what is keeping me silent...but I need to sing, to speak, to worship... I need your Spirit to fill and mould me, and I can no longer hold back, for being empty is more painful than being overwhelmed, and so I am asking for your help again, your strength not mine, your still small voice to speak through the mess and muddle of my thoughts... your peace, your love and your joy...
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth..
Image; Break through (mine)
...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)
who will weep
for the children,
who will cry a river
of tears
and pray with
wordless groans
from a heart
rent by horror?
Children on mountain tops
dying of thirst,
children orphaned,
bleeding and blackened by
bombing as
the world goes mad around them,
children hacked in two
mothers raped,
father hanged....
who will weep,
who will speak,
who will stand and shout
THIS IS WRONG,
WRONG,
WRONG?
Who will weep?
Who will dare to catch
the heartbeat of God
and join him in his groaning?
Image: Inner Journey ( mine)
...here it is
this bitter gall
that cries out for revenge,
and demands justice on
its own terms,
destructive and demanding
it turns me on myself
and has the power to consume
all of the good in me,
+
...it screams with hurt,
howls with pain,
but I will NOT be destroyed
by it,
I will call it what it is,
a small quaking thing,
needing my compassion
not my denial or
my fear, so
I will hold it
'til it knows only love,
and we are both transformed.
Image; Waves of Grace ( mine)
This poem is deeply personal, some will know my story and others will not, I am not going to tell it here, but I am going to talk about one of the things I find hardest of all, that thing is accepting and loving myself. Over recent months it has become clear to me that the reason for this is that I do not deal well with negative emotions, I want to smooth things over and put things right, even hide from them rather than seeing them for what they are and allowing God into that space where a work of transformation can begin.
I am beginning to learn something new, that negative emotions are OK and can be expressed and given over to good, that God works in the dark as well as the light and perhaps often at deeper levels in the dark. I am learning to have patience and compassion with myself and discovering that that compassion sets me free because I am telling the truth about myself.
This may of course seem plainly obvious to many, but I don't think we talk about anger very much in Christian circles, I think we tend to brush things under the carpet and try to ignore them, very often there is an eventual explosion, but again we hide from it because it is unacceptable, and surely we should "just be loving". Some of this discovery has come about from reading two books by Richard Rhor; Dancing Standing Still, and The Enneagram; A Christian Perspective. I hope to write more about both of these soon.
I am not sure how to truly name this post; it is the result of reflection and meditation and the bulk of it comes in the form of a prayer. It comes from a reawakening of a sort, an acknowledgement of the uniqueness of Christ, which while it is something I have not denied the focus on the lover of MY soul had become somewhat muted in an attempt to distance myself from an ineffective it is all about me thinking that limits the love of God to a chosen few.
It is an acknowledgement that I cannot live a life of love and faith on my own, a desire to be reoriented, re-centered upon Christ as the source of my salvation, and from a desire to restate the uniqueness of the Christian faith; I find myself praying Peter's words; "to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life..."
I can't really explain it, it is a heart thing, so I offer my prayer;
You did not shrink
from the cross,
and though you struggled with death
you overcame,
but went there for love,
even love for me...
this is hard to grasp,
more comfortable to overlook,
to rush to resurrection,
or even to dwell with
the cold sleep of the
Saturday tomb
than to face the agony of the cross,
Love in self giving
sacrificial action,
bleeding dying,
even for me...
you are not my personal Saviour alone,
Yet you are mine,
I am yours,
and you are mine,
there can be no other,
it is you who invites me into life,
you whose outstretch arms
embrace me,
you who have given all
for all,
even for me...
Help me then to receive your love,
your life, your fullness,
Plant your love
in the depths of my heart,
let it grow and flow,
let it burn and surge
compelling me to life,
to love,
to the unforced rythms of grace,
set on you,
in you,
my one focused centre,
my love,
my life
Here I am again Lord,
starting again,
a new day. a clean slate,
a fresh resolve,
ready ( well not ready),
but willing to step out,
to trust myself to
the calling you have placed
upon me...
...knowing that more often than not
I am the biggest hypocrite
of all.
+
Here I am again Lord,
starting again,
a new day. a clean slate,
a fresh resolve.
As I go into your world
help me to find you
not only in the beauty,
but in the mes and the muddle,
and the spaces in-between,
help me to find you...
...even in the depths of
my soul
+
Here I am again Lord,
starting again,
a new day, a clean slate,
a fresh resolve.
I have been here before,
and I've stumbled,
and I've fallen,
in ignorance, in weakness,
and yes from time to time through
my own deliberate choices...
so here I am again Lord,
praying that you'll lift me
praying that you'll grant me
grace and the strength to carry on
+
Here I am,
here I am again Lord...
The table at North Shore with paper, candles, and blankets for prayers
tonight we met,
we ate we laughed,
we talked,
we prayed,
we shared stories of hope,
stories of heartbreak,
stories of depth
and of despair,
we hugged,
we loved,
we fought back tears
and choked on a few
angry words,
there were questions,
frustrations,
tensions and tears,
in in the midst was God,
opening our eyes
and hearts,
calling us to find him
in one another
and in the breaking of the bread,
a holy moment
to sustain us,
hold us, nourish us
connect us,
and heal us
until we meet again.....
The Comfort Zone is a drop in for homeless and needy people in Blackpool it is situated at North Shore Methodist Church, but it is more than that, it is a community of folk who share their lives with one another. There is real love here in the midst of our human brokenness, volunteers and clients mix as one, and often the lines are blurred over who is helping/ ministering to who. Tonight I gave and received hugs, we broke bread together, and I saw the heartbreak of God for his people in the eyes of a young woman more hungry for God than for her jacket potato. I often feel that I cannot do enough, and God comes close and fills in the gaps, we meet him together, and that is the mystery of grace...
deeper and deeper,
down and down,
in the depths
you call me
aside, draw me into
the numinous darkness
where healing flows free,
in the safety of your presence
I let go,
I am known,
there is no holding back here,
no pretending,
masks are laid aside,
forgotten,
unnecessary now
for I am hidden
and fully seen
broken,
yet whole,
empty
but overflowing,
deeper and deeper,
down and down,
I answer your call, and
I find myself
wrapped in your
grace...
This poem came from some of my recent thinking about and reading about prayer, these thoughts from Richard Rhor's meditation yesterday really spoke to me today;
"In many ways prayer—certainly contemplative prayer or meditation—is planned and organized failure. If you’re not prepared for failure, you’ll avoid prayer, and that’s what most people do. Prayer is typically not an experience of immediate union, satisfaction, or joy; in fact, quite the opposite. Usually you meet your own incapacity for and resistance to union. You encounter your thinking, judging, controlling, accusing, blaming, fearing mind. So why pray?
Julian of Norwich, my favorite mystic, uses the word “sin” to mean a state of separateness or disunion. She writes that you become aware of your state of resistance or separateness, and then when you try to sink into the experience of one-ing—Julian’s word for unitive consciousness—you realize you can’t get there by yourself. You can’t make it happen. You can’t make yourself one.
Julian writes in Revelations of Divine Love (Chapter 78), “Only in the falling apart of your own foundation can you experience God as your total foundation and your real foundation.” Otherwise you keep creating your own foundation, by your own righteousness, by your own intelligent and holy thoughts. Julian describes this reality in terms of what God does: God reveals God’s-self as your authentic foundation.
What we’re doing in prayer is letting our self-made foundation (or False Self) crumble so that God’s foundation can be our reality. Prayer is a practice in failure that overcomes our resistance to union with Love. Let’s fall into and rest in that Love one more time. . . ."
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