November

As I contemplated digging myself out from under a heap of purring feline to engage with the world (and specifically with two dogs in dire need of a bracing walk) I found myself remembering this..

November

by Thomas Hood

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--
No "t'other side the way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!

No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No park--no ring--no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!

So many gifts

are given, unlooked for, in ministry.

Over the past few weeks, I've been ministered to again and again by V., as she and her husband together looked honestly at her cancer, shared longings, griefs, hopes and fears...Bless them, they included me unconditionally on this journey, and whenever I visited I came away refreshed, encouraged. They trusted me with so much, affirmed my priesthood in countless ways, blessed me whenever I encountered them.

I visited with Communion yesterday, but V didn't feel up to receiving, so instead I left her a holding cross I'd bought for her in Bath last week, and that lovely prayer of Augustine's that gets me through even the most anxious nights. We agreed that we'd pray it together sometime around 10.00 most evenings, but tonight it wasn't even 9.30 when I answered the phone to hear that V had gone quietly home to God two hours ago. I wish I had been able to pray with her one more time. In her dying, as in her life, she gave a great deal and I thank God that I knew her.

These words by the ever wonderful Stewart Henderson are not mine to post, but I hope I'll be forgiven as they say so much of what I'm feeling tonight.

Go well, V....to eternal rest and light perpetual.

this day in paradise
new feet are treading through
high halls of gold

this day in paradise
new legs are striding over jewelled fields in which
the diamond
is considered ordinary

this day in paradise
new eyes have glimpsed the deep fire ready
to flame the stale earth pure

this day in paradise
new blood, the rose red juice that gushed at golgotha
now ripples and races down the pure veins
of a recently arrived beloved

this day in paradise
a new heart pounds in praise
a new body shaped by sacrifice

this day in paradise
the daunting dart of death
has no point
no place
and no meaning

and whilst we mourn and weep
through these human hours
this day in paradise
the blazing embrace
between saviour and son goes on and on and on...

(by stewart henderson)

Happy Birthday dear John...

Milton's 400th Birthday today... So many wonderful words (though I found him very hard going as an undergraduate - and still don't enjoy reading Paradise Lost in its entirety)...such a strong influence on English literature and thought....and on music too. Hard to choose what to post to celebrate today - (but despite the age old choristers' pun that transforms this into "Best pair of nylons") this wins hands down. It's just fantastic - so visual...and such marvellous music too...
I love it.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC
BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'ns joy,
Sphear-born harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Vers,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce,
And to our high-rais'd phantasie present,
That undisturbèd Song of pure content,
Ay sung before the saphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits theron
With Saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud up-lifted Angel trumpets blow,
And the Cherubick host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal Harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,
Hymns devout and holy Psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on Earth with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd sin
Jarr'd against natures chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd
In perfect Diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that Song,
And keep in tune with Heav'n, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endles morn of light.

You don't have to have x ray vision to have deduced that I have an on-going struggle with Remembrance Sunday, and the associated rituals (another 2 minute silence at 11 today, the date of the WW1 Armistice itself) and some of my disquiet was very well aired in an article on the Ekklesia site (ht Dr Moose)

The church is uniquely placed to bring such a perspective. Its new position in post-Christendom may call it to have less focus on the nation state, and call society to a broader view to remember both friends and enemies.

If we accept the Remembrance Day rhetoric, that soldiers laid down their lives to give us the liberties we enjoy today, then surely that must include the freedom to choose how we remember the dead, and say what we believe? Indeed, it does a disservice to their memory not to allow such choice and conscience to be expressed.

Remembrance Sunday needs to experience the liberation to which is pays lip service. The church should be the freedom fighter to bring it.

Dr Moose is almost certainly right that they have over simplified in order to make their point, but nonetheless...

However, because I do not wish in any way to minimise the sacrifice of those whose death has transformed them from ordinary men - scared, angry, homesick, heartsick - into heroes "Whose name liveth for evermore" I'll leave these Remembrance reflections with the words of one who surely had more right than most to comment, Wilfred Owen. That final couplet makes me shiver whenever I read it...

The Parable of the Old Man & the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Sleepy Sunday

For various reasons, not unconnected with the last post, I didn't get alot of sleep last night, so this afternoon after the usual happy round of morning worship and a double baptism for two delightful little girls just after lunch, I subsided on the sofa with Serafina the laptop...I was just dozing off when inspiration struck.
For the past three weeks, since the second day of our holiday in fact, I have been tormented by a line of poetry that I couldn't place. For some strange reason which even I can't fathom, I didn't feel I could just google the line...so I asked around, but even Hattie Gandhi's writing friends were stumped and so I pondered and wondered and even fulminated just a little.
And then, like magic, as Hattie Gandhi and Storytelling Photographer friend were telling me once again how completely they hadn't recognised the line it came to me.
FERN HILL!
Dylan Thomas.
I was sure of it...and with that conviction google became an instantly viable option. Within seconds there it was, complete with the line that had tormented me (the last line of the poem, if you really want to know) - and I remembered once again how beautiful this writing is, and thought of the day it was handed out to us as our first piece of Practical Criticism with Deeply Scary Don in my first term at Cambridge. Despite my terror, I adored the poem and I still do.

FERN HILL

 Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
 About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
   The night above the dingle starry,
     Time let me hail and climb
   Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
 And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
 And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
     Trail with daisies and barley
   Down the rivers of the windfall light.

 And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
 About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
   In the sun that is young once only,
     Time let me play and be
   Golden in the mercy of his means,
 And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
 Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
     And the sabbath rang slowly
   In the pebbles of the holy streams.

 All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
 Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
   And playing, lovely and watery
     And fire green as grass.
   And nightly under the simple stars
 As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
 All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
   Flying with the ricks, and the horses
     Flashing into the dark.

 And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
 With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
   Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
     The sky gathered again
   And the sun grew round that very day.
 So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
 In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
   Out of the whinnying green stable
     On to the fields of praise.

 And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
 Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
   In the sun born over and over,
     I ran my heedless ways,
   My wishes raced through the house high hay
 And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
 In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
   Before the children green and golden
     Follow him out of grace.

 Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
 Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
   In the moon that is always rising,
     Nor that riding to sleep
   I should hear him fly with the high fields
 And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
 Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
     Time held me green and dying
   Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

In all things thee to see

When Maggi invited me to preach on George Herbert in her college chapel, I kicked up an enormous fuss and went into paroxysms of inadequacy...but I have to say that the process of preparing the sermon turned out to be pure joy.
Herbert has been such a huge and influential figure in my personal landscape of faith...Herbert the poet, not Herbert the perfect priest, the one who inspired the heart felt advice (offered, I'm sure, between gritted teeth) "If you meet George Herbert on the road - kill him" ! To actually have to spend time with him once again, to immerse myself in a world view that was second nature to me when I was doing my research some 20 years ago...and to revisit poems I'd nearly forgotten in the interim.
Today the church gives thanks for Herbert, for the huge gift his writing has been to so many through the ages...so here's a poem that proves that he was never one who had it all "sewn up", whether as a man or as a priest.

THE TEMPER. (I)

HOW should I praise thee, Lord !
how should my rymes
Gladly engrave thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel !

Although there were some fourtie heav’ns, or more,
Sometimes I peere above them all ;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.

O rack me not to such a vast extent ;
Those distances belong to thee :
The world’s too little for thy tent,
A grave too big for me.

Wilt thou meet arms with man,
that thou dost stretch
A crumme of dust from heav’n to hell ?
Will great God measure with a wretch ?
Shall he thy stature spell ?

O let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid,
O let me roost and nestle there :
Then of a sinner thou art rid,
And I of hope and fear.

Yet take thy way ; for sure thy way is best :
Stretch or contract me thy poore debter :
This is but tuning of my breast,
To make the musick better.

Whether I flie with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there.
Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place ev’ry where.


The thesis I never completed would have examined Herbert's use of musical imagery to explore our relationship with God...our need to be tuned in to Him if we are ever to sing as we ought...but it's the last verse of this poem that I love most, for its recognition of the reality of life which is never wholly spent on the heights nor in the deep and dark places of the soul...but is always and wholly God's.
In the sunshine and birdsong of a wonderful spring day, I give thanks once again for this priest and poet who encouraged generations to see God in all things, and to do everything as in His service.

Faire is the heaven...

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of thy glory and dominion,
world without end.

after John Donne (1571-1631)

Singing Owl, in the calm before the memorial service for her beloved sister, has turned her mourning into a gift for us, with an invitation both to look forward and to celebrate the heaven in our midst....She asks

What is your idea of a heavenly (i.e. wonderful and perfect):

1. Family get-together
Because I'm an only child of two only children, family gatherings aren't something I warm to hugely. Inevitably they currently tend to be very much about LCM's extensive family, and I am slightly aware all the time of the way my own children and parents have missed out on one another. So, a heavenly family gathering would have to be just that...with my parents finally getting to hug and be hugged by the grandchildren who have never known them.
Here and now, I think it might be quite small...My children and those special friends who have become honorary family members....together somewhere with log fires and candle-light, with time to sit and talk, tell stories and make music together.

2. Song or musical piece
Bach understands the music of heaven. The slow movement of the Double Violin Concerto, or the Theme from the Goldberg Variations would work for me every time.

3. Gift
Knowing all my children were happy and secure in themselves and their worlds.

4. You choose whatever you like-food, pair of shoes, vacation, house, or something else. Just tell us what it is and what a heavenly version of it would be.
A heavenly holiday would involve time to be with people I love, and time on my own.
Time to walk by the sea, and to drift along on Polyphony.
Time to explore new wonders, and to return to familiar haunts.
Time for excitement, and time for deep calm.
Time to read, and no guilt that others were working while I did so.
Long summer evenings, drinking chilled wine and watching the sun set slowly.

5. And for a serious moment, or what would you like your entrance into the next life to be like?

What, from your vantage point now, would make Heaven "heavenly?"
The "Et Resurrexit" from the B Minor Mass playing...An open door and One whom I love saying
"Welcome home, Kathryn....There are so many people longing to see you" -and then going in, and finding (much like Greenbelt) an endless and delightful variety before me....
This poem by Stewart Henderson carries so much of the longing hope I try to articulate and share with others....

This day in paradise

this day in paradise
new feet are treading through
high halls of gold

this day in paradise
new legs are striding over jewelled fields in which
the diamond
is considered ordinary

this day in paradise
new eyes have glimpsed the deep fire ready
to flame the stale earth pure

this day in paradise
new blood, the rose red juice that gushed at golgotha
now ripples and races down the pure veins
of a recently arrived beloved

this day in paradise
a new heart pounds in praise
a new body shaped by sacrifice

this day in paradise
the daunting dart of death
has no point
no place
and no meaning

and whilst we mourn and weep
through these human hours
this day in paradise
the blazing embrace
between saviour and son goes on and on and on...

See you there.

Christmas Cat blogging

Tallis and Dillon are indulging in a practice that, depending on your perspective, could be seen as either sleeping with the enemy or a seasonal enactment of Isaiah's peaceable kingdom

Actually, ever since he saw the photos of Songbird's crib, complete with friendly beasts, Tallis has been pressing me to post this poem by the Gloucestershire poet U.A. Fanthorpe. So, for RevCatPals everywhere

Cat in the Manger

In the story, I'm not there.
Ox and ass arranged at prayer:
But me? Nowhere.

Anti-cat evangelists
How on earth could you have missed
Such an obvious and able
Occupant of any stable?

Who excluded mouse and rat?
The harmless, necessary cat.
Who snuggled in with the holy pair?
Me. And my purr.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
(Who got it wrong,
Who left out the cat)
Remember that,
Wherever He went in this great affair
I was there.

Easter Sunday - They have taken away my Lord

It was unfinished.
We stayed there, fixed, until the end,
women waiting for the body that we loved;
and then it was unfinished.
There was no time to cherish, cleanse, anoint;
no time to handle him with love,
no farewell.

Since then, my hands have waited,
aching to touch even his deadness,
smooth oil into bruises that no longer hurt,
offer his silent flesh my finished act of love.

I came early, as the darkness lifted,
to find the grave ripped open and his body gone;
container of my grief smashed, looted,
leaving my hands still empty.

I turned on the man who came:
"They have taken my Lord - where is his corpse?
Where is the body that is mine to greet?
He is not gone
I am not ready yet, I am not finished -
I cannot let him go I am not whole."

And then he spoke, no corpse,
and breathed,
and offered me my name.
My hands rushed to grasp him;
to hold and hug
and grip his body close;
to give myself again, to cling to him,
and lose myself in love.
"Don't touch me now"

I stopped and waited, my rejected passion
hovering between us like some dying thing.
I, Mary, stood and grieved and then departed.

I have a gospel to proclaim.

Janet Morley
John 20 1-18

Dead and Buried

And so we took him down
(Or thought we did),
Wiped off the sweat and spittle
From his face,
Washed the dried blood,
Threw out the crown of thorns,
And wrapped him once again
In swaddling clothes.

A tomb can be a cramped,
Confining place,
Far smaller than a stable.
We laid him there
(Or thought we did).
We were not able
To comprehend
The infinite contained.
For us it was the end.
Only the harsh realities
Of death and stone
Remained. Elizabeth Rooney

Friday

We nailed the hands long ago,
Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted
For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge
Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme pain.

But one or two prayed, one or two
Were silent, shocked, stood back
And remembered remnants of words, a new vision.
The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds
Cover the sun, we learn a new way to lose
What we did not know we had
Until this bleak and sacrificial day,
Until we turned from our bad
Past and knelt and cried out our dismay,
The dice still clicking, the voices dying away. Elizabeth Jennings

Communique

In the end we have to state

that no agreement was reached.
His stubborn opposition to compromise
was never breached.

Talks went on through the night
to meet Friday's deadline.
Even the governor was woken early
to sign.

But no peace formula was found
at the eleventh hour.
Between the princes of earth and heaven
there will be no sharing of power.

Every effort was made
to break down his reticence
but he would not join in any talks
and maintained his silence.

The release of prisoners
was the final opportunity.
It is reported that he did not take advantage
of the governor's offer of clemency.

There is no bilateral statement
for the six o'clock news.
The communique that was displayed
said simply He is the King of the Jews.

On reflection it is clear
his agenda had been set from the start.
He planned a suicide mission
against the strongholds of the heart.

He did not negotiate with sin
when matters reached their head.
He would not de-commission his arms
but spread them wide instead.

Godfrey Rust from Welcome to the Real World

Maundy Thursday - when supper was ended

Gethsemane

Who said that trees grow easily
compared with us? What if the bright
bare load that pushes down on them
insisted that they spread and bowed
and pleated back on themselves and cracked
and hunched? Light dropping like a palm
levelling the ground, backwards and forwards?

Across the valley are the other witnesses
of two millennia, the broad stones
packed by the hand of God, bristling
with little messages to fill the cracks.
As the light falls and flattens what grows
on these hills, the fault lines dart and spread,
there is room to say something, quick and tight.

Into the trees' clefts, then, do we push
our folded words, thick as thumbs?
somewhere inside the ancient bark, a voice
has been before us, pushed the densest word
of all, abba, and left it to be collected by
whoever happens to be passing, bent down
the same way by the hot unreadable palms.

Wednesday of Holy Week

Lots of activity this week, of course.
Many, many beautiful words arranged to bring intolerable events into acceptable focus.
But today some space, to think, to waken to the familiar realisation that Lent is behind me, but the great changes I'd hoped for remain, predictably, out of sight,over the horizon.

I'll come to the cross, as usual, with all the mess and muddle intact,- because that's the only way I can ever come.
As myself.

And, since the message of the season for me has been "Stop trying so hard" I offer this as today's poem in the hope that we may all open our hands to catch grace by chance.


Easter Duties - Elizabeth Jennings

They are called duties. People must confess
Through garlic-smelling grilles or in quiet rooms,
All the year’s mis-events – unhelped distress,
Griefs lingered over, accidie in dreams,
And hear the words which bless

And unbind, eat the bread and feel the cross
Hurting only a little, hinting more.
Why do I feel, in all these acts, a loss,
As if a marvel I had waited for
Were a cheap toy to toss

Away, the giver gone? Why do I care
In this uncaring? I need gods on earth,
The wonder felt, sleep which I somehow share
Because it is a going back to birth,
And yes, I want to bear

Anticipated laughter, jokes which once
Meant calibre and bite but did not make
Anyone sad. Prayer yet could be a dance
But still a cross. I offer small heartbreak,
Catch grace almost by chance.

Tuesday of Holy Week

Drop, drop slow tears
And bathe those beauteous feet,
That brought from heaven the news
And Prince of Peace.

Cease not, wet eyes,
His mercy to entreat;
To cry for vengeance
Sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods
Drown all my faults and fears;
Nor let his eyes see sin
But through my tears. Phineas Fletcher

The week begins

They're waving at you.
Ride on.

Some wave to flag you down
like witnesses at a motorway pile-up.
They want you to fix the injured and dying.
You can cure them.
You can bring the dead back to life.

Ride on.

Some are waving Hello.
They want you to come to their party.
They want to show you off to their friends.
They know some very open-minded Pharisees.
They are sure they will be reasonable about it
once you explain.

Ride on.

Some wave the team colours.
They want you to stuff the opposition,
they think its time our guys won.

Ride on.

Some wave business cards.
They want you to endorse their products.
You are hot property for chat shows.
Your position statements will be prepared for you.
You will be dressed by Armani and Calvin Klein
for your limitless media opportunities.

Ride on.

Some wave to warn you.
They want you to take care.
They'd like to re-direct your route
away from likely trouble spots.
They have your best interests at heart.

Ride on.

Some wave in desperation
as if you are their only hope.

Ride on.

Some wave their fists.
You were the wrong answer to their prayers,
and their disappointments have blossomed into anger.
You could have sorted out the whole bloody mess
and here you are out donkey riding.

Ride on.

Ride on until
the temple looms in front of you.
Dismount.
Walk the last few steps towards the tables
where religion is prepared.
Push them all over.
Leave no room for doubt.
Walk into the dark garden,
the false kiss,
the clever trap,
the rigged trial,
the beating,
the goading.
Stop for nothing
and at nothing
and when you have nothing left to give
give all that you have.

copyright Godfrey Rust from Welcome to the Real World

John Donne, Poet and Priest

I was in my last year at school, preparing for A levels, when we began work on the "Metaphysical Poets". Some people found them dull, quaint or obscure, but I loved them from the first moment that I read

Goe, and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envies stinging,
And find What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.

Something in the writing of these self-consciously "clever" men roused a response in me that was quite different from any other poetry at that point. Later, theirs was to become "my" period, in which I immersed myself in both undergraduate and post-grad years, so that I was no longer deterred by obscurities but recognised the realities to which the words pointed.
George Lukas talks of the metaphysicals "looking beyond the palpable" and "attempting to erase one's own image from the mirror in front so that it should reflect the not-now and not-here" - which sounds rather sacramental and priestly from here...so maybe there was another dimension in their appeal to me even then..

Certainly, one of my first and most treasured experiences of God's love came to me while reading John Donne's "Hymne to God the Father" on the day that my own father died. I blogged about it 2 years ago, but only included one verse of the poem. So today, when the Anglican Church gives thanks for the life and work of John Donne, I want to share with you the whole thing. Reading that last verse takes me straight to the railway carriage near Pevensey Bay where God met and held me and promised that all would be well.

A Hymne To God The Father John Donne

Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne; through which I runne,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I have wonne
Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I did shunne
A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
But sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done,
I feare no more.

The Annunciation

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Ghost.....

Nothing will ease the pain to come
Though now she sits in ecstasy
And lets it have its way with her.
The angel's shadow in the room
Is lightly lifted as if he
Had never terrified her there.

The furniture again returns
To its old simple state. She can
Take comfort from the things she knows
Though in her heart new loving burns
Something she never gave to man
Or god before, and this god grows

Most like a man. She wonders how
To pray at all, what thanks to give
And whom to give them to.
"Alone To all men's eyes I now must go"
She thinks "And by myself must live
With a strange child that is my own."

So from her ecstasy she moves
And turns to human things at last
(Announcing angels set aside).
It is a human child she loves
Though a god stirs beneath her breast
And great salvations grip her side.

Elizabeth Jennings

One lovely thing

about giving last night's talk was that I could (and did) read poetry in any spare moment, and
tell myself that it was work! (Reminds me of my undergraduate days. 3 years spent reading, and being paid by the government to do so. Sheer bliss. Wish it were that straightforward for HG and her friends)
This means that I've rediscovered all sorts of delights, and met many more for the first time. I daren't say that I'll post a poem a day between now and Easter, but when I can, I will.
This one, by my beloved George Herbert, is for those who are feeling beset and battered by life right now. It doesn't say exactly what I'd wish to, - because in using the image of a flower, Herbert has to suggest that the events that bruise and damage inevitably come from God. Not in my theology, they don't. But the penultimate verse has such tranquil wholeness about it, it has stayed with me as a reminder of where I'm making for during the stormy times in my own journey.

The Flower.

How Fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse? It was gone
Quite under ground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickning, bringing down to hell
And up to heaven in an houre;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell,
We say amisse,
This or that is:
Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O that I once past changing were;
Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Offring at heav’n, growing and groning thither:
Nor doth my flower
Want a spring-showre,
My sinnes and I joining together;

But while I grow to a straight line;
Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline:
What frost to that? what pole is not the zone,
Where all things burn,
When thou dost turn,
And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my onely light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide:
Which when we once can finde and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

Returning to myself

Tonight was the Lent talk I was fretting about earlier...one on poetry as part of a series "Lent and the Arts", offered by a neighbouring parish.
When the publicity mailing came round, I very nearly fled the country as the line-up consisted of 4 emminent and erudite persons, each speaking on their particular area of expertise - and me.
For heaven's sake, I was the only one listed who wasn't a Canon of Glouceste!
However, by dint of sheer determination I reminded myself that I surely loved poetry just as much as anyone loved anything, and that I really did have things I wanted to share. I then spent my day off shut in the study surrounded by endless collections of glory...and delivered the result tonight.
And when it came to it went down a treat, actually.

Given that really all you can do with poetry is talk - read it to them, talk about it, talk around it...I was half expecting people to drop off.
Cosy church.
March evening.
Dim lights.
What would you do?
But they attended. Most beautifully.
I read them a poem by Rowan Williams, - Jerusalem Limestone - and invited them to close their eyes and let text draw them into the wilderness landscape.
Mine were the only eyes that remained open.
I read them a meditation from Mucky Paws about sand, and one woman spoke to me afterwards about the words, all the while rubbing thumb and forefinger together as if she were running invisible grains of sand between her fingers.
At the end, there might have been questions but the vicar asked us to stay silent, to reflect, and it was very good.

It was also hugely helpful to me as a reminder that I love poetry with a passion and that though I may no longer harbour ambitions to complete my PhD, I do still know my the point of the PhD in the first place...

Let me tell you what Sue Monk Kidd has to say on the subject of poetry and the Journey
"“I’ m discovering that a spiritual journey is a lot like a poem. You don't merely recite a poem or analyze it intellectually. You dance it, sing it, cry it, feel it on your skin and in your bones. You move with it and feel its caress. It falls on you like a teardrop or wraps around you like a smile. It lives in the heart and the body as well as the spirit and the head.”
Poetry is something to warm your hands around on a chilly spring evening.
In a few months it will be the lilac scented warmth of a summer evening.
It works to forge emotional connection
But either way, it points, sacramentally, to something beyond itself...and its signing is a language that speaks to me.