Creation

Poem: It’s not hope, exactly. For the Season of Creation

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My garden has been a desolation for months – drying under the blistering heat. This past week, there have been a few signs of life returning. There is a faint blush of green. I can step outside without feeling grief.

Today is the start of Autumn, and September 1st marks the beginning of the Season of Creation for some churches and groups. There is much here on the blog that you might like to follow if you’re interested, under the tags Green, Creation, Everybody Now. You might like to start with Gaia.

Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about hope. I’ve been thinking about how, now this summer has brought the reality of climate change home to so many of us, there is a feeling of despair – people saying it’s too late, there’s no hope. While there is much that has been lost, there is so much truth in the old adage, where there’s life, there’s hope.

There is deep wisdom in the natural world, and I’ve been wondering what biomimicry can teach us about hope. And so I have been paying attention. I see, everywhere, life seizing every sliver of opportunity to live, to grown, to flourish. Even while Dunwich Heath still holds massive heat in its soils, those who work there are noticing signs of life returning, and birds beginning to fly. Life does not hope, it lives, often recklessly and in what we think of as inappropriate places. So I’m thinking I might try to Be More Weed, to rest when I need to and to keep flowering whenever the rain falls.

I’ve tried to express some of this plant hope – learning the hope of plants, in this poem. I think it’s appropriate for the day. I think it may also chime with other times when we feel that hope has dried up. If so, I hope it offers a drop of rain on dry ground.

It’s not hope, exactly

Last night, rain fell.
The sky was luminous,
flashing with white lightning,
and the thunder rolled into my dreams

With the smell of earth softening.
Life knows what to do with a gift

morning sees green begin
to swirl through the lawn,
rejoicing the hawkbit
bowing under the weight
of glorious pantaloon bees.

This is not hope, exactly –
a tiny wildflower
pushing through the cracks,
the way ferns now rise again
as a small brook sings
over dead twigs,
how pigeons rebuild their nest

Not what we so often mean by hope –
it does not ask, is it worth it,
what if we fail,
what if the heat comes back?
Life does not hope
Life does not choose life

It uncoils greenly today
grows today, lives,
for today the rain falls.
If all this softness knows only to
begin again and again and again,
then why not you, why not me, why not us?
Is not this good green earth worth living for?

The lawn in greener days. The yellow flowers are from the hawkbit family, mentioned in the poem. Pantaloon bees love them, and only appear in the garden when the flowers are open.

Female pantaloon bee, showing her yellow, pollen-coated legs. From Freepic.com

Poem: Heat, for Dunwich Heath and Minsmere

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Firefighters are working in unimaginably harsh conditions, and have been for nearly a week now. Thank you for saving so much.
Image from Suffolk News

Last Wednesday, I heard fire engines going full pelt down our road, and, despite the heat, I felt a chill, kept my eye on the local news. We learned that our beloved coastal heath was on fire – is still on fire. I am heartbroken, and I am dismayed, and, I found as I began to write, I am angry.

So what follows is a departure from my usual style. I am in the rage of loss, and I’m weeping too as I type. I feel a little anxious about sharing it with you good readers, but I know that some of you, too, are experiencing climate grief, and have seen the places you love burn, and so in the spirit of giving voice to something that is not mine alone, here is my response. The setting for the poem is my garden, and watching the heat engulf it, flowing up from the south. I grieve its dry grass, the plants wilting and kept barely alive with kitchen water, but the imaginative destination is this monstrous fire.

Thanks to the East Anglian Daily Times for the image.

Heat

For Dunwich Heath, for Minsmere

I feel heat rise off the earth

the curling leaves of plantain
prickling in the grass,
the dead bumble on the brick path,
the thick slowness of blood
and sting of sweat in the eyes

Why is the lavender the only one that blooms

with its white butterflies tumbling together,
opening and closing their bleached wings,
uncoiling their long tongues to drink deep
with the hummingbird hawk-moth
and the white and the buff tailed bee?

The trees whisper dryly –
Look, look, they say, and I look.
There to the south, rising
like a cloud, like a fire,
like a shadow of flame
casting heat and envy down on
this small patch of once-green –

they sing with their cracked voices –
See this day the one who burns us

A great molech, mammon, wendigo,
a firebeast of heat and hunger devouring all.

He is vast, powerful
cares only for his own appetites,
he would grow and grow until the very sky burns
with clouds of dust
devouring the lives that were not offerings,
ash pouring over his cunning head

Wherever he walks, he leaves scorched
footprints on the soft skin of earth.
Whatever he touches turns to dust.

I see you, firebeast, small as I am.
I rise up and look into your red eye, as long
as I can, with my life-rage,
with my cool green fury.

Your servants chatter and spark,
and I see them too

And I will stand and I will speak
and I will sing to call out your shame
You who have grown mighty
by devouring.

Tell me, great firebeast, what is it you
have made, after all?
You make nothing, you can only take.

And who are you
to say that I am powerless before you?
For I sing with the trees in their
dry leaves, and with the softness of the
bumblebees, and we will shake the
earth with the shimmering scales
that fall from butterflies’ bleached wings,
and life will rage and rise and love and live.
And we will grow and make and mend
and work and sing,
and you will be small once more.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/196axhAkgg/

I hope you will be able to find some drone footage from Ryan Lovejoy above. You will see the nuclear power station, with its vast construction site, in the background.

And here is a photo of the woods I love at Dunwich. I hope they have survived.

Photo from the National Trust. Fundraiser for restoration here.

This poem comes out of a summer practice with my friend Tracy W-B, where we are taking prompts from Mary Oliver and seeing where we go. This one started with The Summer Day, but quickly took on a life of its own. Tracy’s poem is a skilfully structured rendering, with real depth, and I commend it. You can find it here.

The figure of the firebeast comes from many sources, but the fire came to represent for me all the systems and forces in this world which seem to be aligning themselves against the very life of the planet and all of us. I have been reading the opening chapters of Jeremy Lent’s book, Ecocivilisation, which sets out how we ended up in this place with stark clarity. I have been feeling much in the reading of it, as you can see. Wendigo (mentioned in the poem) is an embodiment of the forces of greed and destruction I first came across in his writing. Those of you who are familiar with the Scriptures may recognise Molech and Mammon, similarly. I do not capitalise them in the poem. They are not worthy.

I have been working on writing up some more typical pieces for me. Our coast path walking has taken us from the Scottish border to Holy Island this year, and it has been glorious. Heat has sent me on a different track, but I will return with some deep beauty, I hope, before too long.

It is right to feel what has been lost. It is right to be moved to protect the good green earth.

Poem: Blossom

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The earliest blossom in our garden – mirabelle, or wild cherry plum

After I sent in the manuscript for my first book of poetry – The Year’s Circle – a couple of months ago, I felt I needed a little creative winter – of rest and quiet and recovering energy. Lately, I’ve been finding things catch my attention again, and my pen and notebook have been coming out into the garden with me.

What follows is the closest to a finished poem that has emerged so far, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Last year, in the long hot, dry summer, we had an abundance of fruit. I thought this year the trees would be exhausted, and take a bit of a sabbatical too – it’s a healthy pattern….. but this spring, hot and dry as it has been, has been awash with blossom, and now, in the few days of rain we’ve had, the fruit is beginning to swell. It’s looking promising!

Blossom

The blossom opens –
first mirabelle, then pear,
apple, cherry, Iranian quince,

A white tide frothing and foaming
over the garden, dazzling,
loud with birdsong, petals opening
like hungry beaks in nests,

All opening in turn, and all,
in turn, shaken by the sudden
shifts of wind – how hot it gusts now.
So the petals fall, they tumble
over faded daffodils, spent tulips.

And so it seems that all is lost,
all that blossom, all that promise,
all that beauty scattered on the wind.
How the spring days scutter away.
 
And yet, I have come to know that
all is not lost, even as the petals fall. 
They had their purpose.
And that purpose – invisible at first,
then the tiniest roundness
of stem, of not yet – a held breath
of green before summer’s ripening. 
And it will come, it will come, in its time.

img_20260603_1504267444875134932787339

I’m particularly pleased with these two small trees. They’re both a few years old now, and this is the first time they’ve started developing tiny fruit. The top picture is a pear, the bottom the Iranian quince – fragrant and delicious. When I see these small, new fruits, I’m reminded of that rich and ancient civilisation that has suffered and is suffering so much.

May the people there know peace once more.

img_20260603_1457065962190784352319144

Poem: Before First Light. Easter Retold

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Here is another poem of resurrection – this one exploring the deep, unwitnessed moment of awakening. I’m intrigued by the stirring of seeds, the quiet power of life returning in Spring, and the imagery of spring filled my mind as I thought about Easter resurrection. My forthcoming book – The Year’s Circle, publisher Wild Goose – weaves together poems from the church seasons and the Earth’s seasons. In this piece, I hope, the presence of spring hums through.

I love the way Eastern Orthodox icons celebrate resurrection not as an event involving one alone, but as something including all those needing to be set free…. and gives us an insight into the pattern of life out of death, hope out of despair, new out of old.

Before first light

Out of the earth, the grave,
the tomb, the darkness,
life steps out into a
shining spring dawn.

Out of the seed, the grain,
the stone, the pip, life uncurls
in a shimmer of new green.

We do not see the moment
of breaking, of rising, it is hidden
in the dark womb of the Earth.

But perhaps the ground shakes,
a tremor in the deep, as
the stone rolls away and
death’s imperial seal is broken.

Then, out of a cave
humming with clear
morning light –
no need of grave clothes,
no need of husk and shell
and stone and seal,

No need of the linen napkin
for it is finished, and folded –

Out of the earth who tends her dead,
there is a great greening,
an awakening, a rising up.
Life, and life, and life
is stronger even than the grave,
and love is stronger than death.

And look, and see,
all things are being made new.
Now, and now, and now.

Matthew 27:65-7, Mark 16:1-7, Luke 24:1-11, John 20:1-10

If you would like to use this poem, please do so, giving my name and this blog as reference.

The Little Christmas Tree – the power of kindness

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The new editions of my first story are making their way into bookshops ready for Christmas, and I know that some of you are coming across them. That’s so good, and a little bit exciting!

It’s given me the opportunity to take another read of the story, and think about it in the context of the world we’re living in now, and I’ve noticed something else.

Previously, I’ve thought about it telling a story into our shifting and stormy climate – and you can read more about that here. Today is the first day COP 30, so it seems particularly appropriate to be thinking of the importance of woods to regenerate our land, how important it is to treasure the natural world and give it space and time to return to strength and function. (If you’re not familiar with Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, I would commend that to you as a hopeful, active antidote to political wranglings – necessary as these may be.)

I’ve also thought about it as a version of Mary’s radical, prophetic message in the passage we refer to as the Magnificat, and you can read more on that here. And once again, the contrast she draws between the mighty and powerful, and the hungry, speaks directly into our unequal world.

What’s been on my mind this year is the matter of welcome – how we welcome, or not, those who have to flee their homes.

I love Lorna Hussey’s warm and intricate illustrations. Thank you Lorna!

In the story, a storm rips into the wood, and the animals are looking for a place to shelter. They find one in the branches of a little fir tree, who welcomes them in. When I first told the story to my own children years ago, I never thought such an action might be controversial, or political. It was simply a practice of kindness, empathy, hospitality. These have always been regarded as Christian virtues, and those who read the scriptures will be well aware that welcoming strangers, and treating the poor and the vulnerable with compassion, is commended again and again. These qualities are upheld by ethical systems in all cultures across the world. And yet, here we are.

Of course, the global situation is complex, and it’s vital we have good, fair systems which work for all people. Of course, those who profit from exploiting those who are seeking sanctuary should be prevented and brought to justice. Those things are part of the empathy, and the welcome. It is the shift of heart which troubles me, towards hostility and violence towards those who have in all probability already experienced a great deal of it.

Can we reconnect with our deep, inbuilt response to the troubles of others – to seek to help how and where we can? Just up the coast here in Suffolk houses are being bulldozed as the sea bites ever bigger chunks out of the coast. Of course, there’s no comparison with those in the Caribbean and Asia who are suffering the most appaling tragedies from our changing climate, but it’s enough to awaken some fellow feeling, and to imagine how little it would take to find ourselves displaced and relying on kindness – both the kindness of individuals and the kindness of efficient, just and compassionate systems.

In the story, it is the Little Christmas Tree who welcomes the animals, and we share the warmth and compassion and richness that comes from that simple act. There is real joy in it. The book ends with a kind of party.

We can think too of the first Christmas, where a displaced mother was offered somewhere to have her child, and soon after the family became refugees in Egypt running from a tyrannical and jealous Herod. I’ve written about in the link above.

There is much need of kindness, and it is as precious and profound as ever. Perhaps we can remember times when we have both given and received when in need, how good that was – difficult, sometimes, but good.

As we approach Advent, let’s see if we can cultivate kindness, and welcome, and look for local ways to help people who may need it most.

The book is available in two editions, a hardback and a board book. You can order them from your local bookshop, or the usual online places.

Here are a few links:

Direct from the publisher here

Online Bookshop.org supporting local bricks and mortar ones here in the UK here

Eden bookshop

I’m delighted that it’s widely available in the USA too.

Poem: Gaia at Ely Cathedral

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I’m sharing this post again, September 2025 as part of the Season of Creation some Christian traditions are marking at this time. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to work on a collection of poems for Wild Goose, The Year’s Circle – and this poem is part of that work. I’ll be sharing more on that as we go along.

I hope you find this post a helpful starting point for contemplation.

Additional note, 24th September 2023. I am delighted that this post has appeared at The Cottage, Diana Butler Bass’ rich and thought-provoking Substack, this morning. I’ve admired her work for many years, and it’s such an honour, and very exciting for me, to find myself in her company today, under Inspiration. It’s a profound exploration of envy and gratitude, and a reflection on the deep drivers of our climate and ecological crisis. It’s well worth reading and allowing it to do its inner work on us. You can do so here.

Original post, published 12th July 2021, emerging from lockdowns:

As we are beginning to venture out a little more, we thought we would pay a visit to Ely, and the vast indoor space of its ancient cathedral. They often have contemporary art there, which helps the old stones continue to sing, giving a new perspective on ancient truths. We knew that Gaia, an installation by Luke Jerram, was going to be there in July, and so we went and saw this beautiful, astonishing sight. The comparative emptiness of the cathedral space made it all the more powerful as it floated above us.

And as the space is vast, and it takes time to walk up to, around and beyond the piece, you do have time and space in which to allow the work to speak to you, to stir up responses, and to pray. I am sure that one of the intentions is to give us all an opportunity to experience something like “earthrise”, when the astronauts first saw the whole of the Earth from space, and how that shifted their perspective, and began to change the way all of us are able to see our home. The staggering, indescribable beauty of the whole called out my sense of awe, which sat uncomfortably alongside my awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious, unique home.

In the setting of the cathedral, as Gaia hangs in the nave under the painted ceiling which tells the long stretch of the Bible’s story, I found the language of repentance surprisingly, and helpfully, came to mind. Repentance both in our more familiar understanding of sorrow for wrongdoing, and desire to amend, and in the possibly more ancient meanings carried in the old texts, of returning home, and of undergoing a profound change of mind – a paradigm shift in the way you see.

Much of my writing celebrates the beauty of the natural world, how lovely, precious, and vulnerable it is. But sometimes, that love spills over into grief. So the old stones, and the old story, seemed illuminated by our current crisis, and, in turn, those ancient words seemed to express something necessary, and powerful, and, in the end, with the potential for hope.

You can listen to the poem here.

Gaia at Ely Cathedral

She seems to float, lit up with her own light,
slowly turning, blue and blooming with clouds
as we walk up, look up, small before her.

While above our steps,
the familiar painted roof
rolls on, telling its painted story,
from the tree, and the garden,
on towards this

fathomless shining beauty,
the ‘all’ that was so very good
in that beginning.
Now as she turns
we see how she hangs
below the story’s last scenes –
the gift of a beloved child
held on his mother’s lap,
held forward towards us,
loved and given and giving,
and the wounded golden king,
who gives still.

And below, below hangs the whole shining Earth,
dazzling, vast with sea,
turning and flowering with clouds
from the southern ice-shine,
melting although we do not see her weep,

And the land, those small green swathes
and swags, are dressed in white too,
a veil of vapour,
while the deserts spread brown
and red above our eyes.

The lands are small, countries
seem tales we tell.
What is certain is this one great
flow – ocean and ice and cloud –
and the unseen winds that bear them
through our blue, breathing air.

And the people stand beneath her,
lit by ice, and hold up their hands
as if to carry her, or hold her,
or save her from falling.

How beautiful it is.
How strange and wondrous
that we should be creatures
who live within so much living perfection.

And as she turns slowly
under the child and the king,
I wonder, what do those
familiar words mean now,
‘the sins of the world’,
as the stain of our reckless harm
seeps through the blue and green,
through all this living glory,

And is there any hope in our
waking up to beauty with grief
and loss, even as dust and ashes
float across the sky,
across us all, late as we are
in our repenting?


And is there hope,
hope that we might be granted
this grace – time
for amendment of life,
to tend the garden
with its leaves and fruit,
shining and greening,
to take part in the work
of loving and healing,
of restoration,
of making all things new.

Looking at Gaia from behind the communion table brought to mind the words of repentance from that service, and I was aware of my sense of what “the sins of the world” might mean was creaking open a little wider.

Very unseasonal Book News! The Little Christmas Tree – a new edition and a new format

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Just in case some of you are very organised people who like to plan ahead for Christmas, you might like to know that a new hardback edition of this beautifully illustrated book is coming out on August 22nd.

It was my first book and I love it, and I’m thrilled it’s coming out again for a new audience. And if you have little ones in your life who are of an age for a board book, it’s coming out as one of those too – publication date for that is 26th September. That edition is slightly abridged, but with all the delightful pictures of woodland animals by the very talented Lorna https://www.instagram.com/lornahusseyillustrator/.

To those who follow this blog from the USA, the publishers were keen to say that the book will be available over the Atlantic, too.

Both can be pre-ordered now. Pre-orders do help with publicity and planning, so if you feel inclined, it would be a great encouragement. Meanwhile, the paperback version is still available.

If you are lucky enough to have a local bookshop, they can get them for you. Here’s a link to the publisher’s website for online orders. Of course, it’s also available in all the ususal places for ordering books.

Here’s how it begins…

And you can read more about it elsewhere on my blog, for example…

The Little Christmas Tree – a beautiful BSL video telling of the story.

The Little Christmas Tree – a few pictures!

The Little Christmas Tree – I’ve been thinking ….

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. My mind has been full of the poems I’m weaving together for my poetry collection lately, and I’m aware I haven’t been posting on here quite as often as sometimes – I’ll try to keep remembering to do that! And next year, there’ll be lots to share!

Sunday Retold, Poem: Ascension

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I’m continuing to share with you some poems I’m working on for a new book, The Year’s Circle, which will be out next year – with Wild Goose of Iona Publishing. You can read more about that here.

As I’m settling into the work, I’m finding it so rewarding. I love looking for threads and connections between things, and so I’m weaving together poems which follow the pattern of the church year and poems drawn from nature. I’ve always found the natural world rich with image and meaning, and that is particularly true of the wild beauty of late spring.

This poem has been a bit of a knotty one to unravel, but now I think it’s settled and working. I’m giving it to you a little early, in case anyone is looking for a poem for Ascension (this year, Thursday 29th May) . At the beginning of the book of Acts we find this account of Jesus being taken up, and I have been wondering about what it might mean for us.

I thought first of what it must have been like for his friends, a kind of second losing. They are still caught up in their concerns – they are still thinking of a kingdom with power and borders. And every day, now, we are seeing the pain of kingdoms and borders, the terrible suffering of the people of Gaza and the long history of cause and effect that leads to children, the frail, the displaced and the wounded – starving. It’s shocking and distressing. I find those images fill my inner vision as I read the words of the disciples. And I notice that their nationalistic hopes do not align with the task set them by Jesus.

I have wondered about the complete change in perspective that Jesus seeks to share. I think it might help us, and give us a way of seeing that opens us up to a better way.

He is not speaking of kingdoms with borders. He is sending them out – over borders, without consideration of the divisions between peoples we might make – to the whole earth. A shift in thinking, a higher, more inclusive view. So, in this poem, I try to explore that shift.
The poem has two strands. The experience of Jesus’ friends as he slips away from them, and this wider way of seeing he invites them to share.

Hidden/All things  – Ascension

Perhaps it had seemed a partial
parting, a gradual letting go.

In life, they had lived with him,
travelled dusty roads,
slept under stars,
ate bread and shared a cup.

Then, after that dark Friday,
that bright Sunday, there
came these strange, sudden
meetings, brief comings and goings,
words they found hard
to understand – such
puzzling reassurance.

And still they ate together,
and he spoke of another
presence who would
come to them, be with them.
And despite their questions
of nations and times,
his was always a wider vision.


Always wider and other
Out to the old enemy
and the ends of the earth
Everywhere and everyone

And then at last they came
to this last parting,
and he was taken up
in rolling clouds and
hidden from their sight,
a long perspective
they could not yet share

that saw the whole blue
green turning Earth and all things –
things in heaven and things on earth –
holding together  reconciled
all very good and all beloved.
Above all, beloved.

Acts1:1-11
Colossians 1:15-20

This image is of Gaia by Luke Jerram, when it was at Ely Cathedral. As I’m playing with the arrangement of poems in The Year’s Circle, I’ve placed my poem inspired by this artwork in a group that follows this one on the Ascension – a group that begins to explore our perception of the Earth as an interconnected whole. You can read the Gaia poem here.

And, in the spirit of the original Sunday Retold, here are some passages which might be of interest.

‘The disciples never knew when Jesus would appear among them – but appear he did, telling them more about the kingdom of God, and kindling hope in their hearts.
“Wait in Jerusalem and you will receive God’s gift. You remember how John baptized with water? In a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit of God.”
Another time they asked him, “Lord, will Israel be a great kingdom again now?”
“That’s not for you to know. The Holy Spirit will come and fill you with power, and then you will tell everyone what you have seen and heard. Start in Jerusalem, and Judea, but then go out beyond Israel to Samaria, and even further – to the whole earth!”
Then Jesus was lifted up, above and beyond the earth, and a cloud hid him…….’

From The Bible Story Retold

Ascension Day
‘Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours…. Yours are the feet with which is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.’
St Teresa of Avila

From Prayers and Verses

Book News! Early notice, poetry book on the way.

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I’m so delighted to be able to share with you that I’ve just popped a contract in the post for my first published collection of poetry. Some of you will know the publisher, Wild Goose of Iona, and they’ve been so kind and efficient in coming to an agreement about what we’d like to do together. It should be out next year.

We plan to call it The Year’s Circle, and I intend it as a collection to accompany you through the year. It will weave together poems drawn from Bible stories marking the seasons, such as upcoming Easter, with poems drawn from nature – so the two main strands of work you will find on this blog. I hope it will be good for your own reading and also sharing together with others in groups, churches and festivals. I know many of you already use the poems you find here in those ways.

The Celtic tradition has an idea of God’s two books – the Bible and Creation – and I’m intrigued by that idea and am looking forward to exploring what it might mean.

The collection will include some of the poems you’ll find here as well as new work. I intend to share progress with you as I go along – giving you tasters of the new poems, as well as some insight into the process.

I want to thank you all for being here, for your support and encouragement. It’s played a huge part in making this new venture possible, and I really look forward to including you in the process.

I’m blown away by this opportunity, it’s so good, and I’m really looking forward to getting going with drawing together something beautiful and nourishing in these difficult times. I really hope it helps.

Poem: Water and Dove – Baptism. Sunday Retold

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Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ. National Gallery, London.

This coming Sunday many Christian communities are continuing to think of Epiphany, or epiphanies – those moments of clarity, of breakthrough, when you see things anew, or perhaps for the first time. In particular, there are readings to follow which tell us of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan river. It’s a moment when everything seems to change – where we see one who closely resembles a prophet from the Hebrew scriptures, and one who tells us that the Kingdom of God is so close, already among us – standing together in a river. The reading is Luke 3:15-17,21-22. I’m posting a link to the whole chapter, though, as it gives us some very helpful reflections on “What should we do?” as signs of a change of heart, as well as the beautiful and hopeful passage from Isaiah.

I love the picture at the top of this post. I love its lines, its clarity and purity. I have a framed poster very like this one, and see it every day. I’ve often wondered at the river stopping, diverting around this moment of baptism. I assume della Francesca was thinking of the story in the book of Joshua, when the priests carrying the arc of the covenant step into the Jordan, and the waters dry. The people then cross the riverbed. In doing so they leave their time in the wilderness, and it is an echo of the time they entered it by crossing the Red Sea, escaping slavery in Egypt as they did so. This time, crossing the Jordan, God’s presence is suggested by the Arc of the Covenant, rather than the pillar of fire and flame that was with them at the beginning of their journey. It’s quite a change. You can read the story here if you’re interested.

And so, to the poem. As so often, I begin by reading the passage through, several times. I breathe, I wait to see what speaks, what arises, what I feel. And I felt a strong response to the water, and the dove – those natural elements I see myself every day in my own walks by my own river. They moved me. And yet, there was also this background thought of the painting that has formed my imagining of the story. So a poem emerged which is in itself a kind of epiphany, a kind of seeing things in a new way, or perphaps a given insight. I leave that to you, the reader.

If you enjoy following trails, there are some others you might like here, relating to the water and the dove. The first is Jesus’ I am saying – I am the living water. That passage has stayed with me for years. You can read my reflections on it here. And the dove called to mind the story of Noah, and another poem, here. There is more of course, like Jesus washing his friends’ feet. I leave the others to your imagination.

Water and Dove – Baptism

When you stepped into the Jordan,
did the water stop, not daring to
touch your feet – as if
you yourself were the
arc of the covenant,
untouchable, fierce in holiness?
As if you bore within yourself
the whole of the law, the weighty
stones given to Moses? 
The river was in spate then – wild it was,
but it stopped before such fearful holiness.

But I do not see it so. Rather,
I see cool water lapping your feet,
your legs, bathing them clean,
ripples rejoicing, dancing, flowing,
honoured to baptise one
who did not require it,
both water and Son of Man
living out their deep purpose

As the sky opened wide with
tender light, and a white dove
tumbled with the applause
of clattering wings down
to you –  and what then?
Maybe it landed softly
on your shoulder, resting
awhile, heads inclined together,
gently, two wild beings, two beings
overflowing with all love divine.

And so love spoke forth
with delight,
love pouring over you
like the cool water,
river water, living water
like the endless light,
and the softest
brush of feathers
from the wings
of a dove.
Endless,
life-giving
love.

Sunday Retold

If you’ve been joining me here on the blog for a while – thank you, I appreciate your company – you’ll be aware that I have a very occasional series with material from a couple of my books which follow the Sunday readings many Christian communities use. In particular, my retelling, The Bible Story retold in twelve chapters. Recently, I’ve been doing this fresh writing, with a poem, too. But here are some pieces you might find helpful. If you’d like to use any of my material, please feel free to do so, giving this blog as a source. If you’d like to publish it in some form, please do get it touch. Thank you.

For John taught them to hope. In his words, they caught a glimpse of something beyond their everyday lives. They understood that John that Baptist was preparing the way for something, or someone, astonishing.
“I baptize you with water, as a sign of your rependence: your turning back to God and his ways. But wait. There is one coming after me who is so much greater. I am not even worthy to carry his sandals for him. And when he comes, he will baptize you on the inside with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will sort out the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff!”

Then Jesus came down from Galilee in the north, and walked through the crowds toward John. John knew Jesus was the one they had been waiting for: the Messiah. Was Jesus really comng forward for baptism like everyone else?
“No!” said John, stepping back. “I need to be baptized by you – and yet you come to me – why?”
Jesus replied, “I must do everything that is right, and it is right to be baptized.”

And so John agreed, and they stepped out into the flow of the Jordan. Jesus went down into the cool water, and was baptised.

As he came up the bright sky broke open, and the Spirit of God came down gently and settled on him like a dove. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the one I love, the one who brings me joy. I am very pleased with him.”
From the Bible Retold

Come, let us follow Jesus, who loves us.
From Prayers and Verses

The picture of birds over water (behind my name) is of the Wash at Snettisham RSPB. You can read more about that here.