Christmas Retold – Light in the Darkness

December 19, 2018November 20, 2020 / andreaskevington / 1 Comment

As we are drawing to the end of Advent, and nearly at the shortest day, I thought I would share with you a few extracts to steady us in our Christmas preparations. If you are feeling too busy and burdened, or not busy enough and on the edges of things, it can help to turn our attention to the Christmas message of light coming into darkness, of hope and new life emerging in the most unpromising of circumstances.

May you have a peaceful and blessed Christmas, wherever you are.

Caravaggio – Adoration of the Shepherds

From The Bible Story Retold

The Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, had ordered a census throughout the whole empire, when all the people would be counted, and taxed. The orders spread along straight Roman roads, and were proclaimed first in the white marble cities and ports, and then in the towns and villages of the countryside.

Even quiet Nazareth heard the news, and Mary and Joseph began to gather together their belongings, ready to travel to Bethlehem. That was Joseph’s family home: he was descended from King David, of Bethlehem. They set off south on the crowded road, for the whole empire was travelling. But, for Mary, the journey was especially hard, and the road seemed never ending. It was nearly time for her baby to be born.

At last they came to Bethlehem, but it was not the end of their troubles. The city was noisy, bustling, and heaving with crowds, and Joseph searched anxiously for somewhere quiet for Mary to rest – her pains were beginning, and the baby would be born that night. The inn was already full of travellers, and the only place for them was a stable. There, among the animals, Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him up tightly in swaddling bands and laid him in a manger full of hay. Then, she rested next to the manger, smiling at the baby’s tiny face.

There were shepherds who lived out on the hills nearby – the same hills where King David had once watched over the flocks, long ago. The sheep were sleeping in their fold under the shining stars, while the shepherds kept watch. Their fire flickered and crackled, and the lambs would bleat for their mothers, but they were the only sounds. All was peaceful. All was well.

Suddenly, right there in the shepherd’s simple camp, appeared and angel of the Lord, shining with God’s glory and heaven’s brightness. The shepherds gripped each other in terror, their skin prickling with fright.
“Don’t be afraid, I’m bringing you good news – it will bring joy to all people!” The shepherds listened, awestruck, their faces glowing with the angel’s light. “This is the day the good news begins, and this is the place. In the town of David, a saviour has been born. He is Christ, the Anointed One, the one you have been waiting for. And this is the sign that these words are true: you will find a baby wrapped tightly in swaddling bands, lying in a manger.”

The shepherds watched as light was added to light, voice to voice, until they were surrounded by a dazzling, heavenly host of angels, all praising God and saying
“Glory! Glory to God in the highest,
And on the earth be peace!”

And then, in an instant, the angels were gone, and the shepherds were left in dark night shadows, listening to the sound of a distant wind. But their eyes still shone with heaven’s light.
“Let’s go and see for ourselves!” they called to one another as they raced over the dark, rocky fields to Bethlehem. There, they found Mary and Joseph, and, just as the angel had said, they found the baby wrapped tightly in swaddling bands and lying in a manger. They saw him with their own eyes, and spread the angel’s message to all they met.
“The Promised One has come! The Christ, the Anointed One, has been born!” The angel’s words were on everyone’s lips that night in Bethlehem. And, as the shepherds made their way back to their sheep, bursting with good news, Mary kept their words safe, like treasures, in her heart.

And from Prayers and Verses

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him –
Give my heart.
Christina Rosetti 1830-1894

Also from Prayers and Verses, a poem I wrote as a child.

The dawn is breaking, the snow is making
everything shimmer and glimmer and white.

The trees are towering, the mist is devouring
all that is in the reaches of sight.

A bell is ringing, the town is beginning,
slowly, gradually, to come to life.

A candle is lighted, and all are excited,
for today is the ending of all man’s strife.

The light is coming into the world.

Please feel free to use the extracts, saying where they are from.

Poem – Moment/Joy

October 22, 2018 / andreaskevington / 2 Comments

The Sower Vincent van Gough

So, I thought I would offer you another poem, quite simply.

As I’ve been trying to deepen a prayer practice of stillness, of patience, I’ve found other things can begin to emerge in the quietness of each moment. They include – at times – acceptance, gratitude, joy, blessing. At other times, I feel I am constantly lassoing my thoughts, and asking them to rest and wait quietly for just a minute.

Stillness and waiting and being present, now, can feel awkward. And yet, it is daily bread, not worrying about tomorrow, manna that must be eaten now, while the sun is still above the horizon. It is gentle work.

Moment/Joy

It has to be made afresh
each day
like bread.
It is only for today,
only for now.

My fingernails are thick with flour,
I breathe warm yeast,
my arms ache with the kneading,
the stretching,
feeling it come alive
in my hands.

I have done it before, and before,
and before,
but the warmth of the dough,
the smell of the bread,
are enough.
I roll up my sleeves,
pour out soft flour.
I begin again.

Poem – Like Noah’s raven, and the dove

September 18, 2018 / andreaskevington / 2 Comments

Artwork by Amy Rose Moore

This poem emerged slowly, over weeks, as they sometimes do. I let it sit for a while in the cold and the dark of our late winter. Looking at it again, I haven’t been quite sure whether it’s come to a place of rest, but I feel that now’s the time to let it fly and see if it finds a place to settle.

I’ve always found the story of Noah quite disturbing and unsettling, and although I feel I have made some peace with it now, it’s often these troubling places that drive you to engage with the original story in a different way. This one in particular feels that there are depths to be plumbed, sunk into, with an imaginative and almost intuitive reading, which is what I sought when I did my retelling for Lion

The rains swamped valleys and plains, and crept up the sides of the mountains, until all was swallowed up in black, endless water. As they drifted helplessly over it, Noah and his family knew that all living things left behind on the land had been drowned. They were alone on the ark. When, after 40 days, the rain finally stopped, the silence was as cold as the waters.

Noah’s family loved their precious cargo of animals: the only other living, breathing creatures left on the earth. They fed them, and cared for them. As they did so, a wind blew, and the waters began to sink slowly down. Then, one day, they heard the keel of the ark beneath them scraping and shuddering. The ark juddered to a halt, for it had struck the top of a mountain.

Every day they scanned the horizon, longing for land, and after many weeks they saw distant purple mountains breaking free of the water. Noah waited 40 more days, then set a raven free. It criss-crossed over the waves, looking for somewhere to perch. But there was nowhere.

A week later Noah tried again, sending out a dove. It came back with an olive twig. Noah held the bird tenderly in his hand, hope rising within him.

A week later he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not come back. It must have found somewhere to perch. At last, the flood was drying up! Noah’s face broke into a wide smile as glistening land slowly emerged and dried.

From The Bible Story Retold

The image of releasing the birds from this narrow, confined space stayed with me, drawing on my memory of Emily Dickinson’s wonderful poem Hope, which is well worth having by heart for difficult times.

I thought of the raven, how it is a carrion bird, associated with death. Although reading the symbolism of such a long-ago story is best done humbly, I do wonder if Noah’s releasing of this bird first suggests he was expecting there to be carrion around, that it was a bird released into a imaginative landscape of death, not life. And yet we find, later, there was now something green and growing, something to sustain and anoint and bless – the olive – and that the world that was emerging from all that destruction was peaceable, and hospitable, a place of the dove and the olive. It is a new beginning.

We are not there yet, though, at the moment of this poem. We are at that point of wondering if we dare hope. Wondering if it is worth the costs of hope. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves it’s good to look for signs of hope, even when all seems lost. It takes courage, and discipline, and persistence. But learning to read the signs in our own landscapes, shifting our focus up and out, can begin to lift us. And we can find that, astonishingly, green growing things are appearing.

You can listen to the poem here: https://andreaskevington.podbean.com/e/poem-like-noah-with-the-raven-and-the-dove/

Like Noah’s raven, and the dove

Can I let hope fly, send out birds
to brood and hover
over the chaos,
like Noah, with the raven,
and the dove?

For too long, there
has been nothing
on the horizon,
no fixed point
on the Earth’s
endless circle.
How would you ever know
if the water was falling,
or rising?

So can I now find courage to
cup birds in unsteady hands –
raven-black,
dove-white –
and throw them upwards
one by one?

To let fly a dark hope
even though there is
nowhere for it to rest,
even though it returns
like a gift
that comes back unopened.

Can I try again
and again,
in case something
living and growing has
pierced this water,
until finally a gentle bird
does not return.
Until, at last,
there is somewhere
other than this poor boat
for it to land.

May I have such birds to release.
May I let them fly, like Noah,
with the raven, and the dove.

Lord, purge our eyes to see
Within the seed a tree,
Within the shroud a butterfly.
Till, taught by such we see
Beyond all creatures, thee
And harken to thy tender word
And its “Fear not; it is I”
Christina Rosetti

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us.
Basil the Great

From Prayers and Verses

Poem – The courtesie of pigeons

May 30, 2018March 9, 2023 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Each morning at the moment, I go outside to see what’s happening. I don’t get up with the dawn, so by the time I go outside, life has been bursting out for a couple of hours – there’s always something beautiful that makes me catch my breath.

I spend time sitting, meditating, or in contemplative prayer, and then I get out my notebook and try to write what I see, what is happening right now.

Our old bench was beginning to rock and sway, especially if more than one person sat on it, so we have a beautiful new one from Genesis, Orwell Mencap I particularly like the way that someone involved in making the furniture comes to help deliver it, and see where it will be enjoyed.

Sometimes, sitting on the bench, life’s dramas play out before you. This one, with the pair of pigeons who nest in our garden, felt like part of an old chivalric romance, hence the rather archaic spelling….

The courtesie of pigeons

The pigeons, on the roof-ridge,
or on the black line of the
telephone wire,
begin this dance the same
each day.

She, head bowed slightly away,
He, with a deep murmur,
bows low, his beak sinks
to meet the wire, or the tile.
With a tail elevated to the sky,
he puffs up, more than
his full size,
his wings droop slightly.
He rises and bows,
Rises and bows.

His gracefulness seems
to speak: My strength,
lady, is yours to command,
is at your disposal
should you wish, lady.

But she steps sideways,
and again, demurs
and flies, nonetheless,
but, nonetheless,
she cannot always do so,

for each year, come summer,
their plump grey squabs sidle
across the lawn,
feasting on its richness.

Photograph by Africa Gomez

It calls to mind another pigeon saga…..Nest

Quiet Spaces – one on The Four Loves, by C S Lewis, and a bit about the Wedding.

May 22, 2018 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Philip Wilson Steer – Walberswick, a beach on the Suffolk Coast

I’ve just finished writing a series of meditations drawing on C S Lewis’ short book, The Four Loves. It’s for a BRF publication, Quiet Spaces , a series I love to read, and to write for. I always feel I go deeper as I try out my ideas for meditations and exercises, and as I work on them with Sally Smith, the editor.

The publication isn’t coming out till next summer, but I thought I might just share a few snippets with you, especially in the light of Harry and Meghan’s wedding on Saturday, and the joy of love, and the sometimes pain of love, that occasion embodied. The palpable absence of the groom’s mother, the solitary presence of the bride’s mother, remind us that nothing is unmixed, that sorrow and difficulty are found in every place, in every heart.

Bishop Curry’s moving and powerful sermon captivated so many of us watching. I will listen to it again and again. I hope I can take it to heart, to seek to live more in the light of its truth. The power of love to transform, the way of love shown us by Jesus, were shown us in the words, and heart behind the words, that flowed out to those present, and to those far away. It was deep and authentic.

He was drawing on the Song of Solomon, one of the readings I had chosen to dwell on for this work. The reading at the wedding was from chapter 2 and also chapter 8, and can be found here.

You might like to use this combined passage for the exercise below.

Philip Wilson Steer

So, here are some snippets from the meditations. I hope they enrich your day.

From my introduction:

“”God is love,” says St John” – this is Lewis’s opening sentence. It is the spring from which all the rest flows. The essence of Jesus’ teaching is that we love – love God, our neighbours, even our enemies.

Love like this is received as a gift, but also needs to be learned, to be worked out. The way of the Cross shows us a love which is far from easy. The natural loves can help us take steps, to steady our walk, as we seek to follow the path of Jesus, who loved us, and gave himself for us…

Meditation with drawing

“And we were put on Earth a little space,
That we might learn to bear the beams of love.”
Wm Blake (Songs of Innocence and Experience)

Find a quiet space
Rest in the knowledge that God loves you, and delights in you.
Breathe in and out slowly
Know God is with you, looking at you tenderly and compassionately. You can imagine God enfolding you if you prefer.
You are God’s beloved child.
Breathe in love. Breathe out love.
If you can, call to mind some action or thought of yours which is good, and loving.
Thank God for the love that flows through you.
Breathe in love. Breathe out love.

Take some pencils or other art equipment. Draw and write the words of Blake above, or a Bible verse about God’s love. Return your attention to God’s love for you again and again.

And, in honour of the royal wedding, and all who are committing their lives to loving each other this summer, from the sections on Eros ….

Romantic love – Eros

Lewis describes Eros as “the kind of love which lovers are in”.
……
Eros transforms a ‘need pleasure’ into an ‘appreciate pleasure’. We see the miracle of the beloved – they are wondrous. We see in them something of the “imago dei”, the image of God. This love can wipe out the distinction between giving and receiving. It can take us to a point beyond ourselves: “love you, I am you!” (89).
This kind of love… is close to the kind of love God has for us. The total commitment, the adoration and sacrifice of God’s love for us has its echo here.

……..

Drawing meditation
Read a passage from the Song of Solomon, suggest Ch 2.
Reread it slowly, and draw or paint a response, freely and spontaneously. Doodle if that suits you. Feel the abundant life and energy of the passage.
Dwell with the love of the couple.
Then, when you are ready, turn your mind to considering how God delights in you, and celebrates you in love and song. Can you receive that?
How might it change your relationships to be so “rooted and grounded in love” (Eph 3:17-19)?

BRF are publishing my book, Jesus said “I am” in October this year. It started life as a similar series of meditations, but it was wonderful to have more space to explore and develop ideas, and to include a wide range of possible responses to take into our everyday lives. Soon, I’ll have the text to go through one last time……..

Sunday Retold – The Spirit Comes, Pentecost

May 16, 2018October 30, 2018 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Sharing a reading and prayers for this Sunday – Pentecost.
Peace and Joy to you!

Andrea Skevington

4epenb-jyoti-sahi-pentecost Picture Source: Jyoti Sahi

We celebrate Pentecost this weekend, and the story continues its extraordinary movement outwards. Last week, it was Ascension, when Jesus left the disciples. They were still thinking in terms of their own people, and Jesus showed them an ever widening perspective (Acts 1:6-9)

Now, we see how God continues to open and include. It seems that all those gathered together (1:14-15) were part of the great outpouring of the Spirit, and the impact on the listeners suggests God was at work beyond even those. The barriers between us of race, gender, nationality, language, youth and age, are being broken down, moving us towards a deep unity (Col 1:17, Gal 3:28). No wonder the whole house was filled with a great sound! This is powerful and much needed work.

We notice how the barrier of language is overcome. We notice that God’s priority is not to change…

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Good Friday Retold

March 30, 2018October 30, 2018 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Some simple readings for today.

Andrea Skevington

A simple reading and prayers for this Holy Friday

From The Bible Retold and Prayers and Verses

Please feel free to use any of my material that helps you, saying where it is from

cano_alonso-zzz-crucifixion Cano Alonso

THE ROAD OF TEARS, AND THE PLACE OF THE SKULL (Luke 23:26-49)
Jesus stumbled under the heavy wooden cross, weak from his beating, and so the soldiers seized Simon, a visitor from Cyrene in north Africa, and gave him the cross to carry. Jesus followed slowly over the rough, hard road.
A large crowd followed, and among them were many women, sobbing. He turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. You and your children will know enough pain.”
Two other men were led out to be crucified with Jesus at Golgotha, the Place of the Skull: one on his left, and one on his right. So Jesus was…

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Christmas Retold – Escape to Egypt

December 28, 2017October 30, 2018 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Andrea Skevington

Part of the Sunday Retold series – for the first Sunday of the Christmas Season.The readings many churches will be following this week are Matthew 2:13-23 and Isaiah 63:7-9
Today, 28th December, is also the day the church remembers those who suffer in the Matthew story – the children who are killed at Herod’s order, and all those who weep for them.

It is one of the hardest stories to read in the gospels – that of Herod’s terrible plan to put to death all the tiny boys in Bethlehem. It calls to mind Pharaoh’s instructions that all the newborn boys should be killed, and that calling to mind is no accident (Exodus 1). Matthew’s account is full of reference to the earlier story. The family run to Egypt, across the wilderness, later to retrace the journey, like a second Moses. All these elements of Israel’s suffering and…

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Sunday Retold – Transfiguration

August 2, 2017August 7, 2020 / andreaskevington / 1 Comment

Part of the Sunday Retold series, following the readings may churches around the word use. This week it’s
Luke 9:28-36

The Transfiguration

With relevant extracts from my Books. I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to use any of my material you find helpful, saying where it’s from.

Photo – Matthew Ling

CHANGED BEFORE THEIR EYES (Mark 9:1-30)

Jesus led his disciples on from Caesarea Philippi towards higher ground. Jesus took Peter, James and John, and began to climb the steep slopes of a mountain that rose above the landscape. Rocks slid under their feet as they walked under the bright, burning sun. At last they reached the top, and looked down on the outstretched wings of eagles riding the rising thermal currents.

And there, under the wide, open sky, Jesus was transformed before their eyes. He was shining, changed, his clothes dazzling white – brighter than pure untrodden mountain snow. Then, the disciples saw two figures join Jesus – Moses, the law-giver, and Elijah, the prophet. And there, on that high mountain, they talked together.
Peter, James and John watched wide-eyed until Peter said “Rabbi, Teacher, it’s so good for us to be here. Let us build shelters for you, and Moses, and Elijah.”

Then cloud swirled around them, and a voice came from the cloud. “This is my Son, the one I love. Listen to him!” Then there was silence, and they were alone with Jesus.
On the steep path back down, Jesus turned to them and said, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen until I have risen from the dead!” And the three whispered together, wondering what rising from the dead might mean.

From The Bible Retold

It’s such a strange story.

It forms part of the great turn in the gospel accounts – the turn towards Jerusalem, towards death and resurrection. It follows, and in some ways partners, Jesus’ conversation with his disciples at Caesarea Phillipi, in which he asks them who they say he is. He begins to explain what must happen – how the way is the way through death. Peter, for one, cannot accept it.

And then, this. A strange experience which seems set apart from our everyday reality, and yet shows a deeper reality, almost a peering behind a curtain.

Today, as I write this, I don’t find it very easy to know what to do with that experience – I don’t find myself on a mountaintop. I wonder what it must have been like to be one of the ones left at the bottom, trying to help a desperate father and his desperate son, and unable to do so (Luke 9:37-43). I feel more inclined to ask – if all scripture is useful, how is this useful? If it is supposed to lead to goodness, then how does this do so (2 Timothy 3:16-17)? These are often the starting of my enquiry into a passage.

And I find that recognising there is more than meets the eye in life, there is both dazzling brightness and deep, mysterious cloud, that we sometimes have hints, intimations, of reality and depth and connectedness does indeed help. Although there is much that could be said about the greatness of this mountaintop experience, today, now, I am thinking more simply.

Photo, Peter Skevington, Selworthy Green

I am praying for my eyes to be transfigured, so that I can see the depth and mystery, the brightness and cloudiness that is around me every day. I pray for eyes to see each person I encounter is a holy mystery, beloved by God, made in the image of God, and therefore I seek to look for what they can teach me of God. I would pray to be able to see as God sees, but I do not think I could bear the weight of that. But I can pray for a little more understanding, a little more insight, a little more patience to wait in the cloud, not understanding, and to listen to Jesus, even when no words are said. And I do find that seeing differently leads to acting differently. I hope so. I hope that if I know more fully that the world is charged with God’s grandeur as Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, I will walk differently through it, with more care and more delight. I hope that if I know more fully that each person is precious, I will treat them as precious.

Grant me to recognise in others, Lord God,
the radiance of your own face.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881-1955

From Prayers and Verses

Sculpture, Elizabeth Frink – Chapel of the Transfiguration, St Edmundsbury Cathedral

On Sunday, we went to the Cathedral at Bury St Edmunds for evensong, beautiful as ever. We walked past the Chapel of the Transfiguration, my favourite part of the Cathedral. The table is formed of two pieces of stone. The base is new, polished, very pale and smooth, and the top has been cleaned, but it is plainly old, broken, worn, rescued and repurposed. Made new. Transfigured, even. Above is this beautiful Frink sculpture, which always catches my breath. The figure of Jesus seems to float off the wall, it seems to hold within it the movement of resurrection, of ascension, those times which are to come showing that this death is not the end, that now, there will be a rising. There will be life. Death is transfigured in this sculpture – and included.
You might like to take time to look at it.
How do you respond to it?
Does knowing that it is set in the Chapel of the Transfiguration affect how you see it?
You might like to think about the Transfiguration, and its part in the road to the cross, by dwelling on this – written by Paul in his letter to the Colossians.

¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

All things reconciled.

The brightness and the cloud. The voice and the silence. The death and the life.

Perhaps, like Peter, James and John, we can wonder what this rising from the dead might mean.

Perhaps we can see things more clearly, with transfigured eyes.

2020 – Update:
I found this Liturgy for the Transfiguration online – from the Iona Community. It’s thoughtful and gentle. It includes a short and beautiful film, with art and music. You might find it helps.

“This new light”, Liturgy for the Transfiguration, Iona Community.

You might like to meditate on how this story may be linked to the stories of Moses and Elijah.
I’ve been exploring the story of Moses and the burning bush, and you can read a poem about that here- On fire, but not burned.

Sunday Retold – The Sower and the Seed 16th July 2017

July 13, 2017October 30, 2018 / andreaskevington / Leave a comment

Andrea Skevington

Part of the Sunday Retold series, based on the readings some churches follow, with passages from my booksThe Bible Story Retold and Prayers and Verses.

This week it’s

Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23, the Parable of the Sower

Please feel free to use any of my material that helps you, saying where it is from.

The Sower (van Gogh) The Sower Vincent van Gogh

“Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will utter things hidden since the

creation of the world.”

Matthew 13:34-35″

I love this small commentary from Matthew’s gospel – it opens up for us all kinds of insight into Jesus’ storytelling. Things hidden since the creation of the world are spoken out – spoken out…

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