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It’s coming! Publication day – USA and Canada – Bible Retold, Prayers and Verses

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andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

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For our friends in the USA and Canada, these two titles are out on September 28th, and are available for pre-order now!

Over the next few days and weeks I’ll share some extracts from both books, but here is a little snippet to begin with.

From The Bible Story Retold:

THE SMALL, AND THE HIDDEN

“God’s kingdom is like the yeast a woman used in baking.  She took a little pinch, and mixed it into a great mound of flour.  And the yeast worked its way right through the flour, making well-risen dough, and making all the bread good.”  The crowds smiled at the thought of the warm smell of baking.

“Imagine buried treasure – just under the ground in a field.  That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like.  One day, someone was working in the field when they spotted something glinting in the sun.  They dug away until…

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New Term

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Where I live, teachers and students are starting a new term today – some are starting a new school.

Here are a few prayers from Prayers and Verses to bless you on your way.

With much love.

Goodbye, dear old school,
Hello, bright new start.
May God guide our lives,
Head and hand and heart.

Dear God,
Help us as we learn new things. If we learn quickly and easily,
may we help others to understand. If we make mistakes, may
we understand what went wrong. Help us never to be afraid
of new things, but to see them as an adventure.

Dear Lord,
There are so many things we could ask you for.
Today we ask for wisdom, that we may
understand you and the world and people
better.  Help us to look, and to listen, with
an open mind, that we may learn. Help us
grow in wisdom as we grow in years.

 

Do not imitate
what is bad,
but imitate
what is good.

3 John 11

 

 

 

 

 

prayers and verses cover

It’s coming! Publication day – USA and Canada – Bible Retold, Prayers and Verses

/ andreaskevington / 1 Comment

bible retold cover

prayers and verses cover

For our friends in the USA and Canada, these two titles are out on September 28th, and are available for pre-order now!

Over the next few days and weeks I’ll share some extracts from both books, but here is a little snippet to begin with.

From The Bible Story Retold:

THE SMALL, AND THE HIDDEN

“God’s kingdom is like the yeast a woman used in baking.  She took a little pinch, and mixed it into a great mound of flour.  And the yeast worked its way right through the flour, making well-risen dough, and making all the bread good.”  The crowds smiled at the thought of the warm smell of baking.

“Imagine buried treasure – just under the ground in a field.  That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like.  One day, someone was working in the field when they spotted something glinting in the sun.  They dug away until they uncovered it all – gold, silver, precious stones.  Then, they and sat back on their heels and laughed with joy.  It was a fortune!  Quickly, they buried it again and went away.  They sold everything they had and bought that one field.
“Or think of a trader looking out for fine pearls.  At last, he found the one he had been searching for.  It was large, and smooth, and glowed with all the colours of the rainbow.  It was the best pearl he had ever seen. He went and sold everything he had, and came back with a heavy purse of gold to buy it.”

From Prayers and Verses:

Help me to be patient as I wait for your kingdom
and your righteousness:
as patient as a farmer who trusts that the rains
will come in their season
and that the land will produce its harvest.
Keep my hopes high.
Help me to pray to you and to praise you.

 

I wait eagerly for the Lord’s help
and in his word I trust.
I wait for the Lord
more eagerly than watchmen wait for the dawn.

Psalm 130:5–6

The Kingdom of God is very near.
from Luke 10:9

 

Some links to Amazon are below – of course, if you have local bookshops, they will order it in for you if it’s not in stock.

Canada Bible Retold here

Canada Prayers and Verses here

USA Bible Retold here

USA Prayers and Verses here

 

 

Nest

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Pigeon update: and today, just a few moments ago, they fledged!

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andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

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Poems can tell stories – I hope this one does – stories which seem to have a meaning beyond the events.  This is a story from the past week or so in my garden –  one of the many that unfold daily.  The story of a pigeons’ nest I uncovered.

As I began writing, I thought of the dilemma we all face as humans sharing their home with other creatures – how to live lightly, how to nurture and care for all who share our little bit of land.  As a large and powerful creature in this world, I have responsibility. I wrote about feeling like a giant in my own garden in Pulling up trees. In this instance, I had not seen the parent birds going in and out of this shrub. I thought I knew where all the nests were. I thought I had left it late enough…

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Heron

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heron4

photographer unknown

The River Deben near my home – a place where I walk as many days as I can – ebbs and flows through my thoughts and my writing.  It is tidal here, edged with mud and reeds, and it is rich with life.  There is always something to see, if you look.

In this case, I did not see the heron my walking by the quiet creek disturbed, not until it took off, anyway.  I thought of how attentive I need to be, and sometimes am, as a writer.  How I need to be open to what is going on around me, to notice and to receive.  In the poem I talk of hunting for words, as the heron for fish – but it is not just the bright silver words, it is also being alert for meaning, for truth, for connection.  The words do not feel like mine, always, they do feel like something caught, overheard, given – even when they are wrestled with later, honed and rearranged until they better match what it is that I experienced.  Then, I set them free.

 

Heron  

The heron takes off –
ragged, heavy, a smudged
mud-grey, a shadow-grey
I had not seen it there

Its feathers, pointed reed-leaves,
its legs, thin in the wind reed-stems
its downbeats long and laboured,
straining, slow, like my August walking.

This is how it would have been, though,
before: still and silent in the reeds,
hidden, waiting for the moment
to spear one bright silver fish,
a swift stab of that powerful beak,
then back to silence, stillness.

As my path shimmers in the heat,
the soles of my feet hot through my shoes,
I think that is where I too would be,
hidden in cool reed-shadows,
in stillness, quietness, watching for
bright silver words to dart by,
catching them with my mouth.

But then I look up, and see those
long black flight-feathers finally bite
the air, and the heron, neck doubled back,
soars high, at last, over reedbed,
over river, its down-arched wings
wide over the earth.

 

And, a short extract from the first chapter of Prayers and Verses

 

Lord, purge our eyes to see
Within the seed a tree,
Within the glowing egg a bird,
Within the shroud a butterfly.
Till, taught by such we see
Beyond all creatures, thee
And harken to thy tender word
And hear its “Fear not; it is I”.
Christina Rosetti 1830-94

 

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 c330-379

 

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834

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Days

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Hurry.  I am ill suited to it – especially as the days grow hot.  I wrote this poem as a kind of rebellion against the feeling that my time was constrained, not my own, running away from me while I seemed to have none of it for the important things.

So I snatched time, and wrote.  As I wrote, as I paid attention to what was around me, I felt the time slow.  I felt myself breathe again. I felt the hard shells of the seconds soften, crack, and open like the seeds in the ground – become things of infinite possibility again.  I realised that, although my home is not the manor described in the poem, there are ways in which it is.  I can inhabit my days as if they were timeless, spacious, connected.  By slowing, by paying attention, by breathing, I found what I needed.  Most of all, though, for me, it is by writing.  Writing freely, writing the moment before me, is a kind of contemplation. It can become a kind of prayer.
I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s great advice –

Pay attention   Be astonished   Tell about it.

This poem was highly commended for the Crabbe Memorial Prize.
You can listen to it here

 

Days

There is little time –
flowers run to seed so fast under
this strong sun, this dry blue sky,
their leaves curling crisply, blanching.
Their hurry towards death unsettles me
as their stems rattle brown, poppyseeds
pouring through my fingers, tiny and dark,
pouring away like hard-shelled seconds.

I want to inhabit each day slowly, quietly,
as if it were an ancient manor among gentle lands,
with warm red brick thick with years,
that smells of fires, and of rosepetals
as they overflow cracked china bowls,
where time hangs in the spaces between
each tick of the clock, and open doors
let in the endless songs of trees.

There, I could think – uncurl fresh leaves,
as time shimmers like the deep pool, full of lilies,
where the bright dragonfly waits, and waits.

Bees

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Hot and thundery, the English summer arrives – it’s too much all at once, at least for me.
Here is a small poem written watching the bees through my window, on the powerful, vivid, lavender.
It is also a poem touching on transformation, something that is beginning to emerge as a theme, although I am not quite sure where it is taking me……. which is perhaps, the point.

Bees

I watch them on the lavender,
each purple flowerstem a pendulum of bees,
keeping time with its humming weight,
White and red tailed, bumble and carder.

A few honeybees come, too,
so few, and already yellow
with sweetness.
And butterflies – cabbage whites,
bright as paper – unfolding
in the scent of flowers.

When the summer storms come,
when storm-rain falls in drops
as big as bumblebees, and
hail clatters against the glass,
they rise, as one, and fly
between the drops, too fast
for me to know where they shelter.

They return to rainwashed flowers
one by one as I gather a few new stems
bright, fragrant, and roll them
slowly in a jar of sugar,
ready, in the time to come,
for delicate sweet biscuits,
icing for dainty cakes.

I do not have the alchemy of bees,
but I have my own, under this roof.

The Good Samaritan

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The good samaritan

The Good Samaritan  Vincent van Gogh

So, this week, we are surrounded by political and economic uncertainty after the  UK’s Brexit vote.  In a national climate of increasing distrust, and anger, and division, many churches will be given this reading to consider on Sunday – the parable of the good Samaritan.  It is strong medicine – at least, I find it so.  It challenges me deeply, differently each time.  Reading it again, now, its force comes home anew.

From The Bible Story Retold

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?  (Luke 10:25-37)

The teacher of the Law stood up, narrowing his eyes in the bright sun.  He had heard people talk about Jesus, now he wanted to test him out.

He pitched his opening question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

But Jesus offered the question back to him, giving him the chance to show his knowledge. “What is written in the Law?  How do you interpret it?” The teacher’s answer was to quote the scriptures word-for-word: “’Love the Lord your God with all your soul, strength and mind’, and ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’.”

Jesus smiled.  “It’s a good answer.  If you do all that, then you’ll have eternal life!”  “But….” the teacher of the Law added in a loud voice,  “but who is my neighbour?”  Jesus answered him with a story.

“Once, a man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho.” The crowd could imagine this journey – the road’s steep rocky sides, its twists and turns, its dust and heat. “As he made his way along,  a band of robbers crashed down the rocky slope onto the road – they had him surrounded.  The man gasped, horrified, but there was nowhere for him to run. They stripped off his clothes and beat him to the ground.  They left him lying in the dust, half-dead, while they went to gloat over their takings.

“So there he was, lying helpless in the heat of the sun, when a priest came by.  The priest did not stop, he gave the man a wide berth, crossing quickly to the other side.  A priest can not touch blood, or a body – that would make him “unclean” by Law, unable to work in the Temple, wouldn’t it?” Jesus nodded towards the teacher of the Law, then carried on. “Next came another religious man: a Levite.  He, too, saw the man lying bleeding, and still.  He, too, walked by on the other side, lifting his robes a little to avoid touching the blood on the road, and peering anxiously into the rocky shadows.

“Then, in the distance, came the steady clop of a donkey’s hooves.  The donkey carried a third man, but this time, he had nothing to do with the Temple.  He was a Samaritan.” Again he turned to the teacher, who was looking smug now.  Samaritans didn’t keep to the law – so he wouldn’t know the right thing to do. “The Samaritan saw the broken figure lying bleeding on the road, and his heart was filled with pity. He leaped down, cleaned and soothed his wounds with wine and oil, and tore strips of cloth to make bandages.  He slipped his arms under the man and heaved him onto his donkey, leading him gently to an inn.  He sat with him all night, giving him sips of water and wine.  The next day, he spoke to the innkeeper. ‘Here are some silver coins.  Look after him, and if you spend more, I’ll pay you on my return.’

For a third time Jesus looked at the teacher of the Law and asked him  “Now, you answer my question.  Which one was a neighbour to the injured man?”

The teacher of the Law shifted uncomfortably. “The one who was kind to him.” He answered quietly.  Jesus replied, “So go, and do likewise!”

It seems that the teacher of the law was opening a theoretical debate about what constitutes rightness in God’s eyes.  It doesn’t seem to have that much to do with God, or people, even though he correctly identified the commands to love as the highest ones.  Perhaps his question, “who is my neighbour”,  was an attempt to place a limit on the breadth of the command to love.  Perhaps this person is one I should love, but I can overlook another.

As was his custom, Jesus does not respond in kind, in debate, which can often stimulate the mind and bypass the heart.  Instead, he tells a powerful story.  Stories can change us.  They can reframe the way we see things, they can stir up powerful responses – outrage, pity, compassion, love.

And love is the aim, the way, the goal.   The teacher of the law was right about that.  Here, it trumps other laws – those who seek to maintain their personal holiness and safety while leaving a bleeding man in the road  are seen in sharp focus.

It is a foreigner who loves, and is commended.  So often, groups praise the good deeds of those who are the same as them, in nationality, or creed, or other ways, and overlook goodness where it is found elsewhere.  Jesus does not do that. Jesus, in word and deed, shows us what love looks like, and it is resourceful, and strong, and relentless even in the face of death. It overrides boundaries and borders.  Jesus commends the goodness of one outside the Jewish tradition, and asks the expert in Jewish law to learn from him, to be more like him. The teacher of the law seems to be open to the lesson, too.

If some in our national debate are speaking words that divide people from their neighbours, we can remember that each of us can seek to live differently, demanding as that is. It is a humbling thing.  There is no room for pride in the face of such a call to love – it is so often beyond our own resources.   But, what seems quite astonishing to me is how little it can take to make a difference. I am sure we can all remember people, known or unknown to us, whose gestures of love and solidarity, whose practical kindness, whose simple acknowledgement helped us when we were in trouble.  We can pray for open-hearted courage, we can pray for eyes to see the needs of those we walk past as we go about day by day. If we dare, we can ask God to move us to pity. But if that seem too much for us today,  we can remember that the smallest gift of lovingkindness bears the hallmark of God.

How good it is when we remember that each human being has dignity, infinite worth, and so offer to all our respect and compassion.  We can look for good in others, wherever they are from and whatever our differences. We can seek to overstep boundaries, and reach out a hand, remembering that love is from God.
Another way is possible.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  1 John 4:7

From Prayers and Verses

Lord Jesus,
Make me as kind to others as I would want to be to you.
Make me as generous to others as I would want to be to you.
May I take time to help them as I would want to take time to help you.
May I take trouble to help them as I would want to take trouble to help you.
May I look into the faces of those I meet and see your face.

BASED ON MATTHEW 25:37–40

New Book News!

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We arrived back from a few days away to find that, as usual, some post had built up behind the door.  One of the envelopes was quite fat, and it contained a contract for a new book with BRF!  Good news!  It’s a book on the I Am sayings of Jesus,  with an emphasis on how we can respond, and embed these deep truths in our lives.

This book idea began when I was writing a series of meditations for BRF’s Quiet Spaces and found there were too  many ideas, too much to say, to compress into that concentrated format.  I am so grateful they were open to the idea of reading more.   I have till next May to write it, so it will be a while before it is available, but I shall keep you posted on this blog, and hopefully post a few snippets for you to try for yourselves.

I would also like to say thank you to the dear friends who have encouraged me, and especially the St John’s Church Advent Retreat, who patiently listened and tried out various ideas I had been developing, and helped no end with their thoughtful and generous response.

That was not the only post, though.  There was also a parcel containing this:

 

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Recently published, it’s the first time I have held Prayers and Verses in my hands, and it is a beautiful piece of work from Lion. It’s always a strange thing, to see your words printed on a white page, to see the way what you hoped for – something where the different verses and prayers seem to  interact with each other and enrich each other – might be happening on the page.  Below you will see it with its companion volume, The Bible Story Retold.

 

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And here is a spread from the book – I hope you will excuse the slightly variable focus!
In the UK we are facing a time of huge uncertainty, and I thought I would share with you these few prayers and verses. They are reflecting on the time of Exile in the Jewish story, which seems to be a relevant theme for many, whatever their nationality.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this little bit of good news.  May there be more good to come for you, too.