Nature

Not only but also

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This poem emerged from another solitary walk.  My feet beat against a hard path, and as I walked somewhere quiet, and beautiful, these words – and this pattern of words – began to emerge.
I had been thinking about the ways we sometimes speak of God, the things we tend to see God in, the images and symbols we use, and the things we tend to overlook.  I had been wondering why we pick the things we do, and what might happen if we looked at other, less promising subjects, and wondered if they too could tell us something about God.  What would we see if we looked differently?
It was a kind of walking contemplative practice,  one that I find fruitful.
By the time I got home the words were beating their own footsteps in my head, and I picked up some scrap paper, and wrote this:

NOT ONLY

Not only in these things
is the Glory of God to be found.

Not only these, but also
in the curved world bending itself
to a newly opened eye,
and the longing that clouds its closing.

Not only in the high and echoing hills
where rocks raise themselves
beneath the shutterfast
night and day of heaven,
but also in the long grey
half-light when dawn will not break.

Not only in the hands of the potter,
but in the cracked rim of a dropped bowl,
and in the one who could not hold it.

Not only in the mystery of words
and the fullness of music and
the pull of a brush through paint,
but in the fragments of self
we leave and find daily –
folded among shirts, and papers,
and hands on a still lap.
Not only in the bright beauty of stars,
but also in the black strangeness of the
space between.

Not only in the white smoke of the waterfall,
but also in the dustsmell of first drops after drought.
Not only in the green fluidity of the forest
or light through a new leaf.
Not only light but shadow
not only sea but dry stones
not only abundance but desert.
Not only
but also.

 
The photos above are of the Preseli Hills in West Wales, with a view of Carn Ingli – the Hill of the Angels – and also Mwnt beach, a departure point for ancient pilgrims to Ireland.

Sunday Retold – Naaman and the river

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It’s time for the next Sunday Retold, and this week’s readings include the story of Naaman from Aram.
You can find all the readings following these links:

2 Kings 5: 1-3, 7-15;2 Timothy 2.8-15; Luke 17:1-19.

The story of Naaman is rich in so many ways.  Reading it alongside the Luke passage – the healing of the ten lepers – brings two aspects into particular focus:  how we view those not of our tribe, or group, or belief system; and the practice of gratitude.

It’s easy to favour people who are like us, who are part of our group, whatever that may be. It’s easy too for us to slide into hostility, a feeling of superiority, a certainty that we alone are right.  In both of these stories, we see God not limited by our categories and barriers, but working in the lives of two people who were regarded as outsiders, enemies even.

Naaman was leader of the armies who were fighting against Israel – as clear an enemy as you could imagine.  Yet, he was a human being with a secret need, and a secret fear – of leprosy, which would have put an end to his military career, and made him an outcast.  That the enemy of God’s people should be stricken in this way might be something to  rejoice over – but not for the young slave he had captured.  She had reason to ill-wish her master, but she did not.  She conspired to bless him instead.  It was three servants, or slaves, who play a key role in this story.  They are the ones who move the narrative forward, who nudge the powerful towards right action.  The general does well to listen to the one who apparently has no power.

Naaman, who arrived in great power and pomp, causing a diplomatic incident, was not greeted by the prophet in the way he expected – but by a servant.  He was asked to take off his robes, his armour, his signs of status, and expose his vulnerable flesh.  He had to wash in a foreign river, when he had fine waterways of his own. He would have to bend down, bow into the water.
And then, he was healed, and then, what ripples flowed out from that action. The fates of nations hinged on this act which began with the words of a slave-girl.

One of the ripples was gratitude.  And that is the theme of the Gospel story.  The gratitude of one who was not part of Israel, had a different theology, different worship practices.  Nonetheless, he sought and found healing with Jesus, and was the only one of the ten who returned to say thank you.  The nine who were on home territory did not.  Perhaps the foreigner could teach us something, here.

Gratitude is a powerful and life-affirming discipline – and it is a discipline.  Gratitude sometimes flows naturally, but most of the time, we need to remind ourselves to be thankful.  We are so used to problem-solving, that we only see the things we think are broken, and cease to see what is good.  When we do, things shift.  Gratitude to God and to others can transform things – and not just for us, but for those around us, too.

And, to pick up the earlier theme again, perhaps we can consider how to bless those we think of as not like us, how to break down hostility – even if we find it in our own hearts – and do good to others.  Perhaps, like Namaan, we can also learn to receive good from the foreigner, the one we might regard as of low status.

What would the world be like if more of us lived out these two disciplines – blessing the other, and gratitude?

The following extract is from The Bible Retold

Please feel free to use these extracts if they help you, saying where they are from.

  NAAMAN FROM ARAM (2 Kings 5)

The little Israelite slave-girl was brushing out the hair of her mistress – the wife of Naaman, whose armies had captured her and brought her to Aram.
“My lady, why are you sad?” she asked.
“My husband the general’s skin is growing worse.  It must be leprosy.” She replied, weeping.
“If only my master would visit the prophet of Samaria – he would be cured!”  So Naaman went in great state, with his horses and chariots, attendants and guards, through enemy territory to Elisha’s house.  But Elisha did not go to greet his mighty guest.  He sent a slave with a message “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and you’ll be healed.”  Naaman shook with fury.
“What kind of service is this from a holy man?  I expected prayers and the laying on of hands!  But he just sends this puny messenger!  I could have washed at home!”  And he turned on his heels to leave.  But his servant intervened
“My lord, if the prophet had asked something hard of you, would you not have done it?  So why not do this simple thing?”  And so Naaman did.  He washed in the Jordan seven times, and as he came out into the bright sunlight, he looked down at his skin.  It was smooth, perfect, like that of a child.  Beaming, he rushed back to Elisha, opening his treasure chest. “Now I know that the God you serve is the true one.  Nothing else comes close.” “That is reward enough – you may keep your gold!” Elisha replied.  And Naaman went home, telling everyone of God’s great goodness.

 

And, from Prayers and Verses

May we learn to appreciate different points of view:

To know that the view from the hill is
different from the view in the valley;
the view to the east is different from the
view to the west;
the view in the morning is different from
the view in the evening;
the view of a parent is different from the
view of a child;
the view of a friend is different from the
view of a stranger;
the view of humankind is different from
the view of God.

May we all learn to see what is good, what is true,
what is worthwhile.

 

O God, help us not to despise or oppose what we do not understand.
William Penn 1644-1718

The olive tree I thought was dead
has opened new green leaves instead
and where the landmines tore the earth
now poppies dance with joy and mirth.

The doves build nests, they coo and sigh
beside the field where corn grows high
and grapes hang heavy on the vine,
and those who fought share bread and wine.

 

Lord, because you have made me, I owe you the whole of my love;
because you have redeemed me, I owe you the whole of myself;
because you have promised so much, I owe you all of my being.
I am wholly yours by creation: make me all yours, too, in love.

Anslem, 1033-1109

May we enter into God’s conspiracies of blessing this week.
Keat’s Autumn is on my mind at the moment, with the wonderful phrase, “conspire to bless”!

Now, as the days of darkness come

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As many days as I can, I walk by the River Deben near my home.  Sometimes I walk with someone, but often I walk alone.  Alone, the experience is different, opened up differently.  It  becomes a quiet form of prayer – one which begins with an openness, a question
– Hello, what is there that I need to notice today?
Alone becomes companionable, the openness becomes openness to one who is always there.
I look at the birds of the air, among other things, although, this day, it was more the birds of the water.
It seemed to me as I watched the cormorants that the growing darkness of the season was maybe something I needed to dive into, under the bright surface, that there was treasure even here, even here.

If you wish, you can listen  to the poem.

 

 

Now, as the days of darkness come

Now, as the days of darkness come,
I see the slick oily surface of the water,
low light skims it like bright stones,
as the geese arrive in broken, twisted skeins.

And there is the egret
in its startling whiteness,
probing the mud,
and a pair of cormorants,
dark as pitch,
forming their strange low circles.
Then, as I watch, they slip down beneath
the bright surface, into hidden water.
And I, too, I hold my breath,
while they are hidden, in wonder
at the unexpected airiness of their bodies,
sustaining them, in that cold water, for so long.

Sunday Retold – Small Seeds, from Luke 17

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Sunday Retold

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This coming Sunday’s gospel reading – Luke 17:5-7 – talks of tiny amounts of faith, faith as small as a seed, which can accomplish so much in the world. A little context is helpful here.  The verse before talks of the necessity to forgive someone, and to keep on forgiving them.   On hearing this, the disciples ask for their faith to be increased.

It is a hard task to forgive, and maybe the disciples think they need vast amounts of faith to be able to do it. These verses are difficult to understand, to see how they hang together. Perhaps Jesus’ answer suggests that, if they have any faith at all, it is enough.  His story of the servant and the master may follow on from the same train of thought.  The work of forgiveness is an everyday necessity for the follower of Jesus.  Everyday work does not require special equipment, or a special reward.  Perhaps, if we are thinking about our life of faith in terms of reward, of payment, we have misunderstood something.

The Lord’s Prayer (11:1-4),  has already been recorded in Luke – forgive us, as we forgive. There, we begin to see how the flow of forgiveness works.  We need forgiveness, and  we need to forgive.  Our own forgiveness is not a static thing, a prize to be acquired.  Neither is forgiveness conditional, but, I believe, Jesus describes a process.   This is how it works – as a flow of forgiveness.  As we join in, seeking to pass on what we receive, we become more like Jesus.  He forgives, and so we are freed to. We find the courage and humility to ask for, and give, forgiveness. We both receive and give.  It is hard work for us, but it is the work we must do every day – like the work of the servants.

Seeds have tremendous capacity coiled within them.  Small as they are, they contain all that is needed for a new plant to grow.  It is all there, already.  Jesus often uses seeds to talk about the life of the kingdom.  They seem a perfect illustration.  So small, so unassuming, they need to fall to the ground and break.  Then we see that they are in fact  breaking open, bursting with new life, with a shoot and a root and a leaf ready to unfurl.

In The Bible Retold , I have the slightly longer version of the mustard seed from Matthew’s gospel.

“How shall I tell you about God’s kingdom?  It’s like a man who digs down in the earth and plants a tiny mustard seed – it’s so small that a puff of wind could take it out of the palm of his hand.  Yet it grows and spreads into the largest plant in the garden, with branches where the birds can come and shelter.”

And here are some extracts from Prayers and Verses  to help us pray through this gospel reading.  We think of the smallness of the seeds of kingdom life in our own lives and the life of our community, and of the patience needed to wait and tend their growth.  We remember the seeds with gratitude, aware of their potential.  We think too of our own need for forgiveness, and remember it before we condemn another.

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.

 

The Lord is good to me,
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need,
The sun, the rain, the appleseed.
The Lord is good to me.
Attributed to John Chapman, planter of orchards 1774-1845

I told God everything:
I told God about all the wrong things I had done.
I gave up trying to pretend.
I gave up trying to hide.
I knew that the only thing to do was
to confess.

And God forgave me.

Based on Psalm 32:5

We remember also that there are no small things in the kingdom.  Apparently small things have tremendous power.  They are enough.  What small things can you do today?

We can do no great things,
Only small things with great love.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta 1910-1997

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.” Robert Louis Stevenson

 

With thanks to my homegroup – a small group who meet and pray and read gospels and sometimes cry and always laugh together. Sowers of seeds, all.

Light

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It’s nearly the equinox.

It is noticeable now, how quickly the light is drawing back from the edges of the days.  Outside jobs cannot be left. A torch is sometimes useful.  I do mourn the loss of light, but know that the darkness has its compensations – lamplight, wood fires, stars.

Below is a poem I wrote on Sizewell beach.  The photos above are from Walberswick, a little along the coast, where the North Sea has the same dark beauty.  I sat on the beach as the light faded, both watching and experiencing the loss of it, and the spread of the deeper blue of early night.  I saw my field of vision narrowing, and had a sensation of being, therefore, somehow at the centre, at the focus of what light there was.  An illusion, of course, based on the wonderful way the eye works – but a powerful and helpful one.  It enabled me to get off the beach when I finally turned my back on the sea.  It is like having a lamp for your feet.

While it lasted, that sense of being at the centre – one of many centres – was a place of prayer, a sacred place. I was aware of God, the source of light – and also of the light, the sea and the sky that were around me.  It was one of those times outside time, when we simply are, and are aware of that which is greater than us – aware of our own smallness, and our own participation in something vast, and beautiful.

Light, and its absence, have been on my mind as I have been writing about Jesus’ I AM sayings, particularly “I am the Light of the World”.  Perhaps that’s why this villanelle surfaced in my memory.

It is a loose interpretation of the verse form, with its three line stanzas and repeated lines, circling around, but it was the one that seemed to fit what the poem was trying to be.

 

LIGHT

Here, quiet on this stony shore, light
drains from the edges first. Blue deepens to blue,
leaving one pool of brightness against the night,

as the starlight, faint at first, shines bright
on the black waves that rise and fold,
here, quiet on this stony shore. Light

flecks the foam that trembles and shines white,
as the circle of darkness turns closer,
leaving one pool of brightness against the night.

Now, in the blackness, bright birds stop their flight
and shut their starfilled eyes against the dark.
Here, quiet on this stony shore, light

shines on white pebbles, shimmering and starbright
as shadows seep and spread like tar rising,
leaving one pool of brightness against the night.

The stars, the foam, and the pebbles shine with light
that washes and wells and rises
here, quiet on this stony shore. Light
leaving one pool of brightness against the night.

 

 

Honesty

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Image from higgledeygarden.com

Where do ideas come from?

You may have decided you would like to write, or paint, or undertake any creative practice, but  white space stares back at you from the paper, or the canvas, or the screen, and your mind feels as blank as the page.

What helps me is to begin.  That means deciding to fill up a page – not trying to accomplish anything grand, or anything specific – showing up at the page and filling it.  Often I do this outside, and often I end up writing about the things I see around me.  Sometimes, as I do sisomething catches my attention.

This time, it was the seed-heads of the honesty.

 

Honesty

The seedheads are drying.
They were purple green, fleshy,
lit up dancing by the summer sun,
and now they are thin, and dark,
like the cratered moon seen
through thick smoke,
or burnt paper with
smudged, forgotten words.

And now, as they dry,
the seedheads rattle and split,
shucked by the north wind,
shedding one half of themselves,
the darker half, those thin circles
rolling over the green lawn.

What is left is shining like
an open shell, glowing
in low light like
so many clear moons
caught in a white net.
Now, they are showing
their heart-colours,
pale and lovely at last.

Day of Prayer for Creation – a Parable

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Photos of a walk taken near Wandlebury Ring and the old Roman Road, Cambridgeshire

September 1st is a day when we make Creation the focus of our prayers, knowing that others around the word are doing so. It is the first day of the Season of Creation, which ends on October 4th.  As I was praying for our hurting world, the story below came into my mind. I hope it may help you, as it has helped me, focus my prayers with urgency, and consider how I can live in a way which respects the beauty and glory of Creation, and the love of God for it all.  I have found, over recent years, my eyes and my heart have been opened to both the pain and beauty of the world around me, and the many ways the natural world is honoured in Scriptures, particularly in the prophets.

Jesus invited us to consider the flowers of the field, and the birds of the air, and learn from them the heart and mind of God.

If it helps you, please feel free to use and share it, saying that you found it here.

 

 

The parable of the good craftsman

Once there was a craftsman who had two children. As you might expect, he had built a beautiful house out of seasoned wood, with wide windows that looked out over his lush green fields, his flocks and herds.  He had made fine, carved furniture for his house, and he had smiled when he made it, and said, “That’s good!”  He had made beautiful plates and cups and jugs out the red clay near his house, he had smiled when he made those, too, and said, “That’s good!”  He had made a sheepfold to keep his flocks safe, and smiled, then, too.  In fact, all that was around him was good and flourishing and abundant, and as he looked at it all, he laughed out loud and said, “That is all so good!”

The day came when he needed to go on a journey, as the people in these stories often do.  He thought, “My children are old enough to be left in charge now.  They have watched what I did, some of the time, and I have told them how good it is.”  And so he left, and the children looked around, and they, too, saw that it was good.  So good, in fact, that they started to think how much it was all worth.  So they sold the furniture, and the plates and cups and jugs, for a fortune.  They were made by a master craftsman, after all.  The plastic ones they bought to replace them were good enough. They looked at the lush green fields and thought, “We could rear more animals in pens.”  So they did: twice as many, three and four times even, the poor creatures.  They sold the pasture they no longer needed, and a factory and a car park grew there, large and grey and ugly.  The water from the well their father had dug became bitter, but they bought water in bottles with all the money that they had made.

Then, the time came for the father to return.  As he drew near the house, he noticed the trees along the road were withered and dying, and his smile left him.  He came across a bird trapped in plastic that blew across the fields, and he set it free.  Then, near the house, he found a thin child sitting by the side of the road.
“What is the matter?” he asked.
“I drank water from the stream that flows from over there, by that factory.  It tasted bad. Now I’m sick.”  The father gave the child water from his own flask, and picked up the child to take home. He had herbs for medicine there.

But when he got even nearer, he could see that the factory was on his own land, and that where his own fields should be was all noise and smoke.  He could see the plastic rubbish spilling over from his own front garden, from where the flowers and the vegetables and the herbs had been.  He saw his own children, with grey, indoor faces, and said, “what have you done?”
“Father, we are so pleased to see you!  Come inside, we will bring you the accounts and you will see what we have made!”
“That is not the kind of making I intended you for!” replied the father. “And see, see this child, poisoned! How will you enter that in these books of yours?  What have you done with all that I have made – do you not know that I love it all?”

 

 

 

Some prayers 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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Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner – at Watchet, the place that inspired him.

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Rain

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So, today, it rains.  I am loving listening to the sound of it fall o the dry ground, the coolness, freshness, even the greyness of the sky and the newly soft light.

While waiting for the rain, my mind turned back to this poem.  I wrote it a couple of years ago, and so the raspberries in the pictures, this year’s crop, are healthier than the ones described below.  Water has been on my mind as I’ve been working on my  new book   on John’s gospel – water poured out as an offering, water to wash the eyes of the one born blind, water the bubbles up within you, so you are never thirsty again.  That gets closer to the other kinds of thirst here, in this poem.  There are many things we can be thirsty for.

Rain

The breeze stirs the raspberry patch,
the leaves with crisp yellow edges
rustle under their net,
and under them
are deep red fruits, dusted grey,
The colour of blood spilled
not today, or yesterday,
but months ago.

They are strong,
an intense sharpness.
They have lost their sweetness.
Yet, even so, the blackbird balances
on the net,  reaching down
with a hard yellow beak.

The ground beneath is grey, too, and
fissured like the fruit.
The heat rises, stillness falls on the ground
like thin shadows.
This thirst, this longing for rain,
grows stronger.
Desperate.
Joy, and gentleness,
love and lovingkindness.
Presence and peace.
These I long for.
I need them like flowing water.
Come like the rain.
Come to us like rain.

Flags

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Seeds – such extraordinary, tiny, dots of potential, each one full of flowers.  I tend to let the plants I love run to seed, and then I have handfuls of treasure to bury in the ground, for the seed must fall to the ground to grow.  In this case, the ground is the small and unpromising strip of land beyond my boundary, by the road.  It does no harm, that I can see, to sow here, and it carries the possibility of  something beautiful happening where there was little beauty before.

The difficulty with planting wild seeds in wild places is that they are unlikely to grow.  As such, they can seem more like signs of disillusion and futility than of hope.  I was wondering whether we can engage in acts of hope, of planting, of goodness and joy, for their own sake, and then, simply be delighted when something beautiful comes of it.  I sow and I forget that I sow, but, nonetheless,  I now have a few small flowers of campion, scabious and harebell growing where none grew before.

The sun and the rain are beyond my power, but the sowing is entirely within it..

 

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The seeds are ripening now –
bluebells and red campion,
scabious and harebells –
in this space, this enclosed
garden space

So I offer them to friends,
and I cut the ripe stalks down
and gather them in my hands,
carrying them like so many
ceremonial flags –
my colours.

I take them to the thin strip
of ground beyond my flint wall,
making cars slow for me
as I scatter in this hot,
unpromising soil.
Yet, nonetheless,
I am filling it up with seeds,
slowly, year on year,
colours blazing in my mind.

Most will not take,
but the seeds are there,
and the ground is there,
and so what is there to do
but to sow, freely,
not expecting return,
amazed and laughing
when they grow.

 

 

 

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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