Tag: prayer

Wrongfooted

No church, no altar
just a table at knee height
or it feels that way
in the churchyard
no candles nowhere to put things
scarcely a congregation.
Welcome to Covid.

Are the words in the wrong place
or my head in the wrong place?
Why does it matter so much
that everything is different
and so much is gone?

Good question, says Jesus,
keep asking questions,
I’m still here.
Did you think I was the super-vaccination
against life? Nice try.
I’m not here to blow the storms away
but to sail with you.

And yes, my heart bleeds too
about this whole damn business
in case you were wondering.
That’s why I’m here
on this thing.

tRuth 2021

Your friends were with you only for a season

Your friends were with you only for a season
To hear your word and share your holy life,
And then they scattered to the world’s far corners
To bring joy to indifference and strife.

Lord, so with us: we walk the path together
A year or two, we’re knit in friendship’s bands,
Until you bid us follow where you’re leading
In lonely coracle to unknown lands.

Teach us to part: for parting is not ending,
In glory we will meet if not before;
The bands of love in prayer grow ever stronger,
We bear each other to those separate shores.

And so we weave a net of grace and kindness
Across the world and down the passing years;
Christ is the net who binds us all together,
Who makes our souls through sharing hopes and fears.

And so farewell, in gratitude and laughter
For all that Christ has given in this place;
Lord, lead us on to find tomorrow’s blessings,
Tomorrow’s friends, tomorrow’s gift and grace.

 

tRuth 2019

I had the tune Londonderry Air in mind when writing this, but one would need to repeat the last verse.

 

image © Mike Prince /flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Communion

This moment is beyond time
Where you are enthroned
On the praises of Israel,
And I am rapt in wonder,
Held in union beyond expression.
You entered the tabernacle of time
To display your glory:
In each moment’s monstrance you radiate
Holiness, mercy, grace;
There is no time where you do not dwell.
You display your glory
In each encounter, each irradiated face:
These the tent of your abiding,
For which you framed the spun silk
Of cause and effect:
Time’s glittering web.

 

tRuth 2016

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Monstrance

I
An absence
Framing a presence
holding a silence:
the realest place on earth.

II
My heart
though scarcely real
holds your reality
a light, a silence,
a deep place of meeting,
knitting beyond mind’s reach
a throne for the night of time
the blazing Uncreated.

III
Your showing
means meeting: heart speaks to heart
love flows to love
greeting each throned presence
each prism of the All-Loving.
I bow before you
revealed in ten thousand hearts
daily benediction.

 

tRuth 2016

 

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Sails

Sails
Huge and rippling in the twilight
Gathering in the imperceptible breath
Drawing on the solitary mariner
On the calm and silent sea.
This is the sea Galēnē that knows no storms
No shore, no tides, no end, where each sailor
Journeys alone and mapless.
Stars there are, and fogs, and rarely
The sweet track of moonbeams leading onward
For a while.
You may set out
Hoisting the great sails of your hopes
Eager for the hidden harbour of your journey’s end.
But the way is long, and the journey
Requires great store of patience
And skill in returning to the sea
That eludes the sailor
Where one day’s journey is undone the next
And the breathing of the waters in the silent world
Is the same, offering no landmarks,
No sense of progress. Here are no seabirds,
No whales to offer company,
Only the quiet twilight and the moving air
That just stirs the sails.
A seasoned mariner might say
They sail at different depths
Of this puzzling ocean:
Skimming silver waves at one time,
At another forging through dim depths
As though they sailed the deep blue currents
Fathoms down.
Yet always the great sails catch the air
Impelling the onward journey of the little skiff
Where the sailor scans the empty water without compass
Longing for the hidden place, the journey’s end.
Sometimes a light is caught
Reflected in the curving fabric high above,
Revealing lovely shapes of light and shadow
A beauty born of star or moonlight on the shining sea.
Then the mariner longs for the lights of harbour
Heart lifting to a hope of morning
The sun rising over heaven-haven, the heart’s long home.

 

tRuth 2015

This poem describes the experience of contemplative prayer.

 

image: Pixnio

The deep doors are open

The deep doors are open, and the deeper
Doors behind them are open, and yet more
Level upon level of doors are open. The keeper
Sets them wide, and peace breathes slow. Before

HE enters, silence spreads, suspending
Thought and feeling, concentrating pure awareness
In the deep stillness, the peace of depth below depth unending.
Here in this holy temple, seeming bareness

Waits to be filled. HIS Presence always was, and yet he enters;
The yearning emptiness was always full and love
Overflowed without beginning, yet HE fills and centres
Distracted lack and longing: threefold love
Creating, holding, hallowing: HE enters,
The King beyond conceiving; HE reigns in peace, in love.

 

tRuth 2016

image copyright Crashsystems/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Begin in closeup

Begin in closeup:
A base of polished oakwood, smooth and shining,
Dovetailed joints as tight as when they were first made
With a sharp chisel in a workshop
Redolent of shavings and shellac,
Long ago.
Shining brass pans and chains, butter-yellow,
Speaking of long and careful use,
The love of a craftsman for the tools
Daily familiar and warmed by his hand.
And a pointer, delicate, needle-thin,
Trembling at a breath.
These are goldsmiths’ scales for measuring
The very precious, the very small.
Next, let your gaze pull back to see the whole:
A precision instrument made with love for one purpose.
These scales are like a soul in this:
Made to know the joy of being a creature,
Something made to do one thing superbly well:
To hold, respond, to speak truth,
Fitted to the Maker’s hand.
A thing that by doing its work
-carrying, reflecting, pointing –
Becomes what it is.
But a soul is unlike the scales in this:
The soul grows through carrying, reflecting, pointing;
It changes, warmed by his hand.
A soul lives more deeply and puts out new green
Tendrils, leaves, blossoms.
It is shaped by what it carries
-choosing, affirming, rejecting-
Until it points only to its Creator,
The tremulous needle stilled due Christ.

 

tRuth 2015

image CC0 MaxPixel