Transformation
- Details
- Written April 2014
Pulverised into sand
That holds the cross in place;
Where the creator is crucified,
His blood soaking the soil,
Drained of his own life
As he gives it back to the world.
Laid in a tomb
Hewn from rock
On which the church might be built,
Stale with age, mouldy and dank,
But anointed and laid to rest,
As though placed in the oven
Ready for desiccation.
But DNA revives
In the Big Bang of new creation
With amino acids rejuvenated
As the dead man rises from clay,
With a fresh start on offer,
But it lays untouched in the tomb
Shrouded by the dormancy of disbelief.
April 2014
Transformation for the world, the church and us all.
Photo: The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem
Lenten Journey
- Details
- Written March 2014
Lake and shore, springs and streams,
Luxuriant and fertile, verdant and prolific,
Bountiful in its harvest, plentiful in its yield;
Vineyard and orchard, bread and wine
And everything else in abundance.
Wealth and prosperity, peace and progress
Where fives loaves and two fish seem like nothing
And no man takes his hand off the plough
To look back and fossilise as salt.
Yet all relinquished in an act of self-giving;
Having nothing, yet still surrendering;
Willing to be someone of no reputation
With just a hint of what might lay ahead.
The road to Calvary passes through Judaea
Where a man spends forty days in the desert,
Without mum's pancakes and the comforts of home,
Deprived of nourishment, ambition, desire;
Existence without essentials,
Surrounded by stones deceptively like bread rolls,
While values are checked, attitudes refined,
And the mind plays tricks saying: go back home,
Give it all up, aim for the top.
Foretaste of desolation, mirror of desertion.
Preparation time to be ready for anything,
Testing endurance for a greater cause;
Laying down life to the point of emptiness,
Discovering that this is the way of resurrection.
March 2014
Read Matthew's account of the Temptation of Jesus
My Burden is Light
- Details
- Written February 2014
Yours might be heavy, mine seems light
With baggage accumulated en route,
Baggage that should have been shed
But held onto for dear life,
When letting go would be good.
Mistakes recalled, guilt cultivated,
Mishaps gone over, regrets remembered,
Grudges nursed and then rehearsed,
Fanned with resentment to keep them alive.
Destroying me, as the cross might you,
So that both of us face the worst.
I should lend a hand with your burden
But am weighed down by mine;
So instead walk alone,
Following with the crowd
Waiting to watch how a man dies
Knowing the guilt is not his own.
Follow to the hill outside the walls
Where no one really wants to be,
Place of a skull and a broken back;
Leftovers of life, discarded refuse,
The rubbish pit, the city dump;
There to plant a cross, and empty a sack.
February 2014
An invitation from Jesus - Matthew 11: 28-30; someone who helped him carry the cross - Luke 23:26;
and a story in The Pilgrim's Progress - how Christian lost his burden.
Holy, Holy, Holy
- Details
- Written March 2014
On busy city streets
Wondering where to find holiness
Where gutters have become sewers
Amid sweat, squalor and poverty,
While affluent officials and merchants
Shaded by palmyra palms and banyans
Pass by on the other side -
Ignoring society's outcasts.
But one is with them on the pavement
Perfect in his ordinariness,
Knowing they too can become best
Though that's a matter of fact
Hidden from the eye of sinful man.
(Calcutta, India, 1825)
The sexton plucks the ropes
As the morning hymn rises
Above the City of Saints
Stooped in quiet adoration
Listening to the Nicean melody
Pealing out over the High Street
From St Michael and St George;
Above the oak leaves of spring
To the keep, detaining the less good,
A three-persons-plus family,
Waiting for an elusive perfection
And finding it in the tolled notes
Of the Sunday morning trinity,
Praised in earth and sea and sky.
(Grahamstown, South Africa, 1950)
The warm-up settles into silence
At a double tap on the stand
And the introduction swells to letter A,
Translating home practice
Into the shared production of the whole,
With crescendo developing the theme
In sound vibrating from a mouth-piece
Embellishing a truth they share.
Until the left hand grabs the air
Signalling a halt in proceedings
As the bandmaster explains what he wants
From the band in those few bars,
So that glory can fill the earth,
Perfect in power, in love and purity.
(Bromley, England, 2014)
March 2014The Bromley band practises the composition based on Bishop Reginald Heber's hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, which had been a family favourite since heard from the cathedral steeple on the first visit to Grahamstown.
New Year 2014
- Details
- Written January 2014
While all are asleep,
Newts paralysed;
Wood lice immobile
The sap no longer rising,
Branches bare, leaves dropped,
Composting mulch for the summer hedge;
Draughts chill the house
Where viruses thrive, unwelcome visitors
Migrating down the passage,
Multiplying death certificates,
Making undertakers busy,
And life seems to have ended in its beginning
As we rise with the clocks fallen back.
We'd prefer the southern sun
Streaming through early morning cracks
As the cocks crow, waking a village
With hens ready for reproduction;
Grasshoppers swarming
Across the sweltering savannah;
Cold water showers bracing circulation,
Speeding up day one
And a year full of promise
That life will be better
And we'll last through eternity,
Until the compass swings north again
And we're back to where we were,
But resolved to live as people of the light.
January 2014
Ephesians 5:8 Live as children of the light