Category: Poetry

The urgency of waiting

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Poetry

I am not at the top of the list of ‘successful meditators’ nor of ‘creative poets’ but I woke yesterday morning to the words ‘the urgency of waiting’ which I understood was highlighting the need to wait amidst what we consider to be ever so urgent to get on with.

I thought about

  • A thousand years is as but a day
  • Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength
  • Imitating those who through faith and patience inherited the promises
  • The woman who went through the ritual of dropping her two coins in the temple offering
  • The person who moves too quickly is liable to miss their way
  • The instruction to ‘Stand at the crossroads and look,
    and ask for the ancient paths,
    where the good way lies; and walk in it,
    and find rest for your souls.’

The urgency of waiting

Don’t delay, get on with it, later is always too late
urgent, understand urgency
don’t put it off
respond, act, move
and then I hear…
the urgency of waiting
don’t wait when you have nothing to do
but wait when you have so much to do
this is truly urgent.

The urgent, the pressure
but avoid it and survive? And yet it always comes round again to call, to persecute
so why wait? To procrastinate but have some life might be the way
but still I hear
the urgency of waiting

I wait, I slow, distractions press in
I fear the urgent will dictate
but I wait, I refuse the tyrannical voice
I gain sight, not much, peace and breath they come
but too slowly
and I am done with waiting.

I know what is urgent, what calls for movement and
action.
I know the voice of demand
that uses language I understand
a voice I can hear and obey.

And yet I ask in those moments did I truly hear
and if I heard what was it that came…
words of life and freedom
or simply a map for my future?

A new way, a new movement forward
standing and waiting, listening until…
but nothing comes and I return to the obscure map of the urgent.

I turn once more. I have to turn
aside.

‘Aside’, a different place, a location that is unfamiliar
for no map has been made, no clock has been fashioned
and so unfamiliar is this location that I don’t…
and yet a different sight, even a different breath
a new rhythm, a new harmony
simply arrives.

I will try this again for the old map though,
old and familiar has never
mapped the future.

How much can I see, what can I truly hear
what can I sense? Important questions
answered in the urgency of waiting.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Poem #2 by Joanna

Posted on
by Joanna McCullagh
Posted in Poetry

In this poem I was trying to understand some of the meaning of ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’. I can’t say I got to the bottom of what it truly means as it is a great mystery and impossible to fully grasp, yet a great comfort. It came out of my own suffering knowing that Jesus is near to me in spite of, but also because of it.

King

Lonely wanderer
Still your troubled brow
Take a moment to sink
Into the easy embrace
Of the warm lamb man
Who comforts those who mourn
And bears the marks of thorns and nails

The bright blessed flawless ones
Walk on heads held high
Striding forward into the glorious heights

But he lifts up the broken, and the weary
And they get taken to his sanctuary
To the intimate place
Where healing and union happen
He binds up the wounds
And washes the feet
Of the unwashed and the weak
So faint from suffering
They cannot lift their heads
Cradled in his arms
Rags put off and robes put on
Laid down beside the river
That gently meanders through the meadow
The sound that soothes the soul
He sits, just sits right there
Never leaves and when ready
The dove breathes
The poor and weak revived.


I am Joanna. A mother of a 22 year old daughter, Katie and a wife of Derek. During 2007-2010 I experienced a real awakening and experienced a powerful move of the Spirit through various ministries and at my church. I prayed for many people and it was powerful sometimes. However in May 2010 when I was 42 years old my life changed forever when I experienced a small but devastating Cerebellar stroke. It affected my balance and has caused me perpetual vertigo ever since mainly a rocking sensation and is an unseen disability which greatly limits my life. I had to give up my job working in a university library which I loved mainly because of the friends I made there and our wonderful relationships. So I have lived 12 years in the desert effectively and suffered a great deal at the hands of my illness which has led to trauma and anxiety. It has caused me to at times be in deep despair and to question my faith and whether I even have a place in this world. However, it’s as the disciples said to Jesus when he asked them if they still wanted to follow him ‘where else would I go’. I have known him in the valley and on the mountaintops in the past and he is ever present in both places though I experience him differently now than I did. It is more of the still small voice than the waves of his presence and experience of glory etc.than I felt in the past. I would love to be healed but have learned to accept things to some extent and wait to see if things may ever change? I do my best to be ‘salt’ and ‘light’ where I find myself but fail I’m sure on many occasions. I am always searching for answers and understanding though which is partly why I have written poetry and other reflections on issues affecting our world.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Poem #1 by Joanna

Posted on
by Joanna McCullagh
Posted in Poetry

Joanna sent me a couple of poems on reflections that I asked if I could post here. She has been on a number of Zooms with me, like us all with questions (are there really more questions that answers, or am I simply discovering that I am not as smart as I once was / thought I was?). Below is the first one followed by her ‘bio’ in her words. I will publish the second one tomorrow.

In this poem I think I was inspired by a variety of themes. I was talking about the presence of God in the mountaintop experience and in the valley. Psalm 139 came into it – where can I go from your presence etc.? My own inability to rescue myself. Also reflecting on the divisions in society and political polarisation (particularly at the time when Brexit and Trump were big issues) and the weakness of selfishness and hate. Also descent of love in the person of Jesus into the abyss and the ultimate triumph of love over all experience,resurrection. God is love…

Love

Beneath the pinnacles
Of high ecstatic bliss
Beneath the oracles
Of wisdom unending
I stand, I sit, I lie
Searching for the inerrant truth
For the utter heights
Of giddy redemption
Of everlasting light

Boxed into my shadowy dwelling
Beneath the grassy earthen roof
By unharmonious voices
I push against the absolute
Against the harsh wall
Of implacable certainty
Human thought may vary
Violent, utter, hard
But love speaks louder
But love has the first word, the last word

Swimming against the flow of the false positive
She transcends the dead work of human slant
She swipes at death
Her beauty soars swiftly
Up, up into the heavens and beyond
And bathes creation in her rainbow glow
Cradling all the broken fragments of humanity
In her tender arms
Kissing the earth
With a mother’s mouth

I am Joanna. A mother of a 22 year old daughter, Katie and a wife of Derek. During 2007-2010 I experienced a real awakening and experienced a powerful move of the Spirit through various ministries and at my church. I prayed for many people and it was powerful sometimes. However in May 2010 when I was 42 years old my life changed forever when I experienced a small but devastating Cerebellar stroke. It affected my balance and has caused me perpetual vertigo ever since mainly a rocking sensation and is an unseen disability which greatly limits my life. I had to give up my job working in a university library which I loved mainly because of the friends I made there and our wonderful relationships. So I have lived 12 years in the desert effectively and suffered a great deal at the hands of my illness which has led to trauma and anxiety. It has caused me to at times be in deep despair and to question my faith and whether I even have a place in this world. However, it’s as the disciples said to Jesus when he asked them if they still wanted to follow him ‘where else would I go’. I have known him in the valley and on the mountaintops in the past and he is ever present in both places though I experience him differently now than I did. It is more of the still small voice than the waves of his presence and experience of glory etc.than I felt in the past. I would love to be healed but have learned to accept things to some extent and wait to see if things may ever change? I do my best to be ‘salt’ and ‘light’ where I find myself but fail I’m sure on many occasions. I am always searching for answers and understanding though which is partly why I have written poetry and other reflections on issues affecting our world.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

There is no other?

Posted on
by Elly Lloyd
Posted in Poetry

Before the recent posts and the various comments, so un-influenced by them Elly sent me this poem.

we say there is no ‘other’
and we find a sandpit
we say not me
and dig a hole
we say there is no pain
and we lower ourselves to the ground
we say look at us
and our heads disappear
and when we emerge
we are blind.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Keeping Faith

Posted on
by Tricia Richards
Posted in Poetry

Tricia (and Noel) Richards have been faithful friends over decades, and like so many of us have sought to respond to the winds of heaven, when they blow in convenient and also inconvenient directions! Tricia sent me this poem a short while ago… I think it will resonate for many. I personally loved the ‘I’m taking a different route’ lines / sentiment. First a short intro by Tricia, then the poem.

Several years ago someone asked me if I was having a crisis of faith. My immediate reply was, “No, but I am having a crisis of culture”. The ensuing years saw a shift not only geographically but spiritually and culturally. Many of the beliefs, ideas and thoughts that I had embraced were examined and sifted. This piece of poetry in some ways explains the journey that I have been on.

Keeping Faith

I’m taking a different route
It might be a long way round
But if we should meet along the way
Please greet me without prejudice
Or judgement
Be happy for the liberty I’m finding
It would be such joy
Such freedom for us both
Maybe we can really see each other
In this different light

I did not want my cynicism to drown me
And so I stepped away
Though some would say I fell
But really
My weary worn out heart just needed space
To find a quiet more simple path
Without the probing questions
Or the looks of loving deep concern
Memorials and signposts
Had began to look the same
And any facade that I had built
And happily decorated my life with
Tumbled as I walked away

I took the faith I’d tried to comprehend
Stepped outside a culture
That was all I’d ever known
And sought a different view
It’s not that you were wrong or I was right
It’s just I couldn’t see the way ahead from where I stood
Without the rules and constraints
All expectations stopped
And so the life I could not seem to blend with
All the things I no longer cared so deeply for
Fell away
Like leaves at autumns calling .

I found that I was left with God unchanged
In the silence His love remained
It never missed a beat
Love continued like Niagara falling
Stronger than all my fears
Bigger than the total sum of all my investment
Deeper than everything I had heard or learned
God Immense and vast
And from His storehouse
Treasures old and new came to me
As I continue on my way
I’m just taking a different route .

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

A ditty for August

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Poetry

August – some good birthdays this month. Maybe some birthdays of some good people? Also my birthday. I have always enjoyed getting older – always something more to look forward to, ever the hope of maturing… OK just a little. I wrote this today on the first day of the month. To be read fairly quickly I think.

There are many challenges facing the world, with ecology and poverty right at the top. When I write of changing the world we certainly have challenges ahead, so I am focused on an increase of conversion where Jesus is seen – even if ever so dimly. Anyway here goes…

I used to believe we could change the world
That was then in the
good young days
passion and clarity
only this or that
in and out
safe or lost.

Then but now
how many changes and shifts
in the years that have passed.
Assessments of what was said, what was done
reflections that re-position.

I used to believe but now
I see how the world
has a gift to bring about change in the likes of you and me.
No longer naive and oh so mature
or still naive and immature just
in a different way
I have felt the impact of the world
Of God’s world converting me, turning me to see
what was always there. A world
full of the image of God, a reflection of heaven,
distorted and twisted, yet perhaps
no more than I was those years ago.

Grateful for years that shift focus
still faith at the centre
for
I still believe we can change this world.

Converted to the world there are possibilities in every turn.
Dialogue with the high and mighty might be good
But to sit with a child and to truly see them would be better by far
I used to believe but did not really see
for when a who becomes a what
love is lost and belief becomes
a means to an end not the bridge from there to here and from tomorrow to now.

I believe we can change the world. We, together
those who truly see and give
those who dimly see Jesus.

If I can see I believe.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Invitation to live

Posted on
by Elly Lloyd
Posted in Poetry

Elly Lloyd sent me this piece she wrote… So with permission here is ‘Invitation to Live’.

Live daringly
      on the edge of the precipice
        truthfully
        by the river of righteousness
 knowledgeably in knowing
      and being known
      outrageously
 poured out
      abandoned
      but not lost
   passionate in My true image

SHARE ON:

Post PermaLink

Perspectives