The Dark Detox of the Spirit

You think that you have come so far,

and done so well.

Time spent on Godly work? Tick!

A goodly gift of many golden hours.

Talents used, as all can tell? Tick!

Your strong, creative, much blessed soul

enriches all the fellowship.

Teacher of the truth? Tick!

Such clarity, such charity,

such style, such wise yet simple words.

Indeed you have come far, so far.

As far perhaps as from your door

to your front gate, with but a trek

around the world to go.

As far as the marathon's starting line,

the check-in desk, the booking page.

Do you not know what is required?

A purging of the poisons deep within,

the pride with talons in each cell,

the anger festering in your gut

the age-old grudges sapping all your strength.

Will you accept the surgeon's knife,

lie paralysed and terrified

while all your secret shames are brought to light?

Can you bear the purging of your pains,

the scourging of your buried fears,

the outing of your angers, lusts and hates?

Do you dare believe that angry you,

that twisted, deviant, tarnished, nasty you

is lovable, is loved?

Do you believe that tantrum throwing child,

that bullied bully, worthless worm,

is worth redeeming, worth a mother's love?

Don't dare to think I died for well-dressed you,

to keep your masquerade alive,

to save you from the crumbling of your pride.

I took the scourging and the piercing thorns,

the hammered nails, the drowning breaths,

and all for you:

you, the battered, broken child,

you, the shamed, self-loathing worm.

Will you dare brave my touch?

Allow my arms to wrap you to my heart,

my hands to gently salve your wounds,

and wipe your tears away

and meet your fearful eyes?

I seek the true child cowering within:

that is the hell I dare to harrow,

that is my passion's quest.

Principles Day 29 – Not my will, but Yours

Day Twenty Nine – The Third Note (continued) 

This joy is a divine gift, coming from union with God in Christ. It is still there even in times of darkness and difficulty, giving cheerful courage in the face of disappointment, and an inward serenity and confidence through sickness and suffering. Those who possess it can rejoice in weakness, insults, hardships, and persecutions for Christ’s sake; for when we are weak, then we are strong.  

When nagging pain grips fast with iron claws

or heavy grief drains hope of future joy,

it’s nigh impossible to smile and pause

and thank God for the blessings of the day. 

Yet we are one with Christ, who on the Tree

said, ‘Son, behold your mother, woman, your son,’

promised, ‘You’ll be in Paradise with me,’

and prayed, ‘Forgive the sins unknowing done.’

His peace is not the World’s peace, fragile, brief –

his joy runs deep, transcending agony. 

His care for Mary, John, soldiers and thief,

the ‘Yes,’ he wept in dark Gethsemane,

are strength in weakness, faith to persevere,

true hope, the perfect love that casts out fear. 

Together and apart

We were together till

the whole thing fell apart.

Together on the mountain, called

to be his chosen twelve -

the special ones, new Israel

chock full of hope;

sent out, no money in our belts,

but fire in our hearts.

Let demons quake, let lost ones flock

to see the kingdom lived, to enter in.

We dared to dream

of tyrants overthrown, of wine skins burst,

until the nightmare came

and we all fled.

We were together 

through good times and ill.

Crunching on grain

plucked from the Sabbath fields –

that set the high and mighty teeth on edge!

Seeing the thousands fed, and hundreds healed,

and even several come back from the dead.

But there were times we feared

the leaders’ wrath, stones thrown,

or Roman power suborned;

and times of puzzlement and doubt:

‘We do not know your endpoint, Lord, so how

can we know where we go?’

And then Golgotha came,

and we all fled.

No longer special,

afraid to preach and heal;

apart, unnoticed in the lonely crowd. 

In time we drifted back together to 

the lonely upper room,

huddling together in our grief, 

but torn apart by fear.

So what of me, so broken and so hurt

when told the nightmare’s at an end,

the stone rolled back,

the tide of death reversed?

I cannot trust this light they say

has dawned anew, held as I am

in melancholy’s grip. 

I will not grasp 

false hope and risk 

the crushing blow 

of yet more misery.

Yet there’s another twist before 

my tale is through. 

‘Peace be with you, doubting friend,

my peace, that will transcend your fear.

Now see me and believe. 

These wounds endured for you 

are yours to touch

and comprehend.’

The scales fall from my eyes.

I do not need to touch the scars

to grasp the truth and hail

my Lord and my God.

Eucharist in troubled times

For Merinda and Julie

We give you thanks and praise as we recall
the pierced side, the gouging thorns, the flesh
exposed. Naked. Held to ridicule.
You do not shun the public place, the lash
of jeering words. Unshielded, there you hang
alone. Once, years before, a growing boy,
you startled and amazed the gathered throng
of elders – now, this brutal, bloody ploy
to keep their power and influence intact
means they can turn their backs. We meet your gaze
each time our gathered throng meets to enact
our sacrament. We give you thanks and praise
in broken bread, in many rooms or one,
needing no mandate save from God's own Son.

Washing their feet

He'd have had his feet washed sometime,
not with rich perfume or gushing tears,
but with water, by a hard-pressed servant,
slave even, eyes cast down, and
shoulders sagging from a lifetime's toil.

And he'd have noticed. The slave
would have mattered, have counted to him.
And he'd have stored up in his heart
how our comfort comes at others' cost,
our humanity drains as we deny the human.

That night of all nights, in the upper room,
stripped of all finery he washed our feet,
became the untermensch, beneath notice.
Peter noticed, and couldn't bear it – a kingdom
without kings, a commonwealth of servants.

Have we kept the kingdom free of slaves,
learned the hard lesson he taught to Peter,
been servants of all, and sought the lowest place?
Remember the dusty feet that stumbled and fell
carrying the heavy cross to Golgotha.

Sequence

Evocative names - Gethsemane, Golgotha, Emmaus,
echoing in the streets of Guildford, Godalming, Esher –
exotic relics from a quaint and bygone culture,
or eternal stations of the cross?

A garden watered with tears of blood –
Gethsemane, where love and sorrow meet,
confounding the myth of the passionless god,
greeting betrayal with tears and a kiss.

Politics and piety conspire to hang three men
with pain unthinkable, breathless, searing thirst.
The promised paradise seems far away from
the place of the skull, called Golgotha.

What's to come? A dusty road, a walk –
two, wondering at the truth of the women's report
will wait and greet a third, and wander on
and wake to broken bread and hope reborn at Emmaus.

Pompous Pilate

Will a plea of ignorance do it?
'Forgive me, for I knew not
whom I was sacrificing.' There now.
My, how pompous that sounds.
Pompous Pilate, that's me.
Sitting in my palace, asking
all the right questions, but not necessarily
giving the right orders. I didn't know
who I was ditching, but I knew
he didn't deserve death. Damn him!

What was I to do? I, the Prefect of Judaea,
answering to the Syrian Headmaster,
handing out a detention here, a beating there –
I had too much – and not enough – power.
Please do not ascribe to malice
what incompetence adequately explains:
Incompetent Pilate, that's me. Competent
to crush a Peasants' Revolt, squeeze taxes,
and keep a precarious peace. But not
to face a different sort of king, to grasp
the nettle of his truth. Pity me.

Dante took me for a coward,
would confine me just inside
the Infernal gates. Well, here's the thing:
I've been in hell since first I saw that face;
bound by my office, bearing my cross,
I found my wiggle-room shrinking to nought –
I'm sorry. That sounds so pitiable.
I should stop.

I should have stopped.
I tried to stop –
I tried to stop them,
to offer a face-saving get-out:
a beating, a pardon, a festival boon:
surely they'd choose him over Barabbas.
But their clamour confounded me,
and I caved in cravenly.
Ha! I can still turn a phrase, then:
Sonorous Pilate, that's me.
I'm a man for all that –
but never a king.
A pawn?  A pretender? A viceroy?
Where did I stand in the strata of power?
Not high enough, not even close.

Who was I? A man, with the taste of fame
remorselessly turning to ash on his lips;
through ignorance, through weakness,
through his own deliberate fault
washing his hands, and soiling his soul.
May the judgement not be too heavy upon me.

The Passion

I brought them the kingdom, invited them in;
And some came along, and some chose to stay.
I preached and I healed and I freed them from sin,
But now it is time that I go on my way.
I must set my face for Jerusalem,
Though they still don't know who I really am.

O Peter: I called you, and you followed me,
So forward and brave, so honest and true,
But oh, will you wish you had stayed by the sea
When you find what my way has in store for you?
Peter - so sure that you're always right -
Just wait till the cock crows late in the night.

You said, 'You're the Christ,' but you wouldn't stop there;
You couldn't believe I must suffer and die.
I had to rebuke you, to show that I care:
I can't let you live with that comfortable lie.
So I'll walk to Jerusalem just for you;
I love you too much not to see it through.

O Mary, your demons tormented you so,
So I cast them away, and I healed your pain,
And now you are filled with love through and through -
Oh, how can I let you face torment again?
Yet I must make my way to Jerusalem,
And allow you to see who I really am.

You'll live through grief, and do what you must do -
While others flee, you will still bear the pain;
And the empty tomb will torment you anew,
Till a voice says, 'Mary,' and you live again.
But for now, to Jerusalem I must go
With no regrets, for I love you so.

O Father, why must I drink this cup?
Is there no other way that I could go?
To raise them to heaven, must they lift me up?
But if it's your will, then it will be so.
My God, must you forsake me too?
For love of them all I will see it through.

Their wrath, not yours, must run its course;
Your heart will break, but you'll let them be.
I'll drink till their pride has spent its force;
I'll drink bitter pain till my death sets them free.
My God, they forsake us, yet we stay true,
For love of them all we will see it through.

Judas

I am a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief.
The sorrows struck early –
I was a child of a colony
and acquainted with pique,
with ever-ripe resentment
ready to be plucked,
its bitter gall savoured
or spat out at the feet
of the civilised Romans.

I grew up among thorns –
prickly spirited rebels
hugging their grudges tight,
fighting off indifference,
clinging to like-minded types
and shrugging off the rest.
When little seemed to change,
when every saviour fell,
I took what I could get,
of women, wine or wealth.

Then Jeshua came along,
resparked the fire.
A man worth noting,
a cause to consider.
He spoke strange words,
of seeds and pearls and camels–
I didn't understand.
But when the jar was smashed,
and stank of wasted wealth,
my fire sputtered out.

With thirty silver coins
one could do a lot of good.
But who am I trying to kid?
With a thousand coins of gold
you couldn't buy that pearl,
the one I threw away.
Oh yes, I get it now –
the camel and the pearl –
for I am a man of betrayal
and acquainted with greed.

Stripping the Church - Maundy Thursday

Candlesticks, chalice, paten all remind
Us of the reverence we seek to show
Our Paschal King. They are the first to go
This Maundy Night. It's time to leave behind
The starched white linen, gold brocade, and find
A bleaker, naked faith; to undergo
The three days' death that wakens us to know
This paradox: to see we must grow blind.

Criss-crossing without words the servers walk,
Take cloths and hangings out; we kneel, and pray;
The lights are dimmed; now Lent has done its work.
The chill night air strips clinging warmth away,
And sound and light are for another day –
Tonight we leave into the silent dark.

The last Passover

και ἠτοιμασαν το πασχα     Luke 22:13

Darkness like the hovering wings
of a waiting bird of prey
shadows the kneeling figure
whose tears stain the ground like blood.

The feast of freed slaves has arrived;
they make ready the passover:
sweep the large room, set the low tables;
the lamb is ready to be butchered.

The angel of death broods
upon the face of history:
wine is spilt; bread roughly torn;
coins change hands. Chaos is come again.

Three on a road

Luke 24:13 That same day two of the disciples were walking to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem...

Turning our backs on Jerusalem

we should be trudging, downhearted,

but a nervous energy drives us on. 

Talk flashes to and fro;

hope seems dead

but won't lie down. 

The evening light plays tricks:

two of us walk towards sunset,

but glancing back, we see three shadows. 

Why do you argue? says the voice. 

Isn't it obvious? we reply, but

who is this third who walks beside us?

We tell all. A volcano of hurt erupts,

hopes raised and dashed, the journeys,

the tales, the hill, the tomb. He speaks –

repaints our angry canvasses

in fresh, unsettling colours:

evening becomes a strange, new dawn. 

Home, hungry for more than bread,

we lure the stranger in

with promise of supper, but

where have we seen those hands

that lift the bread and break our hearts

afresh as scales fall from our eyes

and knowledge comes and two of us

gaze

       dumbstruck
   
              at an empty space

    we breathe in the lingering scent 

              of hope