Seventh Chamber

You are our all, enthroned within our hearts. 

The door was locked, and yet you entered in

with ‘Peace be with you,’ and our life now starts

and ends in you, for neither death nor sin

can separate us from your perfect love. 

Fear fades; this union now cannot be

dissolved, just as the rain falls from above

to join the stream that flows into the sea. 

All is one – our service and our prayer –

reborn into the world, which now we prize

as gift not chattel. Mary and Martha share

the labour and the love, and recognise

this way, this life, this truth we gladly tell:

at the soul’s centre you, Lord, choose to dwell. 

The Sixth Chamber, Part 6

To you, whose passion is our ransoming

we turn. We need our daily bread, and it

is you; the simple joy of pondering

your fleshly, sweating, spitting life does not

grow stale. At home (at last!) within our skin

we know that we are loved. We do not need

to count the angels dancing on a pin,

or flee the world, or weaponise the creed. 

And now the simple round of daily prayer

is love enfleshed, a basking in the light,

and love informs and sweetens all our care

for those we meet. Duty and joy unite;

our inner fears are quelled; ego departs;

you are our all, enthroned within our hearts. 

The Sixth Chamber, part 5

In you we live and move, in you we are

at peace. No longer hoping desperately 

to crack your code, or glimpse you from afar,

for you drew near to us, and chose to be

our brother, born of woman. Once we sought

to catch you in our meditations’ net,

to lure you with our fervent prayers; we thought

to transcend flesh. Oh, how could we forget,

God beyond scale, vaster than galaxies –

you dance within the centre of each cell.

The petty scope of our philosophies

balks at this fact: somehow, you chose to dwell

among us, full of grace and truth. We cling

to you, whose passion is our ransoming. 

The Sixth Chamber, part 4

Open to living union with the Son

whose flesh makes sacred our humanity,

we bask in grace. But not to everyone

does God grant visions, voices, ecstasy. 

You have indwelt our hearts. You are the fire

that burns within to heal an aching world,

the inbreathed Spirit fuelling our desire

that justice freed may soar with wings unfurled. 

You are the ostinato to our dreams,

the mode in which our swelling lifesong plays,

the gentle voice that spurs and guides our schemes,

the rainbow palette colouring our days. 

Our lamp in darkness, our bright morning star:

in you we live and move, in you we are. 

The Sixth Chamber, Part 3

What will sustain us on the road ahead

includes the general and the singular.

All drink the cup of grace, and all are fed

with Christ's own body, but peculiar

to each are blessings springing from the well

of living water deep within their being.

To some are given visions: in her cell

Julian, shown a crucifix and seeing

the red blood trickle down, felt her heart warmed

with utmost joy. And such a vision still,

or word, or song, may spring forth fully formed

fit for the moment, potent to fulfil

God’s purpose for the church, given through one

open to living union with the Son.

The Sixth Chamber, Part 2

As wounded healers we go on our way

one with our wounded Lord. We know that we

will not outgrow that which can lead astray –

the frailty, the sin – yet now we see

the promised land ahead, and who would stop

on Jordan’s bank? No pride, no self esteem,

no fear of failure tempts us now to swap

this wound for ease, this wakening for a dream.

The past’s a distant land. Those youthful deeds,

and earnest piety that would insist

on tribal shibboleths and rigid creeds, 

are fading echoes, valleys in the mist. 

We need new strength as onward we are led –

what will sustain us on the road ahead?

Sixth Chamber, Part 1

This healing work flows from our deepening prayer

which led us out into the wilderness. 

And what did we expect to find out there? 

A cure for our inherent selfishness?

Freedom from human flesh’s frailty?

That never was the plan. Through the dark night

a stranger wrestled with us ceaselessly,

then rose and blessed us in the morning light,

leaving us wounded, yet somehow more whole:

a dislocation of our arrogance;

pain like a spear piercing to the soul

tipped with the healing salve of God’s presence. 

So limping on, at peace in this new day

as wounded healers we go on our way. 

The Fifth Chamber part 3

‘So can you bear the wound of love with me?’

The question resonates. Can we accept

that now the butterfly must struggle free

from the secure cocoon in which it slept?

No turning back: we are a new creation,

imago dei, seeing with God’s eyes

the soaring beauty and the devastation;

the Judas kiss, the Easter morn sunrise. 

Our lives are hid with Christ, but Christ is rife 

on earth, sprung from the tomb to breathe Shalom

on shattered souls; the Word who calls to life

those starved of hope, who makes this world his home. 

One with our Lover now, the call to share

this healing work flows from our deepening prayer. 

The Fifth Chamber part 2

‘A life more full, more fearless, and more free

I offer you, beloved of my heart. 

Behold, I stand and knock, open to me,

and I shall enter, never to depart. 

But first, beloved, you must count the cost. 

If you would walk with me, then you will know

both rapture and the weeping of the lost;

your heart’s capacity to love and grieve will grow,

learning to see as I do: joy, and pain;

a dappled sky, a sparkling waterfall,

a child’s terror, addict’s ruined vein. 

I see, I love, I weep, I share in all –

each tear, each laugh, each loss, each victory –

so can you bear the wound of love with me?’

The Interior Castle: First Chamber

At the soul’s centre God chooses to dwell. 

The soul is God’s estate, a castle bright

as diamond, gardens nourished by a well

of living water, chambers full of light

unless a shroud of sin blocks out the sun. 

Not just the mortal sins which kill the soul,

but low self-worth, or pride in what we’ve done,

or busyness, all keep us from our goal. 

Self-knowledge heals, but self-obsession harms. 

In prayer we bid those creeping sins Begone!

In praise we turn our eyes on Christ whose arms

outstretched upon the Cross beckon us on. 

Repent, move on, draw back that shroud of sins:

self put aside: our pilgrimage begins.

The Fifth Chamber, Part 1

Deep peace, deep joy. At home in this new land,

where God is not a theory or a thought,

but is the sun, wind, earth, the gentle hand

that leads us on beyond what we’ve been taught. 

Unlearn yourself. Let know-how disappear. 

No fine hewn doctrine, no technique, no art,

no words, no works, no icons aid us here;

only a waiting, self-forgetting heart. 

And God may choose to still the restless mind,

wrap us in love a while, and hold our gaze,

and when we come back to ourselves we find

the incense of God’s grace perfumes our days

with self-forgiving, calm humility;

a life more full, more fearless, and more free. 

The Fourth Chamber, Part 3

Our hearts’ capacity to love will grow,

not by our own hard labour, not by force;

a spring of living water from below,

God’s Spirit in our hearts, will run its course. 

God does the work; we just prepare the ground,

no longer shamed by being who we are –

the sheep that went astray but now are found,

the prodigals returning from afar. 

God may grant sweetness and delight in prayer,

may calm for us a while that sparrow mind;

in garden or in desert God is there,

Christ within, beside, before, behind. 

No longer strangers, now at last we stand,

deep peace, deep joy, at home in this new land. 

The Fourth Chamber, Part 2

Until our eyes accustom to the light

we wander puzzled, disconcerted, lost. 

We pray in expectation of delight

and find, instead of sunshine, cold and frost. 

Our sparrow minds flit here and there in quest

of some familiar branch on which to perch;

we seek some sign along the path to test

it truly leads to God for whom we search. 

The only test that counts is love: begin

with Jesus’ words: ‘You’ll know them by their fruits,’

for God sought us out first, and deep within

the seed grows secretly, and puts out shoots. 

And through this process, steady, silent, slow,

our hearts’ capacity to love will grow. 

The Third Chamber, Part 3

Only take up the cross that’s yours to bear,

for that’s more than enough. Dry times will come:

times when we find no comfort in our prayer,

and every spiritual sense seems numb. 

God is still here, though being weaned away

from wordly consolations feels like loss;

we long to feel God’s presence as we pray:

we’d all prefer God’s comfort to the Cross. 

Christ the physician heals the willing soul

not by dispensing rapture from above;

his presence deep within us makes us whole,

the one, sure sign of which is increased love. 

Spurning the props that we relied upon,

in silence and in hope we journey on. 

The Third Chamber part 2

Less vain fixation on what we can do

may help us see that all is by God’s grace. 

This chamber has its (subtle!) dangers too

that slow our progress to a snail’s pace. 

Complacency, dressed as humility:

‘Sainthood’s for others. If I aimed at it

that would be pride. I am content to be

God’s grateful servant, just to do my bit.’

Or in a mockery of the parable,

the publican turns on the pharisee:

‘How can he be so blind? He is so full

of pride and fear: God help me help him see!’

Leave others to their own path and God’s care;

only take up the cross that’s yours to bear. 

The Third Chamber part 1

Our journey on towards the throne of grace

has started well. We pray; we turn our back

on obvious temptations; find a place 

of calm devotion. What then do we lack?

‘Sell all you have and give it to the poor,’

said Jesus to the rich young man, who turned

distraught. And what of us? Must we do more?

We’ve worked so hard; we’ve tried; have we not spurned

those worldly sirens, money, sex and power?

Can we not let our ordered lives confess

the beauty of God’s peace for one quiet hour?

But is it more God wants? What if it’s less –

less trust that our good faith will see us through,

less vain fixation on what we can do. 

The Second Chamber

Self put aside, our pilgrimage begins;

yet, rightly understood, self plays its part,

for here’s the paradox that underpins 

the whole: Lose self to find your true Self’s heart. 

Christ calls us on, through friends and books and prayers,

divine Good Neighbour, helping when we slip;

the devil calls us back, through anxious cares

about the cost of true discipleship. 

Cast fear aside. Only remember this:

that Christ hung on the Cross to win us peace. 

We don’t need fancy doctrines, raptures, bliss,

just that our perseverance should increase. 

Thus we continue, pace by dogged pace, 

our journey on towards the throne of grace.