world's edge

sitting at the world's edge

in a garden chair

who do you look for

wood pigeon calls

sky seems vast above

circus tent stretched tight 

to its highest point

by the invisible pole of my perception

sloping low to each horizon

great dome above

sphere circling our hazelnut globe

but it is nothing 

the stretch the slope the height the dome

dove rests fat on a branch

of an awkward lopped pollarded tree

ugly forking leaf-encrusted rune 

etched in black green silhouette

moss droppings litter

the time-stained paving flags

Consent

a presence    a compulsion

fingertips lose their grip

on a receding, fading future

the boundaries that enclose

a village girl

already narrow

shrink further      fate looms

brutal remorseless

she is not sure

what this tightening within

means   her body

that has barely learnt to bleed

is unprepared

command or gift?

snatched from her imagined home

as craftsman’s wife

mother of who knows who

village matron

bundled into a careening

jolting journey

not of her choosing

a light    

brutal      blinding

she cannot see

yet    

the opening     burgeoning

possibilities

the open plains

the pondering      the joy

the sword piercing her heart

does she glimpse

the dilating      brightening

tomorrow   

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.

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 land of dreams

The land where parables come true,

where stragglers get a full day’s wage,

and winos, weirdos, wastrels too

can take their place upon the stage

and sing their hearts out at the feast, 

while Jesus helps the guests get drunk. 

The poor have most, the rich have least,

and treasure’s found in fields of junk,

the angels throw a party for

a coin retrieved, a lost sheep found,

so drop your baggage on the floor

and dance your feet into the ground. 

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.