Category Archives: growing up
Lent reflection…
We live in borrowed time,
says Lent.
i have lived on borrowed truth for a while
as well,
and borrowed faith when necessary
i know I have taken certainty from places that shouldn’t have given it to me
and probably wouldn’t have, willingly.
I have tried to make it my own.
all of it.
i have given it the names of my gods,
and scratched in deep to its essence my name and my claim
that it’s mine
and it’s me.
i have held it fast with fear and determination,
and close as to make it mine forever
but here now
you ask for it back
and i give it.
the left over shape of a life
and a faith
tarnished, scratched and battered
with the indentations of my clasping
grasping
fingers
and i say
sorry for messing what was beautiful
and
thankyou for trusting me with what’s yours.
Waiting to Be Revealed
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is someone valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
e.e. cummings
If you are experiencing self doubt, spend time with people who lift your spirits and make you feel good about yourself. Avoid those who pick away at your confidence and who try to pull you down to their level. Life is too short to be with people who suck the life blood from you.
(Pictures: Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes)
Go beyond…
Today – a short quotation from Rabindranath Tagore
I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power – that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in silent obscurity. But I find that Thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.
Seemed appropriate for January… and hopeful for those who have reached the end of their rope!
Photo is “beyond” by Jonny Baker on Flickr
The Untried Melody
I will sing a new song.
I must learn the new song for the new needs
I must fashion new words born of all the new growth in my life – of my mind – of my spirit.
I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before,
That all that is within me may lift my voice unto God.
How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody,
How I shrink from the harsh discords of the new untried harmonies.
Teach me, my Father, that I might learn with the abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus,
The fresh new accent, the untried melody,
to meet the need of the untried morrow.
(Howard Thurman)
This is a favourite prayer of mine (because I love to sing and the imagery appeals). Also it reflects my experiences of ministry so far. There have been so many transitions to live through with my congregation in such a short time and I have learned new songs for the new needs.
Sometimes I long for a period of stability – to have time for a melody to get wearied! But maybe it is better to be kept on my toes, to expect the unexpected in the dawn of the untried morrow?
Picture is ‘st cuthbert’s cross’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr
On forgiveness…
There has been a lot of good stuff written about forgiveness this Easter time. Forgiveness is something we can do for another person and forgiveness is something we do for ourselves – something which helps us to move on with our lives.
I am convinced that moving on is an important part of forgiveness. If someone has wronged you and you forgive them it doesn’t automatically mean that things will go back to the way they were before the perceived wrong occurred. When we forgive a new thing happens – perhaps a healing or a liberation or a means of moving on, even changing a pattern of behaviour which has become damaging.
It my case the situation involved a friend who behaved badly towards me. Although I forgave the specific incident, I did not want to pick up the friendship where we had been before the incident happened. It was time to draw a line under it and move on with our lives. However, to my former friend I am a terrible person. In her mind, forgiveness means returning to something which is now long gone – restoration. For me forgiveness meant acknowledging what had happened – drawing a line under the past and moving on to the new.
As a further example, I experienced a rupture in another friendship many years ago. The bust up was huge and significant and the fall out was painful and damaging for us both. Yet something new happened. In the years of silence, we both learned the meaning of forgiveness and we picked up the friendship again at a different time in our lives. We still remember the past, but it is the past.
I don’t believe we forgive and forget. Forgiveness means living with what has happened, learning from it and moving on, believing that a new thing can and will happen.
I would be interested to hear other people’s views or experiences of forgiveness. Here is a interesting one on peopleforothers.
Photo is ‘going our separate ways’ by RebekahSfD on Flickr
letting go…
Some prayerful thoughts for Wednesday about letting go of our most human failings:
Lord – let our memory
provide no shelter
for grievance
against another.
Lord – let our heart
provide no harbour
for hatred of another.
Lord – let our tongue
be no accomplice
in the judgement of a brother.
Amen
(Northumbrian Office)
Photo is ‘desert waterfall’ by Joshua Cripps found here. If you subscribe to this wonderful site they send you a photo every day with its story.
Thought for the day
“Those who are in a hurry delay the things of God”.
(St. Vincent de Paul)
Photo is ‘staines’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr
Cuddle doon…
For Mother’s Day, a poem by Alexander Anderson about the problems – and the pleasures – of trying to get lively children to settle down to sleep.
The first time I heard this poem was a couple of years ago when I was visiting a member of my congregation in a local hospital respite ward. When I arrived a young nurse had some of the residents (including the lady I was visiting) in the lounge for a sing song as part of their therapy. So I took a seat and joined in. As I did so I was aware of this wee elderly lady silently wandering in and out. Suddenly she walked into the middle of the room and started reciting this poem from memory – all the way through, without hesitation. Everyone was entranced and she got a huge round of applause. Then she wandered off again.
Cuddle Doon
The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi muckle faught and din.
“Oh try an’ sleep, ye waukrife rogues,
Your faither’s comin’ in.”
They niver heed a word I speak,
I try tae gie a froon,
But aye I hap’ them up an’ cry
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
Wee Jamie wi’ the curly heid,
He aye sleeps next the wa’
Bangs up and cries, “I want a piece!”
The rascal starts them a’.
I rin and fetch them pieces, drinks,
They stop a wee the soun’,
Then draw the blankets up an’ cry,
“Noo, weanies, cuddle doon.”
But ere five minutes gang, wee Rab
Cries oot frae neath the claes,
“Mither, mak’ Tam gie ower at aince,
He’s kittlin’ wi’ his taes.”
The mischief in that Tam for tricks,
He’d bother half the toon,
But aye I hap them up an’ cry,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
At length they hear their faither’s fit
An’ as he steeks the door,
They turn their faces tae the wa’
An Tam pretends tae snore.
“Hae a’ the weans been gude?” he asks,
As he pits aff his shoon.
“The bairnies, John, are in their beds
An’ lang since cuddled doon!”
An’ just afore we bed oorsel’s
We look at oor wee lambs,
Tam has his airm roun’ wee Rab’s neck
An Rab his airm roun’ Tam’s.
I lift wee Jamie up the bed
An as I straik each croon,
I whisper till my heart fills up:
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi’ mirth that’s dear tae me.
But soon the big warl’s cark an’ care
Will quiten doon their glee.
Yet come what will to ilka ane,
May He who rules aboon,
Aye whisper, though their pows be bald:
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
Anxious activity
A prayer for Monday and a challenge for those of us who fill our days with anxious activity.
Lord Almighty, we say we want to serve you, we say we want to help others less fortunate than ourselves, we say we want justice. But the truth is, we want power and status because we so desperately need to be loved. Free us from our self-fascination and the anxious activity it breeds, so that we might be what we say we want to be – loved by you and thus capable of unselfish service. Amen.
Stanley Hauerwas, Prayers Plainly Spoken (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 49 (found here)
Photo is ‘escalator’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr
