Dragons lurk in desert spaces
Penetrating the mind with evil claw.
Serpent’s teeth seek out the chinks
insidiously, relentlessly, gnawing on the bone;
searching out the interstices of muscle and sinew.
Such is the pain of the wilderness.
Alone, alone, alone,
Christ sits
in the waste place of abandoned pleas and questions
until exhausted
finally
at last
the realisation
comes
that in the end
there is only
God.
In the night-time of our fears
in the present reality of abandonment
when family and friends
turn and run,
be present, ever present God.
Be present with those
camped out in the fields of hopelessness
with refugees and homeless,
those who live lives of quiet desperation.
Be present until the desert places
blossom like the rose
and hope is born again.
(Kathy Galloway)
I came across this on Robin’s blog. I have the book (The Pattern of our days) in which this appears but I had never realised the power of this piece before. I post it as a prayer for hope to be born again in all the troubled and devastated areas of the world… Japan being the obvious one… but so many others are currently being torn apart by the internal political conflict and civil unrest rampaging through the Middle East.