and then you smiled

I saw your cheeks break and crease,
your eyes flash wide as the light bounced in,
a tide of colour softly flowed over your skin,
and there you were.
some didn’t see it, they weren’t looking,
but I was, and I saw.
I saw the joy split the shell of all that stress,
and there she was, the child,
peaking out and looking straight at me,
She came to play, to sing, to spin.
She came to shake off the struggle, to dance,
and there you were in the moment, freed.
The strength it took even to be there,
to make that choice and stand,
and then to let the smile live,
to give it breath and heat,
to give it space,
to give it you.
And then I saw it fly.
it touched me,
it broke me,
and I smiled too.

Scattered gold

Scattered gold,

Tiny morsels of treasure,

So small and delicate,

Flaky, broken, worthless,

Just as beautiful,

As any fashioned piece,

Perhaps more precious,

In their raw fragility,

A breeze could take them,

Static lift them,

And they are lost,

Taken, gone,

No king could gather them,

lock them beyond sight,

Hold them, hoard them,

No one can own them,

Scattered gold,

Tiny morsels of treasure,

I can see them,

As the light bounces,

Some can’t,

They see only darkness,

But I see riches,

In you,

In each of us,

Some buried deep,

But visible,

to those who choose,

I choose,

I see flashing brilliance,

Glorious sparkles,

I see your gold,

Our gold,

Scattered gold,

Tiny morsels of treasure.

Advent 36

To be in the time between times,

The moment swollen with what might happen.

In recent days new depth has been found.

New love met, new family made.

We sat together, healed and dreamed.

We talked of the past and the present till the night had faded around us.

We drank and ate together, stopped to hear stories and struggles.

We’ve shared so much so far!

We found new words and span poetry in the dark.

We painted each other’s colours and sang each other’s songs.

We argued and fought, doing what lovers and siblings do.

Our path has changed me, it is changing me.

Together we got to this place, and now we pause to breathe.

It might not be our choice to stop here, but here we are.

In the time between times,

In the place between places.

This isn’t the end, it can’t be. But it’s not the beginning. We left that months behind.

This is a space to be still, to rest, to breathe, to eat and celebrate. To be grateful for where we have got to and to let go of worry about where we will go.

What we do know is that we have been bound together and we will begin again together.

Our time is not over.

Our time will be soon.

This is the time between times.

Advent 33

Luke 2:8-15

The call goes out across the landscape,

The song is being sung across the hillside,

It rings in the air, sweeps down streets, brushes the surface of rivers, ripples through the fields.

The cry must be heard, it cannot be ignored.

So many voices, so many colours, so many tones, so many rhythms.

The voices of all nations woven in melody that recalls all cultures.

Like the seas no longer flood the earth,

Like the lands have rejoined as one,

Like the tunes of all people woven together in the song of the divine.

The dance begins amongst the rocky passes, following the herds to reach the plains and shelters.

It skips through the city and on into the night.

Shaking the earth with its raw cry of justice and peace, it’s desperate descant cutting through centuries of abuse and war.

Turn your heads toward the highest place, to the one who began it all.

Hear the call of the ages, hear the call of the creator, hear the call of the re-creator, hear the call of shalom.

Run

Kneel

Love

Peace

Advent 27

I don’t understand this energy that grows and flows, I should feel tired, I do feel tired, sleep is the momentary dark between the dreaming begins again. Before the colours begin to bounce around the walls and the stories re-emerge and paint themselves into my spirit.

But the energy is shifting and changing, I feel it sparking between you and I, between us and others. It is vibrant and so alive. It deprives me of sleep but sustains me when the tiredness drags. Then it stills me when I can take no more.

The energy of spirits connected, viscerally, physically connected. Not some ethereal, shadow of me-less connection but a real melding of us, reshaping, discovering, releasing me in ways I could not imagine, even in the night watches.

Here in the midst of this unsettling, this strange place life will burst. Here in this place where we are not at home we will find a new us, an us that encompasses so much more than we could be alone.

In you I find a new me, in me you become more you, in all of us together there is a spark of the greater divine, the God that is more than one. How can we see one as enough, when God is an ‘us’?

In the God that is ‘us’ all things are possible, nothing cannot be created, nothing cannot be loved. No desert cannot be flooded, no land must remain dry. The God that is ‘us’ makes us so much more as you are knitted in my being, as you grow within me and, yes, I grow within you. As we become ‘us’ there is nothing that God cannot do and nowhere God cannot go.

Oh how I dream between the sleep of where we will go, of what we will do! The possibilities sparkle with the energy that flows through the unknown, that lights a rainbow through futures unwritten! Oh how I feel the love! We don’t yet have our words for it, but that it is there there is no doubt, there is no fear!

So I dream and I wake, when all else sleeps. This energy, this love, this spirit we share and we give in our very being will not let me be still. The time to lie like death will come, but not yet, not now, now is a time to dream of birth.

Sleeping

I hear her sleep, breath telling stories I cannot know. The stillness only broken by a rare twitch or turn. The day has drifted into the night. Taken up by the warmth as it rises from beneath the blanket. Filling the space above her head with its concerns. Be free yesterday, she must rest and make space for tomorrow, your only home now is the movies that play in the deep. Do not wake her with your game of ‘what-ifs’ or disturb her rest with the things that can’t be changed. Play if you must, but fade with the sun when your time has gone… for she has other tales to write. I hear her sleep, breath whispering desires and hopes. Be still and rest well. Be still

Home?

Sometimes I have an emptiness in my centre that feels like it might spread and eat me to my edges.

Sometimes it’s beyond full and I fear that those edges might rip and I will flood across the ground.

Rarely do I know equilibrium. Sometimes I long to sleep in certainty, to be peacefully numb. Mostly I want to feel and to feel means knowing.

Sometimes I would willingly jump to know the rush of unstoppable air. I would love to know what it is to lose everything. I would give and give to feel it all come back in a momentary look. And then be gone for ever.

Sometimes it scares me, to be alone, to not know real intimacy, that is where I dare not go! That is what wakes me in the dark and tears my soul. I know in that second I would give it all to feel for one breath, one glance, one kiss.

But there are days when I pray this wasn’t so. When the need is too strong and the emptiness wells. When I stare across the still water in hope and desire, looking for the surface to break with life. When the wind drops and suddenly I hear the silence and it is lonely.

Life in the time between time, In the moment that the wave breaks, in dropping cloud as it waits to release the rain, in the dawn and the dusk, in the delta between land and ocean. This is my home, like it or not!

beauty?

Beauty (as proverbs says) is fleeting. At least if our understanding of beauty is based only on looks and outward appearance it is. But ‘true’ beauty is a wonderful thing, it shakes the spirit, causes every part of you to fly, to spin and wonder. Beauty is in the play of a child and the sacrifice of a parent, the hand of a friend and the fingertip touch of a lover. Beauty flows from the undefended, from the innocent and the vulnerable. Beauty sparkles in a deep smile, but also in the freedom of tears. Beauty is life lived without pretence, where one is invited in to the whole person. Where joy and pain are shared with generosity and honesty. Beauty is in the passionate kiss and the desperate embrace. Beauty is in an unguarded glance and an open heart. Beauty is in the singer and the dancer who does not need an audience. Beauty is in the fighter, the survivor, the one who will not give up. Beauty is in the struggle to live and the spiritual quest. Most of all I think beauty is in the one who sees and celebrates the beauty in others before their own.