Tag: Spirituality

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 32

Romans 8:22

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

There is a deep swell in the earth. She writhes and aches, she cannot settle. She can find no place or pose of comfort. Rest and peace are beyond her reach. There are no words, and if there were no breath to carry them. All she can do is exhale the noises of deep animal loss as the waves of energy pull at her very core.

She is afraid, afraid that she will rip and burst, that the heat within will flow as torrents of burning rock, consuming everything. Afraid that she cannot hold this tension, each twist and tug a battle for balance. The fear of being torn, of all that is rooted crumbling in a cacophony of quake and blast. All around her war is raging, violence spreads and flows like unstaunchable blood. Storms batter her from without and within, but she must ride them, she must breathe. For the time is almost here.

She labours in the light and in the dark, feeding, quenching, nourishing, reaching deep and drawing life from the dirt she bears. She was made to carry life within and to birth new times and new hopes. She pours water into the barren places and rivers flow in her dry lands so life can swell and bloom. She warms the oceans with her pulsing heart so that currents keep the life in motion. The gifts she gives are our daily bread.

Yet she groans in pain and anticipation, for birth is coming, coming soon. In final hours the pain becomes all, the groans her only language, the expectation overwhelming, the hope flooding, the struggle all encompassing.

This it the earth, our mother, our home. We her children are now midwives of the future that is not written. This is God, our father. We his children are the bearers of the life that is to come.

Advent 31

If I look it feels like the whole place is spinning,
everyone is so busy,
I cant look! I sit and try not to look.
I am scared.
I try not to see.
I try not to think.
If I think I can feel the wave begin to build,
I can hear it,
I know if I let it it will smash into the illusion,
I know that it will wash away the walls I’ve built,
I know they will crumble and truth will crash through,
and they will see.
I am scared.
If I look, I will see their joy,
the way they look at me in expectation,
and I will have to smile, even laugh.
and I will break.
The fear of what is coming and the loss of what was,
will rush and pound and pour through the cracks,
and they will see.
I am scared.
I know if I dont look I can hold on,
I know I can keep it together,
I know it will be over soon,
but right now I am scared.
I feel loved and I am seen,
some know,
some understand,
some look at me and I know they see,
I can’t look, I can’t catch their eye.
I am scared.
Very soon everything will be different,
but knowing that is no comfort.
I know I am blessed, I believe.
I heard the words, I joined the song,
but now it gets close, and,
I am scared.
I am so scared.

Advent 30

Stars poke holes through the blanket of the sky, letting hints of light through high above this lonely world.  Promising distances too far to imagine as they arc across the beyond.  Every so often one jumps from its place and streaks to oblivion, smearing it’s mark against the dark.  We sit mesmerised by the patterns and pictures telling stories of gods and heroes, beasts and queens.  Tales we learned as children sitting then in the comfort of home. The only constant is the gentle song of the sheep as they settle into the night.  Actually, the skies, though shifting and dancing are the same skies that we stared at as children.  This is our land, these are our hills, these are our stars.

Rulers and Governments come and go, leaders and armies pass into the night, but the stars are always there and probably always have been.  So we stare and we remember, we wonder about those who will sit in the same place gazing at the same constellations when we are long gone.  We have sat here so many times, for so many seasons, that there is no mystery for us in this place.  We have given our own names to every hill and gorge, every rock and star.  They’re probably not the right names but they are our names, we know them.  They punctuate our stories and our memories.  They map our days and nights and have done since we were but children.  We look, we don’t need to study, we talk about nothing and we wait for the sun amongst old friends of the land and sky.

And then the lights grew and began to sing… and we heard.

Advent 29 (solstice)

In the deepest night, when the darkness suffocates all sense, when we are driven into the stories of the mind and our fears and doubts are magnified, when the rising sun feels a generation away and time is eternally elongated, when the cold in the bones feels it will never leave… may the Son be born.

As the seasons of life fade into the winter, and we enter the dormant time, when the year has drained all energy from the body and the mind, when the spirit yearns for the breaking spring and warm air, when the ice blows in from the north and the chill wells from the ground, when the colours wash into stark tones… may the Son be born.

In a world of anger and isolation, when the stories tell of all pervading grief and conflict, when leaders fail to inspire and bring joyful vision, when greed pushes the weak into the earth and we watch as our damage seeps deep into the globe, when hatred and fear are objects of pride and power… may the Son be born.

In a time when many are trapped personal pain, when illness infects mind, body and soul, when sadness and emptiness sink deep and suck out life, when we reach too far for things which offer nothing and our obsession with individualism has left a chasm of loneliness, when more and more power is pulled by the gravity of wealth and fame from the hands of the ordinary… may the Son be born.

In a time of corrupt religion and abusive leaders, when there seems nothing left to believe or hope in, when faith has become a machine gun in the hands of terror and beliefs exclude and isolate, when we see questioning is a bad thing and vulnerability a problem to be solved, when spirituality has become a commodity… May the Son be born.