Morning Really Has Broken

I picked up the husband from work last night and we went for a meal.  After the meal we stopped off at the shop to buy a few goodies to nibble while the Celtic match was on. 

While I was waiting, I was listening to the radio.  They were playing strings of songs.  People were to phone in with suggestions for the next song in the string based on the last word of the title of the song currently playing.  The word “Monday” in the song title led to the next song “Monday Morning” so the following song had to have “morning” in the title.  It wasn’t enough to come up with a song title, but you had to be careful enough to make sure that the last word in the title gave you room to move on. 

Many listeners suggested “Morning Has Broken” – “Broken”?  They could work with that, so they played the Cat Steven’s version.

It was a musical trip down memory lane and I belted out the words.  Here are the words Cat Stevens left out:-

Cool the gray clouds roll, peaking the mountains,
Gull in her free flight, swooping the skies.
Praise for the mystery, misting the morning,
Behind the shadow, waiting to shine.

I am the sunrise, warming the heavens,
Spilling my warm glow over the earth.
Praise for the brightness of this new morning,
Filling my spirit with Your great love.

Mine is a turning, mine is a new life,
Mine is a journey closer to You.
Praise for the sweet glimpse, caught in a moment,
Joy breathing deeply, dancing in flight.

I seem to remember singing it long before Cat did so I figured he didn’t write it, but I wasn’t sure so I googled it.  It is a hymn first published in 1931.  It is a song to give thanks for each day.  Someone had found the tune, a Gaelic melody, and asked a young English poet to come up with the words.

I also googled it as an image to see what would come up.  The majority of pictures were sunrises in various shades of glorious.  There were a few images of Cat himself and a disc cover or two.  Scattered in among the images were Easter cards. 

Cat Stevens I expected.  Sunrises came with the territory.  But Easter cards?

I began to think about that first Easter Sunday.  From the fall in Genesis right up until the day of the resurrection everyday was a battle ground.  Creation was caught up in the rebellion of Adam and Eve.  The ground was cursed.  All life was consigned to a spiral of decay. 

That day when Jesus rose from the dead, that day must have been like an echo of Eden before the fall.  Sin had been dealt with.  Death had been conquered.  I wonder if there wasn’t something that day that registered the change.  Not merely an empty tomb and people scuttling here and there.

Were the colours of the rising sun just that little bit more vibrant?  Was the dawn chorus singing in a slightly different key?  Did the air smell fresher?  Or did the dew on the grass glisten more brightly? Was there something that people just couldn’t put their finger on, something that had changed but they couldn’t explain what?

It was a day that held the promise of forgiveness and a new beginning – a turning, a new life and a journey closer to God.

When tongues are silent, it is left to nature to tell us about God. 

Wider Than The Corners Of This World

Someone once said that poetry is “a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” If that is the case then Wider Than The Corners Of This World, a first collection of poems from Melanie Kerr, is good poetry. Everyone who has walked with God for any length of time knows that there is a great deal of joy to be had, not a small amount of pain and always a sense of wonder.

Melanie’s poetry has its roots in a vibrant faith in a living God. Neither remote nor reserved, God is intimate and involved in all aspects of life. Melanie’s poetry is exquisitely crafted. Through her words she creates images that make visible this seemingly invisible God.

Melanie has been writing poetry, short stories and devotionals for a number of years. Many of her poems have been published in anthologies and online magazines. Two of her short stories are featured in A Cuppa and an Armchair, and Cookies and Milk Volume 3.

The ebook will be available from Monday March 4, 2013 on Amazon, Kobo and Smashwords. The printed edition will be out soon.

The Story That We Tell

The set of Bible notes I am reading is taking me through the book of Hosea at the moment.  The book begins with God telling Hosea to marry Gomer, an unfaithful wife.  She was unfaithful to the extent that Hosea came to realise that their children were not his children at all.  Later on, after Gomer reached rock bottom, God told Hosea to buy her back and bring her home.

The story of Hosea and Gomer was a parallel to the story of God and the nation of Israel.  Although the Israelites had entered into a covenant with God, they were not faithful.  When the Israelites had first stepped into the Promised Land, they were not able to defeat all of the nations and made them woodcutters and water carriers.  God had warned them that these people would be a snare and lure them away from true worship.  I am sure that there are some things God says that He would rather not have happen.

What remained of the practice of their faith was performing the rituals at the right time, and assuming that as long as they were in place, God would be satisfied.  It didn’t matter that their hearts were not in it, and they were looking elsewhere for satisfaction.

“When they come with their flocks and herds to offer sacrifices to the Lord, they will not find Him, because He has withdrawn from them.”  Hosea 5:6

My Bible study notes at this point turned the finger to ask questions about church involvement.  Was I turning up at the right time, singing the hymns, saying “Amen” in the right places and putting money into the offering tray and assuming God was satisfied?  Was I satisfied in God or looking elsewhere?

Hosea made it clear that the priests were responsible for the downward slide of the nation.  Through their off-hand and casual attitude towards God, they had spread an unspoken but powerful message to rest of the nation that it really didn’t matter how you treated God.  God would always be there to step in and rescue you in the end.  The message of holiness was ignored.  The nation was limping from famine to drought and never considered that God had any part of it.

The behaviour of the priests didn’t just speak to the nation of Israel, but to the surrounding nations.  Way back when they walked around Jericho and witnessed the walls tumbling, the message then was that God was someone to be reckoned with, someone to fear.  The tribes of Canaan knew they didn’t stand a chance and one of them, the Gibeonites, went so far as to concoct an elaborate scheme to make sure they were not annihilated.

During Hosea’s time the surrounding nations did not see God in the same way.  Israel was not any different from any other nation, and their “god” was not any different from a hundred other “gods” either.

The story that we tell through the words we speak and the lives we live matters.  It is little wonder that the secular world sees nothing that demands respect in many Christian churches, or in the lives of people who claim to be Christians.  We have settled for something less than holiness and surrendered that which draws people through us to God.

Tonight I am going to a poetry club held at the Sunset Café in Inverness.  I went to observe rather than participate.  This time I am diving in.  I worked out a way to download a number of poems onto my Kindle.  I thought about the nature of the group, the kind of poems they shared that evening and trawled through my poems to select the secular ones.  They were not there, I reasoned, to be preached at, but to enjoy good poetry. 

I thought about my selection this morning as I was sitting with God.  I thought of the priests telling the less-than-truthful story to the nation.  I don’t really write poems that preach at people.  How could I communicate to them the joy that God inspires in me if I avoid those poems that express that joy?  If I just stick to my secular poems, which are not inoffensive by any means, where does it say that God has any place at all in my life?  

So I am re-thinking the story that I want to share through my poems tonight.

Moreover, I am rethinking the whole message my life speaks and what is says about God.

The Best Place For Me

I cannot deny what’s

Obviously true

The best place for me

Is right next to you

A bus or a train

A window seat view

The best place for me

Is right next to you

Mass at St. Mary’s

Just filling a pew

The best place for me

Is right next to you

The living room sofa

Watching episodes new

The best place for me

Is right next to you

Cosy at night time

The day travelled through

The best place for me

Is right next to you

(c) Melanie Kerr    

Feb 2013

Waiter! Waiter! There's a flower in my tea!

There wasn’t much point ordering desert.  My long absent appetite had returned but left the taste buds behind.  I ate my soup with relish, not because it tasted delicious, but because it was the first thing I had wanted to eat since Friday night.  I ate my beef stew in hope that the strong spices might track down the taste buds and resuscitate them, but it didn’t happen that way.  Blind fold me, put a fork in my hand and ask me to identify what I was eating and I wouldn’t have had a clue.  So desert was off the menu.  Desert is all about taste and nothing about nourishment at all.

In the absence of desert, and more than half the newspaper still to read, we opted for a cup of tea.  Well, one of us opted for a normal pot of tea.  The restaurant was offering floral teas.  There was a leaflet with pictures of the varieties they had on offer.  A wine glass, filled with hot water, and something lurking at the bottom of the glass – the flower apparently.  To be honest, I could have passed on the flower part of it, but something to ease a chesty cough, something to restore harmony to the body and give my organs a bit of a breather – that was the selling point. 

“Flora Teas (Flowering teas) are,”  according to the Flora Tea Company UK Limited website,  “hand-tied individual tea (Green tea) leaves with selected dried aromatic flowers forming a tea ball/heart, which reveals its secret centre when placed in boiling water, blooming into an artistic and captivating flower display with an enriching taste."  They go on to promise “an artistic and high quality experience unlike any other”.

The tea arrived.  Joe’s came with the teapot, the cup and saucer and the milk jug.  Mine came in the wine glass with something lurking at the bottom.  I was given instructions to wait until the flower unfolded and then throw in some ice cubes to cool the water down.

I had the attention of the surrounding tables.  We all watched in fascination as the flower unwound itself – a tiny white lily in a sea of green spiky leaves and red feathery fronds.  It looked just like the picture on the leaflet as I pointed out to people.  It was a work of art in a glass but, at the end of the day, it was a cup of tea.

Cold tea, or luke-warm tea, has never held any appeal, so I passed in the ice cubes and sipped away slowly, the flower in its bed of leaves swaying from side to side like an sea anemone on the barrier reef. 

The taste buds remained mute, but the eyes enjoyed the whole experience. 

That said, I am unlikely to rush out and buy a pack of Flora Tea.  It made for an interesting culinary experience.   I might return for a repeat performance once my taste buds have come home.  It would be nice to find out if the tea tasted as good as it looked.

God's Word Spoken

I have just finished reading through the book of Joshua.  I have the last chapter or two to finish.  The aim of the study that I am following is to remind me that God keeps his promises. 

The book begins with God promising to give Joshua “every place where you set your foot.” The whole land it Joshua’s for the taking.  Forty years before that, Joshua had insisted, that regardless of giants and fortified cities, and being the size of grasshoppers, they could take the land because God was with them, fighting for them.  Forty years on, Joshua, crossed the Jordan and began to place his feet in the Promised Land.

What follows on from there is one battle after another, with the occasional blip, where cities are set on fire and the inhabitants are put to the sword – men, women, children, cats and dogs, sheep, goats and camels.  It makes for grim reading. 

God’s instructions are clear and not to be diluted.  There were times when the Israelites were allowed to take some plunder, but they were never allowed to let people live.  God was concerned that those spared, allowed to live side by side with the Israelites, would eventually lure them away from worshipping God to worshipping idols – which is what happened in the end.

In my work place, I don’t really have the option of putting anyone to the sword.  I work side by side with people who have very different ideas to me.  Many of the people I work with don’t share my beliefs and are all too ready to pour scorn on faith.  I don’t think it’s so much God they disapprove of but God’s people. 

I’m very much out numbered.  I know that the Bible promises that with God’s help I can rout a thousand and send tens of thousands running away, but that’s not always my experience.  Too often I feel like the routed one, the one that would very much like to run away.

More often, though, I feel lured away.  Their way of thinking and dealing with things slowly soaks in through my soul-skin and my spirit-skin.   I find I am not listening to God’s inner voice, but behaving just like them.  My thinking is small and petty.  My words have a slightly destructive edge to them. Love is not unconditional. I cease to be salt or light. 

I am glad that God tells me these things and that I listen, and I repent and I pray about it.

Our ladies Bible study group have just commenced a new study book.  We are about to dive into the book of Revelation.  The very first study suggested that we read through the whole book together, out loud, each of us reading in turn.  We needed, the book said, to see the big picture before we began to tackle chapters and verses.

There are places in the Bible where it speaks about God’s word being read aloud in the presence of all the people.  Ezra did it.  He read the book of the law while people stood and listened.

I took us an hour and a half. 

It was wonderful.

Scary!

A bit of a mystery!

Vivid!

Familiar in places!

Comforting!

Convicting!

As we read through one chapter after another, my spirit was stirred.  I am surprised that I didn’t leap up out of my seat at times, or fall down on my knees at other times.  Maybe I should have done, but I was aware we were dealing with a time limit.  There wasn’t time to stop and take a break and collect thoughts.  It was a roller coaster of a read. 

Through it all I felt, as I sat beneath God’s spoken word, I was being washed.  The stuff of the world that had soaked into my soul and spirit were gently washed away.  Sometime it wasn’t so gentle.  Sometimes it was like standing under a torrent of water, stripping away all that wasn’t Jesus. 

The word of God has been spoken over me – His transforming word:-

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10-11