Becoming Known

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new book to see me through Lent. “Barefoot Prayers” by Steven Cherry contains meditations for every day. He says, “True prayer is the poetry of the Spirit.” Rather than follow the usual pattern of devotionals, the meditations are prayers that look and sound very much like poetry. The Psalms are like that – prayers expressed in poetic forms.

Today’s prayer begins…

Never take from us that vaguely anxious

curiosity we feel when we

behold a new face,

hear a new name,

when we give attention to someone unknown

(Steven Cherry, “Barefoot Prayers”, 2013, SPCK)

These people come with their storms and stories.

Last Sunday, the two of us, a lady I didn’t know very well, and myself, agreed to talk to one another. It had sprung from something I had said, a picture I had shared, that had echoed in her. We are both visual and picture-orientated. It wasn’t a vague idea about meeting for coffee some time, but actually making no firm commitment. We dug out mobile phones and diaries and decided that we would talk aver the phone on Friday night.

The “vaguely anxious curiosity” morphed into nothing vague and nothing curious, just the anxious bit of it. I don’t do easy conversations well. I worry that I will have nothing interesting to say, that there will be long awkward silences. I picture the person on the other end of the conversation following the clock hands around and wondering when it will be polite to put the phone down.

I’d tidied the front room. There was no way the woman could know the room was tidy. She couldn’t look down the cable and see things in their right places, and ironing pile neatly folded on the chair. I had the vague idea of battle grounds and the tidy room being like part of the armour worn.

Friday came. The evening came. The telephone rang.

I wasn’t coming as a cold caller. I’d done some homework – not the stalker kind. I hadn’t chased a Facebook profile down or hacked into her twitter account. I hadn’t whispered questions in the right ears. I’d made a point of praying and listening to what God might share. I printed off a poem I’d written that day as part of my poem-a-day Lent challenge I thought she might like to hear. I was equipped. That went some way towards easing my anxiety. You have no idea the hurdles I clamber over when it comes to being sociable – it’s not a natural thing for me at all. I spent over thirty years of my life in shy silence, and the next thirty years in, at times, a battle. I’m not a social being and yet God will not let me live in a hermit cave.

We talked easily for an hour or so, sharing biographies. It was the lightest of touches on the surface of who we were. There were no deep confessions of anything. We talked some of the story and some of the storm of our lives.

I have a very vibrant imagination. I’m not sure sometimes how much God participates in our conversations, or whether He just listens in as I supply His side of the conversation. Pictures and prophesies are murky ground for me because I can’t tell where I end, and where He begins. In my prayer tine, I had a picture, an imagination-kind-of-thing. I’d pictured a baby sitting on the knee of its mother. The mother held the baby in her arms, bent down and kissed the top of the baby’s head, perhaps inhaling a fragrance of milk and baby lotion. As she kissed the top of the baby’s head, it was as if the baby became translucent. I could see waves of something pouring into the baby from the kissed spot. I imagined what was poured in was love, waves of love. There was also a sense of safety, that the baby was in the most secure space in the universe. I thought too of the way kisses convey healing in the very young. My friend was the baby, God was the mother, and all the love and the safety and the healing were pouring in from His kiss on the top of her head.

We spent time in prayer, taking turns to speak and to respond. It was part of the conversation. She prayed for me in my struggles with my degree course, which I thought would be a stroll in the park but turn out to be more like climbing Everest.  I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew, but learning is not so easy as teaching. I prayed for her as she slowly recovers from illness. Earlier in the week someone had been talking about testimony. We don’t get the testimony without the test, she said. Difficult days are not always to be waved away with a magic wand. They must be lived through and learned through and the lessons shared with others. We never go through these alone but with others – with God first, and with our church family second. The trouble is that we become this lone soldier on the battlefield facing the foe. We forget that we are part of an army – a victorious one at that.

Friday conversations are part of my landscape now. Through them, we will both grow and change. It’s an exciting place to stand.

For Days of Failure and Defeat

“How a man conducts himself through success and triumph tells us what is in him.” So wrote H E Govan, a scholar and author from the last century.

The context is a battle between kings with Abram’s nephew, Lot, caught in the crossfire. Abram assembled a posse and pursued the army that had taken Lot. He wins back everyone and everything taken and more. The King of Salem, Melchizedek, shared bread and wine with him, accepted a tenth of the plunder and gave Abram a blessing. The King of Sodom wanted his people back but was happy for Abram to take the plunder.

Abram chose to accept nothing - “I swear to God, The High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this solemn oath, that I’ll take nothing from you, not so much as a thread or a shoestring. I’m not going to have you go around saying, ‘I made Abram rich.’

It seems to me that sometimes we are of the opposite mind. We are not content to take nothing. We want the thread or the shoestring and what they are attached to. We are perhaps too little concerned about who gets the credit for our flourishing in this world.

Just as success and triumph tells us a lot about what is in people, I think failure and defeat also tell us a lot too.

Solomon in Proverbs 30:7-9 has it right. "I ask two things from you, Lord. Don't refuse me before I die. Keep me from lying and being dishonest. And don't make me either rich or poor; just give me enough food for each day. If I have too much, I might reject you and say, 'I don't know the Lord.' If I am poor, I might steal and disgrace the name of my God.”

I have not been on the success and triumph side of things lately. A reading plan that I am following tells me not assume it’s all an attack from the devil.

A few weeks ago, I had a tyre blow out. There was a roundabout turn, a lurching to the left and a loud unpleasant noise. I pulled in to a carpark – the Beefeater on the road out to Loch Ness from Inverness. They, Beefeaters, were still serving breakfast, so leaving me to deal with the car rescue company, my husband sat down to read a paper and eat a full fry up.  The rescue man arrived. I am probably in the minority when it comes to knowing how to change a tyre. Had I known, I wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Some part of the wheel had welded to some part of the axel and a few slams with a hammer were required to dislodge the wheel – a few slams – bag slams. I didn’t have a hammer.

Anyone coming at me with a hammer and slamming it against me – that’s definitely an attack. The rescue man slamming his hammer against the wheel of my car – that’s not an attack at all. The man is rescuing me, nit attacking me. Not everything that looks like an attack is an attack.

The failure and defeat days do not come as a surprise to God. He is not the cause of the failure or defeat. He didn’t make them happen but He permits them because they serve a greater purpose – that revealing “what is in him” – whether it’s to the person themselves or to the watching audience. With the failure and defeat days there is also an equipping. These things don’t always come out of the blue to a person not prepared. We get to test the equipping and discover that God is more than enough. There is always the opportunity to sit down, to weep and wail, and get battered – but that is not God’s preferred option. He loves it when we raise to our full height, stare the disaster in the face and wield the weapons we have been given.

Let me tell you about my weapon of choice – the one that I am wielding right now. Poetry! It’s not other people’s poetry, but the ones I am writing now.

It’s Lent. I am almost half way through my poem a day Lent challenge. You would think that all the poets, myself included, have harvested every Lent-prompted poem going by now. I am following a Lent devotional that promised me an honest and realistic recognition of where I am in relation to where I should be. My life isn’t pretty and there’s no spiritual cosmetic surgery to make it so. I must deal with what is, not with what I would like it to be.

The failure and defeat days happen – but I’m still mid-story. The end has yet to be revealed. So, that’s what my poetry has been about.

God in the Dark

Seeds scattered on the soil of sorrow

Loved ones lamented and lost

A prayer that wasn’t answered

A hope that disappointed

A miracle never bestowed

And God? Where is He? Nowhere?

Watch. Do nothing and

The seeds bear fruit

Bitterness. Resentment.

Blame assigned to He who

Chooses not to defend Himself

But watch. Take heart. Trust

The narrative is only half told

God’s best story involves struggle and

There’s a twist that comes at the end

Victory spits in the face of defeat

God knows the inside of a tomb and

It cannot contain Him

He knows the taste of death but

It cannot sting

Now are the everlasting arms

Wrapped securely round

Now the whispered promises of

A happy ending

His compassion and salvation

Now and always

Praying the Pauses

Yesterday had all the potential to be a great but it didn’t turn out that way.

I like things like Lent – that preparation time of the heart before Easter.  I’m not so bothered about fasting, or giving up chocolate for forty days. Yes, it’s a challenge but with my built in brownie-point mentality it becomes something far too external and physical rather than something inner and spiritual. This year I bought a book “The Little Book of Lent: Daily Reflections from the World’s Greatest Spiritual Teachers” edited by Cannon Arthur Howells. The one contributor who I have recognised so far is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It’s like sitting with the sages and drinking in their wisdom.

Back to yesterday. I like my quiet times in the morning. I am not more alert then than at other times of the day, but I know the day ahead has challenges and I know that the best way to deal with them is to be armed with everything that God puts out on the table. I admit that many of those things are not picked up. They are left on the table and perhaps later on, after some event happens that I could have dealt with better, I rush back into the room to pick it up rather aware that the horse has left the stable and it’s too late to close the door. Yesterday I didn’t make time for my morning quiet time. I didn’t pick up the Lent book. The day would have been so different if I had,

Another contributor I didn’t know was James Catford, Group Chief Executive of the Bible Society among other things. Yesterday, he wrote about William Wilberforce and his intention to “make goodness fashionable” and about how he wanted to begin with his own heart, transforming his thinking, not just his action. James called it “making virtue possible”.

He went on to talk about spiritual disciplines and prayer. Prayer can be slotted into so many small pauses throughout the day. Waiting for the kettle to boil can be a minute or two spent in prayer. Walking up the stairs rather than taking the lift, or even standing in the lift if the walk is too demanding, can be times of prayer. He called them short prayer walks.

Like anything else, this way of praying, catching those pauses during the day, doesn’t come naturally. We don’t drag our attention away from other stuff always to focus on God. That’s why James called to discipline I suppose – because you learn to do it and make it a habit. Three months, apparently, it takes to make a habit. I am almost three months into a Scottish Slimmers diet. Can I presume that healthy eating will become a habit?

Yesterday my day was littered with prayer pauses – or, rather, the potential for prayer pauses. Because I didn’t read the book, it never occurred to me to live my day any differently to any other day. I should be praying my pauses anyway – but sometimes we need to be taught to do these things and I wasn’t taught. The day wasn’t a disaster – don’t get me wrong.  It wasn’t a bad day as days go.  I have had bad days and I know what they are like. Yesterday was not bad but it could have been so much better.

I could have picked up the book later on in the evening but I was reading something else, some fantasy fiction adventure involving dragons. There was a nudging inside from the Spirit – “Read the Lent book! Read the Lent book” and my answer “Just the next chapter! Just the next chapter, please.” So I read the fantasy fiction adventure and not the Lent book.

I took the Lent book to bed with me. I read the chapter and I mourned for my lost day.

Today is a new day and I am praying my pauses – but yesterday is lost to me. All the distractions of the day, the usual and the unusual, robbed me of the opportunity to live a different kind of day.

I am challenging myself, and not quite succeeding, to write a Lent poem a day. This is yesterday’s poem (written today).

My foe proposes

To snatch every moment and

Fill with diversion

Wake up, dear heart, rise

Take back each and every pause

Therein look for God

Let's Talk about George

This time last year I was reading my way through a collection of poems designed to lead a person through Lent.  It had been recommended by the FB page of the CLC local bookshops.  That was a year ago. 

This year I picked up a study book from the Pauline Bookshop in Glasgow last weekend.  The bookshop and Whittards, the tea/coffee shop are the two staple stop offs whenever we are visiting. 

The opening study was all about being blindsided – the way that life takes you by surprise and knocks you off the secure path you were on. 

It has been a blindsiding week for me. There has been nothing dramatic but a series of small little irritations.  A visit to the doctor earlier on in the week produced a diagnosis of tendonitis in my right wrist. I have a sore paw. It was more sore after the doctor had played with it.  It should be renamed – tender-nitus.  I have a supply of tablets which I neglect to take so the sore paw is taking its time to recover.

Then a letter arrived in the post a day or two ago from the Electoral Register Officer informing me that I needed to prove I was me if I wished to vote in the coming elections.  Apparently they have moved to a new system of registering people.  Most people’s names slid easily from old to new – from caterpillar to butterfly without the dark cocoon stage. My name didn’t slide across.  My name failed to make the new register and I took myself and my passport along to the office.  The front entrance hall was being refurbished so I was diverted through a series of corridors through the back door. If it hadn't been for a very clear picture in my head of women chaining themselves to railings I might have not bothered. My vote matters to me.  I'm back on the register.

Finally.  Imagine yourself as a player in the real events that inspired the film “The Great Escape”, that wonderful war film that I have seen so often I could repeat the script entirely and without fault.  Tom, Dick and Harry were the tunnels.  Let’s talk about Harry.  Harry is the stuff of folklore.  On the night of March 24, 1944 the Allied prisoners gathered in hut 104 before crawling along the 100ft tunnel to a brief taste of freedom. Only three escaped; 73 were rounded up by the Germans and 50 were executed.

My own personal Harry showed up just before Christmas or perhaps just after.  “They” were looking to make savings and for the first time ever “they” were relaxing the rules regarding early retirement and winding down.  There were options presented.  I don’t have that long to retirement but the option of taking my foot off the gas without it affecting my pension looked appealing.  My boss agreed and gave his blessing and I set off to crawl into the tunnel.  The drop in session to talk to the experts and collect the form to fill in was like a enemy officer pointing his rifle as me as my head emerged. 

“So how many years have you been in the job?”

“Since 1981,” I replied impressing her.  Do the maths – if I do it I start to hyperventilate.

Most impressive I hear you say.  Had it been a life sentence in a jail I would have been out long ago, even without the good behaviour.  The trouble is only the last 23 years applied to Scotland and I needed 25 years to qualify.

“No worries,” said the woman, “if you transferred your English pension when you took up your Scottish post those years will count.”

“If” is a very important word.  I didn’t transfer the pension.  I had opted out of SERPS and I had a pension scheme with someone else.  I had five years teaching in a church school with no pension at all.  I had a catch-up pension to cover those years – but the long and short of it was Harry was collapsing all around me and the enemy had his finger on the trigger of his rifle.  

So, yes, I have had a blindsiding week.  I was knocked over, perhaps, but not derailed.  I am made of sterner stuff. 

Apparently there was a fourth tunnel.  After executing 50 of the captured escapees the camp officer thought he had deterred the rest of them.  They built George.  Not everyone knew about George.  He was discovered when the site was excavated years later.

Perhaps I should call my Bible George.  He’s not really an escape tunnel because the Christian faith is not about escaping.  It is about engaging with life and living it to full in spite of the things that blindside us.

I read the story of Daniel and responded in verse.

Daniel

his enemies

can find no fault with him so

they dig their hole and

bait their trap

in the presence of His enemies

daniel spreads his table

praise is the main course

he gives thanks to God

extolling the splendour of

the Ancient of Days

he will not change his ways

or cut the cloth of his prayer

to suit his enemies

the pattern

is just as it has always been

undisturbed by the

posturing of small men

The Heart's Time

I suppose I could make this into a book review but I choose not to.  Ever the one looking for stimuli to stretch my imagination I noticed a book posted on the CLC Facebook page.  The post was all about Lent resources. 

Last year for Lent Joe and I successfully gave up chocolate.  Long car journeys where a Bounty bar had been a strong feature, Bassett’s Jelly Babies had taken centre stage.  With the phrase “Jelly me!” Joe would slip one jelly baby into an outstretched palm when the road was straight or when queue of cars and lorries was particularly slow.  “Uber jelly me!” was for two jelly babies.  Ah…we thrive on these lovely little routines of ours.  This year the Lent intention was to use the car on only essential journeys.  The definition of “essential” changed with the weather conditions.

I went to the bookshop to have a look at the book – “The Heart’s Time” by Janet Morley.  Packed with poetry and reflective commentaries for each day of Lent and Easter it had caught my interest.  The shop didn’t have the book.  It was assumed that I wanted it to be ordered and a couple of days later I was informed “my book” had arrived.  I have a thrifty gene somewhere in my string of chromosomes.  It takes a lot for me to open the purse and splash out on something but I splashed anyway.  I am a sucker for poetry. 

Because I hadn’t had the chance to ready any blurb about the book I had assumed that it was Janet’s poetry and he commentary about when, where and why it was written.  It was a collection taken from many different poets. 

I read the final poem today – “And that will be heaven” by Evangeline Paterson.  I have checked the rest of the pages to see if there are any more but there is just a long list of poets.

Things that come to mind on finishing the book:-

• I finished the book!  I am a great starter of things – knitting projects, crocheting projects, gardening projects and reading books.  I am not always a great finisher.  It wasn’t a hardship to keep reading day by day. I love poetry.  That’s not to say that I loved every poem in the book.

• I now know more poets that I used to.  There have been times, since my book was published last year, when I think about teaching a poetry or creative writing class.  What has always stopped me has been my general ignorance of the subject.  I am a teacher and I am a writer and you would think it was a no-brainer – and it probably is – but the teacher in me and the poet in me are not entirely convinced.  Steps of faith don’t require me to be entirely convinced!  I still like Roger MCGough.  I’ve discovered I like R S Thomas.  Carol Ann Duffy remains a mystery to me.

• I know less about poetry in general than I used to. A review of my poetry led to a comment, made to me personally, that my poetry was simple and was not meaty enough for serious debate.  Basically, had Janet Morley known that I even existed, my poetry wouldn’t have made it into her book. T didn’t react or take offence as I had never thought they would be debated and discussed. Having read the poems Janet selected – I see what the reviewer meant.   I am not sure that I want someone to have to wade through metaphors and similes, to have to speculate on what I wanted to say. But I confess that I am starting to stretch myself on that score.  Reading through the lists of poets at the back of the book I think I might have been thrilled if my name had been there.

• I know more about the structure of poetry than I used to.  Janet slings around the technical terms like the pro she is. I came to the book with a smattering of poetic jargon.  I learned from Stephen Fry how to form iambic pentameters.   I had a vague notion of sonnets and haiku. Now I know much more.

•  I should have followed through with the task at the end of each meditation.  Writers are always looking for things to write about and I didn’t really write that much.  Sometimes the act of writing something down makes it more real and obliges you to do something else – to change something or demonstrate what you have learned in what you do.  I know myself well enough to know how challenging I find that.

• I underlined things.  I felt that some kind of acknowledgement that I had the read the chapters was required.  I felt that I was breaking some unwritten law but equally compelled that it was necessary.  I guess that it makes the book really and truly mine

•  The book was just the right thing for me to be reading through Lent and Easter.  It was like peering through windows at what other people were thinking and experiencing about Easter.

I feel like I have been introduced to a roomful of new friends!  We shall try hard to keep in regular touch.

The Truth About Chocolate

I confess
I have done it once
Only
Standing in the checkout queue
Sugar level dropping through the floor
Queue moving snail speed
Yes, I confess
I ate the chocolate bar
And handed over an empty wrapper
To be scanned

Lent
Forty days of sacrifice
A wilderness journey
I want to do more than just
Go through the motions
Chocolate is off the menu
But I fret about
Withdrawal symptoms
After all
I am an addict

A memory surfaces
A documentary not so long ago
An experiment exposing
The truth about chocolate
A volunteer
An MRA scan
Exposed to pictures
Then fed melted chocolate
Through a tube
I wish it was me

Brightly coloured spots
Vivid red and orange
In some part of the brain
Registers
The delights of
Seeing and tasting
Brain scans show
There is no greater delight
In the tasting
Than in the seeing

Nothing in the ingredients
The cocoa beans
The sugar or milk
Lecithin or vanilla
Is addictive
A picture is sufficient
To stimulate the
The pleasure centres of the brain
Taste is irrelevant
Says science

The truth about chocolate says
Seeing is enough
Tasting is unnecessary
A picture is as powerful
As the personal encounter
The truth about God
Seeing is never enough
Tasting is essential
The personal encounter
Far outweighs any picture