Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I shouldn’t be surprised when God answers prayer.  I almost didn’t recognise it when I was reading the paper yesterday – but there it was in black and white – “British jihadis want to come home”.

God and I had prayed together about the situation months ago. We had prayed that there would come a time when the young British Muslim men and women who had left UK to join IS in Syrian would have had enough of blood and executions and want to come home.  They had purchased a one-way ticket to what they believed to be a meaningful life standing up for a righteous cause, but it turned out not to be so.  The grass turned out to be less than green on the other side of the fence.

Wanting to come home and actually being allowed to come home are two very different things.  It’s not just the UK government who don’t want them to come home and are threatening prison sentences, but the IS don’t want them going home either.  Mehdi Hassan, just 19-years-old was killed this week because he 'wanted to come home'.

These young people are truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The less sympathetic among us will want to say, “You made your bed and now you must lie on it,” I think of some parents of these Muslim children who have talked about betrayal and how they cannot forgive their child’s actions.

When did any of us make the sensible decisions when we were nineteen years old?  Didn’t we, even at nineteen, sometimes feel our lives to be on a meaningless path? Didn’t we long for something a little more exciting?  The older generation had lost its way, got side-tracked by mortgages and bills and keeping up with the Joneses.

God snared me at 18 years old. He nudged me onto a very different path to the one I had planned.  His path wasn't bad for me in any way. Following God does not automatically mean something negative, destructive or divisive. Christians are required by God to serve the community and to love people unconditionally.

I believe the disillusioned jihadis should be allowed to come home. Who better to talk to the next wave of radicalised Muslims? These people had swallowed the same propaganda and let the fire be ignited in their hearts.  They have been out there and they know how the story ends.  Who better to talk sense to the next wave?

They are still young.  Their ways are not set in stone.  They are malleable. They represent the child who stuck his hand in the fire and got burnt and won’t do it again.  Wisdom has come quickly to them.

One day they will not be so young and they will become hard.  Right now they have hearts soft enough to hurt when they see acts of horror meted out on innocent communities.  Leave them there and those hearts will harden and they will hurt less and less as time goes on and horror falls upon horror.

If other countries like Denmark, Sweden and Germany have set up programmes aimed at bringing them home we should be able to follow their example. 

The times when we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place it doesn’t help to be told that we have made our bed and must lie on it.  It’s not about being soft on the offender and letting anyone off.  Very often the way out of our rock and hard place requires effort to change our thinking about things.  We have no “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card that we can slap on the table when times are tough.  We can’t snap our fingers, like Mary Poppins, and the mess of the floor tidies itself up.  

No one expects it to be easy.  A lot of hurt has been caused by the actions of radicalised young people to families and communities but now is not the time for writing them off.  

When one prayer is answered it often leads to another connected prayer.  I pray for a Spirit of repentance and forgiveness and for people to be given a new start.  It is everything the Christian faith is about.

Cotton Parva

The topic for the Faithwriter’s Weekly Challenge is to write a mystery or thriller.  I have seen too many episodes of every crime drama ever aired to think that I could write something that wasn’t plagiarised.  One online story ideas website suggested I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers before attempting my own.  With just a few days left to the deadline, I don’t have time to read a variety, or even just the one book.  I found this site on my online travels.  Fill in the blank spaces and click on the plot generator button and, hey presto, you have your own unique mystery short story.  It’s a hoot!

http://www.plot-generator.org.uk/

Cotton Parva

A Mystery by Elliot Jones

The quiet, old town of Cotton Parva holds a secret.

Clement Overton has the perfect life working as a gardener in the city and rambling with his reliable girlfriend, Sally Perkins.

However, when he finds a heavy cake in his cellar, he begins to realise that things are not quite as they seem in the Overton family.

A flower show leaves Clement with some startling questions about his past, and he sets off to strange Cotton Parva to find some answers.

At first the people of Cotton Parva are determined and honest. He is intrigued by the curiously clever vicar, Gene Hollister. However, after he introduces him to hard betting, Clement slowly finds himself drawn into a web of murder, jealousy and perhaps, even lying.

Can Clement resist the charms of Jilly Hollister and uncover the secret of the heavy cake before it's too late, or will his demise become yet another Cotton Parva legend?

Praise for Cotton Parva

"Who wouldn't give up a life of rambling with their reliable girlfriend to spend a little time with a curiously clever vicar?"

- The Daily Tale

"About as mysterious as finding a poo in a public toilet. However, Cotton Parva does offer a valuable lesson about not getting into hard betting."

- Enid Kibbler

"The only mystery, is why did I keep reading after page one?"

- Hit the Spoof

"I could do better."

- Zob Gloop

Wedding Anniversary (22 years)

Another year of seasons turning
And older, wiser – here we are

Autumn leaves to gold are burning

Together we have journeyed far

This precious time, this space for sharing

Tracing lines that life has drawn

Young at heart we dance not caring

From twilight's shade to waking dawn

Dawn Chorus

I have joined the RSPB.  Much as you might attract a hedgehog with a bowl of cat food, I am easily attracted to a promotional table by really cute animal pictures.  The lady seemed quite happy to have an audience of one who was quite happy to listen.  My trolley of paid goods had nothing frozen and about to defrost so I had time for her to complete the sales pitch.

I was up at the crack of dawn, or just before it seeing as there was no bird song.  I was up because it was nagging at me that no one had put out the bin the precious night.  A quick mental estimate of how much was in the bin and whether it could wait another two weeks had kept me sleeping less than soundly.  “Use it or lose it!” might be applied to all sorts of things but it certainly applies to the bin collections.  Once upon a time it was a weekly collection.  Now it is fortnightly and there were mumblings of reducing it further to once every three weeks.  Hygienically it sounds like a plan for disaster.

So, yes, I was awake very early.  I decided to put out the bin and then go back to bed.  With what had kept me awake most of the night dealt with I anticipated I would sleep well.

We used to keep the bin at the front of the house out of sheer laziness. The neighbours didn't complain, but I didn't want to give them one more reason to wish they, or we, lived elsewhere. It’s quite a hike down the back garden, out of the gate, around the block, past the front of the house and around the corner. It’s not a quiet trip either.  I dare say that I woke up one or two light sleepers but no one poked a head out of a window to tell me to keep the noise down. I had remembered to unlock the front door so the journey home wasn’t so long.

As I had my hand on the door handle the first bird peeped or warbled. 

I was in time for nature’s great concert!

I was already wrapped up warm – big coat over flannelette nightie.  I sat one the bench underneath our front window and settled down to listen.  The sky was light grey ribbons on a darker grey.  The moon was a pale smudge wrapped up in dark clouds.

We all have this thing about the good old days being better.  I remember dawn choruses which were very noisy ones.  It was like switching the birds on or something and everything joining in. Perhaps I just didn’t wait long enough.  It wasn’t really a choir performance, just a series of solos. I wondered if the choir-master bird had slept in, or with so many birds on holiday in warmer climes, they had agreed to tone it down or give it a miss altogether.

It did occur to me that there were just not as many birds as there used to be.  Human beings were building houses and taking away precious habitats.  Other human beings had given up on gardens and paved over grass and flower borders to create a space for the car. Yes, it’s entirely possible that there are less birds.

I gave it a good half hour.  Dark grey sky morphed into light grey sky with a few light blue ribbons.  No rosy glow on the horizon.  I went back in, abandoned going back to bed in favour of a cup of tea and a quiet time.  

It occurred to me – what a wonderful way to start a day – with singing!  Imagine if the first sound you make in the morning wasn’t a groan or a well-aimed swear word at the alarm clock or even the deep rumble of flatulence.

I don’t think we sing enough as a species.  Birds have definitely got it right on this one. Maybe we think we have nothing to sing about but perhaps in the singing we discover what it is.

Harold Fry Moments

One of my favourite books is “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce.  “When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.” It’s a book that I wish I had the imagination and the talent to write.  I thought I knew Harold, or people like him.  I thought I knew Maureen, his wife, too.  I didn’t like her very much mostly because I thought I recognised myself in her.  It turned out that I didn’t know either of them at all.  By the end of the book, both characters had travelled so far from where they began - rediscovering themselves.

I could hardly resist buying “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy”. “When Queenie Hennessy discovers that Harold Fry is walking the length of England to save her, and all she has to do is wait, she is shocked. Her note to him had explained she was dying from cancer. How can she wait? A new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write a second letter; only this time she must tell Harold the truth.”  If it is a page turner, I am trying to turn the pages slowly and chew every mouthful of the story and resist the urge to gulp it all down in one sitting! There is another host of wonderful characters.  It is not just Queenie that is waiting for Harold, but every patient in the hospice becomes involved in the waiting.

Queenie’s first glimpse of Harold was through an upstairs window at the brewery where they both worked.  It was snowing and Harold was tossing empty beer cans into the bin. He thought no one was watching.  There ws a covering of snow everywhere.  The sun was quite low in the sky and Harold danced in the snow. He danced with his shadow. 

It is a wonderful image – someone dancing in the snow – not dancing with anyone but just dancing because the moment demands it.

I was watching a programme on the BBC earlier this afternoon, “Strictly Navratri”.  It appealed to the RME teacher in me.  Hinduism is not one of the world religions that I know that much about.  The programme also appealed to the “Strictly” fan in me.  I am trying to wean myself off Strictly.  If left unchecked my life begins to revolve around Saturday and Sunday nights and the weekday catch-ups.  I don’t know most of the celebrities.  I am a Judy Murray supporter.  I don’t imagine she will win but while she is still waltzing and cha-cha-charring around the dance floor I will continue to watch.

In “Strictly Navrati”, Mark Ramprakash, a past Strictly winner, was learning how to perform traditional Indian folk dances that form a key part of the Hindu religious festival of Navratri.  It involves a whole roomful of people dancing for nine days honouring different Hindu gods.  The dances themselves are acts of worship.  An expert talked about the power of music and dance in worship.  I have seen my share of music and dance in some churches – although I use the term dance very loosely. Music and side to side shuffle might be a better description of what happens.  It’s not something that I would call powerful. 

Watching the dancing at the Navrati festival was a different thing altogether.  They danced proper steps but with such joy and abandonment that it was thrilling to watch.  Everyone was dancing – not just the brave few at the back of the room.  The movements involved the whole body with sweeping arms, bending knees and lots of twirling. It made me want to join in.

Like most things, dancing begins not with the arms or the legs or the body, or even in the mind.  Dancing is birthed deep inside the heart.  Dancing is a response to something that touches the heart. 

I think we all need our Harold moments – dancing because the moment demands it.

Page Turner

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

(2 Corinthians 3:3)

While de-cluttering the rooms of our house I came across three envelopes.  The envelopes are not addressed to anyone but they have a first class stamp in the corner and each contains four sheets of writing paper. 

It was a church activity from way back.  A couple of young people were going through a difficult time – out of control hormones that the older generation didn’t know how to deal with.  The intention was to write encouraging letters to them, and to other people we thought needed a cheerful word.  I confess that I kept an eye on my letter box just in case someone felt the call to write to me, but there was never anything but bills and the usual spam.
 

It has been a while since I have written any letters.  With facebook, emails and texting it seems that communicating with anyone is done over a collection of letters and numbers.  Proper punctuation and spelling are tossed out of the cyber window.  Maybe with the discovery of these three envelopes three friends or family members will get a proper letter off me.

In Jeremiah 31:33, God promised a new covenant.  The one made with Moses at Mount Sinai had its limitations. The Israelites didn’t have it in them to keep the covenant and fell into a cycle of rebellion, repentance, restoration and back to rebellion.  God promised a new covenant put into the minds of people and written on their hearts.  People would want to please God rather than please themselves and would have access to all the resources to make it happen – the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Tempting as it is to navel gaze at this point I have decided not to wonder whether it is godly stuff that is in my heart and mind.  I am taking as given that God has put His law in my mind and written it on my heart.  Poking and pulling about in my heart and mind will no doubt create the holes that would otherwise not be there.

If I were to be able to examine the writing on my heart I would discover not just the bits that God has written there, but the bits that other writers have put there. 

Paul describes the church in Corinth as a letter.  This particular letter was written by Paul and his fellow leaders through their ministry.  Every sermon preached, every rebuke issued, every scripture explained, every kindness showed and every miracle witnessed added a sentence or two, or a paragraph to that letter.  

This was not a twitter update or a text message collection of letters and numbers but a multi paged document rich in vocabulary and description.  It wasn’t an abridged version, or a summary of events but the complete story told in detail. It wasn’t a steamed and starched account with all the wrinkles ironed out but a real story.  The story of the church in Corinth was a page turner.

My life is also a letter.  Most of it is written by God, but there have been lots of other contributions.  Every sermon preached, every rebuke issued, every scripture explained, every kindness showed and every miracle witnessed has added a sentence or two, or a paragraph to this particular letter.  All sorts of people have written things on my heart. Sometimes it has been an ugly word or two and God has gently washed them away with the blood of Jesus.  Sometimes I have been the culprit in writing the ugly words.

What’s written in the letter of my life matters because I’m not the only one reading it.  I’m not the only one looking to be encouraged by my story.  Other people are reading it too.  They're are not skim reading either but inspecting the details to find out if it is a credible story. What I allow to be written on my heart and mind is my responsibility. 

My story has the potential to be a page turner.  When God is the central character and written into every scene and shown to be magnificent, it is a story worth reading.

Life Fully Lived

This frame of years and months and days

Are mine to decorate and paint

The corners mine to occupy

To overspill without restraint

I will not tiptoe through my life

But dance my way through every room

Grey walls wash in colours bright

Leave in my wake a sweet perfume

The Lost One

Try this, says Julia, after talking about memories and loss - bring to mind the things lost that you want to memorialise, make use of whatever materials you think are appropriate and….make a doll.  She had warned me that I would likely resist. Although we have never met she knows me well.  She also told me that is a powerful act and considered in some societies to be almost religious.

I am as capable of making a doll as the next person.  I allowed my mind to hunt down the necessary materials.  Twigs and sticks were not to be ruled out.  For a moment I entertained the nation of how much like playing voodoo the whole thing sounded.  Did I really want a doll that embodied my loss only to have someone steal it off me and stick pins in it?

The real hiccough was to make “a doll that reflects your emotions”. She assured me that I would know the right form.  It sounds like a remit given to an artist for a display of work in our local art gallery. I’m no artist and, to be honest, some losses are too deep to probe. I have made my peace with them and prefer not to stir the water.

But I can write about loss.

The London Underground lost property office boasts of 12,000 umbrellas, 27,000 phones and 11,000 keys and a shrine to Arsenal FC memorabilia left on trains. One of those umbrellas might me mine depending on how long they hold on to things.

Things that comes to mind that I lost include the keys to a trunk.  The trunk belonged to my brother who had graciously passed it to me in my university days to ferry clothes and books back and forth between Durham and home.  It was bigger than your average suitcase and in those days, in the absence of wheels, a person sent things ahead on the train and picked them up at the destination.  I lost the keys and discovered I had a talent for picking locks with a hairgrip. I can manifest an enormous amount of patience when required.

My husband has lost a selection of walking sticks.  I bought him a really nice one in Lisbon on a recent holiday.  The shop was amazing.  It was like stepping into a past era. Polished walnut cabinets and shelves stored hats for every occasion, not girly hats for weddings, but men’s hats for walking about town and looking gentlemanly.  They had walking sticks too, and the resources to cut them down to whatever size you needed. 

I have frequently lost my perspective on things.  I was unemployed for a long time.  It came at the end of a gospel outreach year of knocking doors and talking to people in the streets – of being possibly the kind of person most people would give a wide berth to.  Grace seemed to be absent from my presentation.  Afterwards, it was not so easy to slip back into the world of work.  I was overqualified for most jobs in the paper.  There was this voice in my head that insisted that God owed me.  I had given up a year to serve him (“Not your life then?” asks God) and thought I deserved better than the dole queue.  I dissolved into depression and it affected every part of my life. Worship and reading the word were not abandoned but neither were they enjoyed.  I didn’t feel valued and saw criticism in every loving conversation.  It was not a good place to be. My friends rallied round and pushed me out of my pyjamas to at least do some voluntary work.

At this point in time there is an elephant in the room.  The losses that I could write about are small and perhaps entertaining – but there is a big loss, not even standing in a corner, obscured by the shade.  Two big losses.  A year into our marriage we discovered that we couldn’t have children naturally.  We had married late in life compared to some and some of the bits necessary for creating life were missing.  A few years of the rollercoaster of fertility treatment ending in two horrible miscarriages – that makes for big loss.  To make a doll about that? Perhaps not.  In those two losses there are a hundred or more, a thousand other losses.

Thinking about loss, it occurs to me that I have been the lost one.

We were not really a family that had enough money for big summer holidays.  We took day trips to places, sharing a minibus with another family from the street and setting off at ridiculous hours in the morning.  We went to Southampton once to see either a warship or cruise ship.  We might have gone to London once to take in a matinee performance of a show. It’s a long time ago. 

If you ask me whether I got lost in the children’s playground I would have to say yes.  If you asked me whether I was frightened when it happened I would have to say yes. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not have happened at all.  It might have been a generic story told by my parents to scare me into not wandering off, but tell a child the story often enough and it becomes a memory.  Apparently, so the story goes, it was on one of these day trips and there was a children’s playground.  There were swings and roundabouts and lots of other stuff not accessible in our village playing field.  We did the rounds of every item and then left to go back to the minibus – except for me.  I wasn’t part of the clan.  Much like the 12 year old Jesus not being immediately missed, I wasn’t immediately missed.  Two sets of adults and a gaggle of kids, I wasn’t missed until the head count was done.  I was a lost item.  Was it hours?  I doubt it.  It wasn’t in an age of snatched children.  I was found and reunited, after a swift smack for wandering off.  I didn’t like to say that I never wandered anywhere.  I was on the swings. But my memory of the event is only what I have been told.

My other sense of loss, not a manufactured memory but a real one, happened when I was eighteen.  My birth into the Christian faith happened in Wales at a houseparty run by Evangelical Alliance.  Dave Pope was the lead musician in worship and Pete Somebody was the main speaker.  It was a morning prayer meeting.  I was there because…I have no idea why I was there.  It wasn’t compulsory to attend.  I wasn’t a person of faith – a person of abandoned faith perhaps.  Listening to people praying I had a keen sense of being very lost.  These people knew God enough to pray normal words about normal things and I was on the outside of it all.  I was in the room but not in the throne room – access denied and all that.  That sense of being lost drew me to pray the sinner prayer.  Was I found then?  I didn’t have a sense that anything had changed, but it had.  I was found and carried on the shoulders of my shepherd.  Feeling found didn’t happen until much later.

There may be times when I feel lost but know that I never am.

God knows I am still on the swings when He does His count up of His kids.

Love Unconditional

Love unconditional

is not counted out

in small, carefully weighed pieces

to the deserving few

who fit the pattern

carefully cut from the

steamed and starched

fabric of humanity

Love unconditional

is obscenely tossed

unnecessarily extravagant

to the all-tainted

No formulae to follow

Love generously applied to the

ruled out and rejected
now rescued and restored

Love unconditional

is the hallmark of the redeemed

A Holy Spirit seal pressed

into soft hearts that give

no questions asked

no switch to sainthood required

no leaked memo

from left hand to right

Love unconditional

grows only in a grace-fed field

cleared of cold stone resentment

and twisted thistle hurts

God’s heart transplanted

His compassion pulsing through veins

He smiles as His children give

Love unconditional

Third Person Mel

If sixty is the new forty then she's a few years shy of her fortieth birthday.  She prides herself on not looking her age.  A bottle of hair colour, “Nice and Easy – Light Golden Brown – non-ammonia” gives her twenty four shampoos to cover the grey.  Without her glasses she cannot see the lines beneath her eyes.  She thinks she is slimmer than she is, having dispensed with the discouragement of full length mirrors.  She knows that the scales don’t lie and never asks them for their opinion. 

She has lived most of her life compensating for the lack of inches.  She rarely wears high heels having listened to the sages about the damage done to spine, hips, knees, ankles and feet.  Two or three inches would so little to address the height deficit. She yearns for slim ankles and long legs.

A number of skirts, business shades of navy, grey and black, hang in the wardrobe.  She would like to resurrect the girl in her, but prefers trousers and jeans with elasticated waist bands.  Confidence comes in feeling comfortable not in power dressing.  She likes long cardigans that swathe her hips and rear end and avoids blouses that cling to every contour of her body. 

Some would say she is a quiet woman.  She perhaps stares at people or things for longer than she should.  It takes a while for her to feel comfortable with people.  She is slow to make friends but very loyal once she has.  If she said only half the things she thought about saying she would be a chatter-box. 

For a long time her family cherished the notion that she would be a missionary in some remote part of Africa.  She lived the whole spectrum of religious commitment from zealot to pew filler, settling for someone mellow and wise.  Black and white are not quite grey.  Hot and cold are not quite lukewarm. She is not as driven as she used to be and drives no one to meet her high expectations any longer.  She is becoming softer and kinder with every encounter. 

She loves writing.   She is in it for the thrill of the chase, hunting down the perfect word or the right sentence structure and deletes as much as she writes.  She carries a cast of characters in her head, like diamonds in a velvet lined drawer waiting for their right setting.  The opening paragraph that captures the reader is always being re-written.

She is a poet at heart and thinks in rhyming couplets.  Reading poetry isn’t really her forte but she is beginning to make friends with poets.  Deep imagery and symbolism confuses her so she keeps her poems simple and to the point. It’s unlikely her poems will make it into the textbooks and be dissected but she doesn’t mind. 

She is happy.  There are moments when she wonders if she missed the path she should have been on.  She gazes at her husband and knows that any road without him would not be worth the walk. He is her soul mate.

Look beyond the size and the shape, the quiet stare and the writing.  At her core, the centre of her being, is her faith in God.  It’s His approval she seeks and knows she has.

If sixty is really just sixty and forty is really just forty, it has taken her almost forty years to weave God’s life into her own.

Not So Well With My Soul

“It is well with my soul when the storms of winter blow,

And the cares of this world take their toll.

In the heat of the day there is grace enough to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

The first time I heard the contemporary version of the great hymn “It is well with my soul” was at our local Women Aglow meeting.  I am never sure that I like people playing around with a perfectly good hymn – but this is an exception.  It stirred my soul.

Truth of the matter is I wasn’t sure that it was so well with my soul.  The storms of winter were blowing and the cares of the world were taking their toll and grace wasn’t absent but my soul wasn’t well.

I know my soul is safe.  It is in no danger of turning away from God.  So, in one sense, it is well with my soul but I was greatly disturbed by so many things near and far. I read the news.  I know so many Christians that don’t read the news.  There is so much bad news that it is distressing.  I read the news so I know what to pray about.

I had reached saturation point. The horrific activities of the Islamic State seemed to be going unchecked.  Someone had shared a newspaper article that insisted the situation was beyond prayer.  Is anything ever beyond prayer?  I had read about the young girl from Glasgow joining the forces in northern Iraq, marrying a soldier and encouraging others through her twitter account to cause trouble in the UK if they couldn’t travel out to join her.

I began to pray.  I am not sure exactly what I wanted to see happen.  An end to the violence?  The safety and the witness of the Christian community?  People coming to their senses having had enough of war? Yes, I prayed about those things. 

It didn’t seem to help.  I didn’t feel like any weight had been lifted or that angels were rushing about in heaven doing stuff – or that God was particularly moved.

I began to cry. 

I was overwhelmed by a deep sadness. 

I imagined one of the Islamic State soldiers, a British convert, looking in a mirror, catching just a glimpse of himself, and not recognising the person reflected back.  As he looked deeply into his eyes he couldn’t see any trace of the man he used to be.  There was no smile in his eyes, no humour, no love or compassion, just a stranger looking back.  He hadn’t just travelled from one country to another.  There was an inner journey from being someone balanced and whole to someone fractured and broken. He seemed to realise that he had gone too far along the road to be able to find his way back to who he used to be.

Then I felt the presence of God so close.  It was as if God was kneeling in front of me.  And as if He took my hands in His. 

We cried together.

“He has lost himself.  When he looks in the mirror he can no longer see My image in him.  I had a plan for his life – to do him good, for him to prosper.  My plan would have brought him fulfilment. There is no victory for him to celebrate but only a loss to mourn.”

Together, God and I, prayed for this man’s restoration and healing.

And then it was well with my soul.

Your Footprints

You said You’d walk among us

And awesome You would be

You said we’d be Your people

From slavery set free

But I have searched for footprints

To show You passed this way

There’s nothing of your mercy or

Your kindness on display

A locust swarm of soldiers

Has settled in our land

Against their cold hostility

We try to make our stand

Compassion has been strangled

And mercy’s rarely seen

Love is trampled in the dust

As hatred rules supreme

A god of death is worshipped

Where streets run red with blood

With “mischief makers” butchered

While kneeling in the mud

An army mines the darkness

And dredges the abyss

The boundaries others honour

They blatantly dismiss

They stifle their humanity

But sometimes see a face

Of someone that they used to be

Another time and place

My heart is fully broken

My prayers are soaked with tears

I hold on to your promise

Relinquishing my fears

The footprints that I search for

Are those I leave behind

Through me You show Your kindness

My life with Yours entwined

Opening Lines

Our Saturday morning writer’s group met yesterday.  It has been a couple of months since we last met. The last time we met at the Breathe Chapel it was a very sunny day.  We sat outside with the sun on our faces.  Yesterday we were huddled inside with dark clouds threatening rain outside.  We kept the door open for the late arrivals making things just a little chillier than I would have liked.  But the warm companionship made up for it.

My friend, Heather, was reporting back on her twenty minutes of time spent with Isobel Dixon from the Book/Literary Festival that ended a week or two ago. Running the opening laps of her poetry journey, Heather was looking for the inside edge – useful tips from the people who know about all necessary things poetic.  

Part of the “debriefing” included the need for a good opening chapter of a book you hope to submit to a publisher or an agent.  With a number of clients already on their books time is precious.  If you haven’t caught their attention by the time they get to the bottom of page 1, it may be too late.

Opening lines are very important.  We had a go at identifying some first lines of books, films, poems and songs.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”

Shame on me I got this one wrong.  I had the right author but wrong book.

“All children, except one, grow up”

I got this one right – not because I have read the book but I have seen numerous versions of the film.  Who else could it be anyway?

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”

This was on the tip of my tongue and remained stubbornly there.

“It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”

This I identified as “Tom’s Midnight Garden” – OK so “a bright cold day” doesn’t really match up with midnight.  It was “striking thirteen” that I was focussing on.

There were other first lines.  I did quite well with the songs, quite badly with the films and failed miserably to identify any of the poets.  Maybe that’s the way forward – set everything to music!

Thinking about first lines and the necessity to make a good first impression I was reminded of a poem that I had written a few years ago.  

Ten Seconds

Ten seconds -

The time I have

To impress you

Ten seconds -

The time you have

To be impressed

So I appeal your senses and

Arrange my attire

To match your standards

Skirt lowered, neckline raised

Make-up applied not to the face

But to conceal the tattoo on my arm

I can see

You’re impressed

An unrestrained smile

Ten seconds

And I

Impressed you

If only

Jesus was so

Easily impressed

I cannot appeal to His senses or

Arrange my attire

To match His standards

Skirt lowered, neckline raised

Makes no difference

He sees the tattoo on my arm

And other more serious things

I would like to conceal

You embrace me

Only if I fall within

Your acceptable parameters

He embraces me

Anyway

And by His grace I fall

Within His

My Mission Field

I write poetry.  I hang about with people who write poetry, or read poetry or listen to poetry being read.  It’s a very precise group of people. That’s my people, my place and my message is conveyed in poetic form – it's my mission field I suppose, which is not to say it’s my only mission field.

A month or two ago I spoke at our local Women Aglow meeting about digging up the gifts God has given us and shared with them my own discovery of poetry.  Something seemingly random tipped me onto a path that I didn’t plan for. I shared some of the landmarks along the way.  Through the generosity of my church I was able to publish a collection of poems – “Wider Than The Corners or This World”.

One of the ladies in the group shared an encouraging testimony regarding the poetry book.

Her father-in-law was very ill and in the final weeks of his life.  He was a lover of poetry but perhaps not such a lover of God.   No one wants to feel that they are being hounded into the kingdom but there was a sense of urgency as the days went by.

Knowing he loved poetry, my friend read some of the poems from my book. They don’t pretend to be anything other than poems about faith.  God isn’t hidden behind vague metaphors and deep symbolism.  You would have to read the book to see what I mean.  Some of them are full of gentle theology that bashes no one over the head.

She said that he smiled and held her hand as she read one poem after another. There were opportunities to talk about the truth in the poems, but mostly she let the poems speak for themselves. He found comfort in them.

It was a few weeks later that another friend shared with me that she had just returned from the man’s funeral. 

In the final hours before he died the family were gathered around and taking their turns to have a last conversation, a final embrace before saying goodbye. 

He sent one of the family members to fetch his daughter-in-law although he had seen her earlier on.

His request - “I think I am ready to meet Jesus.  Will you pray with me?”

The prayer they said together was possibly the last thing he said before he passed away.

My friend believes the gentle poetry was the turning point. The gospel presented in the poems did its job. 

Words are powerful things.  How they are lined up - one beside another – to convey a truth and stir an emotion inside – it doesn’t get better than a good poem.  Without the church’s encouragement it’s unlikely I would ever have found the finances or the confidence to get the book printed.  The poems would not have been in a book to read to anyone. 

God moves people and draws out of them the gifts He has first birthed in them. He chooses the people and the places where those gifts are best demonstrated.  Sometimes the planets align and something wonderful happens.  Sometimes someone is nudged just a little closer to God.

Mr Fixit - aka Isaac

I am looking for poems about seasons to share with a poetry group on Monday night.  It has nothing to do with writing poetry although some of the members might be prolific writers.  They share their favourite poems with others in this group.  This month’s theme is “Seasons”.

I have just about settled on one poem by Isaac Watts the hymn writer.  He’s moist famous for his hymns writing and I daresay we have all sung at least one of 750 he wrote.

As well as reading the poem we are expected to share a little bit about the poet.  I clicked on to the biography part of the website.  I didn’t really read that far as the opening few paragraphs caught my imagination

“From an early age, Watts displayed a propensity for rhyme. Once, he responded when asked why he had his eyes open during prayers:

“A little mouse for want of stairs

 ran up a rope to say its prayers.”

Receiving corporal punishment for this, he cried:

“O father, father, pity take

 And I will no more verses make.”

I might share his propensity for rhyme but I cannot do these things swiftly.  The concept of talking in rhyming couplets impresses me possibly almost as much as it frustrates me.

Let’s talk about Thursday.  It was new-oven delivery day and my husband took the day off work to be there.  Seeing as he was at home he invited a friend, a recently retired friend, a recently retired Mr Fixit friend, a recently retired Mr Fixit friend who was feeling just a little bored.  He has probably fixed everything in his house that needed fixing and was looking for new adventures.  Our house qualifies.

So what did he fix?  Aka Isaac..

The garden gate was in a state

The hinges broke and busted
Others fitted shiny new
The first task done and dusted

Note to reader – I had long stopped using the garden gate, the quick way to get to the path to the field to the short cut to work.  It wasn’t just the lifting of the gate but the spiders and webs that seemed to get spun overnight.  The various collection bins had been relocated to the front patio to avoid the garden gate.  Please imagine my delight at bins and short cuts being back in their proper places.

A kitchen light no longer worked

The fitting came apart
Another fitted shiny new
For bright light to impart

Note to reader – the house is not old in terms of really old.  Fifty years house-wise isn’t really old.  Mr Fixit suggested we might want to have the house re-wired.  A long time ago a light fitting in the front room crumbled.  I was much younger then and full of optimism and we had the Reader’s Digest DIY manual. Let’s just say that they book presumes basic knowledge which I didn’t have.  The explosion overhead was a small one.  I wasn’t injured but rather shaken.  A man who knew what he was doing fixed it later than afternoon.

The whirly gig had sadly died
Leaning on its broken side
Another fitted shiny new
Whirling gladly can be spied

Note to reader – I don’t really like whirly gigs.  A previous house we rented had the most magnificent washing line and prop.  The garden was awfully long and the line happily accommodated two washing machine loads! I think that whirly gigs speak to me of confined spaces and small garden space efficiency.  Incidentally the confer tree was hacked at the make way for the new whirly gig.

It’s not a complete list of mendings by any means.  Mr Fixit has left his tools here as he has spotted a number of other things that didn’t appear on the list I gave my husband on Thursday. 

It is the accumulation of fairly little things that aren’t working – those little foxes that damage the vine – that a person can live with, and does, that silently and slowly sap away the spirit. Big things have to be dealt with, small things not so much.  Getting the small things fixed has a bigger effect than you would imagine!