Tag Archives: child

It was time

Posted on by
Reply

img_2420

It was time. It was time to take that little scrap of helpless life and face the press and push of the city. It was time to scrape together enough for a couple of doves for the purification sacrifice. It was time to present the child before God.

The narrow streets to the temple were crowded and noisy. The people pushed and shoved as they passed and she held the child closer. The outer courts of the Temple were if anything, noisier still. Animal bleats. Doves cooing and the shouts of the moneychangers and stallholders added to the cacophony. The smells, animal and human were overpowering.

Moving through the vast court of Gentiles, they pass through the narrow gate and climb the steps to the Gate Beautiful into the court of the Women. She drops the handful of small coins into the trumpet shaped coffers – the price of two turtledoves to be sacrificed for the purification ceremony. Swept along in the tide of worshipers, she climbs the 14 steps to the majestic Nicanor gate and stands at the threshold. This is as far into the Temple as she is permitted. She can see into the court of the priests, and the temple itself, from the gateway. There is a queue and she stands in line, waiting for the officiating priest. Her heart is beating wildly, and she is sure it will wake her still-sleeping child. She holds him a little tighter to stop her arms trembling. It is time. The priest approaches and spatters her and the child with the blood of sacrifice, declaring her to be clean. Even though she is expecting it, the warm sticky blood on her face and neck and across the baby’s face makes her reel in shock. She stumbles backwards even as she is supposed to hand the child over, offering him up God and then paying the ransom price to receive him back. The impatient priest has moved on down the line. Her trembling hands hold out her blood-spattered son, wanting to get this over and get out.

 

It was time. So much time had passed. Day after day he had waited. Year after year, his eager steps into the Temple courts were very much slower now. Hope burned ever bright even as body betrayed him. Looking, always looking. Waiting. Listening for God’s Spirit to point out the One. The One through whom the Light would come. It was Time.

He saw her. A slip of a girl with a pale face streaked with blood. For a moment his heart stood still. The pressing crowds disappeared, and he saw only her and the child held out in her shaking hands. Almost before he knew what was happening, he had gathered the warm bundle gently in his arms and held him to his heart. The baby stirred, opened his eyes, and they beheld one another for a long solemn moment. It was a life-changing look of recognition. It was time. Now.

Simeon was pierced with joy, and the song of praise that poured out of his lips unbidden, he sang to the blood stained child in his arms.

 Lord, NOW lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:   For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

It was time. It was now. He had waited all his life for this moment.

The Light of the world was within the circle of his arms.

He glanced at the parents, who were wide eyed in wonder at his words.

He blessed them both for the task they had been given, for their obedient hearts, for the courage they would need. His words of prophecy and warning laid out the life of the child he held, as a sign. As a sacrificial lamb of God. Handing him back, he whispered gently of the pain she would know. The pain, that went right through her spirit, even as her face was splashed in blood. The pain that made her stumble, and would pierce her soul again.

 

It was time. She who had dwelled a lifetime in the courts of God had become a dwelling place of God. All her prayers, her tears and fasting had pointed to NOW. It was time. Simeon’s song of praise had sung her heart into wild joy. Emmanuel. God with us. At that moment her whole life was gathered up in Presence. The child of Promise was come.

As if drawn by invisible threads of wonder, she drew close to see for herself. To feast her eyes on the tiny child whose eyes fastened on her own. She had lived so long. So many years. So much time had passed. But Time had stopped in its tracks before a helpless babe. Heaven touched earth, and her voice lifted with the unheard song of angels that rang around the unheeding crowded courts. IT WAS TIME. She would tell them. Would carry the Good News to the world. To all who would listen. The Light had come, and lit a beacon in her soul.

 

A Mother’s Heart (sword pierced)

Posted on by
2

She had trembled when the elderly priest took her new-born son from her arms.

She had trembled at his words. Words of wonder and fear.

Her heart riven from the moment the angel stepped across her threshold, cracked open, wider still.

‘A sword will pierce your heart also’

As this child of Light kindled a flame of life with her body and her soul, the fire burned. Branded forever, with the name of God seared upon her being.

The Word of God stirring within her.

 

Like every mother before and after her, this daughter of Eve carried both the joy and the pain with the gift of new life. Like many young women down the millennia, she had known scandal and stigma, the sneers of assumption and misunderstanding.

The angel had sent her to Elizabeth’s door.

An older woman hollowed out with longing for a child, now full-bellied with spirited energy. The shame of barrenness had drawn lines upon her face that crinkled now with joy as Mary stepped within her arms.

Mary felt the child leap, as heart met heart, and tummies touched in the embrace.

‘Mother of my Lord’

A gasp of recognition.

A new name that rang in her ears and shivered down her skin. She rested her hand on the tiny child within, and reeled afresh at what this could mean.

His birth had been a journey of fear and joy, and stepping out into the unknown.

No familiar faces, comforting surroundings, no mother’s touch of hand to guide her through. Almost a child herself, she’d birthed him on a squalid floor, an outcast from the start. Shepherds had gathered to gawp in wonder at this baby in the straw.

Strangers from the East had come..

What did they know? What gifts were these they had brought?

Gold for a king… for one whose brow

would only know a twist of scorn and hate

whose proclamation writ upon a cross..

And yet they knew that He was more

than just an earthly king, as low they knelt

before the child, in worship and in awe.

Frankincense, the oil of homage, honour

given with Myrrh, the spice of death and grief;

strange gifts , indeed, to give

a tiny child who lay beneath a star.

 

A flight in the dark, refugees of murderous hate, she’d carried him mile upon weary mile towards an alien land. A place of safety she could rock her child to sleep. She would have walked forever to protect the trusting arms about her neck, the small head lying heavy on her shoulder.

He’d grown as children do, and ran from the shelter of her arms, scraping his knees and bruising his heart and hers. She’d lost him in the crowd. Fear clutched and speared as pushing through the throng, she’d searched for that beloved face. His tousled hair. How could she have failed him, let him slip from her sight? Angry with herself, and wound up with worry, she chanced upon him in the temple courts. A slight figure of a boy, surrounded by aged men. Deep in discourse, he’d not even noticed she was gone, seemed puzzled at her distress. The more she knew this child of her heart, the less she understood. The sword pricks drew blood & smarted.

 

He’d left her home, his father’s trade, an itinerant with nowhere to lay his head.

She worried, even as she witnessed the wonders and the growing crowds.

Worried as she heard rumours and tattles of the marketplace and synagogue.                     The whispers that kept her eyes staring at the dark.

She’d joined the press and push of the multitude that swarmed around her son.

Called to him from outside the close-packed dwelling that separated them.                   Called in vain. Deaf to her pleas, he did not come.                                                                                 Sharp sword that sliced through frail flesh.

All her worst nightmares had come to pass. She’d watched them take her boy and scourge the skin that she’d caressed. Nailed the hands she’d held, the feet she’d kissed to rough-hewn wood. Watched his agony, as her own heart bled.

Dared to stay when others fled. Dared to meet his eyes, although it took all the courage in her soul. Helpless before his pain, his dying breaths.

The sword cleaved her motherhood, her very core.

He spoke. Voice a raspy whisper, but no less beloved, no less familiar than his first stumbled syllables as a tiny tot. His eyes that had held her own, flicked to the man at her side. His closest friend, standing with her in the dark.

“Woman, here is your son”

with fierce intensity beamed his meaning to the disciple that he loved.

“Here is your mother’’

Take care of her, take care of her for me.

Her pain was harder than his own to bear, as his for her.

The old priest had spoken true. As broken bread, her heart was held in God’s nailed pierced hands.

6431516b7b6390e8d25f5c555584288a

 

Holy Gifts.

Taken

Chosen

A life lifted from obscurity

Held in hands that hefted galaxies

Hallowed by an ask

To sustain

The Word

 

Blessed

Given grace

To bear the weight of favour

Daughter of Eve,

Giving God a thankful heart

By holding His, within

Her own

 

Broken

Lanced by sword

That pierced Father, Spirit, Son.

Blood of her blood

Poured out for those

That clamoured for

His death.

 

Given

Her whole life

Offered on the altar

Of surrender

A readiness to be God’s Yes

Shared out to hungry hands

To feed a world

With grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to from here? (Home by another way)

Posted on by
1

The Christmas story can seem, or become a very cozy one. We associate it with children and nativity plays with wonky halos and baby dolls. The Christmas card industry has added to the soft focused glow, a thousand fold.

Then in comes Matthew with a very different, mysterious, disturbing story. Nothing about it is comfortable or cozy , and it leaves a trail of questions in its wake….

stock-photo-18804553-3d-man-with-question-mark

Who were these wise men? Why did they leave their homes to travel so far on so little information? What did they think they would find at the end of their journey? What was it about the young child Jesus that brought them to their knees?

We don’t know a great deal about them, but it seems they weren’t worried by mysteries they didn’t have all the answers to. They were Seekers, following an unusual star, following their dreams and an inner call they probably couldn’t explain.  Whatever else they had , they had a huge capacity for wonder.

Wonder is something every child is born with, and somehow as we grow up and become more worldly wise, we use the gift less and less, leaving it behind like a toy we don’t need anymore in our grown up world. And yet wonder is a profound threshold to experiencing God. It opens our soul to hearing His voice, feeling His touch and sensing his Presence. We suddenly sense we are standing on Holy Ground and can exclaim like Jacob, waking up from his dream of a stairway to heaven. ” Surely God is in this place and I knew it not! ” The ordinary becomes transformed as we see things in a new light.

Wonder

What makes room for wonder in your life?

What dreams have you had in the past that you may now have tidied away to a safe cupboard ?

Have you ever thought you heard God call you to something…but then thought maybe you just made it up ? Or it was just foolishness .. But somehow if you listen very carefully there is  still the faintest of whispers?

Dare you listen again?

The wise men challenge us afresh each year with their simple faith as they set out with a pocketful of dreams, and only the very vaguest idea where they were going.

Where is God calling us to go with Him in this New Year that stretches ahead of us?

What journeys would He have us travel with Him?

Are we willing to leave to leave our familiar, inherited boundaries, to find God in ways and places we did not expect?

The wise men could have stayed star gazers, observing the unusual star and studying its progress from the comfort of their own homes, palaces and borders. It could have been simply an interesting intellectual exercise for them.  That would have been the sensible thing for them to do. But they listened with their hearts and knowledgeable as they were, they didn’t let their heads get in the way. They got involved. Upped sticks and set out eager to see for themselves, fuelled by a desire to worship even though they weren’t sure who they were going to find. They didn’t have God sewn up in a neat and tidy box. Surprise was part of the deal. Their journey had some very unexpected twists, and yet they kept following.

Jesus, when they found him, may not have been the just-born child in the manger- he may have been anything up to two years old ~ but I hardly think a peasant baby or toddler was what they were anticipating , or to whom they  thought they would present their gifts. (They had headed straight to Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, first off, looking for a King.)

Nevertheless their response isn’t cautious or skeptical – it is spontaneous and childlike. They were overjoyed. Crown of the head to the tip of the toes sort of joy. The Greek word is apparently the same as that used for lambs skipping and bounding.

url

Awe-filled, they simply fall to their knees, casting dignity and status aside they bow before him and worship. Grown ups don’t do that. Grown ups of riper years certainly don’t do that.  But these were grown ups who had never grown up. Never lost their curiosity or wonder, and willingness to take risks. They knew that growing old was inevitable, but also that growing up was optional.

They offered him the best they had. Costly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Gold- perhaps signifying his Kingship, Frankincense – the precious & costly oil associated with priesthood and worship. It is the main component of all incense used in churches down the centuries and in the temple mentioned throughout the Bible..        They also offered Myrrh – another costly essential oil, used for healing and for anointing the dead, perhaps pointing towards his death certainly the only time he received his title, King of the Jews was when he was hanging half dead on a cross, wearing his crown of thorns- the only crown this world ever gave him.)

They came to worship– and the literal translation of that word means ‘come forward to kiss. That is what we do when we offer God our worship – in prayer and in the service of our lives – we ‘come forward to kiss’ him.

coming forward to kiss

iStock_000007268476Small-e1370374352624

We worship God in church of course, but the word is SO much bigger than that. We worship with our lives as we give our whole selves to Him.

Romans 12 v, 1 says this : “So here is what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him” (Message)

The Magi gave him costly gifts, and God asks us to give him our whole lives as worship to Him- allowing Him into all of it- not just the Sunday part. He asks for the ordinary – in order to turn our water into wine – with his grace and power. He wants to transform us into the new wine of His Kingdom poured out for others, just as he poured out himself for us.

And so we come full circle. The Christmas story isn’t cozy. It isn’t the comfortable, health and safety approved scenes we get on all lot of our cards. No, it is a  tale of mystery and disturbing, unanswered questions. But it  definitely IS a place for children – children of all ages, wide eyed with wonder.

Beckoning God-

Who called the rich to travel towards poverty,

The wise to embrace your foolishness,

The powerful to know their own frailty;

Who gave to strangers a sense of homecoming in an alien land

And to star gazers true light and vision as they bowed to earth-

We lay ourselves open to your signs for us.

Stir up in us a holy wonder. A longing and a listening ear to hear your faintest whisper.

Open our minds to your mysteries and disturb us afresh from our comfortable certainties about ourselves and about you.

Give us the hearts of a child and help us to discover you in places we hadn’t thought of looking before.

Rise within us like a star

And make us restless

Till we journey forth

To seek our rest in you.

The following is an Epiphany Hymn, written by the Revd Canon Sue Wallace, to the tune of I vow to thee my country. 

Epiphany

O Christ, You came from Heaven to Earth,

Infinity made small

Revealing Heaven’s surprising plans,

You show God’s face to all.

We offer You our gold,

(That is we crown You as our king).

The incense of our worship, a fragrant offering.

And with myrrh we’ll touch the wounded ones

With precious healing balm

Be your eyes and ears and healing hands

To comfort those who mourn.

We have looked for love and seen its face,

Within a loveless world,

And to those who hope for happiness

A sign has been revealed

For we saw Your star while searching,

And we found You in our lives

And Your legend took on flesh,

Your reality arrives.

Even now You guide the travellers,

Through dangerous dark lands.

Till the day we reach our Heavenly home

Held safe within Your hands.

Christ You dived into our water

and you made our water pure

And You lived within our tangled lives

and made them so much more

For the hand of God has touched us,

Bringing Christ into this place

And there’s hope for each culture,

Each nation, every race

And the baby grows and shows us

The true face of the Divine

For we simply lived on water

Yet you turned it into wine.

You can listen to her sing it here.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/V2/mp3player.swf

Ten Ideas for Lent

Posted on by
Reply

Ten Ideas for Lent. ( from Stephen Cherry’s Blog)

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Ten Ideas for Lent

These ideas all all based on my book Barefoot Disciple: Walking the Way of Passionate Humility The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2011

The original plan was to include these ideas in the book but in the end we decided not to. Just as well, probably. Now you can get them without troubling to read it.

Have a great Lent! And if you do nothing else, try number 6.

1. Take Off Your Shoes

We have all walked barefoot and felt the earth beneath our feet. And we all played barefoot when we were children. But have you everprayed barefoot? Do it once and you won’t forget it. It will touch your imagination. Try it out of doors. As you feel the world through the soles of your feet, you will begin to realise the spiritual relevance of the material world. As a barefoot disciple living in a northern country you will, most of the time, be well shod. But if spiritually your feet are bare, you will tread carefully and walk differently. You and your prayer will be earthed, real, humble.

2. Admit a Recent Mistake

Just one will do. Notice when you have made a mistake and own up to it quickly, simply and honestly. And then let it go. Do not seek forgiveness unless the mistake has really hurt someone. If you say ‘sorry’ as a habit, stop it now. You are devaluing the currency. The idea is to acknowledge that you are a mistake-maker for much of the time. This is an exercise in realism and true modesty. Once you have mastered it, you will no longer try to cover up the mistakes you make in daily living. Rather you will find them to be opportunities to learn humility. After a while you might even develop the confidence to begin to address the mistakes for which you really do need to ask forgiveness.

3. Pocket an Insult

The phrase is Ghandi’s. He is a barefoot walker who can speak to us from another faith. It means: ‘do not take an insult personally’, ‘do not take it to heart’, ‘do not react’. But, equally, it does not mean ‘ignore it and it will go away’. Rather, if you are on the receiving end of an insult, it is rarely going to be helpful to react. Instead, pop it into your pocket and, after a while, take it out to see whether it is worth responding to carefully and humbly. Such humility can be determined and powerful, but it is never hot-headed or full of smouldering resentment.

4. Behave as a Child

Jesus says that children are at home in the kingdom of God. And so he wants adults to be childlike. What could be more fun than that! This is your the invitation to let the child within out to play. The child in you is naïve, impulsive, direct, simple, trusting, vulnerable, unsophisticated and unpretentious. Jesus tells us that this is a really most important part of who we are. If the inner child does not thrive then nor do we. Let your inner child out to play. It knows how to live.

5. Step across a Boundary

Visit somewhere that feels a bit scary, uncomfortable or even provocative to you. For many Christian people, a visit to the place of worship of people of another faith is uncomfortable and disorienting enough to wake them up to the fascination, depth and quality of their own faith. So visit a Mosque, Synagogue, Hindu Temple or Sikh Gurdwara. Risk putting yourself in a situation where you know that you will not fully understand what is going on and feel like an outsider. Pay attention to your feelings and let your bewilderment and confusion enhance your learning, your wonder and your enjoyment of the experience. Afterwards try to describe your experiences in a notebook or perhaps to a friend who agrees to step out of his or her comfort zone too.

6. Give up Grumbling

Do you remember Terry Waite’s vow when taken into captivity: ‘no self-pity’? It is a good one but it is far more difficult than we realise. So take the trouble to tune in to the grumbling that you hear around you (and which sometimes comes from your own mouth). It will be difficult to give up grumbling for good, so start by giving it up for Lent. After you have done without it you will wonder why you ever bothered with it. And if you can’t give it up, try to transform it into protest, penitence or petition. You will soon find you have a new passion for both justice and prayer.

7. Practise Hospitality

Take the trouble to notice the people you don’t usually notice. Offer a greeting when others are locked in silence. Learn how to wave in an affirming, positive way. Learn how to smile across a room or make eye-contact across a meeting to support someone who is struggling. You can’t be friends with everyone, but by being friendly you can touch, and perhaps change, many people’s lives and even have an impact on the whole social environment of a neighbourhood. Don’t think that you need to turn your home into a refuge for ex-prisoners in order to exercise true hospitality. Simply take one small but deliberate step in the direction of being more hospitable.

8. Do Something for Someone Else

Do something simple, modest but practical for someone else. It might involve giving someone an unexpected gift or offering to help lift something. Such gratuitous and caring action can touch the heart and imagination and have untold positive repercussions. But don’t be excessive. Don’t take over. Don’t create dependency. Lend a hand but try not to ‘make a suggestion’. It is modest, humble, practical generosity that is called for. Not grand projects or patronising performances.

9. Be Proud of Yourself

Surprised by this suggestion? While bad pride is to be avoided there is such an experience as good pride. It is a very down to earth feeling and we have it when we allow ourselves to look at work well done with kind and straightforward eyes. It is childlike to have good pride, because there is nothing arrogant or conceited in it. Good pride accepts praise gratefully but humbly and allows you to recognise that your efforts are worthwhile and achievements valid. Good pride is not pushy and might be expressed modestly: ‘hmmm, not bad’. It is a good feeling and not only consistent with healthy humility – but a sign of it. Meanwhile try to shake off all forms of bad pride: arrogance, conceitedness and chauvinism. But also try to do away with false modesty. No more ‘little me’, thank you.

10. Encourage Others

Encouraging others is the opposite of criticising them. Whereas criticism comes from meanness of spirit encouragement comes from generosity of spirit. As such it reflects something of God’s love. Also, whereas criticism often comes from envy, encouragement comes from a desire to see others thrive and flourish. Criticism can come from a spirit of competition or fear, whereas to encourage people involves noticing what they are contributing. Tell people you havenoticed the difference that their effort has made or let them see that you acknowledge their difficulty or suffering. We are often a bit stingy with our encouragement, for fear of causing others to swell in pride. The truth is that when encouragement is sincere and appropriately expressed, it nurtures genuine humility. Allow people the joy of feeling truly humbled and really encouraged by what you say.

( Editor’s note – I can thoroughly recommend both this blog and the book Barefoot Disciple The Way of Passionate Humility. Links to both in blue above) 

Taizé

Posted on by
Reply

High on the ‘Bucket List’, Taizé is a place that has called me most of my adult life. I haven’t been able, for a variety of reasons, to answer that call. Until now. God’s timing, however is always best, and this has been a timely visit. At the end of a long, busy summer that has been high on the ‘demand’ factor. Placements, essays, exams and overseas trips calling much from me and stretching me in many dimensions. Growing stuff, I wouldn’t be without, ( except the exam bit, perhaps) but God’s rhythms require balance. Retreat and rest, as well as service and growth.

Taizé is like a long hot soak in a scented bath. A gentle place. Gentle in pace and approach.  Room to unwind and relax in a restful, spiritual environment. A truly ecumenical centre, where the sharp boundaries and denominational divisions are deliberately blurred. A confluence of nations, people come week after week, from all over the world, predominately large numbers of young people. Language barriers are overcome with careful listening, love and laughter as lives are shared within the context of small groups.

The accent is on simplicity. In everything. Worship is both simple and profound. The pattern follows the rhythm of the Community, with morning, noon and evening prayer. Firmly God focused, the liturgy and music flows naturally and easily. Led by various of the monks, who occupy the central aisle of the church, disembodied voices, in a variety of languages, guide the prayer and song. There is little to get in the way, in this very ‘thin’ place. It is a very moving experience to worship with thousands of others from all over the globe- all sitting or kneeling together on the gently sloping floor. All pretensions, roles and higherarchies are left at the door. Child or bishop, are as one before God. When you are already on your knees, the only step to bow the spirit, is on your face.  Lighting is soft, with the dancing flames of a hundred or so candles gracing the chancel. You are bathed in God, in a wash of Love.

We were told the story of a young German atheist who came to Taizé out of curiosity. She could give you a thousand reasons why God simply could not exist. At the end of the week, however, she confessed to one of the brothers, ” I am beginning to have my doubts about that.”

Presence. Gentle and unassuming, and yet inescapable.  Brother Roger started the Community in the tiny village of Taizé, in France, during the Second World War, as a ‘mustard seed’ of Peace. An alternative to the craziness of war. Bringing people and nationalities together in reconciliation and understanding. His faithfully planted seed has become a spreading tree under whose branches the nations have gathered to find rest and discover God.

Spoons. All you need to eat with, at Taizé. Food is simple too, but wholesome and nourishing and a miracle of provision. Feeding thousands a day, in a well practised organisation of willing volunteers that has to be seen to be believed. Within minutes all are eating, from trays on their laps, spread out across the site. More than once I had a picture of a hillside in Galilee, and a carpenter from Nazareth, a couple of thousand years ago.  Shortly after, it is all cleared away and washed up, by yet more volunteers,  often singing, with their arms in buckets of suds.

Taizé is somewhere to bring others to. Young people in particular. Those of faith and none. It is a place you can take at many levels. Forget any ‘Taizé’ services you may have attended. Good or bad, they are very different from the real thing. One of the brothers described Taizé as ” a place to re-discover the joy of living, the joy and the love of God” .  I couldn’t agree more.

To find out more go to: http://www.taize.fr/en

Changing the future

Posted on by
Reply


A couple of weeks ago, we stayed in a Maasai eco camp. It’s purpose was to support widows, and young girls rescued from FGM, and forced early marriages. In Maasai culture widows are not allowed to re- marry, and so have no means of support. Although it is against the law in Kenya, FGM is still practiced by some tribes. ‘Female Circumcision’, it is more usually known as, although mutilation is a more truthful description. It leaves girls with multiple gynae and obstetric problems, which frequently prove fatal. The trauma of the procedure itself ( performed at 5 or 6 yrs) and then being married off at 10 or 11 to perhaps a 50 yr old man, in exchange for several cows, does not bear imagining.

A dynamic Kenyan lady called Helen, is a one woman crusade to stop the process and to provide the girls with an education instead. She has set up a wonderfully equipped school, with boarding provision for the rescued girls. Uniquely in Kenya, the children are allowed to wear their national dress ( a vital part of Maasai culture).

She seeks to hold culture in one hand and education in the other and demonstrate that both go well together, and are necessary for the future of the Maasai. Against fierce opposition and misunderstanding from her own, she nevertheless is doing a wonderful job, one child at a time.

We stayed in a traditional Maasai hut, made of mud, cow dung, mixed with bonfire ash ( walls, floor and roof). It was warm and snug against the cold of the desert night, and successfully kept out all animal, reptile or insect intruders. In the early hours we woke to the sounds of a large mammal sniffing around the outside, the tracks of which proved it to be a hungry hyena , probably attracted by the Maasai cattle. Prior to retiring, we sat with our Maasai hosts, around the camp fire, listening to stories of their culture and traditions. They also gave us expert instruction on what to do if faced with a lion or an angry elephant. Necessary, life saving information in that environment, but not training I ever hope to require putting into practice!

Come to the Quiet

Posted on by
Reply

An invitation to the Quiet. At the end of a busy weekend,  and at the start to the season of Lent, it is an invitation that draws me.  The need to quieten our souls  in God’s gentle Presence is an ever present one.

I have had this in the ‘drafts’ category all weekend,  looking for a link to the music that inspired the following poem.  The poem was written half a life time ago, but is one that seems to re- surface from time to time.

Come to the Quiet

A proffered hand

outstretched in plea of love

a silent empathy of prayer.

I can see

the child inside

that hides behind the man.

Fear stalks behind a laugh

and pain beyond a smile,

for in some deeper place

the child cries

and cries alone.

The bright facade

shown to the world

boasts confidence and strength-

but where I stand, beside your heart,

I cannot see your mask

I only feel your pain.

Speaking at length, in cheerful note

I could not hear your words,

your spirit’s orison of tears

touched a silent place within

and brought my own soul to my knees.

Hush then, and let the silence speak

His balm of Peace awaits us here.

If you will – then take my hand

and let us come

come to the Quiet.

The song ‘Come to the Quiet‘ is by John Michael Talbot, a Franciscan monk, and is based on Psalm 131.  I will add or make a link in the next day or two.

Psalm 131

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

1 LORD, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.

2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.