I have not reached Easter

No ,

I have not reached Easter

and this might be the year when

there is no resurrection,

when the long darkness of Friday

stretches

without a glimmer

into Sunday morning.

This year you might come to the tomb

and find only a stench.

You cannot deny it.

Death without despair

is merely playing with comforting words

-   a cheated game with a fixed end.

          See ,

I have not reached Easter.

Please do not dig in my bare earth.

Even if somewhere the new shoots grow

you will surely destroy them

with your indiscriminate plough

and your boots so heavy with hope

and your hands, all unknowing,

tearing the nurturing folds of mud

from the seeds

ripping them from the protective embrace of death.

          No ,

I have not reached Easter

and this might be the year when

there is no resurrection.

I would rather

- please let me –

lie in the ground and rot and wait for the angels.

  

Maundy Thursday 93

Dancing in the desert

Stand still
stand very still, and be naked.
For the Lord of life is dancing in the desert of your soul.

Through the spaces you have left him
he comes
whirling slowly on his feet of fire.

For his own private pleasure
and your secret delight
you shall see him dancing in the desert of your soul.


Lent 89

Weekend

On Friday night
creation howled
as sorrow's needles snagged the earth's loose woven cloth,
and pulled its sinew threads together
tight against the pain.

On Friday night
the world, round mouthed with horror, echoed
wood to nails, rope to stone
"life killed
love lost ;
fire quenched
hope disappointed."
And our God was silent
as the lights went out.

On Saturday
we listened, hearing noises in the darkness.
But it was nothing.
Just the rattling of our fears.

But on Sunday, though we'd stopped our ears,
a wondering whisper crept beneath the door,
tossed on the gleeful winds.

"A strange man
newly come to town
found loitering,
by the roadsides,
in the graveyard,
half known in the firelight
spinning stories."

And hearth to hearth told small, domestic tales of resurrection.

On Sunday, when we listened, and heard at last,
our Christ strolled laughing, back from Hell
with all our ransomed lives
stuffed in his knapsack.


Easter 1990

Traveller

He was bedraggled

mud-dust-grime bespattered clothes and tangled hair.

- No one had smoothed it for a while -

But often on his weather scoured face

a flash of joy exploded

at some old joke , or some last laugh or some unexpected triumph.

He had no home, except the next step on the road,

and all he owned he carried in a battered bag slung on his back

- one flask of oil

- one jar of wine

- one loaf of bread

- some water in a bottle

- and a small reed pipe to play on at the end of day.

And what tunes he could spin!

Laments by firelight for our flowing tears

and jigs and reels for dancing on our blisters. 

And when night came what tales he could tell!

To make the fire leap and the trees laugh

and to break your heart, and mend it.

He had joined my journey where the road divided,

I suppose,

for thinking back, I didn't see him coming.

When I asked his destination he just smiled and answered,

“Mine to know and yours to find!”

But I can tell you where he'd been –

for each foot had a red raw hole

and, as he travelled,

walking on his wounds,

his steps left bloody footprints on the road behind.

Aug 90

When I wrote this I lived near Glastonbury, a place which attracts many people, for all sorts of reasons. Many of them seemed to have been battered by life in some way. It was common to find a traveller on the doorstep, homeless and penniless, and to be rustling up a cheese sandwich and a mug of tea to keep them going. Who knows who those travellers were, underneath the inevitable grime and scars their lives had left them with? I was always aware that I might be meeting Christ in the guise of a stranger, just as the two disciples making their way back to Emmaus did on the first Easter Sunday.

Ascension?

Of course they all thought he'd gone up.

They would.

But then, they didn't see what I saw.

I was late,

still struggling up the hill

long after the excitement started

(someone had to stay behind to wash the dishes).

That's how I saw what the others missed.

Angels?

Trumpets?

Heavenly choirs?

No. When the cloud came down

he simply stepped out backwards

sliding quietly through the fog.

(Knowing of their fondly held belief

that Up is Good

he guessed they'd all be standing

with their faces turned towards the sky.)

So no one noticed.

When he passed me, halfway down the hill,

he put his finger to his lips.

"Don't tell," he whispered.

"Never fear," I shrugged,

"They haven't listened yet to anything I've said."

I've sometimes seen him since

- a glimpse or two,

a shadow disappearing round a corner,

but it's always seemed a good idea to leave him to his own devices.

Where ?

Not telling !

You can think of better things to do

than trailing after heroes

can't you ?

 A fragment from a non-canonical Gospel by an unnamed female disciple.

8th May 93

This was inspired by a priest friend who commented that Ascension was his favourite time of the year because it was the time when "Jesus got out of the way". That might sound surprising, but there is a danger that we focus so much on the person of Jesus that we lose sight of what we are called to do ourselves as his sisters and brothers.