Month: May 2022

Layers of offence,
each new building destroying
the building before.

 

Come, Spirit of God,
disconfirm us, shake us up,
change our thoughts and deeds.

People are walking,
cycling, running: this is the
human motorway.

 

Great to look forward to Pentecost this Sunday – the Spirit of God reversing the divisions in the Tower of Babel story. It kind of speaks for a theocracy, but not one ruled by theocrats.

That’s a big bird there,
quietly dismembering
its tiny victim.

 

 

I don’t love those flags
anymore. ‘Waver-in-chief’
has lied way too much.

Tangles of goosegrass,
nettles, thistles; hard progress:
but progress it is.

A quick glance at Sunday’s Lectionary shows that those who pray for the unity of Christians have a good precedent; Jesus himself.

Achieiving unity may be difficult – sections of the Christian faith sre often so bound up with national interests that it’s hard to reconcile them, for example. Can you imagine the Russian Orthodox mainstream cosying up to any other denomination anytime soon? Sometimes all we have is prayer…. even though prayer alone is never enough – for instance just look at the bizarre spectacle of American legislators praying for the victims of another school shooting but doing nothing when they have it in their hands to bring about change.

May God save us from ourselves.

With the curtains shut,
think beyond what’s close outside
into all the world.

It’s broad and easy,
the way stretches ahead. But
I soon find it’s wrong.

An embankment here,
a bridge there, a line of trees;
fragments of a past.

The colour of brass,
broken eggshell on the ground-
its story not known.

Complex of alleys,
streets, old ways, new ways, cobbles,
tarmac; friendly town.

In Sunday’s lectionary, the populace tolerate Paul and Silas at first. But when Paul and Silas take away the slave-owner’s chance to make money, the atmosphere darkens. Paul and Silas are imprisoned. You can say what you like, Paul and Silas, but you touch our money and you’re in trouble. Maybe that’s why some privileged and political people now hate church people whenever they speaks about social justice or money. (Which Jesus did quite a lot BTW).

Never completely

silent, but sometimes quiet,

this living city.