Author: bob

How I loved the sun;
sparkling water, clearing mist:
but I shun it now.

This, the only cloud
for many miles around, but
gone within the hour.

Our Creator, God,
come, heal this troubled planet,
soothe the gasping earth.

I don’t have to like Salman Rushdie to believe he’s entitled to speak his mind without the threat of violence. This attempt on his life is a wicked deed. I hope he recovers well.

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Looking at Sunday’s Lectionary, Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” I have tended to see that as a prediction rather than a manifesto, the inevitable consequence of Jesus’ uncomfortable truth-telling. But maybe it is his intention after all. The Prince of Peace s not comfortable with stress and conflict and suffering (to himself) his ministry will bring, but it has to be.

Preaching to myself here, but we cannot always opt for an easy life, not if we believe that God loves the world.

It is not love to
bend and let be. There is right;
and there’s bone-deep wrong.

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Near to the houses,
the path is ‘dogshit alley’,
fragrant in the heat.

Funerals recalled;
signs of a great love that now
has nowhere to go.

Meanwhile in Isaiah from Sunday’s Lectionary, God’s lament over a people gone wrong. Doesn’t God mourn now, for what might have been in our nations? Maybe even now, it can be fixed. I blame the schools – no ethical education; Eton is the worst. Actually most schools are good, battling heroically. Eton’s ethical education is still crap though.

It’s not good that people turn away from God. It’s worse when we turn away, claiming to be ever more Christian in doing so. Go back to Isaiah to find out the kind of thing God really wants from his people, “…he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

Rich or poor, we bleed,
have hopes that lie in ruins,
are somehow needy.

Doesn’t mean that tax cuts for wealthy people are a good idea though.

Signpost in the sunlight. Would that all pointers to the Way were as obvious as that one.

Purposeful lines in the sky. How can we fulfil our need to interact globally without this addiction to fossil fuels?

The hazy landscape
hints at tower blocks, old mills,
half-hidden city.

Also this from someone who likes to cheer people up…

…thank you!

History comes to life
in the present; tragedy
and rumours of hope.

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the section from  the letter to the Hebrews is all about faith, and yes, faith is great and hard and in some of its meanings crucial. But I am disturbed by verse 1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” At the same time, in the world of science, evidence is the basis of everything. Are these worlds so very different – or are they different insights onto the world?

I have a faith that is far from assured, but persistent.

Rusty builders’ fence,
overgrown, the sign of a
job never finished.

Way back young, I dreamt
of a light bulb growing brown,
dimming for ever.

In next Sunday’s Lectionary, Isaiah, God is growing tired of people’s meaningless worship, when they aren’t behaving right. They are hypocrites. “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

May God forgive us all for the times when we are hypocrites too.