A poem by Janet Morley. I have lately taken to writing poetry onto prints, as creative prayer or prayerful art… I find it helps. It centres me. I pray in the writing, I pray myself into the writing. It does me good to take the text in at such slow speed as writing requires. “God my Beloved…” It’s reading with more of my senses, if you will. It’s hearing the text with my eyes and my hand as well as my mind and my heart and my spirit. It grounds my busy mind in my body. I come home to myself and to God a bit more this way. If the thinking slows, the breathing slows. If the breathing slows, the mind slows. It has made overwhelming emotions more manageable. It’s been helpful… And I am left with a bit of beauty of my own in the end, despite everything.
This blessing
can be heard coming
from a long way off.
This blessing
is making
its steady way
up the road
toward you.
This blessing
blooms in the throats
of women,
springs from the hearts
of men,
tumbles out of the mouths
of children.
This blessing
is stitched into
the seams
of the cloaks
that line the road,
etched into
the branches
that trace the path,
echoes in
the breathing
of the willing colt,
the click
of the donkey’s hoof
against the stones.
Something is rising
beneath this blessing.
Something will try
to drown it out.
But this blessing
cannot be turned back,
cannot be made
to still its voice,
cannot cease
to sing its praise
of the One who comes
along the way
it makes.
© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com
You did not choose me;
I chose you.
John 15:16
I work and who can hinder it?
Isaiah 43:13
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Psalm 23:5
From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
John 1:16
“Resurrection is not a metaphor for mere happiness or relief at coming through something difficult. Resurrection is what there is on the other side of nothing.
It is the life we had not thought of, and, despite our best efforts, will not be able to imagine.”
“We might learn again that when we are able to say what is in us, others may live.”
Lucy Winkett, in “Our Sound Is Our Wound”
Reflection for Thursday, March 22 (Day 26 of Lent)
Not just in my heart
but in the secret space
it holds.
In the heart of my heart.
In the place where I am myself.
In the space that I protect the most
and share the least.
In the hidden chamber
that I sometimes close off
even from myself.
In the realm
where you wait
and watch,
where you see each thing
that lies in shadow,
where you know the names
of all that makes its home
in me.
Here
in my secret heart;
here
teach me to move
with your wisdom,
to open the doors
that will draw me deeper still,
to live in the truth
that you desire;
here
let me open
the windows wide
so that those who pass by
will see you
looking out.
© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com
Blessing the Seed
I should tell you
at the outset:
this blessing will require you
to do some work.
First you must simply
let this blessing fall
from your hand,
as if it were a small thing
you could easily let slip
through your fingers,
as if it were not
most precious to you,
as if your life did not
depend on it.
Next you must trust
that this blessing knows
where it is going,
that it understands
the ways of the dark,
that it is wise
to seasons
and to times.
Then—
and I know this blessing
has already asked much
of you—
it is to be hoped that
you will rest
and learn
that something is at work
when all seems still,
seems dormant,
seems dead.
I promise you
this blessing has not
abandoned you.
I promise you
this blessing
is on its way back
to you.
I promise you—
when you are least
expecting it,
when you have given up
your last hope—
this blessing will rise
green
and whole
and new.
© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com
Isaiah 43:19
How does one leave the Church of England? There’s no ritual for that, no public ceremony to mark this step.
So I’m announcing it here:
no more. Enough.
I do not consider myself Anglican, as of today.
I’m letting go of one more oppressive place in my life.
And this has been a long time coming.
I will never feel a sense of belonging in this Church, given that I’m a woman (with a vocation to the priesthood no less), I’m part of the LGBT community, and I’m a child abuse survivor, watching the news unfold around the CofE’s current inquiry into clerical child abuse.
No more.
I grew up in an unhealthy church, and in an unhealthy family.
I deserve better. And I have a choice now.
I don’t know where that will take me regarding vocation, how that will work out. But I don’t have to know. I trust God who loves me and who wants health and wholeness and only good for me. She will provide. That’s all I need to know.
J. Richardson
A Babelonian tower of radios, from the antique to the newest versions, all switched on and talking/ playing music at the same time. Quite an experience.
One Blessed Fool's Way to Happiness 