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Recently I wrote this Lectionary Reflection for the online website Good Faith Media over here

The tapestry is an original design of my own based on Isaianic texts about streams in the desert and the desert blossoming. 

“I sing in the Shadow of Your Wings…” Psalm 63:1-8

This Psalm is not for the nonchalant. It vibrates with emotional intensity and assumed intimacy. Body and soul, the whole person is defined at least for this moment, by longing for the felt nearness and accompanying assurance of God. Thirst for God and prolonged longing for God is experienced as the persisting presence of an absence. As parched land languishes for want of water, so body and soul suffer the want of the presence of God. There are parched episodes in every life, miles of the journey when we thirst for rain, times of emotional exhaustion and bone weariness that make prayer seem a waste of time.

These verses, and the images of this Psalm inspired a hymn that anticipates how to survive the desert, and emerge from the wilderness.

Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand;

The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.

A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way

From the burning of the noontide heat and the burdens of the day.

That beautiful fable, The Little Prince, is a story of a pilot whose plane crashed in the desert. One of the many wise sentences in this slim masterpiece has found its way into many an anthology: “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” The Psalmist knows this.

Actually so did the apostle Paul, making one of his boldest rhetorical moves. This from another of our lectionary passages about God’s provision for the children of Israel in the wilderness: “They drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” (I Cor.10.3-4) 

Whether a subterranean well, or a mobile rock doubling as a fountain, the promise of refreshment and recovery are woven throughout these 8 verses. The spiritual psychology is sound. First remember, think back, and recall God’s goodness and mercy that has followed you all the days of your life. (v2) Second, take hold of that covenant word love, and speak that steadfast, faithful love that can be trusted whatever. That love of God is better than life because it makes life possible and alone guarantees life’s meaning, purpose and fulfilment. (v3) Third, praise God every day into the future, because that future is safe and enfolded in purposive love and sustaining mercy. Praise is an act of faith, anticipating blessing going forward because born of past blessing (v4)

The result of remembering God, speaking God’s faithful love, and praising God for the future is summarised in v5. Lips that were parched will sing God’s praise, and a soul hungry for God will be “satisfied with the richest of foods”. (5)

Faith is much more than a grim hanging on when life seems barren, and God far away. This Psalm is defiant of despair. It resonates with the trustful optimism of one who knows, just knows, that somewhere, beneath the desert, is a well. And if that sounds like a miracle, you’re on the right track. Because wherever we are in the wilderness, and however weary, a spiritual rock accompanies us, and that Rock is Christ.

Then the Psalm moves from the desert to the safety and comfort of bed! This time the Psalmist isn’t tossing and turning, anxious and restless. When I’m awake “I remember you, I think of you through the watches of the night.” We’re back to the importance of memory, the recalling of our story, the restorative power of trustful optimism; trustful because God has proved faithful and God keeps his promises.

For years that remarkable Christian and United Nations diplomat, Dag Hammarskjold, kept a notebook by his bed, in which he noted thoughts of deep spiritual honesty and wise counsel. My guess is he knew the wisdom of Psalm 63 when he wrote this brief prayer: “For all that has been, thank you. For all that is to be, Yes!”

Such words presuppose levels of confidence that must find their energy somewhere. “You are My help. I sing in the shadow of your wings.” Is that mothering image of the eagle’s wings, or the gathering close of a mother hen, or perhaps the wings of the cherubim on the altar in the sanctuary? No need to choose. It is an image of protective care and dependable safety.

The Psalmist settles down, and as we read and pray his words, so do we. Our soul clings to God, we are held in the strong right hand of God. There are desert journeys, wilderness wanderings, times of weariness and thirst, experiences that bring us to our wits end. But note where this Psalm starts – verse 1 naturally enough! “O God, you are my God.” This Psalm can be distilled to the lines of another hymn:

“O Love, that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee.” That’s for the desert, and those times of thirst and seeking that have to be lived through.

“I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thine ocean depths its flow, may richer, fuller be. That’s for the bed, the place of rest and peace, when the soul is satisfied with good things, and we intentionally remember the goodness and mercy that has followed us all the days of our life, think of God who is our help, and sing praise in the shadow of God’s wings.

Wandering in someone else's garden (centre),

three degrees under a dazzling sun set in a sky blue sky,

inwardly sorrowful at the ugliness, cruelty and culpable intransigence

of those bent on stealing someone else's country, culture and identity,

I stopped, or rather was arrested,

by the miracle that is the possibility of such astonishing beauty,

and its power to argue back against the ugly nihilism of human hubris,

simply by announcing its loveliness,

without rancour, violence or noise,

as a vision of grace, a moment of gift,

a coaxing tug towards hope for a heart tempted,

however briefly, to despair.

Today was a Zoom meeting of the Aberdeen Theological Circle. Each of those present at today’s meeting offered a few minutes of reflection on a chosen poem, book or Bible passage. Here are some brief notes on what was shared between us. :

 – W H Vanstone’s book, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense and its concluding poem, “Morning glory, starlit sky.” Kenosis as a key concept in Christian theology, particular mention of Inhabiting the Cruciform God, Michael Gorman (Eerdmans: 2009)

-The connection of land, people and liturgy in poetry. Read God’s Grandeur as a poetic vision of human activity overshadowed by the Spirit of God.

– John Betjeman’s poem, ‘The Conversion of Paul’, a serious exploration of the religious experience of being righted by being turned round the other way.

– the complexity of choice, and the unforeseen consequences of choices made and ways not taken. Robert Frost poem, ‘Two Roads’, (The Road not Taken).

Quotation from In Living Colour: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling, Emmanuel Lartey. Recognising there are needs everyone has, needs only some have, and needs no one else has. Pastoral responsiveness seeks to be sensitive to those distinctions.

– Two quotations; the first from William Penn on true spirituality as engagement with the world of action, the second from Kahlil Gibran on reason and passion, and the need for a proper equilibrium between these in dealing with human complexity.

– A recent TV programme on Ian Crichton Smith, Consider the Lilies. During the clearances the church was so close to the established order and status quo it was unable to support the powerless. It is hard for the Church to speak truth to power when it is allied to the power that needs spoken to!

– Psalm 30.5 as a statement of trust and hope, for those times when life is overshadowed and overburdened. Sorrow is finite, hope and joy are promised as realities embedded in the faithfulness of God.

– Poem by George Mackay Brown, ‘The Harrowing of Hell’, narrating the spiralling downward journey of the crucified, clothed in his five wounds.

– In response to the Ukraine crisis, the use of social media to bring people together and to hear from Ukraine “your intercessions are imperative. Reading of Psalm 46, a powerful mix of hopeful and reassuring metaphors, and faith as both trust and defiance – much circulated on social media these past few days.

Read as a continuum these reflections are a richly textured testimony to our diversity and unity, and the gift we each are to the other. While the research paper and exploratory discussion will always be our primary way of  engaging in thought, discussion and learning together, perhaps once a session there should be a smorgasbord approach much like today’s experience. It was a good way to spend 75 minutes. 

Yesterday morning, as news was breaking of the invasion of Ukraine, I read Psalm 46. It seems the place to go at dangerous times. The Bible is a book that’s familiar with empires and dictators, armies and invasions, allies and enemies, violence and oppression, and all the other inhuman ways that human beings treat those they consider as a threat, or ‘other’, or an obstacle to political ambition.

The starting point of this call to courage, trust and hope is God. “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Whatever the threat of conflict and political collision, God is not going anywhere, other than where God is – in the midst of the conflicting ambitions and military power-plays of nations and people.

This verse is not a way of saying keep your head down, God will deal with it. We are right to be concerned, to fear war and to defend peace. But in all our worrying and working remember this. God is ever-present, a place of refuge and strength whatever happens. As often in the Bible, one of the most important words is “therefore.” Precisely because God is a place of refuge and safety for our souls, and the source of strength for the life we are called to live, “THEREFORE we will not fear.”

We wouldn’t be human if we were not afraid of the outbreak of war, wherever that is in the world. Perhaps especially when war begins to feel near to us, literally too close for comfort. It’s then we come back to those words, “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…”

What difference does God make to the geo-political earthquakes which shake our confidence and undermine the foundations of our lives? How are we to think about tanks and missiles, fighter planes and attack helicopters, hundreds of thousands of heavily armed and intensively trained soldiers focused on simply taking over another country?

This Psalm writer has seen these tragedies and outrages before. He shows us the way to hope, to believe in justice, and the possibilities of peace. “Come and see the works of the Lord…he makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear.” God’s purpose is a kingdom of peace. Whatever else the cross of Christ stands for in our world, it is a declaration of God’s opposition to sin and his redeeming purpose, a demonstration that God’s ways are justice, forgiveness, mercy, peace, and reconciliation.

“Come and see the works of the Lord…” Faced with military aggression against another country, and threats against other countries including our own, what are we to do? It is one of the most frustrating and perplexing experiences in any of our lives when huge events that cause suffering, disruption and death for others, are so far beyond our power to help or heal. What can we do? While world leaders agonise over decisions and consequences, risks and dangers, there seems very little left to us to influence events, or make any real difference to what is happening and what will happen, regardless of how we feel about it.

But then there’s this. “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.” Twice the emphatic statement, “I will be exalted.” Christian faith is embedded in our experience of God, our refuge and strength, who breaks bows and shatters spears. We rest in Him, our shield and our defender. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

These are words we sing because God has revealed himself in Christ. The resurrection is God’s no to death, and God’s yes to life; God’s no to violence and God’s yes to peace; God’s no to hate and God’s yes to love; God’s no to despair and God’s yes to hope.

So, what to do? Be still and know that God is God, and pray. To think about the world situation as one who knows God is God and Christ is risen. Someone has said, “Prayer is the slender thread that moves the muscle of omnipotence.”

To believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, and to pray in His name, is to bring to bear on even the most frightening situations, all the resources of Eternal love poured out in merciful purpose, divine power and redeeming intent.

Be still, and know that. Be still, and acknowledge that God is God. Be still, because God is our refuge and our strength, therefore, we will not fear. Be still and pray for peace in our time. Don’t do nothing, pray, and when you pray you’re not doing nothing. Remember the words of our Lord, and finish your prayer with them in full assurance of being heard, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…for Yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory – and You will be exalted among the nations.”

“God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Amen.

I've been designing and working tapestries for a long time now. My first serious attempt was maybe 30 years ago. There was a long chunk of time in the period since then – 15 years, when I had other things to do and came back to doing tapestry again maybe 12 years ago. I'll do another post soon with some of the older ones that I still have around.

For now, I'm intrigued yet again at how appropriate and theologically sensible are the sayings that surround working tapestry as a parable, metaphor, or narrative imagining of how the presence and activity of God is woven through the texture of our days and years. It's a commonplace to compare the back of the canvas with the front, with the intended encouragement that the messiness has a pattern; be patient and wait until the work is complete. God weaves the varied strands and colours of our lives into a unique pattern that cannot be achieved any other way. You know the kind of thing.

Here is a quotation that is a classic example of trust in the providence of God, and persevering trust despite only seeing the underside of the tapestry:

 “It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand. In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.”   ― Maria von Trapp

As one who designs tapestries, I know that improvisation and ad hoc decisions mean that the finished work can vary considerably from what was first conceived and planned. I must also say that I have done several tapestries, beginning with an idea, and starting from the centre allowing the shapes and colours to develop in what feels like a random process of choosing to do what I feel like, what I think might work, and that can reflect the mood at the time as much as anything else. The point is, each tapestry is a creative process, an evolving concept in which the final form becomes clear quite late on in the process.

Years ago I learned a verse that has stayed with me and has in turns reassured, disturbed and even annoyed me. But I keep coming back to it. The lines come from the poem 'Regret' by Jean Ingelow:

This life is one, and in its warp and woof

there runs a thread of gold that glitters fair,

and sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet

where there are sombre colours. 

I bring the words of Maria von Trapp and Jean Ingelow together in this activity involving needle, stranded cotton and canvas in a work of art that becomes the visible consequence of inner thought, prayer and imagination – these three. The current tapestry is one articulation in colour and form of Revelation 21.9-21, John's vision of the New Jerusalem. His description is a verbal symphony, geometry set to music, an imagined place of universal welcome, a home for a broken and now redeemed Creation, illumined by the Love dwelling at its precise centre. To take in any literal sense John's words of how the Ineffable might appear to eyes dazzled by the light of eternal truth, divine goodness and love in purest holiness and redemptive purpose, is as wonderfully futile as standing beneath Niagara with a bucket hoping to capture and contain the essence of a power that annihilates all presumption and preconceptions.

Yet John wrote to be read, and understood, and with pastoral purpose and spiritual imagination about what he saw when he saw heaven opened. And near the end of the drama, there is the crowning vision of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, with its twelve gates where all who would might enter, and no one was denied. It is a vision of redeeming love, eternal purpose, and is intended to comfort, strengthen and give hope to those who can make no sense of the underside of the tapestry that is their life. So in this tapestry, without intending it there is the messy underside and the changing and evolving pattern that emerges from the continuing work of the needle-worker.

The second photo is the upside of the tapestry – but at a quite early stage. When it's finished I'll post again and try to explain a bit more what I think I'm playing at! Theology is often more free when not confined to words, even if, as in John's Revelation, words with all their limitations are all he has to describe the indescribable and communicate the incomprehensible. John's geometric precision conveys the exactitude and detail of a city whose builder and maker is God. Incidentally there are several pieces of music I have listened to while doing this work – that will be another post perhaps.        

One reason why I take photographs when out walking. "When Psalmist or Prophet calls Israel to life their eyes to the hills, or to behold how the heavens declare the glory of God, or to listen to that unbroken tradition which day passes to day and night to night, of the knowledge of the Creator, it is not proofs to doubting minds which he offers: it is nourishment to hungry souls. These are not arguments –they are sacraments." (George Adam Smith, The Book of Isaiah, Vol. II, p. 90)