Living Wittily

Category: Poems, Prayers and Promises

  • Advent Intercessions: Praying for those for whom joy is a hard word to hear, and harder to feel

    Angel_burne-jones "We bring good tidings of great joy,

    Which shall be to all people."

    …

    Advent God, who comes to us in love, peace and joy,

    We thank you

    for love that nourishes and sustains our hearts,

    for peace that enables us to live in friendship with others

    for joy that illumines and inspires our lives.

     

    Yet to be loved and not care for the unloved,

    To live in peace and ignore the shattered lives of others

    To celebrate our own enjoyment selfishly,

    Are sins against you, O Advent God,

    Which deny the very message we preach.

    So in thanking you for the joys that illumine our lives, We pray for those for whom joy seems far away and for others to enjoy.

    For all whose loneliness is made worse by parties, laughter and other people’s joy:

    • For bereaved people still hurting from the death of someone they have loved
    • For wives, husbands and children, whose lives have been broken by family break-up, divorce and the dismantling of their hopes.
    • For older people now living on their own, 1 in 8 of whom will see nobody over Christmas

    Lord in their loneliness, may these your children know the presence of the Wonderful Counsellor, and comfort them through us.

    In thanking you for the joys that illumine our lives, we pray for all who are hungry and homeless at the very time when everyone else will be eating their fill, enjoying the warm comfort of home.

    • Those men and women and young people whose lives simply collapsed and they fell through all the safety nets
    • Those for whom the big issue isn’t a magazine, but the hopelessness, loneliness and placelessness of not having a home
    • Those who have to stand in supermarket queues looking at others with stacked trolleys and finding it impossible not to envy
    • Those who won’t receive any Christmas cards because they have no address, no live relationships with their past

     Lord for those who feel empty and unwanted, be to them the Everlasting Father, and love them through us.

     In thanking you for the joys that illumine our lives, we pray for all who are ill, or suffering, or anxious about their future

    • We pray your compassion on those who are in hospital, feeling isolated, dis-empowered, and often disorientated
    • We pray your strength for those who struggle day and daily with chronic illness, constant pain, and a sense of their own weakness
    • We pray your peace for those who care for their loved family or friend, and who often wonder how long they can keep up with the demands and needs of one they love
    • We pray your patience and respite for those who care for those suffering from Alzheimer’s and other conditions that take away the sense of self, and descend into loneliness.

    Lord for those who are suffering and anxious, and for those needing strength to care for them, be to them the Almighty God whose love and joy and peace surround, uphold and will never let go,

    Through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, Amen

    (This prayer was prepared for worship in Crown Terrace Baptist Church 3rd Sunday in Advent – you are free to use it and adapt it if it would be helpful in another place).

  • A Prayer for when the world seems unsafe

    12899a559cb69bc6 Sometimes you just don't know what to do. The world suddenly seems unsafe, or what is asked of us is just too much, or the mess we humans can make of each others' lives becomes an undertow that drags against hope. Bonhoeffer knew such experiences, and at the end of a sermon preached in 1932 just before the Nazi takeover in Germany, he lapsed into the discourse of prayer, psalm type prayer:

    Do not let us sink with these bits and pieces upon which we are drifting. Do not let it be eternally foggy and cold around us. Show us the light of your Resurrection in all of the darkness of the cross…We who are children of the world, men and women of work, of action, we stand before you, God and pray. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are fixed on you…Hear us O Lord.

     

  • All the prayers I ever prayed for myself – distilled by the poet.

    Oliver swan 

    Whispered Poem

    I have been risky in my endeavours,

    I have been steadfast in my loves;

    Oh Lord, consider these when you judge me.

    Most of the words I've ever spoken in prayers about myself could probaly be distilled into these three lines. Don't ever tell me that prepared prayers are less spiritual than the spontaneous. Passion, devotion, consolation, contentment, reminiscence, self-knowledge, and humility with a hint of defiance – all in three lines.

    The new collection of Mary Oliver's poems is too good, and too wise, to read through any other way than a carefully rationed poem a day.

     

     

  • Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness



    Images     Ever since I read Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness, I have read the work of Richard Harries. Indeed the stained glass window on the front cover became a tapestry project years ago, and it now hangs in my study at the College. What that book did (for me at any rate), was recover a positive view of human happiness as a life goal.

    Sure, it's true enough if you set out looking for happiness you'll be disappointed – sometimes. But it does seem odd that those who are followers of one who was accused of too many parties, too much wine, overindulgence in food (glutton he was accused of, though allow some exaggeration for the zealously pious) keeping the wrong company, saying the wrong thing, doing good and helping people on the wrong days, – yes it does seem odd that Christians often seem ambivalent about happiness. Oh we're OK with joy, you know that deep, subterranean sense of emotional well-being "in the Lord", or that nearer the surface stuff that gets sung out in many a praise song many Sunday.

    But happiness – uncomplicated, desirable, positive, laughter laced, pleasurable enjoyment of things, surface though not superficial, transient but transformative, the feeling in our bodies and minds that the most important word to say to life is yes! But isn't the pursuit of happiness to chase after chimera, to put personal pleasure first, to rely on emotion, mood and feelings rather than convictions, beliefs and spirituality.

    What is a human being's chief end? To glorify God and enjoy God forever.  What would be gratitude to the Creator   – to enjoy created things as the gifts they are, surely? Suppose a friend gives you a gift of your favourite food, or a ticket for the gig you never thought you'd get to? Better not tell them you binned the food as an act of self-denial and love for God – or that you shredded the tickets as a way of strengthening your spiritual muscles! 🙂

    I know. Caricature. But Harries was on to something. The way we are suspicious of sheer pleasure in things; that dominant strand in Christian spirituality that wants us to eliminate personal desires and suppress that part of us from which the words "I want" come. And ambition, love, desire, want, pleasure, leisure, reveling, laughter, – far from diminishing our spirituality, are significant parts of a full humanity without which spirituality impairs rather than enhances, and distorts rather than fulfills.


    Window2 Thomas Traherne, that Creation-intoxicated mystic, is one of the few Christian writers who writes of happiness and enjoyment with unabashed enthusiasm. Actually, reading him out loud he sounds OTT – but maybe one of the reasons we are on the brink of ecological catastrophe is we no longer look on nature as the creation, and on material things as gift, and on the world as a living jewel entrusted to our care, and we are OTT about all the wrong things.

    You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your
    veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the
    stars: . . . Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are
    your jewels; . . . till you love men so as to desire their happiness,
    with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own.

    Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness is one of those books that simply and directly questions our worldview. And asks whether this side of the resurrection, assuming the love of a faithful Creator, in a world suffused and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, there might just be reason to be happy, and for our happiness to be a grateful yes to God's gifts.

    And sure, there is another kind of world – cruel, unjust, violent and violated, barren of freedom and marred and scarred by greed, waste and misery. But in such a world we are called to live for Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, embodying the reconciling love of God. And surely part of that witness, is also the celebration of that which is good, wholesome, healing, restoring, just, funny, enjoyable – because human happiness, and human desires and human wanting are not wrong.

    Inordinate desire, yes; self-interested wanting that robs others, yes; happiness purchased on others' misery, yes; each of these is nearer the greed that looks on the apple and hears that plausible persuasive question, "Did God say no?" But any reading of the Psalms, any reflection on how Jesus lived, and any honest facing up to what goes on in our own hearts, makes it clear that happiness is a good thing! And good things should be pursued, and shared. And maybe that is the best constraint and control of our wanting and our desiring – the sense of other people, of shared humanity and therefore of shared happiness in this great comi-tragic production we call our lives. Read the words of Traherne again – "to love people so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own". Or as Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Satisfied. Fulfilled, and yes, happy.

  • Mary Oliver, Staff Retreat and learning to pay attention to our lives.

    Been away from here for a few days.But been doing other things that brought me into good company, lovely countryside and conveyor belts of rain! Been at Grasmere with the good folks of Northern Baptist Learning Community sharing their staff retreat and helping provide guidance and stimulus towards renewal and refreshment after a long demanding year. So we had some of Mary Oliver's poems, an eclectic choice of music that reflects my own enthusiasms, a number of pictures and images which express beauty and the joy or sadness that intermingles with our lived experience. And I shared a few soliloquies inspired by several biblical encounters with Jesus – never been sure if they were worth doing more with, but the consensus seems to be a yes. So we'll see.

    41CU6Z6Ij7L._SL500_AA300_ What became evident though is that on a retreat occasion, a poet like Mary Oliver has the ability to open new doors of perception, encouraging a more attentive, less cursory viewing of the world – to gaze rather than glimpse, to notice rather than merely register, to greet whatever and whoever we meet, with "Hello", rather than to act ignorantly, that is in a way that shows we do not really know or want to know those other presences that would grace our lives if we gave them the time of day, and a little space.

    Throughout her recent work there are a number of light-hearted but not insignificant poems about her dog Percy. Here's one that I find irresistible because it is about a dog and books, or in any case about a dog impatient with stupid humans who bury their face in paper instead of looking at the beauty, the fun and the excitement of a colourful world laden with smell and sound.

    Percy and Books (eight)

    Percy doesn't like it when I read a book.

    He puts his face over the top of it and moans.

    He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.

    The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.

    The tide is out and the neighbour's dogs are playing.

    But Percy, I say. Ideas! The elegance of language!

    The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories

    that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.

     

    Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough.

    Let's go.

    With summer here, an academic year formally completed tomorrow, I'm with Percy. Let's go! Need a holiday and it will come in a few weeks. Meantime in order to enjoy it, I'm going to try to decelerate gently, a foot movement that doesn't come naturally to me. To help me I'll slowly work through several thin books of Mary Oliver's poems, and learn again how to pay attention, to say hello, and give time of day to whoever asks it, or even whoever doesn't.

  • Poetry, the hidden treasure of the heart, and being made to feel differently

    Amongst the subsidiary blessings of being a staff member at the Scottish Baptist College, is a generous books allowance to underpin our personal research and help us keep abreast of new work in the subject areas we teach. Of course there are those who call such blessings a perk – but that's cos they don't have the high vocational commitment of the bibliphiole for whom a book is synonymous with blessing, and reading an activity that Philp Toynbee called "the royal way to God".

    This week the book allowance for the next academic year becomes available. And I don't have what I often have, a long list of waiting to be bought goodies – perks – ehhh – blessings. Which said, there are a few essentials that are food for the soul, the heart and the spirit – before we ever get to the mind.

    51gbTlRCfvL._SL500_AA300_ Mary Oliver is a poet entirely comfortable swimming in the emotional depths, yet possessed of an uncomfortable and discomforting instinct for bringing our own more hidden emotions to the surface; not to embarrass or frighten, but to reconcile us to the richly textured, gloriously ambiguous world of our own deep feelings. And she does this in ways so deceptively simple that only because I know her ways with words, am I expecting to feel differently by the time I reach the end of one of her poems. But how I then feel, is still a surprise, because the reading of the poem becomes a medium of self-discovery, the poem itself a field in which, ploughing, I discover hidden treasure. Then again my own reading self is also the field in which the treasure is hidden – there but undiscovered, till her ploughshare turns the soil and there I am, laughing, or crying, daring or caring, restored or reconciled, interested or integrated, convinced or content, – the alternatives are endless, but the point is, I seldom read one of her poems without thinking and feeling differently about life, the world, me, those I love, problems I have or that have me, hopes fiercely cherished or disappointments that weigh heavy.

    I've often enough said that the poets are the ones who take us to the heart of things, and to the heart of our own hearts. Mary Oliver's best poetry performs such cardiac surgery using words as both scalpel and needle, skillfully healing and repairing that centre of our being which gives our lives rhythm, oxygen and the vital energy for life. And in the process, she brings to the light of our days, treasures we did not know we had, treasure we did not know we were. Tomorrow I'll post one such poem – read earlier in the week, in the middle of a jaded afternoon to each of our staff members, read and heard by each as a benediction framed in loveliness, and welcomed as a gentle corrective for lives perhaps too prone to self-important anxiety about getting the job done. Whatever is true of my colleagues, Mea culpa! 

  • The tree of Calvary and the ecology of the heart

    O Tree of Calvary

    send thy roots deep down

    into my heart.

    Gather together the soil of my heart,

    the sands of my fickleness,

    the stones of my stubbornness,

    the mud of my desires, bind them together

    O Tree of Calvary,

    interlace them with thy strong roots,

    entwine them with the network

    of thy love.

    Chandran Devanesen.

    12899a559cb69bc6 At present I'm busy repairing, retrieving, restoring, reconstructing, gardens, our own and someone else's. This prayer means every tree stump removed, every square metre turned over to improve tilth, every shrub and tree pruned back to shape and fruitfulness, every weed and stone removed, becomes an inner aspiration for a renewed ecology of the spirit. No idea who the author was, but it's a prayer I've used before, and it comes and goes with the seasons of the heart.

  • Words, silence, prayer and the first person singular

    Rockstonepebble Those who know me know I talk a lot. And I write a lot. I hope too, I listen a lot. I suppose I live by words.

    Nearly one in five of the words above is the first person singular – which is its own comment on what happens if we are addicted to words, and uncritically permissive of our own voice.

    That said, I'm also someone who needs silence and solitude, not lots of it, not stretches of it. But enough to think, to pray, to wait, to listen. Thomas Merton taught me years ago to pay more attention to the inner life when he said words are the noises that interrupt our silence.

    And then there's the wise wistfulness of the woman who said, "Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer".

    Well Amen to that.

    Renita Weems, whose book I quoted from yesterday says much the same thing:

    "As with most great communicators, God knows that the point of silence and the pause between sentences is not to give the audience the chance to fill the silence with empty babbling but to help create more depth to the conversation."

  • “Though I may stumble in my going, Thou dost not fall.”

    As the rain hides the stars,

    as the autumn mist hides the hills,

    as the clouds veil the blue of the sky,

    so the dark happenings of my lot

    hide the shining of thy face from me.

    Yet, if I may hold thy hand in the darkness,

    it is enough. Since I know that,

    though I may stumble in my going,

    thou dost not fall.

    (Celtic, unknown)

    Darkclouds The dark night of the soul is an experience of stripping away the assurance of the senses. Disorientation, uncertainty, loss of impetus, mean that absence is more real than presence, and the unfamiliar displaces the familiar. A spirituality fixated on the positive, and in which dogmatic assurances silence those important murmurs of dissent, is for all its triumphalist note, a spirituality of denial. Not self-denial to be sure, but a more toxic form of refusal, a denial of that mysterious withdrawing of God's sensed presence by which we grow beyond adolescent claimfulness.

    The above prayer doesn't express the classic experience of the dark night of the soul. The last line of it is reminiscent of Isaiah at his most pastorally poetic, and as the theologian who best describes the rhythm of feeling forsaken by the one who promises not to forsake. 150px-Candleburning This is a prayer I now use regularly because it allows me to be both honest and modest about my experience of God. Honest enough to confess that sometimes God's presence is not felt; modest enough not to think my own sense of God or lack of sense of God makes any difference to the reality of things, that God remains actually present even in acutely felt absence.

    "Though I may stumble in my going, thou dost not fall." Since I know that, I know the most important thing. And even if I am overcome at times with doubt, uncertainty, and the pain of unknowing, more important than what I know, is that I am known, and by whom I am known. And one day I will know as I am known. And until then prayers like the one above are, in Eliot's word, valid.

  • “The greatest of these is love” – On not looking too hard for the Church’s raison d’etre

    Trinity Below is the Prayer of Intercession I composed and offered within the worship service at which I was also preaching yesterday. I don't often post prayers of my own. This one touches deep places in the way I look at the world, the church and the people who move in and out of our lives. If using some or all of it lifts your heart and hands to God so much better. It is written around the seldom noted superlative at the end of I Corinthians 13, "Faith, hope and love remain, but the greatest of these is love". For all our talk of mission and missional – there is a job description for the Church that isn't hard to understand – just hard to live in, live up to, live towards. 


    Eternal God and
    Father,

    Whose infinite yet
    intimate love

    shared from all
    eternity between Father, Son and Spirit,

    is the same love you
    have poured into our hearts by that same Holy Spirit.

     

    _42899349_carer_cred203  We pray for all those
    people in our lives,

    Who have been touched
    and transformed by love,

    faithful,
    unselfish, generous, joyful, love.

    Lifelong friends
    and good neighbours

    wives and husbands,
    parents and children,

    sisters and brothers,
    best friends and new friends

    overcoming
    differences in language, race, gender, religion.

    O God, in that rich
    life of love as Father, Son and Spirit,

    We see love’s
    inexhaustible possibilities:

     

    So we pray for
    those whose lives are broken for lack of love:

    Children whose
    safety and health come second to adult demands;

    Friendships ended
    by exploitation and backstabbing;

    Marriages shredded
    by unfaithfulness and broken promises;

    Families fractured
    by social pressures, whether poverty or affluence;

    Neighbourhoods
    where love is weakness and compassion despised

    Businesses whose
    bottom line isn’t the welfare of the work-force;

     

    UK_Coventry_Statue-of-Reconcilliation1 We pray for
    Churches, and for our church

    which you have
    called to be the Body of Christ,

    to embody and to model
    the love of God in Christ,

    which is gift of
    the Spirit and the sign of your Presence

    May our love for
    others, like your eternal love,

    Be generously
    given, lovingly available,

    patiently faithful,
    willingly sacrificial

    persistently
    hopeful, and self-evidently joyful.

     

    We pray for those
    we’ve only heard of on television,

    Those whose lives
    disintegrate under pressures of hate and violence,

    Whose lives are in
    different ways, damaged, diminished, defeated,

    by the absence of love, a vacuum
    filled by the power of hate.

    Two boys whose home
    was so toxic they tortured other children

    The 19 year old
    whose reckless driving killed his friend

    The mother who made
    her own son ill, to gain media attention

    The teacher injured
    trying to separate fighting pupils

    The baby abducted
    in     Ireland, and returned on the Cathedral steps

    The Sikh neighbour
    stabbed to death defending a young woman from a mugger

    These and so many
    more, human lives caught in the crossfire of love and hate,

    we hold them before
    your healing mercy:

     

    God of love and
    hope,

    we pray for our
    society, our city, our neighbourhoods,

    and for ourselves
    as your ambassadors of love

    Make us ministers
    of reconciliation with a passion for peacemaking

    Fill us with
    compassion for the poor, the hungry, the lonely

    Like Jesus gives us
    eyes to see Zacchaeus hiding in shame;

    courage to ask the
    name of violent terrified Legion;

    to stand between
    the vulnerable victim and those holding the stones;

    to touch with tender
    risk those who like the leper are feared and excluded;

    to see the best in
    the Samaritan and go do likewise –

    to open our arms in
    welcome like the prodigal father

    to take our loaves
    and fishes and bless them to the use of others,

    and so to be
    perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect;

    whose sunlight love
    gives life to all within its radiance,

    whose rain of mercy
    falls with life giving refreshment,

    who reaches out
    with a love that warms and waters,

    embraces, holds
    and heals a broken world,

    and all this, in Jesus' name and
    in the power of the Spirit,

    Amen.