My sacred spaces

I have spent a lifetime slowly learning that I do not have an orderly mind, I do not have a rational time-table, I am a creature of fancy and unexplained perceptions. I am moved to worship and prayer by a strand of mist in the the sky, by the minute prism in an abandoned drop of rain, and by the mighty wave blown up from the sea which spills a cloth of living lace across the pebble strewn beach. 

On my bureau is a Nail Cross from Coventry Cathedral. It is a replica of the 1940 original, fashioned from three medieval nails taken from the ruins of the old Cathedral. The world is full of Crucifixes and Crosses, but none I have seen have ever spoken so poignantly as this starkly minimalist Cross which has become the symbol of Coventry’s Mission of Peace and Reconciliation. 

I have on the wall to the right of my desk a Russian blue enamelled Orthodox Crucifix which my most eccentric great-aunt brought back from Russia early in 1917. This has become for me a symbol of the essential unity in Christ that any liberal, unitarian and free Christians may find in the life and teaching of Jesus - whether he be man, myth or God - who was and is a living lesson of love and a mirror of the ineffable and the divine. 

I have shelves stacked with several hundred CDs, very many of them of religious music from every part of the world, from Europe, from Asia, from South America, from the Middle and Far East. These together with the poetry books, most particularly of the seventeenth century religious and metaphysical poets, of T S Eliot and R S Thomas, Mary Oliver and various others of contemporary American and English religious poets who provide the background to my home based religious life and worship. 

From my window I can see Viking Bay and the Channel which links the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea.  I have been inescapably drawn to the sea, to the wonder and vastness and seeming eternity of it since I first set eyes on it in 1943.  But I had to wait nearly fifty more years before I made my home within sight and sound of what is now my ever changing and God-given seascape.  

Sitting on a bench, looking out across the living waters along the silver-gold path laid down by the sun beginning its journey towards evening I find that this is a very wonderful place for meditation and prayer.  It is here that I fancy in the pounding of the waves, the calling of the gulls, and the shining of the moon and sun that I can hear the voice of God - and for this I give Him my thanks. 

Naomi

Winter sun

I looked into the January sun 

and I saw there only a blinding light, 

not the face of God nor of his angels,

but a mysterious power I could not 

comprehend - ineffable and divine.

I looked down at the sunlit dappled path

where crumpled leaves, discarded victims 

of Autumn’s shedding, every vein awash 

with molten gold, lay beneath my feet 

as if they were a carpet for a queen.

The tarmac was ablaze like a mosaic 

of tiny precious stones, brilliant and new

in that miracle of transmuted light;

delicate webs glistened on rusty iron,

frail witness to everlasting beauty.

Thus was the metamorphosis made clear,

mighty strength and small loveliness now

become one along the path where I walked

beneath the burning celestial globe,

God immanent in all his creation. 

My whole being, body and soul, suffused

with love and joy, to Him I gave my thanks,

not only for the sun’s shimmering fire,

but for small things, delicate and humble,

made glorious at his gentle command.

God be praised   Amen   So may it be

                                             

                                                   Naomi

Christmas Song 2014

Christmas Song 2014

Ring out the bright bells to welcome the Baby,

parcels of gold at the foot of the trees,

sing with the bright bells, for this is the season

for tasteful bibelots to flatter and to please.

Your table set up for feasting not fasting,

glasses of crystal and porcelain rare,

put magnums of bubbly by the new sofas,

thank the God Plenty there’s caviar to spare. 

What of the young girl and what of her Baby,

at the Inn no room, no cradle for ease,

stars in the dark sky and angels watch over,

oxen and asses sink down upon their knees. 

In our selfish world too little to offer

homeless and hungry, the  victims of war,

while we sit dazzled and full with rich living

the Baby weeps for the plight of all the poor. 

We who who once perceived this chasm between us,

ignore the tortured, the lost and the lame

these who are loved by the God of compassion,

these are the sad souls to whom the Christ child came.

All of us should now be neighbours and brothers,

feeding the hungry with food from our hoard

give shelter and trust to folk who have nothing,

love to the loveless, and glory to the Lord.

Naomi 

Two Thousand Years Ago

Two Thousand Years Ago

For unto us a child is born

In the stable a new baby enfolded in the arms

of his loving mother, honoured by oxen,

watched over by angels, greeted by the owl’s

hoot and the night hawk’s cry in the long cold night.

A shepherd boy brought his new lamb for the baby,

the Magi brought rich gifts for the infant king,

humble prince of peace who came to lead

us to the peace of our loving God.

The stars sang, the river nudged its stones

and woke the dreaming dragon flies,

soft breezes whispered among the olive trees,

every flower raised its fragile petals to the radiant sky,

all combined as one to join with the song of welcome

to the enchanting baby born this night of nights,

and to recite again the angelic greeting

‘Peace be to all men of good will.’

§§§§§§§§§

I talked to an old soldier, disfigured and lame, 

who fought for five long years in trenches

carpeted with mud, amidst the wire, beneath the gas, 

his young manhood devoured by pain and blood and fear.

‘Did you hate the Hun?’ I asked him.  ‘No,’  he said, 

‘for he was a man like me. Like me he fought 

for what he believed - his emperor, honour,

nation, that all might be strong and free.'

‘When at last you came home’ I said, ‘were you

full of joy,  you, the young proud hero?’

For a long moment he looked into the dying fire.

‘How could I be proud when all I did was to obey orders?

Where was the joy when all my mates were dead?

Closer then to my enemy than to my friend,

I found little peace in that war’s ending,

and little glory in a bitter victory.’

The old warrior slept, while I sat quietly in the dark night

and listened to the echo of sweet celestial voices ringing

once more down centuries of bitterness and cruel war.

And I remembered again those two great commandments, 

to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves, 

given that we might find his blessed inner peace 

revealed to us by a man born in a stable,

two thousand years ago.

Naomi

Just another day

Six sparrows sit atop a thick leaved bush,

like beige feathery candles on a Christmas  tree.  

Frozen to the spot I look at them 

as heads on one side they stare at me, 

neither haughty nor curious.

Until as if summoned by a soft far off bell 

they rise up over black iron spiked railings,

and wheel into the haze of a pallid noonday sun.

Up on the green along the edge of the cliff

a herring gull dances, stamping his feet

in ever turning circles, a winged Dervish

not whirling but tottering in the wet grass.

Greedy eyes gleaming, his beak stabs down

as the worms bore up towards the surface,

desperate to escape the mimetic flood

orchestrated by this plump Machiavellian bird.

At shoulder height a flock of pigeons flies

along the Promenade, an avian battering ram

of close laid feathers, dun and biscuit,

smoke grey,  bronze and iridescent blue.

Strong men blanche and leap for safety,

small children run screaming for mother,

while marooned in my wheel chair 

I swear at today’s inexorable pinioned progress.

The air is full of the shrill agonised screams 

of green parakeets hanging down side up 

from swaying wires and sharp edged guttering, 

and the hysterical barking of dogs 

ever eager to join the hilarious melée.

Only the black disdainful Promenade Cat,

whiskers quivering and anxious bushy tail twitching, 

abandons the affray for a quiet cushion and a piscine tea.

Just another ordinary December day 

in the long life of our genteel old seaside town

                                               Naomi                      

A Perilous Path

A perilous pathway

Look into the blue waters of the Med where sharks

and poisonous fishes swim, where black sea urchins

lurk and jellyfish sting the unwary travellers on their

perilous path south from Maghreb to Mezzogiorno.

There you will find a monstrous human graveyard,

for the sea gives not up its dead to the living, 

and already countless thousand souls are lost 

to the T ocean,  prey of avarice which fed

on the fears of terror stricken refugees who had

nowhere else to hide and no place else to go.

‘Rescue them?’ our leaders cried, ‘Even more 

will come, and of those who come, even more 

will die; we must not facilitate yet more deaths.’

But can we ever trust the sweet voiced serpent,

whose sharp fangs administer a deadly venom?

These are our brothers and our sisters who rest

deep beneath the smiling waves, supine on biers 

of rock and sand, where many more will gather

destroyed by the smug complacent righteousness 

of those now committed to abandon them.

There can be no resolution, no peace, until we

ourselves identify with fugitives and outcasts,

with children who are hungry, and mothers 

persecuted for their faith.  For are we not all

children beloved of the loving creator God?

Jesus said make the stranger welcome in your

home, and show love, not hate, to your enemies.

Thus our hope is founded upon the love of God 

made manifest in the life of Jesus, and in the love

we have for one another.    Amen,  so may it be.

            

                                                                         Naomi

Paul Nash : 4 Dark landscapes

“The Caterpillar Crater” 1917

South east of Ypres, the Caterpillar Ridge,

blown up by thirty tons of ammatol,

a thousand Germans dead but disappeared,

only a massive crater to mark their passing.

Green fields turned ochre by blood and mud,

every tree a broken trunk, every branch

a stunted limb, like a human body 

torn apart by unceasing heavy guns; 

trunks in serried rows, like crucifixes

souvenirs of an army dissolved away.

“Passchendaele Shell bursting” 1918

A man-tree leans back away from the blast, 

its hand with shattered fingers lifted high

against the blitz of brick and piercing shell

flung arching wide, a macabre fountain

sprung from a deep penetration of the earth,

an unholy union of Füllpuver and steel

The sky blotted out, the land is covered

with dirt and debris, trees wasted and bare,

a dark landscape broken and desolate,

reveal the artist’s unending despair.

“The Wire”  1918

Beneath a sky wide pall of noxious fumes 

stands erect a lonely bridegroom, a tree

castrated, splintered phallus wrapped 

in a deadly mantle woven from thick 

strands of entangled wire, barbs hungry 

for blood, symbols of pain and of despair.

Roots spread dry, like a beached octopus

trapped by broken boulders and foul waters,

the tree is captive to this killing ground,

left god-forsaken in its Stygian gloom. 

“We are Making a New World”  1918

Above the brick red, blood red horizon
the sun rises, enervated and white,

into a sky grey with shame, but its rays

touch the edges of the brightly dark hills

and highlight the forest of wasted trees.

Grass is tinged anew with a nascent light,

from the soft water of a crater pool

field mice drink again, children one day may 

play here, small birds sing again, but for now

nothing but an unresponsive emptiness.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Naomi


"The Wire" 

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 Paul Nash  1918