Month: April 2021

There is no just war.

Wearing a dirty face mask she peeped over the top of the rancid rubble,

her dark eyes smudged with sleeplessness and the filth of her poverty,

The fear in her eyes searched the landscape filling in the gaps where 

friends and family had lived and now sought another sojourner in war.

—–

Like a trembling timid rabbit she looked longingly, listening for her

hearing to return to her – from their ringing a peal, stinging a steal, 

shocking and shaking the shattering earth. She hears a buzz like

an angry bee and seeking the source sees now the returning demons

——–

set on ensuring that no one would survive alive to narrate their evil

heinous event.  She plodded down to the bludgeoned basements,

seeking a hole amidst the reeking wreckage with her growing child, 

she held in her womb. She found a shielded place and shuffled in.

——

The next wave of bombs came crashing around the smoking ruins.

She covered her ears and hugged the ground and prayed to a 

being, that cowered there with her, who wept with tears of anger

as the mother bleeds and the seed of hope within leaves and still

they fly, bombers who bind and blind themselves by the blatant 

——–

discordant words of discontent; and deafen themselves to cries

of women and children, whose lives are ruined and homes razed,

amidst a world that could be at peace if it chooses, but no it accuses.

Despicable, irredeemable and abominable war is, but they’ll believe

——–

that their cause is the way – to build a nation on their own views and

ideologies, theologies and illogicalities. That to wave an evil wand, to

send the innocent to their grave and consider they are brave in their

wanton destruction, deconstruction of a nation of the vulnerable ones,

——-

weaponless ones, innocent ones. So, they come with fabled phallic-

like guns and shoot their furious metal sperm at a world, and wielding

their weapons charge an enemy of school children, bugs and lizards,

birds and bees as if they’re terrifying tanks and torpedoes instead.

——-

Wearily the creator regards their senseless, defenceless destruction

and weeps the tears, as cradling the lifeless bodies of a burgeoning

creation, that was a loving notion til the shrill will of a few took their

fill of wars and called it God’s cause and wrote laws to hide the truth.

The Graveyard of Climate Change

The earth shifted and a fitful groan echoed through the desertified landscape,

A sheet of plastic wrapped itself languidly around a tortured thorny tree,

across the sanded earth small creatures slipped between the drifting dunes

and on the horizon rose a cloud, hurrying them to huddle beneath the golden

——-

grains. Growing it then blotted out the sky and the sun strained to see the 

world that humans had created through their pleasure seeking parties;

that told the world that they were supreme idiots and ignorant idlers. 

The swift storm passed, taking the polluting plastic to another place

———

where it hung on a post pointing to nowhere anymore because people

who built roads and homes and hosts of beautiful buildings were no

longer there having destroyed the globe with their glittering greed. They

live now under monuments to avarice and apathy in a forgotten graveyard.

The Art of Democracy by the Autocrats.

They sit in chairs, high in office but low in morals,

their tables show the capers of a paper trail that is lit

by more than flames of fire, they burn with people’s

lives lost to avarice, abuse of power, an alter-ego that

professes and stresses while manipulating the minds

——

of  the electorate, to empower the cowering frauds, 

who love to disempower, destroying their livings 

and still they hear the half truths as gold and the

lies as silver, and make a cross for the dross who 

struggle to hide their glee as the free vote for chains.

St Peter.

Did you doubt Peter as you gazed at the gory crosses?

Did you seek God in the moment of your terror and trial?

Did you ask and find as He did that God was absent from

the darkness of that pivotal day of death’s destruction?

——

Was God with you on the wind whipped lake of Galilee?

Did you look at Him as he called to the primeval tones of

nature to its peace, and think God was missing but that 

this amazing man of multiple means was come instead?

——

As He touched the mutilated lepers for what sign were

you hoping? When He broke the laws and put his own

hands onto the corpse or called forth Lazarus from the 

dead were you praising God or was it a miracle man?

——-

As you shared out the bread and fishes on the mountain-

side were you thinking that God was with you or was the

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob somewhere else?

On the nights around the campfire did you find God or

—–

was the God of your ancestors strangely elsewhere and

this man was bridging the gap in your own baffled thinking?

Did you see the dust of his walking and hear the echo of 

his words and feel your heart move with a longing for Him? 

—-

How did you feel when he made Mary Magdalene a leader?

Did you feel that this brought you closer to the living God?

How did you feel pulling in nets full of fish after a long night 

of emptiness. Was it then you knew? My Lord and my God!

—

Dear Peter, when was  Emmanuel with you? Did you, like

we do, miss the moment when Elohim walked miles in the

desert of our living souls, felt the very hair on our heads

that he numbered, and emphatically embraced with love?

—-

Did you as he ascended into heaven think, come back I

have only just realised you were here with us? Were you

separated from Him and God as you waited in fear in the

city of Jerusalem? Were you able to feel their presence?

——

Or was it when the Spirit came that you suddenly knew that

Jesus was God and so you spoke so calmly and clearly of 

the truth of his being; that God had come to our rescue. You 

told us clearly that God was always present but was it easy

—-

for you? You led the church and saw thousands coming to

give their lives to Jesus the Messiah. Was he there, as solid

as the Romans who arrested you? Or Peter was he only really

the living God as you died, crucified, upside down on a cross?

—–

Peter replies:

It was the law that we were aware of as we tried to live in an

occupied country. Strict laws, tithes, taxes, Talmud. We never

even thought we were worthy of God’s presence and we saw

the Messiah as a man, like any other one,  but even so – His

words wondrous in our hearts. We saw his miracles and knew

that he loved and turned aside from the law for the sake of 

people. Yet, no, we did not know that he was God with us.

We only realised that God had been when it was too late,

——-

You have the New Testament, Josephus, history and so, so

much information. We had only a day to day living knowledge

as we walked together, ate together, washed and worked side

by side. When he rose from he dead we were devastated by

the realisation that we had not understood, not seen, not been

aware of the creation changing events he brought to our world.

We knew then that God was with us and we felt the Holy Spirit 

but we trusted and followed in hinted hopefulness, like you in faith.

The Road to Emmaus

We were walking between fields spotted with red anemones,

corn growing strong, and across the greened land the trees

lifted their faces to the lowering sun and the growing dark.

—–

The air felt cool on our tight skin, and the sour smell of dust 

rose up in our footsteps with the grief in our harried hearts.

We doubted that he died. We believed him dead. And then,

——

some women with herbs in their hands said he was living.

We walked home talking and thinking, tears and hope both

intermingled with the words in our heads from Mary, Joanna

——

and the others. I trudged, so tired that I felt that I was wading

in the mud of the shallows of the Jordan, my head ached as

with each muddled moment I dragged myself wearily along.

——-

A man caught us up. And, for a while was content to match his

stride with ours. He then saw our expressions and questioned. 

We told the baffling story of a man brutally crucified who speaks, 

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defies all we know of the world to walk unaided despite having 

a hideous hole in his side, was beaten til the skin was torn from 

his lacerated back, his ankles smashed with huge wooden nails. 

——–

A teacher he seemed as he led us along through the words

of our own scriptures and taught us that the Messiah would  

suffer these things and then he would succeed to his glory.

——–

As we watched the sun setting over the hills beyond our village

we listened to deep words which slowly seeped into our tired minds.

Does it matter, I thought, what we believe, he is dead and gone!

——–

Our home loomed in the gloom before us and our companion

calm, quiet and kindly walked on. But despite our weariness 

we invited in him to share in the meagre meal in our home.

——–

Our stranger sat strangely quiet as we set out the frugal fare,

We came to table and offered him the coarse bread. It was, 

as he lifted the loaf to pray, that our eyes were opened and saw

——

at our table the risen Lord, his woundedness for us a wonder,

and as we started, so he slipped from our weak dissembling sight,

and looking at the broken bread we believed the unbelievable.

——-

Energised, full dark out but we stumbled along the lanes, owls

hooted and as we neared Jerusalem a night jar sang a song 

of praise. We found Peter risen from his grief and others too.

———

We sang to a God who had dispatched death, conquered fear,

overcome the humiliation of the cross and was here with us; a

God who seeks individuals to reconcile each one to his peace.

The Crucifixion

Jesus gasped for a breath, 

the pain reached everywhere,

the burning in is hands and feet,

his skin burnt in the strong sun,

the flies and ants and birds all

preying on his precious blood.

——

And I saw people from every nation,

every creed, every age, every tribe,

and they knelt before him and bowing

their heads worshipped him, and rising

cheered for the wonder of a God who

accepted horror, mutilation and death

rather than succumb to power and 

domination. A God who is ever thus.

——–

Jesus looked out and saw the crowd,

He saw the proud, the oppressor, the

rapist, sadist, warmongers and those

who had mete out injustice, abusers

of children and bore the torture with

hope in his heart that they will hear,

they will repent, and become like

cherished children and his beloved.

———

The pain tore into his mind,

It burned in his soul and searched

out each weakness. In agony he so

longed for his father and found him

gone. “Eloi, Eloi. Why have you

forsaken me?” he cried; and found it

echoed in the emptiness of a lie. For

Yahweh was there, lashed, nailed, 

bleeding and dying on the cross.

The Gethsemane of the last Supper

Blood, boils, frogs, hail, came the children’s cries,

and soft silence as they remembered the first born 

sons – like me, he thought and will I be recalled? 

He watched their faces, joined in the swell, but

shakily. His last feast with his family of meandering

men and wise women before violence and death.

—-

His hands shook as he felt the bite of the lash, as

he dipped the bread in the bitter, sharp herbs, “This

is my body which is given for you.” Eyes in shock

stare at the pieces and ate as asked, while Mary

felt the sharpness of a sword in her chilled heart. 

She watched as he tearfully lifted the cup of wine,

—–

Elijah unreturned? No, for he claimed it for their own,

stumbling, stunned silence filled the Upper Room.

‘I will not share this feast with you again.” the words

like blows rained down on their drunken merriment,

like that riven sea, rushing, raining down upon them.

He looked at their old, young faces, he so loved,

—

The children he’d blessed. How would they even

remember this night before tomorrow? A sign he

gives of a promise of forgiveness and grace, into

the gloom he says,“Remember my love. Drink, 

the promise, a cup of forgiveness and hope

for all souls, to be sealed with my own blood.”

—

He walked alone with them to Gethsemane. He

carried in his heart the unborn child, the abused,

the oppressed, the violent, the warmonger, the

tyrant, the slaver and the slave, the hypocrites

and the helpless – filling his thoughts til he knelt,

in agony and wept, “Father, your will be done.”