In need of a skylight!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, know my joy and delight in the poems of Seamus Heaney. Every time I go back and read a poem over and over again, new things happen. Noticing the line breaks, or hearing the sound of the words as you read them aloud, or suddenly a few words strike a fresh sound. In Heaney’s poem The Skylight all of the above can happen! This is not the first time the gospel story, of the person with palsy, sharpens Heaney’s creative pencil. The story behind this poem is a disagreement between Heaney and his wife Marie. She thought a skylight would make such a difference to his snug writing quarters in their Wicklow cottage. Seamus preferred the hutch and hatch of the enclosed roof space as a place not only in which to be warm but a place of no distraction. However when he went off to Harvard to present a lecture series Marie had arranged to have a skylight put in! Sometimes we too need that moment when we can look up for the first time, see the extravagant sky, behold the mystery of the Divine, and see our ordinary life in new light. We are often in need of a skylight in our hearts to embrace the light of God’s love and grace. Savor this poem and allow it to open your soul to new light.

The Skylight
You were the one for skylights. I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof
Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch

But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away. Seamus Heaney

Prayer:
Holy God,
we pray to you the
Light of the World.
By your light lead us
into the joy of life.
By your light dispel
the darkness of our fears
and the shadows of our doubts.
By your light lead us as we seek
to share this light with all those
around us.
Especially today, we pray for
those engulfed by the horrors of war,
those hungry for food and hope,
those who grieve the loss of family
and friends, and walk daily in the
darkness of sorrow.
Holy God,
be to us all
a light of love,
a light of hope, and
a light of peace. Amen.