This is a week when many travel to be with family and friends at the time of Thanksgiving. For many it is a return to the place of their birth, their childhood. These places hold so many memories, Yet when we return it never looks or feels quite the same or as we expected. Even the landscape and the buildings, though mostly the same in outward appearance, today they wear a somewhat different veneer! I grew up in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, N. Ireland. The Norman castle was the dominant feature of the town’s landscape. On many occasions major celebrations were marked by events in and around the castle. N. Ireland for sure is a place that keeps memories for all too long, and centuries of history was often replayed there in the surrounds of the castle, which has stood tall since 1177! Castles in general speak of kingdoms, power, and rule. Their large and wonderful walls mark a clear distinction between those within and those without! I have chosen three poems. The Kingdom and Alive both by R.S. Thomas, and Nativity by Scott Cairns. The first speaks of a very different kingdom than our worldly kingdoms. The poem is an invitation to the Kingdom of God. Note all the reversals and the surprises in this poem. The second poem Alive, speaks of the love of God and of the beauty all around us. Thomas loved the night skies and relished the wonder of the stars and planets, do note that wonderful line – “the sleepless conurbations of the stars.” I include a third poem today to mark the fact that the season of Advent begins on Sunday December 1st. My choice of poem is from Scott Cairns’ book of collected verse Slow Pilgrims. (Cairns holds the title of Emeritus Professor at MO University) Cairns is inspired to write in response to an icon of the Madonna and Child. You will need to use your imagination to create the icon. During the coming weeks I shall share poems which speak of God’s incarnation. May the season of Thanksgiving be a good one for you and a good preparation for the season of Advent. These poems ask for close attentive reading. Please pause, ponder, and pray.
The Kingdom
It’s a long way off but inside i
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf. R.S. Thomas
Alive.
It is alive. It is you,
God. Looking out I can see
no death. The earth moves, the
sea moves, the wind goes
on its exuberant
journeys. Many creatures
reflect you, the flowers
your colour, the tides the precision
of your calculations. There
is nothing too ample
for you to overflow, nothing
so small that your workmanship
is not revealed. I listen
and it is you speaking.
I find the place where you lay
warm. At night, if I waken,
there are the sleepless conurbations
of the stars. The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love. R.S. Thomas
TWO ICONS 1. Nativity
As you lean in, you’ll surely apprehend
the tiny God is wrapped
in something more than swaddle. The God
is tightly bound within
His blesséd mother’s gaze—her face declares
that she is rapt by what
she holds, beholds, reclines beholden to.
She cups His perfect head
and kisses Him, that even here the radiant
compass of affection
is announced, that even here our several
histories converge and slip,
just briefly, out of time. Which is much of what
an icon works as well,
and this one offers up a broad array
of separate narratives
whose temporal relations quite miss the point,
or meet there. Regardless,
one blithe shepherd offers music to the flock,
and—just behind him—there
he is again, and sore afraid, attended
by a trembling companion
and addressed by Gabriel. Across the ridge,
three wise men spur three horses
towards a star, and bowing at the icon’s
nearest edge, these same three
yet adore the seated One whose mother serves
as throne. Meantime, stumped,
the kindly Abba Joseph ruminates,
receiving consolation
from an attentive dog whose master may
yet prove to be a holy
messenger disguised as fool. Overhead,
the famous star is all
but out of sight by now; yet, even so,
it aims a single ray
directing our slow pilgrims to the core
where all the journeys meet,
appalling crux and hallowed cave and womb,
where crouched among these other
lowing cattle at their trough, our travelers
receive that creatured air, and pray. Scott Cairns: Slow Pilgrim
PRAYER:
Holy and loving God,
creator of all that is good,
hear now my prayer.
In our world of competing
and warring kingdoms, show
us a new way, lead
us in the direction of grace and peace.
Holy and loving God,
creator of all that is good,
hear our prayer.
In our neighborhoods and cities may
sharing and caring outpace our clutching
and possessing.
Amongst our families, may
forgiveness triumph over grudges, and love
embrace hearts and lives, making everyone new.
Holy and loving God,
creator of all that is good,
welcome us as partners in bringing
about your kingdom, here and now. Amen.
Prayers, Poems, and Christian Ponderings 