Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Lent, lenten journey, poetry, the Cross
Closing the Door
Across the world
hatred, hunger,
death, disease.
In the street
lost, damaged,
shouting angry pain.
Those we depend
upon
choose the wrong side.
I come inside
close the door
and you are watching me
curled on your cross
on the wall.
Slow work
of sacrifice and love.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: john v taylor, poetry, the Cross, thomas blackburn
John V Taylor in his excellent collection of sermons The Easter God quotes a Thomas Blackburn poem that describes how he and his wife discovered a broken crucifix in the Alps and brought back the worm-eaten figure to hang in their home:
Because it says nothing reasonable
It explains nothing away,
And just by gazing into darkness
Is able to mean more than words can say.
I haven’t been able to trace the poem this is from. I’d be grateful if anyone can tell me.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Good Friday, Holy Week, stations of the cross, the Cross
Our Lenten pilgrimage becomes much sharper as we enter Passiontide.
Almighty and everliving God,
in your tender love towards us
you sent your Son to take our nature upon him,
and to suffer death upon the cross;
grant that we may follow the example
of his great humility
and share in his glorious resurrection:
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cuts, justice, Kingdom of God, Lent, prayer, st gabriel's weoley castle, the Cross, the guardian, weoley castle
This has been a long hard Lent, although today is only the third Sunday. The cuts are arriving. Weoley Castle Community Projects, of which I am Chair, was in The Guardian on Friday:
Weoley Castle Community Projects, Birmingham
Cut: £5,000 (15%)
Weoley Castle offers a support service for up to 30 local elderly people every day in a church hall. It provides company, conversation, a proper meal, entertainment and care. Many of those using the service would otherwise be alone during the day.
But a 15% cut – from £33,000 to £28,000 – means the project has had to make two part-time staff redundant and reduce the amount of day care offered, from five days to four days a week. It has had a significant impact on those who have nowhere to go on the fifth day and have little extra care at home.
The project has also had to send out first stage redundancy letters to all its day care staff as there is no word of future funding from 1 April.
Kate Pearson, a trustee of the Weoley Castle project, says: “It doesn’t make any sense at all. We provide value for money. What happens to clients when we’re not there? We’re being honest about the pressures facing us, but the majority of our clients will find it hard to understand because they are in the early stages of dementia. But they have noticed the redundancies and a few are extremely anxious.”
It is going to be a hard and difficult week. Prayers please for the Project, those who use its services, the staff and volunteers, the trustees, and hard pressed Council Officers.
Thanks to the half a million people who Marched for an Alternative in London yesterday. Now is a critical time for working for a creative and just future.
As we journey through Lent, it is a time also for faith, for walking in the Way of the Cross, for hope in the Resurrection and in the Kingdom of God – on earth as it is in heaven.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: camino, John of the Cross, Oseira Monastery, pilgrimage, prayer, St Clare, St Francis, the Cross
This is the mantlepiece in my study, one of the places I look when I am praying. Here is the late afternoon sun.
Contemplating the picture, I am struck by how much this speaks of pilgrimage and of how, at the same time, it is so rooted in my being at home in ways that are about physical stillness. There is the large photograph of the Portico of Glory. I was given several of the icons and pictures while on the Camino, including one of the paintings of Christ Fray Luis at Oseira Monastery gives to all the pilgrims who stay there.
Perhaps this question around what it means to be a pilgrim – while not being on pilgrimage (and not going on a walking pilgrimage for a while) – is something that can be become more explicit and be pondered in the summer holidays.
It is a pity we have stripped so many walls of their crucifixes and put up so many clocks in their place. We are surely more punctual than our ancestors, but we are spiritually poorer. Contemplating a crucifix, many of our forebears had a different idea of how to make use of time. A crucifix may not tell the hour, but it offers crucial advice about what to do with the moment we are living in. It is time for self-giving love, time to pray, time to let go. It is time to forgive, to remember that Christ gave himself – is giving himself – for the life of the world.
- Jim Forest The Road to Emmaus
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Good Friday, Holy Week, pilgrimage, prayer, the Cross
This Crucifix came into view as we ended the strenuous day of climbing into Galicia. We said – at exactly the same time – this is why we are walking.
Since I posted on the Cross about six weeks ago, I’ve been working around to writing some reflections on the Cross, the environment and the world. It seems best to try to do this as a series of posts over the next weeks. These will be exploratory and I’m not sure yet of how many there will be. If you have any comments, I would really appreciate them, either on the blog or by emailing or phoning me. I believe it is much better for thinking, praying and acting to come out of a conversation between us rather then just my mind.
Things for reflection on this that have come into my mind include how the Camino takes us through the world as it is rather than the beautiful one I would choose for a leisure walk; how we see the Cross in both the beauty and the evil of the world, and what this might mean; how walking deepens the commitment to the environment; the connection to and the love of the urban as well as the rural in all this; and – if the reflection lasts – we will see the beauty of the daffodils planted all around by the children at Woodthorpe Primary School and the congregation at St Bede’s coming up for another year.
These are not up yet and, as I write, another layer of snow covers the ground. So here is a photograph of the Churchyard in St Cristovo de Cea in Galicia in late October
