Spirit of God

Breath on us, Lord and Father.   In Your love

Take all our hurts, our brokenness, our sin;

Smile and replace our badly broken lives

With Your own Spirit.   Then we can begin

To love as You would have us love; to pray;

To be with You in all we undertake,

Reaching to each other so that, day by day,

We’ll know that Christ, Your Son – who for our sake

Has died and risen and is by Your side –

Will send Your Spirit now into our hearts.

Your Holy Spirit thus will be our guide

As He, to us, His gifts and fruits imparts.

Baptism

When we stand ankle deep in the river

Or completely immersed in the pool,

When we take the great step that will never

Be taken by him who’s a fool,

We know that the seas and the ocean

Will wash and refresh every shore

And banish the darkest illusion

That polluted those beaches before.

The rain washes down on the mountain,

The stream flows across every rock,

The birds are refreshed in the fountain

Of life-giving water.   Each block

Which once caused us to stumble,

Each obstacle placed in our way,

The fears that made us all fumble,

Are here speedily washed away.

The water pours out and anoints us

With life and with love and with grace,

And the Spirit of God now appoints us

To Him as we stand in this place.

The people of God here assemble,

The light of the Church drives the shades

From the place.   Now the saints are atremble

In God’s presence, where they all parade

In support of the one who’s invited

Into salvation from sin,

Which Christ has forever requited

By His sacrifice.   Now we begin

To know that the Spirit is with us,

The anointing and washing is done,

The baptised have become the believers

And can walk hand in hand with God’s Son.

The Spirit of God breathes and reaches

To all who have now gathered here

On the shores of Heaven; the beaches

Of paradise on earth appear.

The sacrament is never ended,

It stays with us throughout our life,

Our souls and our spirits are blended

In Him in whom all our belief

Is focussed and actioned in Charity,

And Hope that we’ll always be sure

Of His strength, and His triune parity,

And a Faith that in Him remains pure.

Seychelles beach

A sea that flows, a tide that ebbs, an ocean now in view,

Then hiding but reflecting still a sky of deepest blue.

A land of mystery and charm, a beach that, white as snow,

Still holds the heat, the sun, the light and beckons us – although

We know the sand will burn us and the sun will be too strong

For us to venture onto it, till shadows all grow long.

Yet even then the heat remains.   The lapping waves, still warm,

Will kiss us as we venture forth to enjoy the blessed calm

Of evenings in the tropics, as the sun sinks slowly, far

Behind a distant island.   Can you see the evening star?

Then the moon’s edge makes appearance above the distant seas.

All these wonders, all these beauties seem anxious just to please.

So we stay a while and linger on the evening’s lovely beach

And wonder how we ever found such things within our reach.

War (2)

I watched you lie there silently and die,

Drowned in a widening pool of crimson blood.

I knew you not – and yet that is a lie,

For we’re all one.   We are the devil’s brood,

And war comes naturally to us.   That is why

Our country’s torn in two, our land destroyed,

Our houses blasted out of sight.   We die

To feed the monster death himself.   The void

Extends throughout the land.   We know no peace,

No love.   Our greed is all that counts for ought.

We’ll drive you out, you will respond.   Disease

And famine now are what we all have wrought.

This is the final sin: when we have killed each other,

To pretend this dead man’s not my brother.

The sacrifice

Did my Lord die for me and in His death
Prepare a way for me that I might live?
Did He, in breathing His last gasping breath,
Give me that thing which only God can give?
Did He hang there and in His bloody grief,
All the hateful things I do did He forgive
In the same way as He forgave that thief,
Who turning, asked Him, when in Paradise,
To remember him who here had died?
Did my Lord make this final sacrifice
For me? Therefore I cannot but decide
To follow Him and stay with Him until
I'll know His final peace. Such is His will.

Good Friday Dance

Deasil and widdershins,
The long dance continues
Into the night and beyond;
The moon has gone down now,
The sun has appeared not
All through the night and beyond.
The cross stands alone there
Weeping and bleeding,
Saddening the night and the day;
The hill stands there, windswept,
Darkening and keening,
As another life passes away.
Widdershins and deasil
Deasil and widdershins
The devil is dancing ‘til dawn.
The tomb is awaiting,
Salvation frustrating,
Into the night and beyond.
Dying is daytime,
The night rules on lonely,
Hiding its face from the light;
Here is a moment
In mankind’s long history,
A moment of permanent night.
Widdershins and deasil
Deasil and widdershins,
Where will the long dance progress?
Gone with the darkness,
The gloom and the shadows,
This moment will never grow less.

Shopping expedition

There’s nothing in the cupboard, all is gone,
So to the store my wife and I must go.
It’s not exactly my idea of fun,
Or jollity, or pleasure you should know.
Still it’s essential to acquire such things
As margarine and butter, coffee, tea,
And eggs and sugar, and she homewards brings
A bottle or two of wine – but not for me.
We each have our idea of what’s essential,
The things we need to make life jog along.
Some of her needs I find inconsequential,
But I suspect she thinks I’ve got it wrong!
My name’s Jack Sprat you see, and as Jack’s wife,
She much prefers the fattening things in life