Tongues of Angels

Bloganuary asks “What language do you wish you could speak?”

Having dabbled in Latin, Koine Greek, French and a smattering of Hebrew and Arabic – even a light touch of Shona, Ndebele and Hindi, (and some of our own local indigenous words – Nungyar.) I rather wish I was better acquainted with my own language (the one I’m communicating with now.)

This may sound odd as my life’s vocation is reliant on my language’s spoken and written word to explain, teach, exhort, comfort, persuade and, above all, listen to what is hidden behind words that others speak in the stories and dilemmas and experiences that they share.

Although I have received occasional accolades for what I have spoken, I always feel there is room for improvement – not because of some neurotic desire for perfection, but from an awareness that the task of communication is always ongoing and never quite finished – there is always something more.

And I am mindful of the words of St Paul when he says, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

So I shall continue to be a learner of my own tongue, as well as others, to this end.

Music that takes us Beyond

Bloganuary invites us to write about a song or poem that speaks to us:

I heard this on ABC Classic about six months ago. It has haunted me ever since – in a restful, peaceful manner. It is not an earworm like those that occasionally cling to my consciousness from my range of otherwise eclectic musical tastes. Rather it is meditative and takes me to places of deep rest. The meter and tone ranges seem to synchronise with the oscillations of my bone structure. I do not know what the song is about (apart from the title). The words are not in a language familiar to me so they do not distract. Rather I can sink into the music’s resonance, and sense its vibrations. It is neither secular nor sacred but takes me beyond and is therefore experienced by me as holy.

To Be

And so they ask “How do you show love?”

Is this question academic or particular?
Foundational or extracurricular?
This was an issue of struggle for me
Until I discovered the answer “To Be!”

Full “being” creates a hospitable space
For others to flourish and discover their pace
I find inspiration from a living slain Lamb
The one who’s amongst us as the loving “I Am!”

Shrinking Pinocchio’s Nose

Bloganuary asks “What’s a lie you tell yourself?”

Old taunting voices have been gagged into silence
No longer do they hold me in utter reliance
“You’re feeble, not smart, you don’t cut the mustard,
Look at you now – you’re getting all flustered!”

I ceded them rightness for some little while
‘Til following a Way helped develop my style
So those voices have gone along with complicity
No more self-lies, just authenticity!

Retiring a Marriage Celebrant’s Licence

Today I voluntarily surrendered my licence to celebrate marriages. It’s part of “incremental retirement,” I suppose, but I prefer to see it as part of “a changing shape of vocation.”

So why now?

My last wedding was four years ago. Since then, administrative changes, including the advent of online form filling and streamlining legal obligations, have meant I would need to retrain myself in case there is a next. As I am no longer a minister of a congregation, I don’t officially retain the criteria to continue as a celebrant anyway, but there is some leeway in how this condition has been exercised.

Passing in my license inevitably awakens some reminiscing.

My first weddings were concelebrated while I was in training. My sister and her beloved were the first taxi off the rank. Then there was a navy couple in a Roman Catholic ceremony in the chapel on their base. The chaplain was very accommodating, even offering a choice of vestments to wear. I reluctantly declined, seeking to guard my “plain clothes” tradition! I confess that, since then and in three instances, I have gowned up for cultural reasons.

Each wedding has had its own array of stories, including my own! A whole book could be written.

For a few years, I developed and presented courses on conducting weddings. It was part of a “rites of passage” package for our ministers, looking at how they might engage more creatively with the “hatch, match, and despatch” requests that come their way.

There was one media occasion where I defended the concept of marriage against the rising rates of separation and divorce, and a more recent one, televised, where I gave a voice to “marriage equality” during the recent national and politically polarised debate on same-sex marriage. It caused a little stir within my tribe, but some colleagues privately and confidentially commended my “courageous” stance.

My last wedding service was for a delightful couple, both widowed, both in their 80s, and both deeply in love. Their story was later nationally televised. Sadly I conducted the groom’s funeral service precisely three years later. He himself had also been a marriage celebrant with whom I had often compared notes.

It is with a sense of thankfulness and yet relief that I pass in my licence and wedding paraphernalia!

Clown

Bloganuary poses “What was your dream job as a child?”

The railway line to Grange ran past the end of our street
Each time I heard the whistle, my heart did skip a beat
No matter steam or diesel as the changes went ahead
Engine Driver was the job of how I would make my bread.

Then there was the time the circus came and pitched its tent
The canvas and the sawdust wafted its exotic scent
The excitement and the bands that brought it all to town
Convinced me that my calling was to go and be a Clown.

Some years went by and I pondered while in my early youth
What my drawings, lines, and squiggles could yield in terms of truth
I wrestled with the dawning of a fledgling intellect
And thought I might cut the mustard to become an Architect.

These dreams of long ago seeded what came to be
Factory Clerk and Retail Help – first jobs that set me free
Then on the day I was ordained, ready to embrace my mission
They said, mindful of the Clown*, “I see you’ve achieved your ambition!”

* We are fools for the sake of Christ… (1 Corinthians 4:10)

A Dickens of a time

Bloganuary queries “Who is your favourite author and why?”

I have many favourites, but I’m going to land on one that set the path to becoming a bibliophile – Charles Dickens.

Great Expectations was the text our Year 8 English Teacher had set. I quickly found myself engaged with the dark and menacing opening, the eerie Victorian atmosphere and the weird behaviour of Miss Haversham. As the plot unfolded I found myself in the grip of the storyline right to the end.

Dickens’s devotion to fully detailed characterisation and attention to minute setting descriptions transported me to 19th-century English cities and countryside – both the bucolic and the bleak. As soon as I was earning money I subscribed to a complete set of Dickens works, noting my particular attraction to David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. In some unaccountable way, I must have been identifying with the main protagonists of these stories – each of them negotiating the circumstances of their youth to address the circumstances of their narrative line.

Perhaps I saw myself as one of Dickens’s characters, seeking to address social inequities, confronting and outsmarting my antagonists (real and imagined), and carving out my life’s path. Perhaps Charles Dicken’s had a lot to do with me becoming a pastor.

He certainly opened the door to engaging with many more authors.

No itch to scratch here

Bloganuary asks “What irritates you about the home you live in?”

Let me echo a known politician:
“I reject the premise of your question.”
Our home is bathed in gratitude
And to say such carries no platitude.

Homelessness is on the rise in our city
Due to rent-stress and evictions sans pity
Friends and neighbours have suffered
And remain under this crisis un-buffered

Survivor guilt looms on the horizon
This, the only irritation uprising;
So we can only show gratefulness
For a roof of sheer thankfulness.

Prism

Bloganuary now asks “What colour describes your personality and why?”

Once upon a time ’twas beige
Hiding back, not seeking a stage
As time went on some colour emerged
And life was released, no longer submerged.

I now cultivate white – but not for purity’s sake;
Rather seeking balance as a prism might make
When blending all colours into a single beam
“All things to all people” seems a strive-worthy dream.

So beige that withdrew into camouflage bland
Became an urge to develop one’s own unique brand
Of technicolour hues of myriad array
Described as white when put forth on display.

Eat like a King!

Bloganuary challenge: “What’s your favorite [sic] meal to cook and/or eat?”

“For brekky, eat like a king,” they say.
“But I eat to live, not live to eat,” I bray!
So my favourite meal is simple fare
Nevertheless, it has some flare!

Muesli as a foundation akin to manna
Bodies sing with a bit of banana
Blueberries strewn for the health believer
Pineapple histamines against hay fever

All topped off with a bit of milk
Down the hatch like a bolt of silk
Chase it along with Italian Espresso
And face the day with a mood allegro!