the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner
Just noticed this month’s top rating post was Haikus at and End
No-one likes Haikus?
Annoying when pressed each day?
Oh well, c’est la vie!
(Additional note: If you’re concerned I’m sulking or spitting the dummy – relax. I find irony deliciously amusing. All is well and you will not be spared future haikus!)
An intense, yet tender exchange takes place between two estranged friends in next Sunday’s gospel.
One has gone in search of the other, who, guilt and grief-ridden, and not knowing what to do, has returned to his former work. The searching one draws him forth to a fire he has set on the beach and over which he is preparing to cook a fish breakfast. A most hospitable setting over which to repair a strained relationship.
You see, the working one had left the searching one for dead. When he heard that he had defied death and was actually alive, walking out of the tomb in which he had been laid, and speaking to people, he fled to the safety of the known.
But his own phantoms pursued him. The accusing fingers continued to jab into his psyche.
“He wanted so much from you.”
“He called you the foundation on which he was going to build all that he was talking about”
“You’re the one who called him Anointed – even the Son of the Living God!”
“Yet you couldn’t even admit you knew him at his time of greatest need.”
And now, here he is, calling him and his companions to breakfast on the beach.
Three piercing and well-placed questions.
Three summons to reclaim and fulfil his true purpose.
Intimacy of friendship restored.
When I used this phrase to describe my imminent return from retirement to some part-time work, my peer mentors challenged me. “What do you mean by back into harness?” I let my muse respond…
What is a harness?
A shackle that constricts and restrains?
Straps of bondage as heavy as chains?
Stifling freedom, restricting one’s way,
Muffling one’s ability to engage with some play?
Or rather the yoke that is easy and light
Opening ways to embrace some fresh insight?
Rather the fire that burns in the grate
than the wildfire that will not abate.
The stream contained by its shore
than the floods that swamp, we abhor.
Yep, harness seems the right word
Slipping it on isn’t absurd
The calling is right, the burden is light
The Spirit within me is stirred.
Writing poetry in the middle of the night because reflux is keeping you awake has its nuances, especially when you are on retreat with several mutual mentors who are also therapists!
Here’s the poem:
Phantoms of the night
Gather around my bed
Whispering anxieties and “what ifs”
They scoff at my commands of dismissal
So perhaps I should befriend them
“No way,” they say, and disappear into the ether.
A remaining question to ponder: are those so gathered angels or demons?
Sadly or gladly, the season of my foray of daily lectionary haikus has come to its end for now. Don’t ask me why, it just seems they have served their purpose. Perhaps the point of engaging with a daily devotion in this way had become something like the tail wagging the dog. Instead of allowing the Word to engage me in its most direct and surgical manner, I was becoming distracted with searching for the correct 5-7-5 formula to give it expression. Today I am in retreat and will possibly discover ways in which my writing will give better expression to what I am wanting to communicate to myself and the universe. There is much that has been pulling towards a disintegrated approach to the challenges that surround me, and my striving is towards the unification and non-duality that finds its most complete expression in the experience of the living Christ. Haikus have been a tool but not the goal and will still appear from time to time. in fact, it seems appropriate to sign off with one.
Finding words is hard
Haikus distill essence well
Avoid addiction
How often is striving against the odds a context for reaching for resources beyond ourselves? Today’s texts, following the Psalm, portray some contexts.
Last Psalm in the book
Full of praise and thanksgiving
Sing it out loudly!
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Shaping up for war
Big giant ‘gainst scrawny kid
What could go badly?
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Temple Portico
An unlikely healing place
Miracles abound!
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Ancient Hebrew texts reveal both the terror and joy of being known as God’s people – a possibility that is transformed through the Easter story
Steadfast love endures
Summoning deep devotion
of eternal worth.
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Ark of the Presence
Full of danger and promise
Joyful king dances
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Tomb of the Presence
Empty, yet full of wonder
Lives turned upside down
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If one is in any doubt over gender equity in the sacred texts, let today’s passages put your mind at ease. The tumultuous age of the Judges sees strong initiative by female wile. The feminine principle is equally powerful in the visions of Revelation
Now is the moment
Each day divinely decreed
Rejoice! Be happy!
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What a headache
Clever warrior outsmarted
By womanly guile
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Cosmic drama of
Woman, child, and wild dragon
All will end quite well
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Implications of Christ’s resurrection swap old ways for new, as seen in today’s contrasting texts,
Rejected by builders
And now the chief cornerstone
How the tide has turned!
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Ancient tribe warfare
Yields neither ground nor quarter
Even under God.
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Hubris does no good
The old malice is best dumped
Christ is the new way.
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All as meant to be
A dream of Shalom realised
Not wishful thinking
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At the empty tomb
Let’s sing out “His steadfast love
Endures forever!”
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All die in Adam
Behold this new thing today
All alive in Christ!
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Mysteries abound
Resurrection hard to bear
But, now, there it is!
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