Grey waters

Someone wonderful recently introduced me to R.S. Thomas… here’s one of his poems that I already love! (thanks SL!)

Sea-Watching

 

Grey waters, vast 

                        as an area of prayer

that one enters. Daily

                      over a period of years

I have let my eye rest on them.

Was I waiting for something?

                                          Nothing

but that continuous waving

                             that is without meaning

occurred.

              Ah, but a rare bird is

rare. It is when one is not looking

at times one is not there

                                  that it comes.

You must wear your eyes out

as others their knees.

               I became the hermit

of the rocks, habited with the wind

and the mist. There were days,

so beautiful the emptiness

it might have filled,

                          its absence

was as its presence; not to be told

any more, so single my mind

after its long fast,

                          my watching from praying.

- R.S. Thomas

in Laboratories of the Spirit, 1975 

new life in old twigs

i literally jumped for joy when i saw that the tree outside my window was starting to leaf and showing tiny signs of blossom!

i love this time of the year when things are ‘coming alive’ or ‘waking’ again. it’s wonderful… and nature’s parable re-enacted: that the cold barren days, the waiting in darkness, the dry brittle twigs weren’t really signs of all-is-lost, but of things waiting for their time (their ‘kairos’).

this is the kind of thing i meant before (over easter) when i wrote about death and resurrection - the experiences in the ‘here and now’ which feel like endings and loss, the cold/lonely/barren times that feel like wasted time, that are sometimes actually just the gateway to something new. not always what we expected, or what we think we’d want, but somehow blessings of new life.  

hold on for the light…

                                                              

“yes, I can see a light that is coming, for the heart that holds on,  

and there will be an end to these troubles, but until that day comes,

still i will praise you, still i will praise you…”

                                                            (Matt and Beth Redman) 

                                                   

comfort

sometimes all I can do is repeat this little hymn verse to myself! I can’t even remember where it’s from! (excuse the male pronouns - just how it’s authors wrote it):

 ”He knows, He loves, He cares,

nothing this truth can dim;

God gives the very best to those

who leave the choice with Him.”

 

 

 

Andy for Advent?

  a perfect Advent message from Andy Warhol’s art works?

I think it’s true… I’m actually more excited about the presents I was given yesterday and will have to wait a couple of weeks to unwrap (yes, I’m squishing them to guess what they are!), than I will be when I get to open things immediately. They’ll be nice too, but the anticipation is part of the fun of it all.

Perhaps that’s part of what Advent is about - learning to enjoy not being ‘there yet’ (’are we there yet?’), but learning to enjoy ‘being here now’…