Author: Chris Goan

Lent is a season of looking forward, but also of looking back—retracing our steps, remembering where we have been, and the dust from which we come.

On Day 11 of our journey, we pause to time-shift a little, returning towards Ash Wednesday through the words of Sarah Agnew—poet, storyteller, and minister from Australia. Her prayer-poem invites us into the tension of Lent: the fragility of dust, the weight of reflection, and the grace that lingers even in the ashes.

Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are dust, but not just dust. We are held, shaped, and breathed into by a God who calls us deeper. What does it mean to carry that truth through the weeks of Lent? To walk with both sorrow and hope in our hands?

As we continue this Lenten journey, may Sarah’s words offer you space to reflect, to return, and to rest in the sacred mystery of it all.

Today, I am sharing a poem by Helen Dean, who describes her poetry as unapologetically evangelical. I would love to speak with her someday about what this means to her—how it shapes her writing, her voice, and her perspective. But in the meantime, I love this poem—its fierce honesty and beauty create a space within me to wonder once again about wilderness—the places of emptiness and encounter, of silence and revelation.

“Trying to Write A Wilderness Triptych (This Is That)”, by Helen Dean

Three waxed leaves hinged together, on topic.
When everything holds together, is held together,
Themed. By Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A rejoinder to the boy who boasted too much,
Who tried to offer things not his to give.
You’ve lived away longer than you needed?

“They lived in the wilderness for a long time” and
“You did not do it with your own sword and bow”:
“I delivered you”, “I gave you”, I went before you.
All heaven-showered, a total gift of God.
“It is by grace that you have been saved,
Not by works so that no one can boast.”

Treading, threading, testing, tempting,
Thirsting after a touchstone, torch, true
Testimony, some tenderness, to be taken care of.
Those with ears to hear will find treasure trove.
Why not visit the Hard Rock Café on your way out?
There’s precious spring water there for free.

Helen Dean, February 2024

Today, a poem from the second Proost poetry collection, which emerged five years after the first, this time with a bunch of editors to make the process more manageable.

This one is by Paul Bradbury, who weaves a spell of words inspired by hearing that most elusive of songsmiths, the nightingale.

Going to Hear the Nightingale, by Paul Bradbury

You have to know the place
Like a pilgrimage site. These thin spaces
Where nature’s threatened saints
Still sing their foolish song
Do not reveal their secrets lightly

Tonight the gloaming holds us
Tightening us, diminishing us down
To milky silence and the clear miracle
Of the nightingale, spinning its faultless
Falling cadences of grace

No-one wants to leave
Each of us stays until the song
Has left it’s trace, until the faint
Edge of Wilderness has lightened us
And cleaved us from ourselves
Until the darkness drinks us back to the cars
Which hungrily wait for us, ticking by the hedge

And on the drive back there is just the echo
Of that song, repeating, repeating
And the urgent flashing of the fuel light
Telling us we are running low, running low

This morning, up here in Scotland at least, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the sea flat calm. If you had no connection to the world we are part of – if we were truly able to live in this moment alone – then it would be a day to truly glory in. In an age of smart phones and media feeds, many of us find this impossible. There is a background noise to our times that is oppressive. I will not list the reasons for this – you know already.

There is something that unites many people on all sides of the political spectrum just now – a sense that things are not right, that deep within our culture, our economics, our political systems, our ways of living life, something is not working.

Does this dichotomy remind anyone of anything? How about the beginning of 2020?

That was another glorious spring, with a different kind of oppressive background noise. It might be difficult sometimes to remember, this is not the first time that humans have lived like this. This is not the first epoch of injustice, of super-rich so-called-superheros, of wars and division making. Think about it.

So this morning I offer one of my own poems, written back in that 2020 springtime. It became part of a book illustrated by Si Smith.

Human Races, by Chris Goan

The upright ape ascends from knapped flint to
Silicon chip. He scratches sonnets in split slate and
Solves problems (almost) as fast as he makes them.
His alchemy promised gold, but instead just turned the
Lights on, lighting a road ahead called Progress.

There is nothing new under the sun; the circle is still
Unbroken. Empires rise whilst others fall; ours was
Not the first at all. It turns out that our times were never
Linear (just oscillation) and that for every page of
Knowledge gained, another is forgotten.

But what are we, if not whisps of the same Spirit?
We carry in us the same am-ness as all things that ever were,
Hidden under thin skin and hubris, waiting for those moments
Beneath stars or trees or tenderness when we remember;
It is all about connection.

Some poems stay with you. Way back during the construction of the first Proost Poetry Collection, I was reading through a big batch of submitted poems on the train, when this one popped onto my screen. It was one of hundreds, perhaps thousands that I read on that long journey

I was travelling back from St Beuno’s abbey in Wales after a ten day silent retreat, which had been an experience not without challenge. Spending so long in my own head (as an introvert) was not so bad, but the old habits of distraction and dissemination were a struggle, as were some aspect of the religion that I encountered. In the end I had a profound and beautful experience, but still, I was longing for home. I say that so might understand how softened I was towards poetry, yet much of what I was reading left me cold.

What is ‘Christian’ poetry? What is it for? Is it a practice or a proclamation? What stories do we tell, what doubts can we explore? How can we avoid the same sort of cliches that fill up popular choruses? How can we be authentic and true? It was these questions that filled my mind as I read through endless poems that – one way or another – mapped out the theory of substitutionary atonement.

Then I read Cath Vyse’s poem and started to weep, right there on that crowded train. I think it was the Aldi Biscuit that finished me off. Or that line about Martha and Mary.

The Day Jesus Came, by Cath Vyse

At the Beginning of a New Day
You came,
caught me unawares, still grumpy
and tousled from lack of sleep.
You knocked.
I answered,
tea towel in one hand,
half-eaten toast in the other.
I wasn't expecting you...

and after the shocked-speechlessness,
toast-and-tea-towel-dropped,
my-world-falling-to-its-knees ~
you take my hand,
lift me up,
and hold me, hold me, hold me...

and You drink tea!
like it!
And ALDI chocolate digestives...
and don't mind the mess,
the bottles and nappies,
clothes and crumbs,
baby wipes and dirty cups ~
a chaos of cushions and clutter,
cat hairs on the rug.

and I sit at Your feet,
my head resting on your knees,
this new-found Mary in her Martha world,
and notice You wear 
not sandals,
but boots... scuffed and worn,
as You 
hold me, hold me, hold me.

Here is a poem from our Cameron—you may have already listened to the podcast in which we discuss his masters dissertation on the relationship between poetry and prayer (If not, it is here.)

Here is one of his poems taking a wide angle look at the Jesus story unfolding during Lent.

Where’s Jesus Gone, by Cameron Preece

Find him in the rabble of riff-raff
Frayed at the edges
Drinking and eating with his mates
Sticking it to the man.

Find him napping on a boat
In a storm’s wild thrash
Or casually afloat
Feet firm on the waves.

Find him approaching folk on the street
So they can tag along
Flipping tables and sticking up a finger
To the sacred professionals.

Find him cutting to the heart of things
Difficult to small-talk with
Calling the sinners saints,
And the saints, sinners.

Find him with a fire in his eyes
At the face of injustice
drowning in the dirt
With the ones trampled.

Find him up a hill
With his best mates and dad,
Getting away from the cult followings
That will ultimately be his demise.

Find him hung up like a naked puppet
But with no strings attached
Find him bleeding for his murderers
With a crown of spikes to mock him.

Find him with a hole
In his side,
In a tomb,
Shut.

Find him looking like a gardener
Chatting with an old friend
Who then found out
His end was not the end.

Today we hear from poet, Steve Page.

Steve is an old friend of Proost, having been a contributor to earlier poetry collections. His playful profound poetry flows from him constantly.

This poem seems particularly necessary just now. Turn from the newsfeed and take a moment with Steve.

The Panic and the Pause, by Steve Page

The panic speaks
eloquently and persistently,
telling me that I need a new filter
by which to drink in, to inhale
the good
and like an extreme diver, hold it in
while exploring the dark places.

You see,
the panic we feel on the surface
only serves to take us down,
while it denies us the means of rising again.

But if I can learn to pause,
to take in the good,
the wholesome, the nutritional,
then I can ready myself
to face the dark
and, having done so,
I will find the light again.

Today, another poem.

This one is taken from the first Proost poetry collection, published in 2014, when the world was different, but the same.

‘Learning to love’ was the first time we started to think of Proost as a community, but it has taken us a while to get back to this idea.

I never met the poet, Jaime. I don’t even know if they are male or female, but the poems they sent to this project have stayed with me.

(Jaime, if you happen to see this, do get in touch!)

Into My Wilderness, by Jaime Gjerdingen

You are the Lord of blown apart places
Desolate places,
Places without hope.

You are there,
Sitting,
On my soul's heap of ash.

You are.

Stability 
Bringing support.

You Are.

Silence
Bringing thought

You Are.

With me bringing
My arising.