Today we have a lovely poem by our friend Hannah. It concerns itself with the renunciation of limitation. May it soar.
The Word dances
Spoken in limitless light the Word he dances down to twirl us through darkness to leap with us into and through fear (of the light of the unknown of our own capacities) joining hands with the low and lonely, delighting in surprise. Renouncing limitation the Word born in the cold speaks: inviting us all to forget ourselves – and join the general dance.
The wonderful painting above (by Jaclyn Stuart) takes us to a dark place in this Advent/Christmas story, known as the Massacre of the innocents in which the Magi visit Herod and he, fearing a new king, orders the slaughter of all male infants in Bethlehem up to two years old. It is an account only found in the gospel of Matthew chapter 2, versus 16 to 19. The fact that the other three gospel writers failed to mention it, and there is no corresponding historical record means that many theologians read this as a narrative device in wihch Matthew underlines the vulnerability of Jesus and the place of Messiah in the great sweep of prophetic history.
There is perhaps another way for us to understand these events just now. There is no darker deed than the mass murder of children in the name of political power or expediency. Remember that at least twenty thousand children were killed over 23 months of conflict in Gaza, and even now, during the so called ceasefire, two children a day continue to die.
It was into this reality that Christ came.
It is into this reality that Christ comes.
What do we do with this idea? There are times when following the great peace maker means we must resist, but even then we are first called to love, love, love. We still gather with those around us and hold each other, gift each other and feast each other.
Today we have a treat – a brand new song from our friend Ant and his band Lofter. This song was written and recorded in the last couple of weeks and we love it.
I am over in Ireland just now on a family visit to an ailing father. The travel and the gravity of it all would be grinding, if not for two things. Firstly, I am not alone because Will, my adult son, is with me, driving the hire car and keeping things light and level. After the care home bedside we raised a Guiness together in my father’s favourite bar. Now we wait at the airport, sad but despite it all, something deep is shifted.
The other reason I feel blessed is because of an awareness privilege of belonging. I am an outsider by temperament but my place in things is held by the padded fabric of goodness that others do not benefit from. The streets of Belfast are full of them. It breaks my heart.
Here in a land I have never lived I have status. Ihave citizenship. I have family. I am travelling not away but towards.
in this place where there had been so much violence and flag waving I am safe.
Cam asked me to provide something for today. That’s a tall order. I’m no poet or writer. No artist or musician. I guess I could use someone else’s art. And I just thought, what is moving me?
Hope.
It has been a very difficult week for me. A week that is going to take some bouncing back from. It might be months. And so, you hang on to what you do have, don’t you?
Hope.
I was so grateful to our friends The Many for sharing Before We Have Hope with us on Sunday. ‘Grateful’ doesn’t come close. ‘Broken’ might be better. These words:
Before you have hope, deep hope, not cheap hope, you must first listen to the truth of your own secret sorrows and sins. Name the unspeakable within you. Criminal and saint, tax collector and Pharisee, broken and whole, lost and found Both. All. All at the same time.
So, I carry ‘hope’. Put one boot in front of the other. And walk this path.
I wonder at the sunset. I inhale the crisp air. I see my own breath. I dream about what’s down that valley. And let the tears come.
Today, we dive back into the archives for a piece by Ben Norton, within the collection, “Espresso Scriptures,” a Proost collection from 2009. In the words of Ben, “rip out a page and grab yourself an espresso and pause for a moment.”
We’ve paired it with a piece entitled, “A Christmas Confession,” from “Hold This Space Pocket Liturgies,” a Proost collection from 2008. Let these words, and the beautiful depiction of the infant Jesus, “The Boy Who Saved The World,” by Jaclyn Stuart, wash over you.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:6-7)
"There was no room for them in the inn". This was not because Joseph was late - it was meant to be this way. There was just no room for this baby, and how true is this story still today! The world still misses the point of God coming to us. It misses the point that we can have peace that outlasts everything. May our lives, this Christmas time, be mangers that give somewhere for Christ to be found.
- Ben Norton, Espresso Scriptures (Proost 2009)
A Christmas Confession, by Cheryl Lawrie
We can scarcely believe it, God, this story of your birth in the world. We rationalise and reason, we read the headlines and we doubt, and still, we hope, desperately, that it just might be true. If we have lost faith in the promise of change, unwrap our doubt to make a space for love. If we only know despair over your church, unwrap our grief to make a space for joy. If we’ve been angry with your people, unwrap our resentment to make a space for peace. If we’ve looked back on the past nostalgically unwrap our sentimentality to make a space for life. If we’re looking forward cynically, unwrap our scepticism to make a space for hope. God, if we have lost the faith to believe that you are making your world and your church new, unwrap our darkness to make a space for light. Amen.
- Cheryl Lawrie, "A Christmas Confession," Hold this Space Pocket Liturgies (Proost 2008)
Today we welcome back the wonderful LA based creative collective known as The Many. They offer us an original spoken word piece by Lenora Rand, performed by Victor Green, surrounded by a song, We Wait for You, with words by David Bjorlin, tune by Gary Rand and performed by The Many.
Today, we share two paintings entitled “How Long O Lord,” by Julie Barber, striking paintings, filled with anguish amidst genocide. The above one features the Arabic word سلام (Salam) and the other in Hebrew, שָׁלוֹם (Shalom), which both mean Peace. Perhaps your eye is drawn to the newspaper clippings in the background, or the people holding their children. It’s deeply expressive of pain, but also impresses upon us, and likely upon Julie as she was creating it.
“How Long O Lord” by Julie Barber
We have a new poem from Cameron Preece, turning his attention to the creativity at the centre of the mystery of the Incarnation.
People who work with words, sound, colour, and craft often speak of the hidden life within things. The poet and priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, spoke of this as their inscape, that unmistakable individuality each creature or moment carries within itself. Hopkins saw this as something more than character; it was the divine and deep pattern that makes a thing what it truly is. And he spoke of instress as the impulse or pressure that allows us to perceive that inner shape, the way the Divine pushes its meaning towards us through the world if we are attentive enough to receive it.
Centuries earlier, Maximus the Confessor described a similar movement through different language. He understood the Logos, the divine Word, as the source and coherence of all things, and the logoi as the countless expressions of that wisdom and intention scattered through the fabric of the world: in creatures, in relationships, in beauty, in our capacity to recognise meaning at all.
This poem stands where these intuitions meet. It wonders what it means for the one who sustains the world’s inner patterns to step inside them; for the artist not only to imprint meaning upon the work, but to inhabit it from within. It considers how the world might bear the quiet pressure of its maker’s presence, and how being human, ordinary, fragile, embodied, beautiful, might itself become a place where the deepest meanings press forward and become visible.
Who is this God Who hides in flesh and blood Who lies in and around bone and marrow Who hides within the rays of sunset And floods for rain The twinkle of moon and stars
"The Word became flesh and lived among us," Like how the poet is expressed in the poem And the sculptor who lives in prints in the sculpture Becomes the clay, While the painter, the painting.
The pianist pours herself out In performance And composer in the composition-- Who is the veiled deity Defining humanity Through self-expression?
"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;"
Prayer becomes pained poem And poem, pained prayer Promise becomes pained waiting And waiting, waiting still
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives." (John 14:27a) What is this kind of peace?
Today, something different – in response to this gorgeous image entitled “Conception” by Jaclyn Stuart, we dip into an older poem by a famous poet.
Jaclyn’s painting is part of a body of work she created a few years ago called Advent reflections, which were exhibited in St Andrews during advent. We are so grateful to her for offering them to Proost to use during this season, The image above is entitled ‘Conception’.
The poem we have chosen to follow on in this theme of incarnate becoming is by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Born into a strict religious family, he came to reject Christianity – he once described God as ‘The cathedral we are building’ – yet he continued to pursue the divine. In one of his poems he describes God as having lost poetry but says that when he comes to his knees the poems quietly flow back to him.
It is perhaps this kind of of fear/courage, faith/doubt, emptiness/presence that resonates so much with our advent longing. It can only be lived, not captured.
Today we have this magical photograph, shared by artist Raine Clarke, but taken by her husband high in the Scottish mountains. What you are seeing is a phenomenon known as a Brocken Spectre, with Gordon’s shadow at the centre of the halo effect. Plus that gorgeous inversion layer of cloud. It is the ordinary extraordinary. The brilliance inside each living moment–what the Celts used to call the light within light and the love inside love.
We will pair this picture with a beautiful song from The Brilliance.
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