The Words

The words

So simple,so small and unadorned

They could not possibly hide 

Any great meaning

Except

The pattern and plan

Of someone so simple so pure

He could be known

Through one word 

                                         Wilf 06/2014

To the Strong

There are those who 
look strong,
Either because they have never faced a battle,
Or because they are afraid of showing who they really are
Then there are those who
Are strong
If that is you I'm glad
Because I need you to let me see
The weakness that makes you 
Cry out to God
Then I will know 
There is hope for me
Because I shrink when I see
A steely stainless soul
So show me what you are
When you've fallen in the darkness,
How your childhand reaches up
And is taken by the hand of God
Then I will know there is a way 
Out of my hell.
If you are worried about helping me
I have to say,you will have to go a long way
You will get dirty and hurt
It will be exhausting
You'll wonder if I'm worth it
You'll wonder if God's worth it
But at the end you will realise
You'd do it a thousand times
That's because you are strong

                                                Wilf 06/2014   

From not Fitting

                             From not fitting
                                To fitting
                   Long journey over no distance.
                             From not finding 
                                To finding
                Mountains,river crossings,storms
            From the coast of the shoreless ocean
                      To the drowning in love 
                                Not short
                                Not long
                                Not easy 
                                Not hard
                               Not simple 
                              Not complex
                                Not this
                                Not that
                          The hand of God.
                                                            Wilf 04/2005
                       I was reading a lot of Ruysbroek when I wrote this,and I'm not sure I                                                   know what I was getting at!
             

A Machine Called Martha

1
"I'm looking forward to the future-
The next minute will do as
This one is too full of things already
There is no room for me to live in it
So I must rush into the next one and stake my claim
Before anything else gets there
Then I'll really be able to live"

"I've been saying that for years
But everything rushes in and pushes me out
Perhaps if I go faster....but no it doesn't work
They are always there,the things that fill my time
They have stolen my life moment by moment
For when I look back there is nothing there"

"I don't know who orders me do these things
Or why I obey
But they rush into my future to fill it before I get there
So when it is the present,it is not mine
Perhaps if I go faster....."

2 (Martha contemplates contemplation)

"Perhaps I'll start....... just a little
Now that I'm not too afraid of nothing filling my moments.
Maybe I could live with just me being there
The me that's not very good at being me
I guess I'm afraid of facing who me is,or isn't
I wonder if we'd get on?
I'm scared as well that God wouldn't be there
Or that He would!
Would we get on in that chasing stillness that I fear.
I know about things, but not Him
Would He come?
He said he would, but I don't know."

3 (Postscript much later.)

Christianity is ok.
But
It's not as good
As the real thing.
                                                         Wilf 04/2005   

Rupert and the Man in the Garden

Do you remember? The meadows and the woods
So charming and ordinary,but so magical
Where a small bear tumbled into other worlds
Through secret gates and holes and hills.

It would be impossible to make a map of Nutwood
For just when you thought you knew its nooks
Round a corner,
Under a stone,
Behind a tree,was the way into another realm
Which just wasn't there before,
And tomorrow may be gone.
Ah,my heart aches as I look back
But as the song says;
"Sometimes a light surprises a christian as he sings"
Or prays,and sometimes the gate into another world 
By dark inscrutible ways.

The spiritual journey and the geography of Nutwood
They are just the same
And a room can become the gateway to heaven
Or the arena of some mortal combat of the soul
But tonight everything has shrunk away and
I realise with great reluctance 
As faith unsuspectingly follows love.....
         Far far away common sense is shouting out
         But the heart knows in its timid willful
         God fearing,wanting way
         That in this small room as I pray
         A gate has opened into a garden
There,a man is crying almost 
To the point of madness.
I hardly dare admit it,for fear of being profane 
But I feel his pain,
I know I must go to him
In the crazy knowledge that though I am no angel
I who have nothing must
Minister to the Saviour in his need
Just an arm around His shoulder
A listening ear,all I have.

Gethsemane: The time will come again and many times 
I know,when she will call forth my will
To be surrendered on God's altar.
But for now I must lay down my so called humility 
Which here and now is just natural demuring
Because I must remain in this place
Where I do not belong
This is His place and his time
Only love would dare to remain sharing God's grief
Of which no one is capable of worthy
And I feel more like that small bear than the mystics
Who spoke of such things
But,
We are not characters from a book
Nor mere angels who can only serve;
We are made in the image of God
And right now He needs a friend.
                                                     Wilf 06/2005

The River Borne

The jewels that dance by day
Upon the river's skin
Are flashfast and springy,
But by night they steal
Slow and soft as poured silver
As they pore ponderously over
The secret schemes
Moving beneath the darkened stream.

The secret schemes-the means,
Answers to the reckless prayers
Of those who care so much,
But do not care so much about the means
Or the cost of what is gained or what is lost
In finding all they hope and pray;
The river by night is the only way.

At night the river has a mysterious grace
Weaving liquid sinews under the rushing face
Forming unseen muscles
Which flex and grip and brace
With the current's heady motion
Ever holding, ever speeding 
The river borne in its commotion.
Ever moulding, ever kneading
The brave and reckless ready for the ocean.

They are passing, passing, passing by
The halfly hid and twinkling lights
Peeping from the lush green fringes of the banks.  
Homely tunnels and windows
Of contented cozy creatures
Curled up with cocoa and crumpets
Creaking on comfy settles
By their crackling fires.
The cuddly and respectable residents 
Of the river bank prepare for bed
With nightcap and candle.
Creatures of myth?
But to these the river borne are a myth
And a horror
As they slap fast their shutters 
To keep out all evidence.
For when they pass by night ghosts are awakened
Ghosts of  dead dreams moaning in their chains
But there is hope in this haunting
The dead may live again
To fight and laugh with holy joy 
And even join the river borne
In their journey to the sea.

On and on it flows
Regal and majestic now,slow
But with the power of a conquering monarch.
The vast valley is silent
Before its ancient shaper-
The waters that break before they break
Stone and earth.

Then the gentle laps and waves
That greet the sea
And the river borne
Broken and birthed into eternity.

The estuary is a no man's land
Of mud and mist and marshes
The river's fingers meandering
Over the sinking sand softness.
Here the only safety is surrender to the river
(Even in the whitest rapids this was always true)

Now the river shimmers almost shy
Over upon the place between places.
Its work will soon be done
As its waters meet the waves
That will bear the river borne away.
The fish will be in the sea
But the sea will finally be in the fish
As they speed on as one great shoal
Into a quickening sunrise.
                                                      Wilf    08/2005 

Something that has never happened

Something that has never happened before:
You.
But be careful
You may not really happen at all
It happens a lot
You may just be happened upon
You know,by life, or rather
By what happens while life passes by unnoticed
So be be careful,well no 
Don't be careful
Then you might stand a chance.
It happens,
Sometimes.                                    
                                                                              Wilf 11/2005