Dark confines of that veil entrapped
my being and suggested that
my form and purpose were amiss.
What lies! Truth splits the chrysalis.
Change can be hard and much misunderstood. Disassembly of what was may invite lament, it may provoke derision. What is to come may be unexpected and unenvisionable. Only waiting will bring us to revelation.
A calling that condemned his place
in the garden, now he’ll face
boundaries widened where he’s cocked
to serve a more appreciative flock!
We keep hens. One became broody, so we brought her two fertile eggs from a neighbour down the road. The eggs hatched, and everyone delighted in them as they grew into themselves. Then one day one of them made an awkward crowing sound, which soon became a distinct cock-a-doodling. It began proclaiming each new dawn – which disturbed the peaceful slumber of all around.
With a plumage that stood him out from the crowd and a voice that unsettled and affronted the clucky status quo, eviction plans began forming. There was quite a caffuffle around his removal, but soon he found himself in a spacious small holding. A whole host of hens welcomed him, along with ducks and pheasants and guinea fowl. His calling was fitting in that place.
Meanwhile in the garden a paltry grouping continued pecking.
Cloaked in pain I just grant licence
to more malevolent connivance.
Disrobe me! Let me dress as one who’ll
wear more gracious habitude.
I wear clothes that express and project something of myself. How I present myself has an effect, on me as well as on those who see me. There’s always a choosing about what I put on – the comfort, the vibrancy, the weight, the line. Last year I spent too much time draped in heaviness, which I’m now unpicking. It was a mantle that fashioned a bitter streak, which I’ve not admired in myself. But just as when I face my wardrobe each day, I have choice about what attitude I’ll put about me. I can discard what drags and dulls me, I can swathe my form in an uplifting silhouette. I hope you’ll like the cut of my jib!
Cacao and coffee beans we prize
but sweetened forms so we’ll imbibe
without a grimace – and in life
sweet turns bitterness benign.
I was given some syrups for coffee recently. I thought about the trouble we go to in processing coffee and cocoa to make them palateable products, and how even then we add more sweetening to mitigate the bitterness. We take the acerbic and overlay it, sugar-coat it. But it would simply be a bowl of biliousness without the bitter base notes. So with our lives. In balance, there’s much to be savoured.
I felt the harshness of misrule
as I saw us played for fools.
So fool I’ll be, and truth attest,
Measured by God’s grace, no jest.
Fools take mockery and derision along with the laughter because they have an important role to play in bringing truth to light. It can take people by surprise, but sometimes it’s no joke.
Homeless comes in many guises
Casting neighbours as pariahs
such high-handedness disguises
fears of our self-worth denied us.
This began from an insight into rough sleepers in my area, and the thought that losing a home is a complex and varied thing.
I’ve found it hard not to take it entirely personally when criticised and hurt. But I’ve learned that it is worth also trying to see what’s behind it, remembering that no-one is all good or all bad. So many of us carry hidden hauntings within (and I’ve certainly had many myself). Insecurities, pride, fear of change that isn’t in our own control – so many masked monsters. We may imagine that our jobs or status are what our personal prestige is founded on, and feel threatened by their evolution. We are a perverse people who will attack others in order to protect our own fragile egos, and defiantly justify the damage wreaked and deny the rubble round our own feet.
I’m now lost to a place that was a home, a family of sorts, a community I thought I’d belonged to. I hope those still within it will not find their consciences sleeping rough for long.
If some would steal the dignity
of others intrepidity
Creatively retaliate
convict by soft avenging grace.
It was all over in 3 years. 2 really, I’d just not seen it coming. Being healed brings change though, which affronts and unsettles the status quo, God being unpredictable as he is. The fruits of my hard-won freedom were resented, and courage crushed.
However wrong or unjust it all is, retaliation in kind degrades everyone. The impetus to do it anyway has really needed managing though.
Grace can be infuriatingly discomforting and beautifully disruptive to this impasse, though stubborn pride will defy it. It’s beyond me, but I’ll keep with it and keep hope.
Applying faith in others giftings
Opens doors to new beginnings.
Now we have endorsement ringing
in our ears, no wounds we’re licking.
Tongues should be used with care. Words applied without care for the other do damage. The worst of that is within the persons soul and psyche, but there may be other ramifications such as on what they do. It’s a form of theft, to take from someone in such a way.
But tongues can also be an instrument of restoration.
I suffered a loss of freedom to practice my giftings. Honouring the pronouncements of the dishonourable had further costs to me than in my being, as the words were delivered with a swag bag that carried off what I’d been doing.
And then from elsewhere have come words of faith and affirmation. A recognition and respect for what I can offer, an opportunity to do those things again. A delight even, to place back into my hands what belongs there.
There’s power in words. Whether we choose to enjoy a power of destruction or of edification though speaks loudest of the speakers soul. Choose well.
‘You don’t belong’, ‘not one of us!’
waymarks my life, t’was ever thus.
Yet in their imposed wilderness
wild love claims us, coalesces.
I’ve had many forms of estrangement. This last year I’ve experienced it from the place that professes great acceptance and inclusion. People are people though, and we practice othering in every gathered group. But the wilderness is a place I’ve been before, a place I’ve reluctantly journeyed times, and always its sand is between my toes.
Its a bleak and blistering place. But I wouldn’t be without it. In spite of how isolating it seems, it is a place that God better has our attention as he sand-blasts the hard edges of our lives, and draws us closer. And then we find each other again.
Those who peddle
a cycle of grace
Have spoke – their mettle
shall malice efface.
I have friends who, in the face of great conflict, persevere with peaceable ways. They continuously allow for failings, and open opportunities for a new way ahead. They use words of gentle penetrating wisdom. There are many high profile role-models of people practicing non-violent resistance, but my friends live it out in overlooked ordinariness.
I have had times with violence spinning within me. Pain and injustice do that. It threatens to be propelled out, away from a wounded core. I’ve learned to relinquish that urge – I can’t be contributing to the recycling of hurts.
Justice and grace are not an either/or. We can have and/both. Spirit and resilience will get us there I’m sure.
peppyulyett 