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.
What’s meant for bad shall turn for good.
Dispel the dark, in light I’m stood.
Set down their spiteful litany,
now trickles through epiphany.
There comes a time when you’ve borne condemnation long enough, from without and within. It must not, does not, define me. I’ve laboured long and hard, and then find I transition unexpectedly – a small crowning moment that comes with quiet wonder. I find I am part of a circle of light held up on the eve of Christmas. I have promise. I’m going to hold on to that.
Resolving to cut down on toxins
we offer mutual healing bolsterings.
I’ve been consumed and now am purging –
lighter life and love unfurling.
A few of us have acknowledged that we’ve been taking in to ourselves too much that is doing us harm. We have agreed to take better care of ourselves, each as they need. Food, alcohol, condemnations…
We’ve lent each other the motivation to take in less and be more. Cheers!
A friend is coming, collar-free,
we’ll have repast and repartee.
Feeding souls and raising spirits
unbuttoned feast of friendships merit.
She’s on her way, to not be rector,
come to let us resurrect her
sense of self – which does get buried.
Break the sod! Arise unharried!
Ministering to others full time is hard. Wearing a dog-collar means my friend can be a little choked by the demands on her, and in need of a breather. Ministry comes in many forms, including hospitality – and through it we find ourselves again. I don’t do puddings but I consider this the Sundae best.
Mark the pathways lonely trod
of seer sage and mystic –
shunned yet bearing with their gifts,
first-footing honoured mystics.
They weren’t kings, they were magi. Outsiders, foreigners, diviners called by the divine to honour the arrival of everymans unlikely King. They came from ‘afar’ but that may not have simply been a geographical issue. Following a leading may have taken much faith, may have been costly to them. I don’t want to dress them up as kings and give them a mantle of nobility. I want to honour what was already honourable, that they were seen from afar and invited in, just as we are.
peppyulyett 