Borders Road by DTL (Morguefile)
By Rowan Wyatt
Writing a poem about life’s journey can be problematic. After all, for some of us it’s been a long hard and painful slog, for others it’s been a joyful meandering, carefree and full of sunshine, for others still it is only just beginning. But we all share one thing, we are all on a journey and for most of us it will take a very long time.
The Lent period is a good opportunity to take stock of things, look at the route you are taking and if the road ahead branches or if you think you are on the wrong road, ask for help. It may come from an unexpected source Luke 10: 25-37 or a direct answer to prayer showing the road in glowing neon signs exactly when and where you needed it. Just ask, look and trust.
Recently I have become filled with the idea of a walking pilgrimage, maybe the Camino de Santiago, and after praying about it I felt impressed with the words ‘Solvitur ambulando’ which I found is translated as ‘it is solved by walking’. It was then this poem came back into mind, from my last book The Chase and other poems and as I re-read the words, the poem and the prayer made far more sense and I began to see exactly which road I was on. The way ahead is hard right now but I know soon my blistered broken feet will dance on lush green dew sparkling grass.
The Road R.R Wyatt
My feet hurt,
The soles are cracked and bleeding,
Stuck with thorns and broken glass,
And the path ahead looks worse.
The sky o’head is dark
Heavy, black and ponderous,
A pendulum in a grandfather clock
Waiting to strike the rain.
Rest my weary feet,
Sit by the side of the road,
In the dark and rain, surrounded on each side
By wolves, wearing wool, leering.
I am lost, floundering,
I am on the wrong road, and I suffer,
Trudging on through molasses and tar
Slowly getting nowhere, lost.
There is another path,
I have heard it said. The road gleams,
Paved in marble, smooth and cool on the feet,
Sun and blue sky overhead.
A clear route,
Straight and logical, with signs
But I can’t find it, know not where to look,
I need a guide but there’s no one here.
I could call for help,
But would I be heard, would my
Bloodied feet cause laughter and scorn or shame,
My rags a tattered state to be seen.
Fear of judgement,
And condemnation keep me on my path
Of bones, dust, pain and tears,
Till weariness fills me, and I feel a hand on my shoulder.
A guide, smiling,
Washes and binds my broken feet,
And clothes me in his robe and taking my hand,
Shows me the road.
© Rowan Robert Wyatt 2015
Over this last week, this prayer formed in my mind. Our theme for this next week of Lent is THANKFULNESS and JOY and I find that nothing gives me more joy, or makes more thankfulness well up within me, than the breath that draws life into my body. It is not just a reminder of the sustaining presence of God, but the very essence of our Creator who breathed our world into being.
I love to sit quietly breathing in and out, imagining the essence of God filling my heart and my soul. I am very aware that it is only God’s breath that sustains my life, at the same time filling me with all I need to accomplish what God calls me to do. Not surprisingly this contemplation often inspires me to write new breath prayers.
The joy of my own freedom to breathe becomes even more special as I contemplate those for whom breath does come easily. One friend in New Zealand is struggling to breathe as her breast cancer metastasizes to her lungs. Another friend in South Africa is intubated in ICU because of an infection that has spread throughout his body. And around the world I am very aware of those who struggle to breathe because of pollution, disease and allergies.
To find deep joy in breathing I must be relaxed. When I am busy or anxious, I take my breathing for granted and fail to appreciate the wonder of my God present in every breath. Giving up busyness can provide time for appreciation of God’s beautiful world and of the breath that created it.
What Is Your Response?
Sit quietly for a few moments taking note of your own breathing. As you breathe in imagine God’s essence filling you. Now breathe out and see that essence flowing out into God’s broken world. What makes you aware of God as you breathe? What separates you from a sense of God’s presence?
Take some time to watch the video below of a breathing exercise I often conduct at seminars. Or check out this post and read through the breathing prayers incorporated in it. What response is God asking of you?
Art by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
International Women’s Day: Forging a Positive Sisterhood.
Today we celebrate the achievements of women everywhere, drawing out the amazing stories that have often been written out of history, and we also use the opportunity to talk about why we are still fighting for parity for one half of the world’s population.
Every year a few of my male friends trot out the same objection about this day. “Where’s our day?”, they ask, jokingly. Some of my female friends say we live in a post-feminist world and this kind of thing is unnecessary. Some of those same friends worship quite happily in churches where the women are not allowed to preach or minister, simply because of their gender, and don’t see the irony.
I sincerely hope we never have need of an International Men’s Day, because I don’t want men to ever be subjected to the cruel oppression women and girls still suffer. I sincerely hope International Women’s Day becomes solely about the celebration of women and not about our struggles across the globe. We can kid ourselves and distance our compassion, believing that the problems are only “over there” or in the so-called “developing” world, but this would be to turn a blind eye to the fact that one in three western women experience a sexual assault in their lives, and that inequality and disrespect are rife right under our noses. I constantly wonder that the stench doesn’t make our eyes water. I feel so strongly about the injustice of it all that a few years ago I decided to write a book about it.
Because until things improve, we need to keep forging a way forward into a real and lasting equality, where we recognise our own worth, the worth of our sisters and the work we do (both paid and unpaid) as well as that of our brothers and most fundamentally the humanity of us all. As renowned international speaker, writer and Benedictine nun Joan Chittister once clarified, the real question turning at the heart of feminism is whether we really believe women are in fact, human beings. If we are, we all need to fight against the casual sexualisation of women and girls in the media, the horrendous practices of FGM, child marriage, honour killings, sex slavery, selective abortion and exposure, and to work to narrow the enormous divide between the rights men enjoy and those of their female counterparts the world over.
We need to do this by challenging the wrong-doing, but also by living the truth, creating a positive sisterhood that shows our gentle strength and does not corset our God-given abilities, gifts and ministries. We need to do this together, as a body of women who value ourselves and one another.
We must set aside the temptation to compete and compare, to gossip and to judge, and instead encourage and uphold one another, recognising the beauty in each of our souls; inviting men as we do so into that respectful, agape-centred attitude, so that in unity we create a positive fellowship of believers.
Many people still believe that the social mores of first century Greece and Rome are to be adhered to, reading a literal, unbending harshness into St Paul’s epistles that has been fossilized under layers of patriarchal sediment. And we pass this on as wisdom whilst happily dismissing any scripture that appears to condone or accept slavery. Because that is obviously wrong and may be read with historical context in place and brains in gear. Thankfully there is a great deal of biblical scholarship, I hope my own included, that takes this selective power-base to task.
For in Christ there is “no male or female” and counter-cultural submission is work for every believer to do, as a careful reading of Ephesians makes clear. Such work belongs to the Kingdom of heaven, working like yeast to restore the Edenic ideal that God first set in place, male and female recognising in one another the ultimate helpmeet. Because it is only together, and only as equals, that the human race will heal and thrive, when we are all free to pursue our wholeness and our callings. As a race, and also as a church, we suppress the female at our peril. Anything but total equilibrium between genders frustrates us and has us working essentially as though we had one hand behind our back. Let us embrace parity finally as souls equally dear and capable in the Lord, and consequently in his church.
©Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2016
To read more about Christian feminism, and how Scripture works for and not against it, see Keren’s book, Positive Sisterhood: Restoring the Integrity and Purpose of Christian Women, available on Amazon and Lulu.
Joshua Tree by Lynn Domina
By Lynn Domina
I’ve been thinking lately about Jesus’ experience in the desert. You know the story—as he prepared for his years of ministry, Jesus entered the desert to fast and pray. Toward the end of his forty days when, Matthew says, he was “famished,” Satan arrived to tempt, even taunt, him. Jesus outwitted Satan, refusing to surrender to his offers. Satan departed, we’re told, for a time. In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus left the desert “filled with the power of the Spirit.”
It’s interesting to me that Satan waited to appear until Jesus was so hungry. I’ve never fasted for long, but I’m told by people who have that your hunger does disappear for a while, and then it returns. I imagine what Jesus felt at that moment, trying to pray, thinking about roasted lamb, trying to pray, thinking about tabbouleh, grape leaves, grilled fish. And then Satan appears, offering power and wealth and food. But instead of changing stones into bread, Jesus, though he may acknowledge his hunger, also recognizes what fills him—the Spirit of God. He’s hungry, and he’s full.
During Lent, one of our Christian traditions is to empty ourselves so that we too may understand how we are filled with the love of God. We fast; we give up pleasurable foods—meat, chocolate, other sweets. In our modern era, many of us fast from behaviors that keep us from God—gossip, profanity, aggression. (I once tried to give up impatience for Lent, but I failed daily, often before I even got out of bed.) I resist certain foods or my own character flaws, but when I feel ravenous, my head throbbing, my hands shaking with hunger, I have to ask what I’m hungry for. Those times, I’m likely to say, “Anything. Give me anything.” If Satan appeared to me then, would I recognize him for who he is, or would I just grab whatever he held out to me? I can imagine filling myself with warm fresh bread before I understood what price I’d pay.
There’s another story in the Bible when someone does almost exactly that. One day Esau was also “famished,” and he met up with his brother Jacob, who was cooking lentil stew. The sibling rivalry between these two was nearly as profound as that between Cain and Abel. Jacob was willing to share his stew with Esau, but only in exchange for Esau’s birthright. So Esau traded the mark of who he was—the narrator says he “despised” his lineage—to alleviate a temporary discomfort. In a culture organized around family relationships, the price of Esau’s bowl of stew was pretty steep.
As we proceed through Lent, I want to think not only about what I’m hungry for, but also about what price I’d pay to satisfy that hunger. If all I’m hungry for is my daily bread, I sure hope I won’t exchange my birthright as a child of God, fully beloved by God, for a little round loaf. But if I’m hungry for justice, for inclusivity, for peace, I hope I will be willing to exchange every variety of literal bread, every fruit and vegetable, every ounce of beef or pork or fish.
In thinking about hunger, in reading the Bible, in considering the value of Lent year by year by year, I have realized that I will always be hungry. Which of my hungers is most devastating? And which emptiness will nourish me spiritually? I pray that my hunger will lead me to recognize my relationships, not only with my immediate family members who are actually cooking a lentil stew tonight, but with every person who hungers. Let me recognize the child who hasn’t eaten breakfast, the refugee whose foodsack is empty, the suburbanite whose soul is parched.
As Christians, we are not called to define ourselves only through our family or only according to our ethnicity. Although we are heirs of Jacob and Esau, we are not called to mimic them. We are called to reach out in relationship to everyone who hungers, to all who thirst. We are called to understand that our birthright is limitless, for we are also heirs of Jesus who knew what it meant to be filled.
FUNDAMENTAL differences exist between the life we want and the life we get to live, and the chasm between the two is the canyon of truth.
We want to follow Christ, yet, in doing our human best, we forfeit that task where we fall short of truth. Where we polarise into our truth and can’t perceive another’s truth we miss the truth, and the unknowable wisdom that only the Holy Spirit can help us discern remains ever elusive. Likewise, when we cannot perceive or accept our own truth — what God is telling us via our own lives — we stand adrift from this abundant life Jesus has won for us. It’s there but we cannot yet grasp it.
It is only the truth that will set us free!
We shrink back because of fear, cowardice, and ironically because we want to be nice Christians. But Jesus was not always nice.
Jesus was so committed to truth in his life, where he saw injustices against the multitudes, he stood against those injustices. We tend to tolerate them. Jesus would not shrink from the truth, and the religious elect of the time had him crucified. We fear the same result when we consider committing relentlessly to truth. Jesus knew that loving the people as a good shepherd should would mean speaking up for the truth against the powerbrokers. The powerbrokers in our lives hold the keys to our livelihoods; we fear upsetting the apple cart! Jesus told the truth even if he knew he would get into trouble. We tend to protect ourselves and we’ll omit truth to do it.
And still, with all this considered, Jesus understands the prevalence of our flesh; the fears and foibles we are interminably beset with. But of course there is faith!
The Adjuncts to Truth: 1) Wisdom of Awareness and 2) Faith to Act
Awareness is the wisdom of discerning truth. Action is the faith of applying truth.
If we’re prepared to wade out into the waters of our faith, whilst being wise enough to watch for the current and the rips, we can make something of our awareness. We can take our awareness into the realm of action. But first comes the awareness of discerned wisdom. Only when we’ve deduced the right course of action are we well placed to take the step of faith.
The adjuncts to truth are the wisdom of truth-filled awareness, which is discerned, and faith that acts in accord with that truth.
Regarding our living for truth, our prayers should be filled with seeking God for the awareness to act — which can just as importantly be inaction.
***
Where truth fills our gaze, our faith has purpose, our hope has meaning, and our love has effect.
Where truth is in our sights, our faith gives us courage, our hope gives us strength, and our love enables patience, compassion and justice.
When we live by truth, accepting the consequences, we honour the Lord. Yet, we’ll also understand that truth can never betray love, and love speaks loudest for justice.
Hence, truth is intrinsically allied to justice.
Commit to truth and we commit to justice; over the long haul.
Mosaic by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
Celebrating: A Testimony about not being healed.
The day before Valentine’s, I was celebrating 20 years of what God has done through my disabling illness. Did I say celebrating? I did. I’m coming back to that. On that day it was exactly two decades since I last managed to struggle into work. Afterwards I had a doctor’s appointment to find out why I could barely walk, barely breathe, barely anything. I was hoping to be signed off for a fortnight so I could have a rest, and get back to normal. But even in that hope I knew deep down I was kidding myself and there was something horribly, desperately wrong.
Strangely, one of the things about having M.E. (the eventual diagnosis) is that nobody treats it like something that is horribly or desperately wrong. Not even (sometimes especially not) doctors. Because they can’t see it, because the worst of the symptoms come after exertion (after you examined me, after you visited, after that short trip to the post office, after that 2-minute walk or that 10-minute phone conversation) to the outside world it doesn’t look so bad. Maybe she’s “just” depressed, they say, maybe she needs more fresh air, or vitamins, or maybe, she should just sort herself out and get back in the fray, like we all have to.
I know, I’ve had it all, heard it all, from people who supposedly loved me or worked with me, or were long-term friends. The disbelief – the inability to understand just how bad it is – leads to betrayals, unkind comments and many disappearing acts.
So one way I’m using this anniversary is to spell it out. Because one of the things I’m celebrating is the honesty I’m no longer afraid of. I have been brought to a point where although unkind, unfeeling comments and mistrust will always hurt, the experience of what I have to face every day needs no validation or shoring up, it’s right there with me. I am the one who wakes late in the morning (after a disturbed night whatever time I went to bed) feeling like I’ve been pummelled all over, struggling to open my aching eyes, my brain taking an age to come into a place of even basic functioning. I’m the one who often can’t muster from anywhere (because it isn’t there) the energy to dress, bathe or make it out into the garden, let alone out into the world. I’m the one who hurts everywhere, feels fluey poison in all her muscles and has to miss the birthday party (including my own) or not go to church for months or even years, and who has to deal with the heartbreak of not being able to go for a walk, not being able, most days, to stand the motion of a car, nor cope with the stimuli of television, music, radio, nor the local supermarket, with its busy people, lights and noise.
I’m the one coping with the paralysing exhaustion. So when someone tells me to pull myself together, when a doctor says if I need a wheelchair I should check the Yellow Pages, when an Occupational Health advisor says if I can open a packet of crisps I can certainly cook for myself, when a friend stops answering my phone calls; when these things happen, they hurt, but I am no longer surprised, and I know that they say far more about the other person than they do about me or my chronic illness.
The people who love me, see me, not the things I can’t do. They live with those too, but together we find ways around and ways through. My husband is one of the bravest souls I know. He is not afraid to go into Mothercare and buy me a toddler’s cup, if it is what I need because my arms are so weak, or if I am so uncoordinated that I need a lid on my drink to avoid spillages. He is not afraid to laugh at the inconveniences and the stupid, damnable difficulties the illness brings. Why? Because he loves me. My parents, brothers, closest friends are the same. If it helps me, they do it, however daft it might seem. They know the illness isn’t me.
So what on earth is there to celebrate, then, if everyday life is so hard? So much. I have learnt so very much. I know a lot about illness, about disability, about suffering, about poverty, about thinking outside the usual boxes.
I know how to struggle, how to hold on, when to push through, when to lie still. I have learnt to live with limits, with frustrations, with other people’s fears and ignorance. I have made peace with my ailing body and learnt to love it despite all the things it can’t do. Because the poor thing is so ill, and I hold space around that truth for it, because it’s part of me. I have learnt self-compassion and strategizing, pacing and acceptance. I have learnt what love is and what it isn’t. I have learnt the immense value of genuine hearts and know who loves me.
But the greatest gift this illness has brought me is a deep relationship with the living God. Forced into the stillness and the quiet, I now relish silence and contemplation. Before I met Rowan, I found solace in the company of the Lord. Eventually (don’t imagine this didn’t happen without a great struggle, my ego cracking into pieces like compacted snow falling from a grizzly bear’s waking back) I have begun to find my true self in him.
After learning the hard way that I am of myself, nothing, I am now, remade in God’s hands; and in those small precious pieces of the day when there is energy, I am a writer and a painter. God’s doing, as for many years I struggled to read more than two sentences at once, my cognition was so impaired. Now I journal and write and think whenever I possibly can. And the art has taken no-one more by surprise than me! My creative soul, given to God, guided by him, has made me anew.
Yes, I’m still horribly ill. If anything, more exhausted, stressed and struggling with physical tasks now than five years ago, when I had improved slightly and was often able to go to church. That is beyond me at the moment. But although this is upsetting and I often have a good cry and down days, I know I must accept this too as a stage, a season, and give it to God, and let him use it. And yes, there are opportunities that have passed by. I never got to have children, though I have a lovely stepson now who is a real boon to my maternal heart, but I do get to see everyone I meet as one of God’s children. Someone called me “Amma Keren” recently. My heart swelled.
I am not celebrating having been ill and disabled for twenty years. It has been, and still is, horrendous. I know that behind writing this piece lies the desire to pre-empt the huge sadness that has been building in me as I lurched towards this huge anniversary, this now giant swathe of my life that seems to have been cut out. I’m not pretending the pain isn’t there, I am choosing to celebrate what God has done with me in those long years. Where he’s brought me, how he’s guided me, what he’s coaxed out of me, what he’s broken and refined in me, what I am now compared to what I might have been. Against all the odds, I’m still here, and I have met some wonderful friends along the way, mostly online, to whom and for whom I am deeply grateful.
I am free now, to know what really matters, to take pleasure in the smallest, everyday things, to enjoy what is before me, not hanker after what may never come. I have been taught to listen, to receive and share beauty and truth, and I hope, wisdom. I have been taught to pray, to intercede, to relate, to live for Christ. All this is precious beyond reckoning. And I am so thankful. Yes, I still pray for healing, in a spirit of persevering faith – if and when it comes I shall celebrate then too, you bet!
There is nothing now that the world can offer me that I would swap for where I am with the Lord. Even though each day is a struggle, even though there are worries aplenty, I know who I am. I am the Lord’s mystic creative contemplative. I am a writer and a pray-er and a painter and a poet. My heart bursts with love, and my inner eyes are wide with wonder. May it never end, whether the burden of illness and lack is lifted or not. May each season be utterly his. May blessings flow through me and may the living, healing God be praised.
© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2016
By Andy Wade
Right in the middle of Lent, super Tuesday amped up the political rhetoric assaulting our senses. But it’s not just politics stirring up fear and anxiety. We know the world is in turmoil and the more that turmoil swirls around us, the more our own souls get sucked into the vortex as we find our attitudes and thoughts shift toward despair.
In response to one friend’s post about being verbally assaulted on facebook, the prayer below poured out of my mouth. It was a moment of spiritual lucidity.
As I reflect back I wonder how often I allow shallowness, rather than shalom, to influence my life. Then I realized that, to the extent that I allow shallowness to rule, I bring that same shallowness into my interactions with others throughout the day. How different the day is when I search for glimpses of God’s shalom! How different my interactions with other when shalom is my guide.
If I desire to sow seeds of justice, hope, and mercy I must first collect those seeds from the seed vault of shalom. But even more, I must allow Christ to sow those seeds within the soil of my own heart. These are seeds which need to be sown abundantly, crowding out the weeds with shallow roots as shalom takes hold, flourishes, and brings forth fruit.
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