Monthly Archives: October 2018

Can you tame God?

Can you tame God, pin God down,
Make God do the things you want?
As the wind whips the branches in a wild dance,
Can you stop God dancing on her own grave?
As the water rushes headlong over rapids
Can you stop God rushing in where angels fear to tread?
As the hailstones sting like arrows
And the lightening forks the earth
Can you stop the sting of God hitting home
Or the blast of light that comes from God’s truth?
If you can do none of this,
but stand naked in God’s eye
Knowing that this wild untameable God,
Creator of the cosmos,
Is also the renewing Spirit that remakes everything in her image,
And calls you to bear witness to the fury and the majesty
As the gory sun declares her glory day in and day out,
Then you too can take up her offer,
To wear the marks and the Crown,
To hold out your arms,
Ready, waiting, embracing,
On the tree.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

JAL 28.10.2018

Fragments from the Battlefields 2018

Our most recent visit to the Battlefields of the Western Front WW1 is recalled here in a few fragments between 20th and 25th October 2018

As the sun went down at Ypres :

Trees like monuments,
Silhouettes against the sky,
Or reflections in still water.

Figures for memories,
Silhouettes sharing space
Silent alongside the living.

You who are there but not there,
Here but not here,
Gone but not forgotten.

Ode to a banana; at breakfast one morning my banana went missing

Woe to the memory
Of my lost banana,
Smiling crescent of the morning
Snatched from my plate
By one I called friend.

Wind at Thiepval:


When the wind blows the cradle will fall,
The sepulchre too.
When the bough breaks the leaves will fall,
The young men come tumbling after,
Down will come wreaths and memories
One by one by one by one.

Homage to mangelwurzels: mangelwurzels are always a feature of our Battlefields tours
Now bow your head
As mangelwurzels are moved
And we are too:
Heaped high, a harvest
Of huge roots
Of hidden sweetness.

Moon rise: a Hunter’s moon rose on the last evening of our tour

The mangelwurzel moon
Looks down with orange glow,
As home from the front we go.
Benevolent, gentle it’s blessing to bring,
As on the coach the students sing,
With joy in heart at end of day
And praise of moon and everything:
The moon emoji communicates it all.

Some Beatitudes

Blessed are the bagtakers
They will leave a smaller footprint on the earth

Blessed are the sandwich makers
They will share what they have with thousands.

Ploegestreet memorial: one of our Silcoatians is remembered here


Looking skywards
Into the blue,
Searching for you
Amongst the names

In our life and our believing
The love of God 

JAL 25.10.2018

Becoming peacemakers and builders of justice

We who know human power,
Who have seen it used and abused in the world,
Pray to you, cosmic God, power beyond power.
We are not stupid but we are sometimes silent:
Silenced by the strength of others,
Silenced by shame.
As our silence meets your fathomless silence
May it hold and heal us,
So that silence becomes the crucible from which truth emerges.

As we regain the power of speech
In the swirling cauldron of the Living Word
May we be reborn as truth tellers, peace pioneers and justice joy dealers
Swinging through the universe
On the coat tails of the Holy Spirit.

And when justice and peace come together
In lip smacking affirmation,
May we be there to bear witness
To the struggles, the challenges, the sacrifices, the love,
And embrace the glory of that endless kiss,
In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, Revevealer.

In our life and our believing
The love of God.

14.10.2018 Psalm 85, verse 10.