Head in the sand

Managing change

2011-09-23T08:19:00.005+01:00

Never underestimate the lengths to which Mrs Beamish and her friends will go when the Book of Common Prayer appears to be under threat. Offer her a liturgical feast in the company of angels and archangels and all the heavenly host but if it can't be found within the pages of the BCP it ain't worth the paper upon which it has been beautifully printed. Even if the congregation increases by 30% and includes some who have yet to decide how to deal with the grey hairs which will come in good time, it will be the work of the devil and the reason for the well-documented demise of the C of E in the pages of the Daily Telegraph.

It's not that I can't take criticism you understand...

Ecclesiastes 3.1

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

Sleep...

2010-02-09T02:08:00.006Z

All is not terribly well with the nights so I am now being 'watched closely' by the local vet. I'm not exactly clear what the watching is supposed to do, other than give me another appointment to fit into an overcrowded diary, but I still have a tendency to good behaviour with medics so along I go for a quick glance under the microscope. The furries are oblivious to my nocturnal activities, being more than naturally skilled in the somnambulant arts. It looks so simple when they do it. And yet I'm finding it well nigh impossible.

Prov 24.33

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little resting of the hands.

The faith of ages

2010-02-01T23:56:00.007Z

It's been a while, in some ways it feels like a lifetime since the furries and I landed in the new enclosure and bedded down for the duration. A lifetime in that we are a very long way from where we once were and yet it only took a hop, skip and a jump to get here. There's no way I can even sketch out the last few months but the most important thing to say is that we found an Ostrich and furry shaped hole in a very remarkable enclosure and we are very loved and very grateful.

The new enclosure celebrated Candlemas in fine style on Sunday but as you know, I'm an old fashioned sort of bird and so we're keeping a household feast today. As a hinge point of the year it feels right to light a candle and stick it in the sand, and ponder these things in our hearts, giving thanks for the wisdom of the faithful and those of greater years, who have seen great things and point us to the future.

For the faithful Annas and Simeons, I give thanks. For recognising when the time is right, I give thanks. For being held in love, I give thanks.

presentation

sun creeps off the mountain top
and bursts
into a million lights
against the temple wall
dropping bits of brightness
even into kidron’s cavern

temple approaches temple
holiest of wombs
nears
holiest of places
bringing holiness
in her arms

moving through the temple courts
they bring turtledoves
for sacrifice
not dreaming of the greater sacrifice
now mewing at her breast
despite the prophet’s words

what did he mean
a sign of contradiction
and a sword?

while the glory of his people
nestles deeper into sleep
smiling in his dream
safe
in his father’s presence.

ruthann williams, o.p.

Joel 2.28, 29

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

Up and running!

2009-10-09T11:19:00.003+01:00

Although my calendar swears that it is only three weeks since the furries and I moved to the new nest and enclosure I know it speaks with forked tongue. It has actually been a lifetime, made even longer by the absence of an internet connection in the nest until last night.

And we have come a very long way from the old enclosure. This is a new country where they speak a new language and have very different customs.

And it is so very good.

Ezr 5.11

We are the servants 0f the God of heaven and earth

On the move

2009-09-12T07:58:00.003+01:00

I am in the last stages of preparing to move at last. The promised nest fell through the branches of the purchasing chain at the last moment and so a temporary nest had to be found at short notice. It's not so much of a nest as a perch and has required more than a little creative thinking to figure out how to fit the quart into the pint pot but I think I've got it sussed now.

I have received oodles of sympathy and help from the new enclosure who have been tremendously helpful and supportive. They threw a delightful welcoming party for me earlier this week and came out in force to celebrate what should have been my arrival some weeks before but as the new perch was not yet vacant I had to return to the old nest immediately afterwards. All very bizarre but easier than changing the date of the party. Many of my dearest animal friends came to join in the fun. I felt very loved.

The furries are still blissfully ignorant of the huge change which is about to take place although they are clearly a little perturbed at the boxes and bags which surround them. The sifting process is intended to be a shedding of the unnecessary and a separate pile of things too precious or essential to risk being packed into a removal van. The possibilities for discarding the essential and saving the unnecessary are the stuff of my anxiety dreams every night. Not being one of nature's natural organisers means that I am presently working out of my weakest muscles and I feel quite sure that I shall make a hash of this at some point. I sense an important spiritual discipline here at which I am clearly less than competent.

Matt 6.19-21

'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'

Back to basics

2009-09-06T23:18:00.002+01:00

Apologies for the continued radio silence. When I get a moment I'll blog, but a friend just sent me this and this has to take priority. You'll see what I mean. Take ten minutes and think differently...

Gen 1.9-12

And God said, 'Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Don't just sit there...

2009-08-22T00:15:00.004+01:00

As there's still no news on the new nest front the furries and I have decided to head off to deepest-darkest-here-be-dragons-land for a little R&R. They are to stay with their honorary granny whilst I take up cat-sitting duties in nearby vicarage. We can all scoot back if it looks like there's to be any action on the removals front, and until then we could do with a change of scenery.

Ps 121.1, 2

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh even from the Lord: who hath made heaven and earth.

Be it ever so humble...

2009-08-20T22:21:00.005+01:00

The best laid plans of mice and men seem to be tangling themselves into a spaghetti junction of a mess. I am at the bottom of a complex food chain of lawyers and vendors and buyers and the granters of planning permission and freeholds and leaseholds and the lawnmower-engined C of E. Thus, instead of spending my days putting my bookshelves in order and exploring new walks with the furries, I am still in the same old nest without a moving date to my name.

Under the circumstances I am somewhat surprised that I remain mostly calm and resigned to my fate. Mild hysteria does occasionally surface but as it is now clear that there is not a single thing which I can do about it, I am attempting to make the most of enforced leisure with pay and trying to ignore the problem. No doubt at some point I shall be told when I am to move, and even where I am to move to and off we shall go, trying not to dilly dally on the way.

The furries are leading the way in stress management techniques as usual...

Mtt 6.34

'So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.'

As there seems to be precious little to report I have taken the opportunity to offer for your edification an educational interlude....

Neither here nor there

2009-08-11T22:53:00.003+01:00

'Tis finished. My time in the enclosure is o'er. Parting was not sweet pleasure. It hurt like hell. I knew it would be hard but I simply hadn't realised how terrible it would feel. Goodbye after goodbye after goodbye. I tried to drink in every last moment of the sights and sounds so that I will never forget the most exquisite pleasures I have been offered there. I just don't have the words to express how hard it has been to let them go one by one over the past few weeks. I can only compare it with the ending of a love affair which contained my identity and purpose.

I am heartbroken.

In the next few weeks I will move to the new nest and enclosure and somehow have to let go of the old and look to the new.

God help me.

Not quite the final curtain

2009-08-01T23:48:00.004+01:00

Life seems to have been one long drawn out endings over the past few weeks. One after another they have crept up and thwacked me round the chops, and knocked me off my perch. Tomorrow's ending is another. Last time I sing my song in the enclosure at the main show. So many mixed up feelings I really don't know how I'll be. The countdown is getting ever closer and there are still a thousand things to be done. I'd really like to fast forward to the end of next week so that I can concentrate on beginnings for a change.

Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth has a character in it who spends her days waiting for the Last Judgement. One of of main characters, called Irie, goes to stay for a few weeks with her grandmother, Hortense, who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Hortense’s colleagues at church are in the process of deciding which day in 1992 is going to be the final one in life as we know it: Judgement Day. And Hortense wants to be ready...

‘[Living with Hortense] gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘hand-to-mouth’. It was [like] living in the eternal instant, ceaselessly teetering on the precipice of total annihilation...’ ‘[Hortense] wore two pairs of knickers at all times like a wary potential traffic victim; when Irie asked why, she sheepishly revealed that upon hearing the first signs of the Lord (approaching thunder, bellowing voice, Wagner Ring Cycle), she intended to whip off the one closest to her and replace it with the outer pair, so that Jesus would find her fresh and odourless and ready for heaven. She kept a tub of paint in the hallway so that when the time came she might daub the neighbours’ doors with the sign of the Beast, saving the Lord all that trouble of weeding out the baddies, separating sheep from goats. And you couldn’t form any sentence in that house which included the words “end”, “finished”, “done” etc, for these were like so many triggers setting off Hortense with the usual ghoulish relish: [If Irie was to say] “I finished the washing up”, Hortense, shaking her head solemnly at the truth of it, [would reply] “As one day we all shall be finished, my dear; be zealous and repent.”

(Zadie Smith White Teeth p397)

It's one of those glass half empty or half full things I think. I can't bear New Year's Eve because I get overwhelmed with sadness for all that is past while everyone else is sensibly concentrating on the glorious possibility of a new beginning and a fresh start. I'm getting a bit better at it though. Learning to whistle...

Mtt 24.6
For this must take place, but the end is not yet.

Pastures new

2009-07-18T21:25:00.007+01:00

Back from a visit to the new enclosure and nest-to-be, with which I am delighted. The garden is going to be a joy for the furries and for me too. There's even a little dell just crying out for a statuette of the BVM and St Frank (for the furries).

I got a chance to meet some of the other workers in the enclosure and there was much warmth and smiling. It seems that they really do want this particular Ostrich, idiosyncrasies and all. I am to be allowed to develop my favourite ministry of loitering with intent and listening and praying. And get to play with the formal side of the enclosure and the music. I just can't believe it. An Ostrich shaped hole!

I am a very, very lucky Ostrich. And very impatient to start.

Num 14.40

We will go to the place that the Lord has promised.

Looking back....

2009-07-12T21:19:00.005+01:00

The first of the lasts have begun. Today was the last time I would sing in the enclosure with some of the younger birds who have now flown south for a very well earned summer break.

They have had a very special place in my life for some years. I've watched them grow from frightened fledglings to smart young birds ready to stretch their wings and we've shared some extraordinary moments. They've put up with my splutters and squeaks and we've kept a beady eye on one another from across the great divide. They've made me laugh and far more often shed tears at their effortless beauty. They have my complete respect and admiration and I wish them well. None of it can ever be repeated: those moments of exquisite perfection and grace.

So I have bid them farewell, and let them go.

Regrets, I've had a few but then again...

Jos 1.9

The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Fank you so much

2009-06-25T20:16:00.009+01:00

My apologies for the radio silence of the past week; the first half of which was taken up with various events in the enclosure which were under my wing, and then I merrily tripped along to the tooth doctor for the extraction of the previously-mentioned troublesome molar.

And then things turned a little unpleasant.

I'll spare you the finer details. It should suffice to say that short of kneeling on my chest to haul the thing out everything else was tried, for over an hour. They finally brought the big guns in and blasted the thing (and very nearly me) to kingdom come. At the end of which, being a well brought-up ostrich, I attempted a lop-sided schmile and fanked vem profusely for an experience I hope I shall never have to have again.

Although I had thought their suggestion of a companion to take me home afterwards was a little unnecessary I was extremely glad I had dutifully brought one and retired to my nest clutching the side of my face and whimpering quietly.

Although the face ache is slowly subsiding I still feel as if I've done half a dozen rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson and I'm nowhere near contemplating sinking my teeth into a crisp apple.

Ps 3.7
You break the teeth of the wicked.

Your pedal extremities are colossal

2009-06-17T06:27:00.004+01:00

Being a bigger than your average bird has a number of drawbacks in the clothing department. One of them being the necessity of finding coverage for the pedal extremities. This requires shopping at what can only be described as specialist shops for the bigger bird, of which there are not a huge number. In desperation I made one final search of the internet yesterday to find a pair of sandals for the enclosure (any colour as long as its black) and just as I was on the verge of throwing in the towel and resorting to a tantrum I finally found what I had thought did not exist. No sooner found than I was scrabbling for my credit card and pressing send.

I have long suspected that when God was knitting me together in my mother's womb he had been distracted by other matters and lost count of the stitches. Mama Ostrich used to say that she always kept my legs covered in my pram so as not to alarm people at their extraordinary length. And I have photos of me as a baby fledgling with toes the same length as most babies' fingers.

If I get to the heavenly realm I have a number of points I'd like to raise if only to suggest some helpful adaptations to the knitting pattern.

Eze 24.17

Put sandals on your feet.

Corpus Christi

2009-06-10T23:29:00.005+01:00

From The Shape of the Liturgy Dom Gregory Dix

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; - one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei - the holy common people of God.

...it is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed upon the Lord's table, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you are receiving. You reply 'Amen' to what you are, and thereby agree that such you are. You hear the words 'The body of Christ' and you reply 'Amen'. Be, then, a member of Christ's body, so that your 'Amen' may accord with the truth.

Yes, but why all this in bread? Here let us not advance any ideas of our own, but listen again to what the Apostle says when speaking of this sacrament: 'Because there is one loaf, we, though we are many, form one body.' Let your mind assimilate that statement and be glad, for there you will find unity, truth, devotion and love. Bear in mind that bread is not made of a single grain, but of many. Be, then, what you see, and receive what you are.

St Augustine of Hippo

The eyes have it

2009-06-09T23:34:00.003+01:00

My life is about to be changed apparently. I took myself off for my annual eye exam and was a little concerned that it seemed to be taking substantially longer than usual and was accompanied by a variety of murmurings and hmmmms. When I finally emerged from the apparatus the optician said, "Well, I think it's definitely the pills. And it's complicated. But I think it's just possible I can make your life a whole lot easier." Bring it on, says I.

Apparently this has to be tweaked and that has to be altered and these have to be like this, and these can be used then, and those will do this, and these will be able to do that, and you won't feel nearly as tired all the time. Oh, and it should help those dark circles round your eyes too. It seems the only thing it won't improve is my waistline and do the housework. But I'm not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth I can tell you. And then I had the delight of said camp optician changing into style consultant and have settled on a fab pair of red gegs with a touch of outrageous pink. I can't wait.

Lk 4.16a-19
He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.'

Run that past me one more time...

2009-06-07T00:26:00.004+01:00

Nuns on the Run linked rather than embedded

Quicunque vult

WHOSOEVER will be saved : before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith.
Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled : without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the Catholick Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the Persons : nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son : and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one : the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son : and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate : and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible : and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal : and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals : but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated : but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty : and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
And yet they are not three Almighties : but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God : and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods : but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord : and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords : but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord;
So are we forbidden by the Catholick Religion : to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none : neither created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone : not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son : neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons : one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other : none is greater, or less than another;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together : and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid : the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved : must think thus of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation : that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess : that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds : and Man of the substance of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man : of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead : and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood;
Who, although he be God and Man : yet he is not two, but one Christ;
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh : but by taking of the Manhood into God;
One altogether; not by confusion of Substance : but by unity of Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man : so God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation : descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty : from whence he will come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies : and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting : and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholick Faith : which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and every shall be: world without end. Amen.

Clear as mud isn't it? Although I do get the incomprehensible bit...

The Spirit comes

2009-05-31T23:36:00.005+01:00

wings beating fire

he plunges
hard and deep
a comet
flashing
intent on rendezvous
he sees them
in uncertain prayer
wanting
and wanting in the gift
he bears
tremulous disciples
weaving a chaos
of almost belief
of nearly doubt
but holding
to the mother's hope
laid like a bared breast
for them to suckle
the room quakes
at his approach
fills with sound
a wind
a gale
a flame
the fire
the light
the furious courage
stampeding the darkness
of fear
collected in the corner of their hearts
spreads
blurs edges
into a single flaming moment
the rhythm of the spirit
burning out a hallow
to fill with life
male and female
he enters them
inflating souls
like pregnant bellies
bright veined against the tautness
eager
straining for the birthing
in this spirit
it comes
and men and women
newly valiant
spill out into the street
proclaiming the messiah
in tongues set free
unwinding grace
as dangerous as love
sons and daughters prophesy
some see visions
some dream dreams
believers become repentant
and are saved
while pharisees
locked in the laughless law
tighten their phylactery bands
around their understanding
and walk away
to ponder punishment
in the power of the spirit
the day is terrible and proud

by Ruthann Williams o.p.

Living God, if we have lost the wonder of life in your Spirit
and cannot remember its passion and promise:
forgive us, and touch our souls with the flame of your fire.

If we dare to believe that the Spirit speaks only in one language,
which is ours,
and we no longer expect to find you
in people who are different and who have different ideas:
forgive us, and touch our souls with the flame of your fire.

If one day has become like most others,
especially in our church,
and we are no longer expecting miracles:
forgive us, and touch our souls with the flame of your fire.

When cynicism and lack of hope overcomes us
in the face of the realities around us,
shutting the door to the power of your Spirit in every age:
forgive us, and touch our souls with the flame of your fire, which burns for ever with love for the world and its peoples. Amen

Dispatched

2009-05-28T22:35:00.008+01:00

Returned from dispatching Uncle Ostrich to the great enclosure in the sky. A most bewildering experience. Back to the place of my birth and faced with a congregation littered with Ostriches, only a few of whom I had any memory of meeting before, and many of whose existence I had no knowledge of whatsoever. They knew who I was though, or more particularly, they knew whose daughter I was.

I also realised just how colourful the Ostrich family is. In fact, if anything, I was reassured that my own particular family characteristics are not nearly as colourful as some. Maybe it was the collar, but they seemed to think I was the one who would be able to carry them through the delicate task of saying nice things about Uncle Ostrich whilst not denying the particularities of his distinctive Ostrich characteristics.

Having been whisked away from the Ostrich fold when I was but a mere fledgling I have had little to do with all but a handful, but it was clear that to them, once an Ostrich, always an Ostrich, even if the accent is different and I had clearly embraced religion in a big way.

When my own Ostrich father died I was deemed too young to cope with the funeral. His ashes were scattered in the slate grey sea whilst I stayed at home and played snap with Grandma Ostrich. Sending his brother off to his maker over 40 years later was an attempt to do what I did not do for him.

The fledgling had returned to the nest, and was welcomed warmly, but left wondering who I really am. A cuckoo?

Ascension - Denise Levertov

Stretching Himself as if again,
through downpress of dust
upward, soul giving way
to thread of white, that reaches
for daylight, to open as green
leaf that it is...
Can Ascension
not have been
arduous, almost,
as the return
from Sheol, and
back through the tomb
into breath?
Matter reanimate
now must reliquish
itself, its
human cells,
molecules, five
senses, linear
vision endured
as Man -
the sole
all-encompassing gaze
resumed now,
Eye of Eternity.
Reliquished, earth's
broken Eden.
Expulsion,
liberation,
last
self-enjoined task
of Incarnation.
He again
Fathering Himself.
Seed-case splitting.
He again
Mothering His birth:
torture and bliss.

Karl Rahner
The Ascension is a festival of the future of the world. The flesh is redeemed and glorified, for the Lord has risen for ever. We Christians are, therefore, the most sublime materialists.

Rest in peace

2009-05-21T20:45:00.002+01:00

Uncle Ostrich died this morning. Every inch an ostrich - irascible, flamboyant, raconteur, infuriating, adorable, individual. If he rests in peace it will be for the first time...

I hope he does.

Acute periapical periodontitis

2009-05-21T08:13:00.003+01:00

I wondered what the pain was...

Spent 5 hours in the nearby emergency dental clinic yesterday being prodded and poked and x-rayed. One has to come out, maybe two, then 2 more need root canal treatment. Antibiotics. Painkillers.

The joy of further treatment to look forward to.

Just when I thought I might be able to enjoy myself. Ha!

Off to the liverish consultant later...

Fun, fun, fun.

La 3.16
He has made my teeth grind on gravel.

Hurray!

2009-05-18T21:55:00.006+01:00

They said YES!!!

Yes to the truth! Yes to the madness! Yes to the risk!

Yes to the report! Yes to all the possibilities!

Yes to the never-been-done-before!

Yes to the Gospel!

Yes to the Ostrich!

Thank you God!
And for all who hoped and prayed with me!
Thank you!

Kyrie eleison

2009-05-17T20:44:00.006+01:00

It's now been two months of waiting to hear if the-possible-new-enclosure will accept me, madness and all. They've had the psychiatric report which they asked for since last Wednesday and there's still no word from on high. I have to say that I'm finding it increasingly difficult to stay positive now. I'm imagining all sorts of scenarios going on at their end. My initial excitement at being told they wanted me has long disappeared into a far distant memory. As I don't know when I will finally get a definitive answer from them I'm having to curb the self-protective urge to tell them to stuff it just so that I can call an end to this interminable waiting. I know it would only be a case of cutting my own beak off to spite my face but I am beginning to feel like I'm being treated rather shabbily. Surely they must realise that having your mental health scrutinised and discussed by unqualified church officials is deeply degrading and stressful?

So I pray.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor - Kyrie

Lord, have mercy

Christ, have mercy

Lord, have mercy

Nothing, nada, rien, zilch

2009-05-14T23:04:00.006+01:00

There is no news.

If there was any justice in this world I would be sylph-like by now, surviving on a diet of finger nails, Silk Cut and Lindt chocolate. I can only assume there are more calories in finger nails than one might imagine.

Ah the dear ol' C of E.

Size of a juggernaut, engine of a lawn mower.

And above all, doing things decently and in order.

Sir 1.23
Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment,
and then cheerfulness comes back to them.

And every word in the Bible is the truth, isn't it?

Calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, calm.....

Thank you...

2009-05-08T23:35:00.005+01:00

... to all who prayed and hoped and loved me this day. I survived the ordeal by trick cyclist. She's sent me her report before she sends it on to the-possible-new-enclosure. It's not nearly as bad as it might have been, and apart from a couple of things I might quibble with, I think I'll let her send it.

It's the recommendation for on-going mental health care which will scare them. That's the trouble with the truth. It can so often be scary. But it's true. So it's up to them.

This is the package -

One less than perfect Ostrich.
Loved and loving.
Hurt and healing.
Scarred and scared.
Prayerful and panicky.
Silent and singing.

Going cheep (sic).

But I have been so blessed, and send this blessing to all of you who have blessed me in this way.

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of your loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O'Donohue Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

2009-05-05T18:19:00.005+01:00

I've been booked in at the Clinic where I am to be seen by their trick cyclist on Friday afternoon. Her report will come initially to me (for factual inaccuracies only mind you) and then goes to the-possible-new-enclosure on Tuesday.

After which, I am promised, A Decision Will Be Made.

Don't hold your breath. This one could run and run...

Heb 10.36

For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Just a few more questions...

2009-05-03T20:40:00.006+01:00

Returned from deepest-darkest-here-be-dragons-land with the news that the possible-new-enclosure has been doing a risk assessment exercise in which I score rather too highly for their comfort. Apparently the letter from my trick cyclist was not sufficient to reassure them and so they've asked me to undergo yet another trick cyclist assessment. They've found one who they think will be just the job; their speciality is in missionary positions... but they're willing to cast their eye over me if the possible-new-enclosure casts the necessary readies over their outstretched palms.

I have asked the possible-new-enclosure what exactly would convince them of my road-worthiness. They weren't quite sure. Neither am I.

Still, the only thing to do is smile and say 'Of course! I can think of nothing nicer than being offered another shot at those tricky questions such as 'What year is it?' and 'Can you think of a fairy story and tell it from beginning to end without repetition, hesitation or deviation?' The astonishing thing is that they really do seem to think that their list of questions will tell them whether or not I'm still mad.

Ps 26.5

Answer fools according to their folly.

There must be some mistake...

2009-04-27T17:16:00.004+01:00

I had so thoroughly convinced myself that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong that I am having a little difficulty comprehending what the vet said. It's not right. It's enlarged. And there is evidence of fatty deposits. I'm to be sent to a specialist. For further tests. Obviously. Possible hepatitis.

Meanwhile the news from the possible future enclosure is that they've been trying to decide what to do 'for the best'... A probationary period or perhaps another assessment to reassure them that I am only as mad as I seem. I've been thanked for my patience (not that I think I've been managing to be patient) and told that a letter will be on its way soon.

If any were of a mind to pray, I'd be grateful.

Pr 18.14
The human spirit will endure sickness;
but a broken spirit - who can bear?

Aaron's drest

2009-04-26T18:21:00.005+01:00

Off to the vet tomorrow without the most important meal of the day in order to be scanned for the source of the strange readings in my blood tests. I have assured the vet that I hardly touch a drop of anything that hasn't already been consecrated, and that my history is squeaky clean in the needles and bodily fluids areas of life's rich tapestry. So...

It's put something of a dampener on the first day of my post-Easter break which begins tomorrow and has meant a slight delay in the estimated time of the departure to the here-be-dragons land but I'm not one to knock the NHS. We're very lucky to have it on our doorsteps and although my natural instinct is obviously to stick my head in the sand on this occasion I think it might well be wise to do as they suggest.

I had a very pleasant morning in the enclosure. The song-birds were on stonkingly good form and I managed to keep my own tail feathers up too. We did have one particularly colourful visitor who added his own percussive accompaniment to the proceedings. As it had taken the wardens some time to convince him not to ride round the enclosure on his scooter we decided that a little jingling of bells was a small price to pay. No, he wasn't a child, though he may have been one of the temple angels...

Sir 45.6-9

He exalted Aaron, a holy man like Moses who was his brother, of the tribe of Levi. He made an everlasting covenant with him, and gave him the priesthood of the people. He blessed him with stateliness, and put a glorious robe on him. He clothed him in perfect splendour, and strengthened him with the symbols of authority, and linen undergarments, the long robe, and the ephod. And he encircled him with pomegranates, with many golden bells all around, to send forth a sound as he walked, to make their ringing heard in the temple as a reminder to his people.

Aaron

HOLINESS on the head,
Light and perfection on the breast,
Harmonious bells below raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest :
Poor priest ! thus am I drest.

Only another head
I have another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest :
In Him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me e'en dead ;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in Him new drest.

So holy in my Head,
Perfect and light in my dear Breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come, people ; Aaron's drest.

George Herbert

Cry God for Ostrich, England and St George!

2009-04-22T22:53:00.005+01:00

Patience is a virtue...

...which I don't possess.

I'm biting my talons to the bone. Still waiting for the actual letter offering me the job, and not quite able to trust in the phone call which is all I have to bank on so far. I am told that they have received the letter they requested from the trick cyclist, which I hope satisfied them of my road worthiness, but the letter box has remained distinctly empty. On the eve of the National Saint's feast I have been sending up requests to the knight in shining armour to do battle with this particular dragon of anxiety.

Once the letter comes no doubt I will be able to find out how far along the process of acquiring a new nest they are. I have mentioned my small list of requirements - a patch of earth for the furries and somewhere to park the piano, if not the car, being uppermost. It's not easy engaging in planning for future activities in the enclosure when I'm not at all sure if I'll be around to see them through. It feels rather dishonest somehow, but I suppose that's how it has to be until the orchestrated announcements can be made. Til then, I continue as if nothing has changed, except the length of my talons, and plead with St George to shift his armour and sort out the fire-breathing mythological beast...

Bel 1.25-26

'I worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God. But give me permission, O king, and I will kill the dragon without sword or club.'
The king said, 'I give you permission.'

Seeing is believing

2009-04-19T09:52:00.004+01:00

So what did Thomas see when Christ showed him his wounded hands and side? What caused Thomas to exclaim one of the most profound confessions of faith in the Gospels? “My Lord and my God!” No longer the doubting Thomas but the believing and confessing Thomas. What moved him from doubt to faith?

In the Western Church Thomas is the disciple most famous for his doubt, and yet the Orthodox Church refers to him not as doubting Thomas, but believing Thomas. Thomas Didymus: the twin who was willing to risk admitting that he didn’t understand what Jesus was saying when, on the night before he died, he told his disciples he would go to prepare a place for them. Thomas: the one who dared to speak what all the disciples were probably thinking, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” The same Thomas, who only days before had said to the disciples, “Let us also go with Christ that we may die with him”. The same Thomas who, like the other disciples, had followed Christ to the garden of Gethsemane, and had fallen asleep when Christ asked his friends to watch and pray with him. The same Thomas, who like the other disciples, had fled in terror as Christ was led off by the soldiers to be tortured and killed. It is Thomas’ very honesty and longing for proof which is so easy to relate to. Thomas, who like a child in the midst of sophisticated adults, speaks the unspeakable on behalf of those who would rather not be known for who and what they are.

But although Jesus had already appeared to the women in the garden, and to the other disciples in the locked room the next day, he comes to show himself to Thomas, who has refused to believe what his friends told him, that Christ had been raised from the dead. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

What happened to Thomas when he was faced with the incontrovertible proof that this Jesus was indeed the one who had been betrayed, tortured, and killed, and who now stood before him, showing the wounds which proved beyond all doubt that he was indeed raised from the dead?

What caused Thomas to proclaim one of the most profound confessions of faith in the Gospels? “My Lord and my God!” No longer the doubting Thomas but the believing and confessing Thomas. What happened in that locked room which changed everything for Thomas?

The poet Denise Levertov was received into the Roman Catholic Church after a life time of agnosticism as a direct result of working alongside the priests and religious in El Salvador at a time of horrendous persecution and suffering for the poor of that region. She is not alone in coming to faith through suffering. Often it is in the most terrible moments of our lives that somehow we are able to see with the eyes of faith. She wrote a poem about the twin -

Saint Thomas Didymus.

In the hot street at noon I saw him

a small man

Gray but vivid, standing forth

beyond the crowd’s buzzing

holding in desperate grip his shaking

teethgnashing son,

and thought him my brother.

I heard him cry out, weeping, and speak

these words,

Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief,

and knew him

my twin:

a man whose entire being

had knotted itself

into the one tightdrawn question,

Why,

why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,

why is this child who will soon be a man

tormented, torn twisted?

Why is he cruelly punished

who has done nothing except be born?

The twin of my birth

was not so close

as that man I heard

say what my heart

sighed with each beat, my breath silently

cried in and out,

in and out.

After the healing,

he, with his wondering

newly peaceful boy, receded;

no one

dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,

the swift

acceptance and forgetting.

I did not follow

to see their changed lives.

What I retained

was the flash of kinship.

Despite

all that I witnessed,

his question remained

my question, throbbed like a steady cancer,

known

only to doctor and patient. To others

I seemed well enough.

Denise Levertov, “Saint Thomas Didymus,” in The Stream and the Sapphire (New York: New Directions, 19

Levertov, like Thomas, saw the wounds of Christ’s crucified body and believed. It was Christ’s wounds in the pain of his people in El Salvador which brought her from doubt to faith in circumstances which at one level might seem so far removed from the Kingdom of God. And yet it was there that the reality of the suffering and risen Lord finally made sense to her. In that unexpected horror she found her faith.

The Easter appearances show Christ time and time again entering into the reality of our lives. Hearing her name once again, the grief-stricken Mary Magdalene wipes away her tears to recognise her Lord standing before her. To the disciples locked in their grief and fear in the Upper Room Christ breaks through the walls of their security and breathes his fearful peace. Walking beside those who believed that their grief and confusion had been earned by their particular status as the chosen few he listened patiently to their confusion before opening up their closed minds in the breaking of the bread.

And for Thomas, the one who had always spoken the unspeakable, the one who never did anything by halves and only dealt in absolutes? For Thomas he reveals the intimate horror of his own wounds so that what was hidden might now be uncovered and proclaimed from the roof tops. My Lord and my God!

In the agony of Thomas’ doubts Christ stands before him and unflinchingly reveals his own agony.

And for us this morning? Perhaps you have already found yourself in one of these Resurrection appearances. And if you have then listen very carefully to what Christ says in them, because he speaks to you through them. But however you find the crucified, and risen Christ –

in the pain and suffering of your own life or of those you love, like Denise Levertov in El Salvador;

in the tears of grief for lost loves and hopes;

through the boarded up windows and doors of your heart;

on the lonely journey you find yourself walking –

hear the words Christ spoke to Thomas on our behalf:

“Blessed are those who believe but who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

If you believe today….then the risen Christ proclaims you blessed.

And to those who are blessed Christ had already said, “Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Come. See. Believe. Because if you do – you are Blessed.

Lily-livered...

2009-04-14T17:46:00.005+01:00

Just when I was beginning to think it was safe out there...

Went to Ostrich doctor to get my next load of drugs to be told that the last blood tests had revealed abnormally high liver function levels. Straight off to hospital for more blood tests and an ultrasound.

Something of a shock to the system. And it was just such a reading that indicated all was not well with Mama Ostrich 6 months before she died. I think I can safely say that I didn't take the news particularly well. And now I have to wait to find out the results. I know that this is precisely the reason that I have to have regular blood tests. My medication works best just below poisoning level, and it appears that it may be working a little too enthusiastically in that department. No doubt the trick cyclist will tweak it accordingly and the levels will return to normal. Well, that's what I hope. I can't say that I have no doubts. After all, I'm an Ostrich. I am by nature a lily-livered creature who panics at the first sign of danger. Thus I stuck my head under the duvet and whimpered.

Ez 21.21

For the King of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the fork in the two roads, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim, he inspects the liver.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

2009-04-12T08:34:00.007+01:00

Extract from Signs, Wonders and Gestures by Balthasar Fischer

“It is an unusual word that is not native to the English or even the Latin liturgical vocabulary: the word “Alleluia”. As a matter of fact, it sounds less like a meaningful word than the babbling of a child, and when it is sung with many notes for the final vowel, this impression becomes even stronger.

“Alleluia” does, of course, have a meaning. It is a Hebrew word, and down the centuries the church has brought it with her, untranslated (like “Amen”), as a product of the Jewish soil from which she herself sprang up and as a reminder of her earliest days. The word is a cry of jubilation meaning “Praise the Lord”, and occurs frequently in the psalms…

But the translation does not explain why the church chose and retained this word form the Hebrew language of prayer in order to express her Easter jubilation, even though in later centuries her children did not understand the meaning. I think the church meant to say: “In the presence of the mystery that we celebrate on Easter, the mystery of our redemption, our usual intelligible vocabulary is inadequate; when faced with the superabundant mercy of God we can only stammer in amazement like children.”

That is how it is with us Christians: As we gaze at the Sun that has risen high over the darkness and cold of our Good Friday, all well-chosen words are useless. We can only stammer out our Alleluia of wonder and jubilation.”

And the Glory

Ann Weems

The silence breaks the morning.

The One Star lights the world.

The lily springs to life and

not even Solomon…

Let us begin with singing

and never end!

Oh, angels, quit your lamenting!

Oh, pilgrims,

upon your knees in tearful prayer,

rise up

and take your hearts

and run!

We who were no people

are named anew

God’s people,

for he who was no more

is forevermore.

Harrowing hell

2009-04-11T12:31:00.003+01:00

(With apologies for the bizarre font variations which I can't seem to sort out...)

Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth has a character in it who spends her days waiting for the Last Judgement. One of the main characters, called Irie, goes to stay for a few weeks with her grandmother, Hortense, who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Hortense’s colleagues at church are in the process of deciding which day in 1992 is going to be the final one in life as we know it: Judgement Day. And Hortense wants to be ready. Here’s a short extract:

“[Living with Hortense] gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘hand-to-mouth’. It was [like] living in the eternal instant, ceaselessly teetering on the precipice of total annihilation... [Hortense] wore two pairs of knickers at all times like a wary potential traffic victim; when Irie asked why, she sheepishly revealed that upon hearing the first signs of the Lord (approaching thunder, bellowing voice, Wagner Ring Cycle), she intended to whip off the one closest to her and replace it with the outer pair, so that Jesus would find her fresh and odourless and ready for heaven. She kept a tub of paint in the hallway so that when the time came she might daub the neighbours’ doors with the sign of the Beast, saving the Lord all that trouble of weeding out the baddies, separating sheep from goats. And you couldn’t form any sentence in that house which included the words “end”, “finished”, “done” etc, for these were like so many triggers setting off Hortense with the usual ghoulish relish. [If Irie was to say] “I finished the washing up”, Hortense, shaking her head solemnly at the truth of it, [would reply] “As one day we all shall be finished, my dear; be zealous and repent.”

Belief in the Last Judgement conjures up images of medieval paintings and in our sophisticated world-view we find it all rather amusing. We are more likely to laugh at the idea that any day now the world will be transformed into a medieval style heaven and hell scenario, in which we’ll all be choking on sulphur fumes as we await the verdict on our lives.

But in truth Hortense won’t be given time to whip off her knickers and change into fresh ones. Before she can hear the distant thunder or even a little Wagner, the Kingdom will be upon her. Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look here it is, or There it is!’ For in fact the Kingdom of God is among you.

On the day of the coming of the Kingdom it won’t be the distant sound of the thunder which heralds its arrival but the split second of lightning lighting up the night sky – It will be sudden, instantaneous. There will be no time to turn back. No time to make the last minute preparations, even if we’ve planned them well in advance like Hortense. What has been hidden will be revealed like a flashbulb suddenly going off in a darkened room. And yet we will continue to eat and drink, we will be occupied with the minute details of our busy lives – getting married, buying the shopping, tidying the attic, asleep in our beds, we will be about our business, utterly unprepared for what will take place. And Jesus says the coming of the Son of Man is as sure and certain as the sight of vultures circling over a dead body in the desert.

So what are we to do? Should we stop living our ordinary lives and prepare for the coming of the Kingdom? The early Church was certainly convinced that the second coming was imminent – hadn’t Christ told his disciples that they wouldn’t taste death before the coming of the Kingdom? And yet here we are, 2000 years of waiting behind us, wars and rumours of wars have come and gone, and come again. There have been earthquakes and terrible sights and still the end has not come. So have we been lulled into a false sense of security or should we run around like Chicken Licken waiting for the sky to fall down upon our heads? Does Christ require a constant state of suspended animation or are we to get on and live the fullness of life which he told us he had come to bring?

I wonder whether we are missing the point if we think of it as an either/or situation.

One of the most significant and yet so often overlooked days of the Christian calendar is Holy Saturday - the day between Good Friday and Easter Day. It is a day of absence. Christ was with us, sharing our lives and then suddenly he was gone. And until the dawn of Easter Day he had not yet risen. Traditionally Holy Saturday is a day of solemnity. There is no celebration of Holy Communion. The offices of matins and evensong are pared down to their skeletal essentials. The bells are silent. We are somewhere between hell and heaven or heaven and hell and essentially that is where Christ is too. Holy Saturday is the day when Christ is said to harrow hell. When he goes down into the depths of hell and sanctifies it. In iconography he is depicted standing on the broken tombstones of our graves and is hauling up from the dead both Adam and Eve. And the broken tombstones are often arranged in a cross formation on which Christ steadies himself in order to drag them out, not by the hand, but by the wrist, as you would grab hold of a child in danger.

On Holy Saturday, whilst all appeared to be silent as the grave, in fact the first great work of the resurrection is already taking place. Death has been overcome, those who had lost their life have found it again in Christ’s redemption. It is the day which most clearly displays the extraordinary paradox of Christ’s death on the cross. In the midst of death there is yet life to be found.

Holy Saturday is the day in which both the crucifixion and the resurrection are held together as one.

In the same way that the kingdom of God is upon us and in the midst of us and yet still we continue to act as if it was something for which we need to prepare, Christ tells his followers that there will be no time for preparation. The Kingdom of God is here. We only see the blindingly obvious when the flash of lightning lights up our blinded sight. It is in the here and now of our busy lives, of eating and drinking, of getting married, going out shopping, tidying the attic, sleeping, waking and yes even our dying, it is here and now that the Kingdom of God is to be found. We live in that Holy Saturday of the Christian Calendar. Christ has died. Christ is risen. And Christ will come again. Time and eternity have been made one.

So what does this mean for our daily lives? How can we live in this new reality in which Christ has already died and has risen? What does the work of Holy Saturday have to teach us about living in the here and now?

Holy Saturday and the harrowing of hell show us what happens when we enter into the paradox of giving up our lives in order to save them. Of dying in order to live. Of entering into the fragility of our human lives in order to discover within them the divinity which Christ has won for us. And when we find that divinity it will be as bright as the flash of lightning which he spoke of.

The American theologian Carter Heyward writes about this sense of paradox in her book A Priest Forever.

She says, “At the centre of Christian faith is a curious paradox: if we are to save our lives, we must lose them. If we are to live as whole people, we must be broken. If we are to know peace, we must enter into conflict. If we are to be certain about anything, we must be able to celebrate the ambiguities within us and around us. If we are to ascend into heaven, we must descend into hell.

For years, I envisioned losing and finding one’s life as being not only distinctly separate experiences, but also as best accessible to me in chronological order: I must first live in doubt and conflict. I might later grow into faith and peace. Metaphorically, I must first be crucified; I might someday know the glory of the resurrection.

Gradually, I began to realize that life does not exist for me somewhere further down the pike. We do not become whole people, saved people, peaceful people the day we finish therapy, give our lives to Christ, get married, get ordained, or set ourselves in some new direction.

Again and again we are aware of our wholeness and our salvation when we are able to face and enter into the brokenness and confusion within us, between us in relationship, and around us in the world. In paradox the contradictions are concurrent. We do not lose life and ‘win’ it tomorrow, as a reward for having died. The losing and finding are a single process, a single reality. I live and I die simultaneously.”

Heyward realised that it is in honestly entering into the messy reality of our fragile lives that we find Christ there in the midst, already working his single purpose out, holding together life and death, heaven and hell, brokenness and wholeness, bringing about our redemption as the lightning lights up the darkened sky. Our redemption has already been won. We have shared Christ’s death in the waters of our baptism. We have already been buried with Christ. There is only one death. And that death has lost its dominion. Christ has already harrowed our own personal hell. And he has breathed new life into our dry bones. He has shared our humanity, and now we share in his divinity. We are both human and divine. We are one in Christ.

So the Kingdom of God is already upon us, among us and within us. The lightning flashes are not there to herald the kingdom. The lightning comes to show us the blindingly obvious which we so often miss. If we want to see heaven on earth we must enter more deeply into the messy ordinariness of our lives and find within them that Christ’s kingdom is already in their midst. And yes there are personal hells to be entered into. There are tombs to be broken open. There are still wars and rumours of wars. There is man’s inhumanity to man to be confronted and railed against. There is terrible injustice and outrageous suffering. And it is not to be ignored like an overgrown cemetery. We are to go like Christ, into both the ordinariness of our ordinary lives, as well as into the darkest places of this world’s pain, and find within them that Christ is harrowing the darkness and asking us to go with him.

The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For in fact the Kingdom of God is among you.

Salvator Mundi

2009-04-10T22:56:00.007+01:00

Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis

Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of His depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don't show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
He went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, not to be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not even then, in agony's grip)
was Incarnation's heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flash to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.

Denise Levertov

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

And it goes on...

2009-04-07T18:31:00.009+01:00

From Peter Abelard by Helen Waddell

From somewhere near them in the woods a cry rose, a thin cry, of such intolerable anguish that Abelard turned dizzy on his feet, and caught at the wall of the hut. 'It's a child's voice,' he said.

Thibault had gone outside. The cry came again. 'A rabbit,' said Thibault. He listened. 'It'll be a rabbit in a trap. Hugh told me he was putting them down.'

'O God,' Abelard muttered. 'Let it die quickly'.

But the cry came yet again. He plunged through a thicket of hornbeam. 'Watch out', said Thibault, thrusting past him. 'The trap might take the hand off you.'

The rabbit stopped shrieking when they stood over it, either from exhaustion, or in some last extremity of fear. Thibault held the teeth of the trap apart, and Abelard gathered up the little creature in his hands. It lay for a moment breathing quickly, then in some blind recognition of the kindness that had met it at the last, the small head thrust and nestled against his arm, and it died.

It was that last confiding thrust that broke Abelard's heart. He looked down at the little bedraggled body, his mouth shaking. 'Thibault,' he said, 'do you think there is a God at all? Whatever has come to me, I earned it. But what did this one do?

Thibault nodded.

'I know,' he said. 'Only I think God is in it too.'

Abelard looked up sharply.

'In it? Do you mean that it makes him suffer, the way it does us?'

Again Thibault nodded.

'Then why doesn't he stop it?'

'I don't know,' said Thibault. 'Unless it's like the prodigal son, I suppose the father could have kept him at home against his will. But what would have been the use? All this,' he stroked the limp body, 'is because of us. But all the time God suffers. More than we do.'

Abelard looked at him, perplexed. 'Thibault, do you mean Calvary?'

Thibault shook his head. 'That was only a piece of it - the piece we saw - in time. Like that.' He pointed to a fallen tree beside them, sawn through the middle. 'That dark ring there, it goes up and down the whole length of the tree, but you only see it where it is cut across. That is what Christ's life was like; the bit of God we saw. And we think God is like that, because Christ was like that, kind, and forgiving sins and healing people. We think God is like that for ever, because it happened once, with Christ. But not the pain. Not the agony at the last. We think that stopped.'

Abelard looked at him, the blunt nose and the wide mouth the honest troubled eyes. He could have knelt before him.

'Then Thibault,' he said slowly, 'you think that all this,' he looked down at the little quiet body in his arms, 'all the pain of the world, was Christ's cross?'

'God's cross,' said Thibault. 'And it goes on.'

Untie it and bring it

2009-04-05T22:26:00.004+01:00

"For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth's glory, believes that in each person is the Creator's image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As the holy defender of God's rights and of God's images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God's images. There is no dichotomy between humans and God's image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God's image, and the church takes that as its own cross, that martyrdom."

Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Ps 24.9-10

Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
This is the Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory.

Mea culpa...

2009-04-04T22:56:00.003+01:00

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

No really, I have. I have been really, really naughty. And it may surprise you to know that I am never naughty. I have always been an extremely well-behaved ostrich. But today I was naughty. And it was the most tremendous fun!

I suspect it's something to do with the giddiness which has come with the news that the new enclosure is willing to have me. And also I had a friend to stay who is naturally a very naughty sort. Anyway I had agreed to show him some of the hidden places of the enclosure and for some reason I started to try out the special key which I had been given when I arrived in every door we passed. And to our delight it opened an enormous number. Including one which led out onto the roof... So of course we just had to poke our head out and check out the view. And then it felt very important to tiptoe along the edge of the roof.

It was only when I turned round that I realised that some of the visitors were watching. One Ostrich with black cassock flying in the wind, and one naughty friend peering over parapets and taking pictures on his phone. Evidence.

I suggested that if I shouted 'Don't jump!' they might think I was attending to a pastoral emergency and successfully bringing a tortured soul back from the brink, and we scurried back to the Gormenghast warren to return to terra firma.

I like being naughty.

I may well be a little bit naughty again.

Mt 16.19

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Furry Manifesto signed today

2009-04-03T14:13:00.005+01:00

The furries have been locked in their own G2 summit for the last couple of days, and have finally released the following statement.

If it’s in my mouth, it’s mine!

If I like it, it’s mine!

If I can take it from you, it’s mine!

If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine!

If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way!

If I’m chewing something up, all the pieces are mine!

If it looks like mine, it’s mine!

If I saw it first, it’s mine!

If you are playing with something and put it down, it automatically becomes mine!

If it’s in the same house I’m in, it’s mine!

If it's broken, it's yours!

If it wasn't Lent I'd whisper All...ia

2009-04-01T19:45:00.005+01:00

It looks like a deal has been done. A very good meeting with the head keeper of the possible new enclosure yesterday has resulted in a job offer, letter to follow. The higher powers will require a letter from the trick cyclist confirming that I'm fit for purpose. I have broken the joyous news to the officials at this end and it's just possible that all shall be well. As the new enclosure is in the process of buying a new nest there'll be a slight delay in deciding on an estimated date of departure but it would seem that miracles do still happen.

I'm feeling very calm about it. There's no jumping up and down, just a deeply peaceful sense of God-in-this which is so wonderful.

I shall reveal what little can be revealed as and when its possible, but thank those who hammered the doors of heaven on my behalf.

Jer 29.11-12

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.

Dying and the Light - Nick Doughty

2009-03-30T01:22:00.007+01:00

When you're affluent, successful, have a great marriage and two beautiful children, a diagnosis of terminal cancer really ruins your day.

I was doing just fine, thank you very much, at least according to the standards we set for ourselves in our pumped-up, don't look back, 24/7 world. Until I was invited, almost exactly a year ago, to wake up and smell the coffin.

My life as a liberal, city-dwelling agnostic never had much room in it for the 'big stuff'. To me, the God question was like planning for a pension; somehow, you know it matters, but there never seems to be time to sort it out. I lived in the everyday delusion that surely blankets most of us - that my life would simply continue, stretching into the future. Death would come, eventually, but not until I'd had a long and happy life, raised my children, fulfilled my ambitions. Eventually is always such a long way off, isn't it?

After my diagnosis and a few weeks of stumbling through tears and rage and fear and confusion, I started to take walks in the city, anything to get away from the turmoil inside. One of these walks took me one Sunday, I still don't know why, towards St. Paul's cathedral. I went inside, my mood one of grim challenge. "OK, God," I said, "if you're real, if you mean anything, show me now. If you're there, now is the time. Show me."

Reconciling the irreconcilable

In our darkest moments we have nothing to hide behind. We’re exposed and vulnerable. But it’s precisely at times such as these when our defences are down, that there is always the possibility of a transforming encounter with the risen Christ. And this risen Christ doesn’t wait until we’ve got ourselves back together again. He doesn’t wait for us to have stopped crying and had time to make ourselves look presentable again. Christ meets us in the moments of our lives when we are most real. When we are not hiding behind pretences or fooling ourselves and each other that all is well and that we are just fine. The resurrection appearances remind each one of us that Christ enters into the reality of our lives, whatever our situation, and meets us where we are before he transforms us with his risen life.

When we begin to understand this then we also begin to understand that we are called to do the same. We too are called to take our part in the Godly task of coming alongside, and then transforming. Just as God comes alongside us in the Incarnation, born as one of us, in order to transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of his grace. Just as Christ appeared to Thomas in the grief and despair of his life, and transformed his doubts into the powerful proclamation of Christ as his Lord and his God.

So we too are called to work in just the same way in the world in which we are living. To come alongside it, to be in the messiness of sharing our lives with others, and to watch for signs of God’s transforming love in our lives and the lives of those around us.

We are called to be in the messiness of the world where we have been placed. We are called to stand alongside those who mourn as well as those who rejoice. And most especially we are called to watch for signs of God’s transforming presence in those situations. When we see a dying woman unable to speak, who tears at our hearts with the injustice of her death. When we pray for those who are facing the unbearable agony of the loss of a loved one, and in doing so share something of that pain with them. Then we too are sharing in God’s transforming work in and amongst his people.

In church Sunday by Sunday to see the priest take this mess of our lives, in the bread and the wine we offer which symbolise our very selves laid on the altar, and we see them transformed into the body and blood of Christ, and then broken open and shared with everyone else. As St Augustine said, “We see the mystery of ourselves laid upon the altar.” “Become what you are, be what you receive.” We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.

And it is Christ’s broken body which we meet in the Eucharist. Just as the disciples met him in the locked room of their grief and fear. Just as Thomas met him as he appeared before him, his wounds still raw and visible, just like the grief which Thomas himself was experiencing. Just as Christ’s body was broken for us on the cross and broken again each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we find our transformed unity in the broken body we share. Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.

As we receive the broken fragment of the consecrated bread into our hands, we too are offered a transformation; a change from being the broken, discordant and fragmentary people that we are, into being renewed and whole, members of one single body, ready to act as one. And having been transformed we should be eager to go out into the world, sent out, reshaped out of a lot of broken and fragmentary individuals into a united body, ready for action. Like his first disciples sent out in the power of the Spirit, ready to be Christ’s body in the world outside. We too are sent out to live out what we have become, people transformed by the sacrificial love of God in Christ. Christ’s disciples out in the world. Here is the moment of responsibility. To be what we have become, Christ’s body here on earth.

The Church celebrates the Eucharist to make manifest our shared task of seeing and celebrating the transforming works of God in the midst of his people. God sends his disciples out into the world to preach and teach about his Gospel of transforming love, so that we might understand that transforming love in our lives and show forth its power to the world.

Michael Mayne
"Only the passion and death of Jesus can reconcile those two apparently irreconcilable truths: that God is in love with us, and that at some point in our lives we all experience suffering, pain and dereliction."

The dark angel of Gethsemane

2009-03-29T20:15:00.007+01:00

Most of the major events in my ministry have had their birth in Passiontide and Holy Week. I wonder if this will be another which turns my world upside down...

Early on in my journey I had the privilege of attending a Holy Week retreat led by Jim Cotter, who in later life fully entered the garden of Gethsemane in the most terrible breakdown.

I still turn to his Night Prayer when in my darkest times. I can't recommend it highly enough for the steadying of the midnight hour.

But this evening, it is his Dark Angel who holds my hand and steadies me for the days ahead.

For Angels and Archangels and all the heavenly host - I give thanks.

Jim Cotter

Drink deep of the chalice of grief and sorrow,

held out to you by your dark angel of Gethsemane:

the angel is not your enemy,

the drink, though sharp, is nourishing,

by which you may come to a deeper peace

than if you pass it by,

a ‘health of opened heart’ …

From a slow accepting of our wounds,

life within us begins to move outward,

bitterness waning, compassion growing …

True prayer is the source, the prayer that comes not from the mouth,

but as from the lips of wounds …

Hidden in that prayer is both the crucified Christ and our fellow-sufferers,

those whom, in intercession and compassion,

we need in order to be ourselves.

There is no higher aim than to reclaim another,

blinded by life’s pain, to help him see again.

Seek love in the pity of another’s woe,

In the gentle relief of another’s care,

In the darkness of night and the winter’s snow,

In the naked and the outcast - seek love there.

Ps 91.11

For he will command his angels concerning you.

Digging a little deeper...

2009-03-26T21:01:00.004Z

I survived the ordeal by panel, trying hard to be truthful and translating for those who spoke a different language. I journeyed home with my heart in my mouth to wait for the phone call. Its lateness had already warned me that things were not going to be straightforward.

It was the final question that did it.

"Could you tell us about your illness?"

I tried. I spoke of it. They looked horrified.

And it seems that their discussions had been prolonged.

So, the Head Keeper rang, audibly squirming with discomfort, and asked if I might possibly be willing to talk with him again. Just the two of us. To help him to understand. And like the mountain coming to Muhammad he would be happy to come to me.

Tuesday. Noon.

There could only have been one answer to that.

So it's not over yet. They want another round. I suspect it's the only thing the panel would accept. After all, I admitted it. And they had the responsibility of making a good appointment.

Even if they'd got over the problem of my black feathers against all the colours of the rainbow they like to sport, there was still the madness to be considered...

They just need to dig a little deeper...

Just now, I'm utterly exhausted. I have a couple of days off, and plan to spend most of them under the duvet. I haven't come away unscathed, and there's the next round yet to come. For which I shall need my every wit about me. So for now, if I can possibly shut down my brain, I need to find the furries and say goodnight.

For those who prayed - thank you. For those who could continue - thank you.

Da 2.22

He reveals deep and hidden things.

Little Gidding

2009-03-24T21:11:00.004Z

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot -- "Little Gidding"

(the last of his Four Quartets)

The American theologian Carter Heyward in her book A Priest Forever says,

“At the centre of Christian faith is a curious paradox: if we are to save our lives, we must lose them. If we are to live as whole people, we must be broken. If we are to know peace, we must enter into conflict. If we are to be certain about anything, we must be able to celebrate the ambiguities within us and around us. If we are to ascend into heaven, we must descend into hell.

The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say Here it is or There it is! For in fact the Kingdom of God is among us.

Red and yellow and pink and blue....

2009-03-22T23:46:00.006Z

I just don't know.
I really don't know.
The pros are clear.
But so are the cons.

I could get over my prejudice about blue shirts.
I know I could.
Though maybe not the bright green ones, let's be honest.

But projector screens and extemporary prayers which went on for as long as the sermon?
Now really.

And yet I do like them all very much.
And there's clearly a job to be done.
But perhaps not by me.
I just don't know.

The choir were fab.
Therefore the music helps hugely.
But, but, but, but...

Oh hell's teeth, I don't know.
I'll just have to hope they make my mind up for me at the interview.
At least I shan't feel too bad if they say no.
Not quite sure what I would do if they said yes though...

Get over myself I suppose.

Ps 4.1

Answer me when I call, O God.

Going in disguise...

2009-03-20T11:44:00.004Z

I've decided to return to the possible new enclosure wearing a cunning disguise and loitering at the back during the main show. Hopefully this will help me decide on whether to give it my all at the interview. I have a strangely calm feeling about it, whichever way it goes, which I am putting down to the copious amount of prayers being offered on my behalf - for which I am exceedingly grateful. I shall have to set off before dawn has yawned but I think it's the right thing to do, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I must spend a little time deciding on the best way to disguise a lone ostrich...

Col 3.14

Above all, clothe yourselves with love.

You put your right leg in...

2009-03-18T19:11:00.003Z

I had a very enjoyable outing to view the possible new enclosure but find myself in something of a dilemma. I warmed to the other animals, but not the enclosure. It was undeniably beautiful but left me absolutely cold. I've been trying to work out what that was about so far without success. I've reminded myself of previous enclosures which have been less than attractive on first inspection but have been hugely enjoyable due to the other animals. And it's certainly possible that the last few years in a particularly beautiful enclosure may have had their affect on me. But I'm still uncertain. Of course all of this may be entirely academic if I don't survive the interview next week but I just don't know where I am with it.

I think love was there, and I think I could love, but is this the place?

Nails were not enough to hold God-and-man nailed and fastened to the cross, had not love held him there.

Catherine of Sienna

Once more with feeling...

2009-03-16T15:10:00.005Z

Off tomorrow to view possible new enclosure. And most importantly to see if their animals think they could cope with me. Feeling guardedly optimistic, but watch this space...

Made a complete fool of myself yesterday and had to do a runner from the main gig. Tried my utmost to keep the tears at bay but in the end they refused to be contained and I fled, feathers akimbo and dignity destroyed. Composure was resumed before the next round of public exposure and I regained my sense of perspective, if not my confidence. Just hope I don't repeat the debacle tomorrow. Will get out my best feathers and try to think of a way of explaining my recent bouts of madness in a way which is honest but doesn't scare them witless. Honestly, you'd think it was catching...

The Uncertainty Principle

Faith is not
to know.
It is the iridescent scrim
of a pickerel
fin.
It weighs heavily
and it weighs nothing
slipping through your fingers
like froth on a mountain stream.

It is jealous of the crocus
anchored to the earth
and yearns for proof
reliable as tides
careening between continents.

It doubles back and plants itself
like a tree
gazing at galaxies.
It meditates on infinity
and takes pleasure in measuring.
...

It leaves no trace
which is to say cannot be measured
the way loss enters a body

Tom's wife
is still
in the casket.
Her stone hands will never again
stir the soup
or brush back hair
to better kiss a child's forehead
and her laugh, so light, will never ever
fulfill
every cell in his body
infused with pain so exquisite
it is crushing him under its weight.
And yet
it weighs nothing.

II

I have been to Lourdes.
I have counted crutches
hanging onto the grotto walls
I have dipped my fingers in the spring
pouring from the living stones.
I have read the book of miracles
and doubted.

We are all pilgrims
grasping each other by the hand
locked in each others' eyes
and in "every language known on earth"
we long for the harmonies
over and over
and 350 miles over the earth
the Explorer satellite hears
the cosmic whisper

the smoldering ash
of the birth of time.

Marion I. Goldstein

Is 46.8-11

Remember this and consider,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, 'My purpose shall stand,
and I will fulfil my intention',
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man for my purpose from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have planned, and I will do it.

Rejected

2009-03-13T15:16:00.004Z

Another reject letter. Very hard not to feel angry and bitter. It's all very Lenten of course. But not even worth shortlisting, well that hurts. I suppose it's being told that we don't even want to give you a chance to prove that you're OK now. We've heard that you weren't, and that's good enough for us. We don't employ liabilities in this diocese. Your recent history is enough. Of course none of them admit the reasons for the rejection. They're not that stupid. After all, it's against the law to reject someone on the grounds of a mental health problem if they would otherwise have been accepted for interview.

This keeps going round and round my head. I understand that the literal translation of the German word for this is 'earworm'.