Dishes and paradoxes

I heard a rumour the other day. Dangerous things rumours, particularly when - like this one - they're about yourself. But hey - I heard it and had to respond.

This time I heard someone had expressed the view that I don't set a good example when it comes to practical serving - like washing the dishes. After the initial fleshly reactions (why does my flesh always move faster than my spirit?) of hurt feeling and wounded pride, I realized two things.

First, it was a fair cop. I'm not to be found at the sink nearly as much as many others I live with in community. Secondly, there are reasons why that is the case and they're not all bad. (I promise this is not simply going to be an extended self-justification - I've got my pouting over now and I stand by point one, it was a fair cop and I resolved to be humble and get to that sink more.)

Yet, fairly often, I'm not at the sink because other responsibilities prevent me from getting there - anything from putting children to bed to preparing a meeting.

As I thought about this I found my mind ping-ponging between the fencing foils of a paradox. Thrust: you need to do the washing up more! Parry: no-one else can put my children to bed! Thrust: a leader must set an example! Parry: a leader cannot live for what others think! Thrust: imagine if everyone came up with their excuses and left the dishes to rot! Parry: the Body of Christ means we all have our different contributions... And so on and on.

Paradox is defined by Dictionary.com as something "that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a possible truth".

The Christian life is full of paradox. Perhaps this isn't surprising when you consider some of the Church's essential beliefs. (Is Jesus God or man? Er... yup. Is salvation predestined or freely chosen? Er... yup again. And so on.)

But - as the washing up rumour has already given away - right now I'm thinking not so much of those lofty theological paradoxes which have kept the sharpest minds of the Church whirring for centuries. I'm thinking of some of the more down-to-earth, daily seeming contradictions we have to negotiate as we live as Christians - and, in particular as Christian leaders.

For example - I've been learning over the past few months, sometimes painfully, that it doesn't do to be too concerned about what people think of you. People-pleasing is a particular danger to those involved in pastoral work whose daily work does, in one sense, revolve around being sensitive to how others are doing and feeling, and working hard to care for them. But it can all become tyrannical if I start to live with what people of think as my only guiding star. So I've been learning not to care too much about what others think.

But immediately danger looms. It's only a few short steps from thin-skinned over-sensitivity ('Oh help, I think I've upset you') to bloody-minded insensitivity ('Don't give a monkeys how I make you feel'). Somehow, I have to live the paradox: care about the effect I have on others - but not too much.

Live for the 'audience of One', as someone once put it - while acknowledging that that One is watching carefully how much I love and serve others.

It can feel like like walking a tightrope. As a good friend of mine often puts it, much of life comes down to a fine balance.

Here's another paradox, somewhat related to the first. For a leader it is particularly important to follow the apostle Paul's instruction "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think". Too much of the "I'm the leader" mentality is a highway straight to pride.

But what about the opposite? "I'm just the same as everyone else and what I do doesn't matter; no need to set any example, no need to embody anything which anyone may find it useful to imitate." Well, clearly, that would be pretty rubbish leadership.

So: I'm just the same as anybody else - but people see me as a leader and rightly so: my example matters. Paradox.

Christian leaders: tender-hearted and thick-skinned; humble and confident; easily entreated and not easily swayed. Like Jesus, full of grace - and truth.

So this is what I've resolved: I'm not going to let everyone tell me to wash the dishes! And I will humbly let anyone tell me to wash the dishes.

I've got to live in the paradox.

"The center of the world"

One of the celibates I live with in our community has long found Henri Nouwen's writings illuminating. She lent me 'The Genesee Diary' recently, Nouwen's account of seven months he lived 'as a monk' in the Abbey of Genesee in upstate New York. Along with 'The Wounded Healer' (see my last post), I've been finding this book pretty nourishing.

Here's a taste. Nouwen's starting point for thought is a statement by John Eudes, the abbot - 'The monastery is the center of the world':

The monastery is not just a place to keep the world out but a place where God can dwell. The [worship], the silence, the rhythm of the day, the week, and the year, and the whole monastic life-style with the harmony of prayer, spiritual reading, and manual labor, are meant to create space for God. The ideal of the monk is to live in the presence of God, to pray, read, work, eat, and sleep in the company of his divine Lord...
...In so far as the monastery is the place where the presence of God in the world is most explicitly manifiest and brought to consciousness, it is indeed the center of the world. This can be said in humility and purity of heart because the monk, more than anyone else, realizes that God only dwells where man steps back to give him room.

I found these words arresting. The place of God's presence is the center, not the periphery; prayer is engagement, not disassociation; Christian community is at the heart of the human community, even while it is different, even set apart, from it.

You may have heard the quip, "Christians are called to be 'in the world but not of the world', but are far better at being 'of the world and not in the world'!" Yet when a Christian community is truly a place of prayer, of faith, of brotherhood, and of worship - when God is really present there - then, precisely because it is different, it is acutely and vitally relevant and central to the surrounding world.

There is a danger in talk of monasteries and so on (particularly for an Anglo-Saxon-Protestantish type like me): 'monastery' can be a romantic notion, attractive in its 'otherness', rather than a lived-out reality. But when Nouwen writes of 'the monastery' he is not referring to the Tolkeinesque (elegant arches, grey habits, or haunting plainsong); he is referring to God, the reality of God living among people as they share all things and worship with their whole life.

And this is - and must be - precisely what any Christian community pursues, not least one like mine where we brothers and sisters live together and share all things in common, and eat, work and live together day by day.

For the meeting place with God is the Body of Christ, not some building (however beautiful) or some place of nature's majesty (however evocative). As Jesus put it, we worship neither in a temple or on a mountain, but in spirit and truth.

It's made real in the rhythm of Christian community: meals, prayers, conversations, silences, meetings, songs, boisterous times, quiet times... messy tables, rumpled furniture, upturned mugs on draining boards (and dried up mugs on the rack!)

Oh God - let us be a community in which You can dwell in all that we are: Your gathered people, Your dwelling place!

The center of the world.

Wounded healer

Over the past few weeks I've been engaged in a humbling and painful dance with what some would call burn-out, others may call break-down. (Or maybe God just sent a worm to eat the plant I was sheltering under.)

I say a dance, but it's not very elegant; more like a drunken stagger. But - very, very strangely - there's a beauty in it, too. How to explain...

Maybe this would help. Recently a friend sent me a description of a vision he'd had while he was praying. He saw, he said

A man holding up a spear asked God, standing next to him where he should aim. He wanted to make the maximum impact on the world around him. God took the spear out of his hands and pierced the man's own hands with it. Wounded hands aren't able to slap faces, or even hold much. Wounded hands are tender. With pierced hands the man was much more able to show compassion.

This followed something quiet, but moving, that had happened to me a couple of days earlier. Arriving at my brother- and sister-in law's house (another Jesus Army community house) for dinner, I unexpectedly 'heard God' as I climbed the steps to their front door. (One of those 'thoughts I didn't think' you come to recognize as a Christian).

I'm making you a wounded healer.

'Strange' I thought, 'Isn't there a book called that..?' - and that was all I thought, at the time. But later that night I glanced at my brother-in-law's bookshelf (in a room I rarely visit) and there was the book - The Wounded Healer (by Henri Nouwen). So I'm now reading it - and finding it's the kind of book that reads me as much as I read it.

God moves in mysterious ways, as the old hymn puts it. Somewhere, even in painful and seemingly meaningless times, He is working out something of beauty in our lives.

I once heard this described as a wondrous tapestry: just a tangled mess of threads from one side - but when turned round, when finally revealed in its full glory - perfectly beautiful.

The Cross is the ultimate example of this. 'Why have you forsaken me?' cried the bloodied wretched mess of a man nailed to it. And I think he cried it in genuine, agonized despair. But there was a wonderful 'why'. For the joy set before Christ. A Father obeyed. A bride won. A world saved.

I'm not always quite so serene about it. I've had my own very small brushes with the despair of the word 'why' thrown at a brass heaven. Yet, behind it all there is hope. He is hope.

He's making me a wounded healer - and a little more like the Wounded Healer himself.

Viruses, viral, and va va voom

On August 5, 6 & 7, the Jesus Army are hosting their annual youth event, RAW (Real & Wild), at Cofton Park, Birmingham.

As part of promoting the event and motivating all Jesus Army youth types to invite all their mates, we've started releasing a series of home-spun promo videos. Have a look at some of them here.

We've been calling them RAW virals, 'viral' being one of those neologisms that the web has spawned in recent years. Wikipedia defines viral marketing like this:

marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

Well, thanks Wiki. And there was me thinking viruses were nasty semi-living thingums that give you colds - or worse. (Having had a spate of people in our Christian community going down with a nasty chest virus, I find it hard to feel positive about anything viral.)

But, putting it simply, something is viral if it spreads. So we want these little vids to spread about from friend to friend - because we want as many people to get together at RAW as possible.

Because RAW's going to be a powerful event. It's about Jesus. It is, as the name suggests, a raw call to radical Jesus following.

So spread it. Get all your mates and get there.

realandwild.com

Everything I do... makes me laugh out loud

Saw this on a friend's Facebook wall and it made me chuckle.

A couple asked for their wedding cake to be inscribed with 1 John 4:18 which reads: 'There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.' Unfortunately the bakery misread the instruction, and presented a cake with the words from John 4:18: 'For you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband.'

Wonder if it's true? It reminds me of a couple in the 90s, at the time of the Kevin Costner Robin Hood film (with its famous Bryan Adams theme song, 'Everything I do I do it for you'). They asked for 'the Robin Hood theme' to be played as the bride walked down the aisle.

The bride approached, the church hushed - and suddenly the gaudy sounds of 'Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen' blared out.

Does it say something very damning about my personality that I find that so very, very funny?

Guilt? Leave it out!

Someone said to me recently, 'Isn't religion just driven by guilt?'

It got me thinking (not for the first time) about the whole topic of guilt - and in particular how, as Christians, we communicate our faith.

I think evangelicals generally are far too inclined to use guilt as the starting point for their message. (I call this the 'bad news first, good news good' approach.) It's driven by the central place evangelical theology gives to penal substitution ('Jesus died to take the punishment for our sins'). For many evangelicals this simply is the gospel.

It's not that there isn't truth here; but it's not the whole picture. A lot more happened at the cross. Jesus overcame violence with love. God demonstrated His enormous will to forgive. Satanic and systemic evil was unmasked, exhausted and undone. The great story of God and His people came to its climax and turning point. (And don't forget the resurrection!)

But there's another thing about guilt - the distinction between guilt as an article of theology (i.e. 'we all stand guilty before a holy God') and guilt as a feeling.

Which brings us to what is perhaps the biggest problem with the old school evangelical 'guilt first' approach: our society just simply doesn't feel guilty anymore. (Possibly because of the retreat of religion in public consciousness - how's that for chicken and egg?) Some evangelicals just shout louder about guilt - witness the hysteria-tinged outcries from the Christian right recently.

But I think there's a better way. Start with a call to belong. Emphasise church as friends, as brotherhood and shared lives. Make it open to all. Proclaim God's crazy grace. And live it out, joyfully, unpredictably: no prejudice, church for all. Guilt? - Leave it out!

As people come and belong, they will discover, bit by bit, the wildly loving God who is behind it all (and through and within and over and under it all). In time - and I say it with care - the right kind of guilt will come: the desire to be deeply reconciled with God, to know Him, to live clean.

That's when baptism comes into its own. A bath and a door into the family - all in one.

'Twill be grace that teaches our hearts to fear, and grace our fears relieves.

But let's not start with a browbeating. People find it hard enough to believe in a man raised from death who also happens to be God without us having to place in their way something even more difficult to believe: their own guilt.

No racism please, we're British

Some old friends who live in Leeds put up a notice by their front door letterbox. This is what it said:

Please put racist leaflets straight in the green bin. We welcome refugees. Put God’s world before the ‘rights’ of the British. If you’d like to discuss it, please knock on the side door. Thanks. The Marlows.

I thought this was so excellent I wanted to pass it on.

Body builders

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians he called them something awesome: “You are the body of Christ”. This group of not-very-perfect people in big, bad Corinth expressed Christ all on their own – fully.

But maybe you want to correct Paul: “Hang on there, Mr Apostle: they are part of the body of Christ – don’t forget those Christians up in Thessalonica or over the bay in Ephesus? Not to mention further afield?”

Most Christians know “the body of Christ” means the church – but they get twitchy about any one church being “the body of Christ”. “Part of the body” of the body seems more correct, not so OTT – safer.

Yet the body of Christ is most powerfully real where people are joined together in day-to-day life. “I’m a part of the whole body of Christ across the world” may be true enough (and wonderful in its way), but if you don’t actually belong to specific people it’s dangerously airy-fairy.

The more you belong to the brothers and sisters you’re actually with, the more you belong to the body of Christ. The whole body was at Corinth. The whole body was at Thessalonica. And Ephesus. The whole body is a reality in any church where there is lasting commitment to God and to each other. God has not scattered limbs and organs across the world. Whenever even two or three gather – commit to each other, lay down their lives – Christ is there [Matt.18:20].
Then – and only then – a big bogeyman is given the death sentence: independence .

Independence – so prized by the world’s spirit! – is the big enemy of “body of Christ” reality.
And independence often wears a devout mask: “I’ll go where the Lord calls me!” (Translated: “I’ll go where I like and never limit my options.”) In the New Testament, people weren’t “called” – if by “called” you mean getting a personal “phone call from God”. Even Paul, who certainly was “called to be an apostle”, only set off apostling when God spoke to his church, in Antioch [Acts 13:1-3].

Relationships in this kind of body go very deep. “We are members of one another”; “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice” [Rom.12:5, 1Cor.12:26]

But we won’t get it on the cheap. How about total loyalty to the body you belong to? Never leave unless you’re commissioned and sent.

Be the body of Christ: deal the death-blow to your independence.

Inspiration and perspiration

From time to time I get sent reports about Jesus Army evangelism efforts from round the nation. (I edit our magazine – helps to keep my ear to the ground.) Recently I was sent one that was a little different to the norm:

Six people went to evangelise in the city centre. It was cold and clashed with a youth event elsewhere, hence the small team. Generally a pants evening. Bless you.

I loved this report enough to reproduce it here. Not only does the grim “bless you” at the end make me smile, but this is a disarmingly honest report. Because the fact is that for all our characteristically Jesus Army gung-ho positivity, sometimes the work of building the church can be cold, hard slog.

Take another, different, example: we’ve just held our annual Easter weekend “Alive Festival”. After it was over someone asked me how I got on. I thought for a moment and then replied, “80% perspiration, 20% inspiration.”

It wasn’t that it wasn’t an excellent time; it was – inspiring talks from some of the Jesus Army’s main leaders; powerful encounters in times of prayer; energetic singing and worship. But I found it hard work, too (as did my good lady wife). Small children to manage; food to be transported, dished out, cleared up; muddy buggy wheels, shoes, toddlers; driving, driving, more driving... There were times when aching limbs and numbed brains congealed into cold questions like “Is it really worth the effort?”

And of course, the answer is yes. It is well worth the effort. But it is also – effort.

At the end of what is possibly the greatest theological work ever penned, Paul wrote these apparently rather mundane words:

Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you... Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ... Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord... Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you... (from Romans 16)

Can you spot the theme?

It’s hard work being and building the church.

But it’s worth every drop of sweat.

Tough love, but love all the same

Just wrote a bible study on 'Paul's tough love' - chapter five in Paul's letter of love to the Corinthians...

For those who like a bit of Bible, here it is...

1Corinthians is Paul’s letter of love and the epistle reaches its climactic point in Paul’s poetic depiction of love [ch.13]. However, though love is 'patient and kind' [13:4], it is not soft and wishy-washy. In fact, love 'does not delight in evil' [13:6] – as Paul demonstrates in his firm opposition to immorality in this chapter. He is appalled by the Corinthians’ easy acceptance of a man taking his stepmother as a sexual partner [v.1, see Deut.27:20]. He commands the Corinthians to exclude this man from church fellowship before sin spreads to corrupt the church further [v.2-8,11].

Yet we ought to note certain things about this ‘tough love’. First, it has as its aim the restoration of the sinning brother; it is not just punishment for its own sake [v.5, see 2Cor.2:7]. Second, such judgements are within the church to preserve her purity; Christians shouldn’t be judgemental or standoffish to those outside the church [v.9-10]. Thirdly, it is not just sexual immorality that corrupts; Paul list other impurities like money-love [v.11]. Today, Christians can be very shrill about sexual ethics – but when was the last time anyone was expelled from the church for being too rich?

JA pride

This got me thinking...

I found seven occasions where the word 'pride' was used in the New Testament - and they were mostly positive.

Eight references to 'proud' were all bad.

Interesting. It would appear, from the New Testament, that to 'take pride' in something or someone is generally good - certainly it was good enough for the apostle Paul - whereas to be 'proud' is not good.

So I'll 'take pride' in my wonderful church, and the men and women I love, and my wife and children, and even my gifts without fear, safe from the humility police.

But I'll avoid getting proud!

The calm and the crazed?

Philip Pullman’s got Christians’ goat again. Or rather, they see him as a goat – destined for an eternal roasting, unlike good sheep like them. Pullman’s about to publish a book called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – and Christians have been writing him letters of denunciation and damnation.

But what bothers me about this little news vignette, is not Pullman’s book. (From what I can gather, it will be a pretty unoriginal regurgitation of the old ‘Jesus-was-nice-but-Paul-made-him-into-a-beastie’ myth). No, what bothers me is the way, yet again, it presents a watching world with a dispute between the calm, rational atheist and those hysterical, crazed and judgemental Christians.

Which bothers me on two counts. Firstly because – and you’d expect me to say this – it is simply not true that most Christians are shrill, paranoid hellfire merchants, looking to hurl anathemas around. More on this in a bit. But the second reason I get twitchy about this is that, in fact, I don’t think Pullman is calm and rational. I think he’s got just as much of a bee in his bonnet as the wild-eyed religious zealots he pillories.

I read Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy some years ago. I enjoyed volume one. Sure, it was dark, a bit creepy, but a little daemon-possession makes for a good yarn. Volume two was, if anything, better still. (I love the idea of a ‘subtle knife’ that can cut its way between worlds.) But by volume three something else was happening. The anti-god, anti-church theme, which had been bubbling along under the surface, came to the boil. (‘God’ is a senile old bully, ‘church’ an institution of repression and abuse.) In fact, Pullman’s agenda boiled over, messily – and spoilt the story. Novel became diatribe. God is awful, wicked, nasty, an ogre, the church his twisted mechanism of control. Now go out and tell others: religion is evil. Evil, I tell you!

Again, I know I’m open to the jibe ‘of course you wouldn’t like that – you’re a Christian!’ But that really isn’t the point. (Apart from anything else, my God is nothing even remotely like Pullman’s creation; my God sacrifices himself, in love, for the world.) It’s just that Pullman spoiled his own story because it became silly – hysterical, crazed and judgemental, in fact, like the religious individuals who are now giving Pullman advance notice of his damnation.

Pullman is an a-religious zealot (along with his church’s high-priests Messrs Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris). But zealotry is zealotry.

Philip Pullman is ‘unperturbed’, report the media; the disapproving letters are ‘water off a duck's back’; he’s not bothered by these silly Christians. Well, quite. So he shouldn’t be – because the letters are, evidently, silly. ‘The letter writers essentially say that I am a wicked man, who deserves to be punished in hell’ smiles reasonable, persecuted Pullman. ‘Luckily it's not in their power to do anything like sending me there.’ (Chuckle, chuckle, stupid religious loonies.)

But look a little closer at what Pullman is saying. Pullman essentially says that Christians are wicked men who deserve to be punished. And he’ll bang on about it. He’ll even spoil his own novels for it.

Meanwhile, back to my first reason for discomfort – most Christians aren’t judgemental loonies. In fact, far, far, far from it.

Last night I sat down for the evening with our local church leadership team. We spent a couple of hours talking about how we could best serve those we pastor in the church. How we could best meet their needs. We prayed about it. There was love and concern in the air. There was gritty resolve to live given; to make church a place of security and strength for many – including many who are hurting and in need. That’s church – and that’s the true Christ.

And he’s no scoundrel, Philip.

To God or not to God

Latest poem from my friend, Stuart, written after a conversation we had the other night about whether 'God' is a noun or a verb (as you do...)

God the noun
thing unwrought
the unthinkable thought
the unbelievable something
the what
the is
the art
the can’t be
how on earth
pure being
just being
was to be
is that was
and will be
wholly noun

God the verb
is to do
was that does
will done
naked action
unclothed power
making causing essence
moving being breathing
wholly verb

God the undefined
this print
this page
your hands and eyes
your mind
thou and thee entwined
noun indeed
verb instead
you read

Muse

My friend wrote a poem this morning. I'm in it. So I thought I'd share it here. He describes it as being 'meant to say something about grace renewing our youth, or something like that, with touches of redemption by the blood, the miraculous - and so on'.

All I know is that it gave me some strength at a time in my life when I've been feeling far from strong. Words have power, and these words, from a friend in need - helped.

Shaving before work, I thought of you,
how mourning stings eyes red and weary,
how years roll by, like tears, that cloud our sight.

A droplet of light cut from the sky
flashed behind me; fell from the sun
to quicken my razor to dazzling life.

A splash of heaven played on the sooty foam,
the scummy sink, the drizzle of scraped blood -
became jam on cream - and childhood remembered, home,
a stream of joy chuckling from the heart, me and you
transformed by glory reflected - youthful, renewed.

The next person

A great friend of mine wrote a piece on community living called 'The next person' and another great friend posted it on his blog - so I couldn't resist linking to it here.

Worth a read if you live in community, or if you care about love, or if you're a human being. If none of those apply, give it a miss.

http://piersdy.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/the-next-person/

Atheist posters promote Christian happiness (by mistake)

I liked this article so thought I'd reproduce it here:

It seems God has had the last laugh in regard to the latest advert by the British Humanist Association (BHA). The two children used in the poster to campaign against religious labelling of kids are from a Christian family.

The smiling boy and girl in the billboard campaign – Ollie and Charlotte – have evangelical parents. Their father, Brad Mason, sells his photos to stock libraries, one of which sold the images on to the BHA. Brad says: ‘It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free… I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.’

Sources: The Christian Institute (23/11); The Telegraph (21/11); The Times (21/11)

Shepherds, stars, and angels

A poem by my friend, Loz...

The coming of the stars

For Ken Jolley

The night the stars descended, we were hunched as usual,
dozing in tattered bundles; heads down,
oblivious to the aching air. Only one was watchful.

When he cried out, a wolf scattered my fitful dreams.

I started, came to; beheld my staring mates, stark with wonder,
Arcing up, like young cedars struck by lightning
wedded to the sky by blue white flame, transmitting unearthly energy to the mud.
The sparking multiplied, and a roar like a great song underground
intensifying in eye- watering, naked power. I swore it were the last hour.

You ask how it was that they heard the voices clearer than I?
I’ve often wondered why, but am none the wiser. I was the junior,
always simpler, smaller, quieter than my friends. But even then I had my uses:
sleeping in the gateway, seeking the lost ones, fetching sandwiches.

It wasn’t how they picture it, you know: us all starry eyed,
united, trooping down the bright hillside hand in hand,
like kids following a painted sign to wonderland.
That meeting was fear itself. The others wept, transfixed.
My legs were wet and shaking as I crept between a cleft rock,
jammed my fingers in my ears and prayed and sobbed.

Later, when I reappeared, the stars were gone. My mates
returned and mocked me for hiding, gave me a ribbing, said
I’d missed a treat; “time of their lives” they laughed, exuberant, fiery eyed.
They were changed men. But were they mad? I didn’t know what to believe.
As my dear mum used to say; “tidings that come in a flash are usually bad”.

But now I understand, feel the same thrill they had. I know why
they went to tell the world what they’d seen, share the tale
with one and all. Me; I stayed within sight of the sheepfold wall.

People still seek me out to hear my piece.
I say what I know; that now I sing my flock a peaceful song,
that fear bids farewell as new love is born, how joy
can be found in the lowliest place of all; how happy
is the shepherd when the least among his sheep comes home.

The Lord is my shepherd, I am depressed

I love the honesty of the psalms. Here's a bible study I wrote for our church today, on Psalm 102.

'A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint', this psalm expresses the agony of someone experiencing what we would today call depression. Every day seems empty; his sorrow feels physically painful [v.3]; his heart loses all vigour [v.4]; he forgets to eat and loses weight [v.4-5]; in sleepless nights he feels horribly alone, only able to think about those who are against him [v.7-8]; even pleasures loose their flavour [v.9]; he feels abandoned by God [v.10]: life is pointless [v.11].

What hope can there possibly be in such sorrow? In the second half of this psalm, this broken-hearted man lifts his sights towards God and His great purposes for 'Zion', His people [v.12-28]. He takes in the big picture of God’s purposes, which cannot fail. Not that this is some kind of 'quick fix' for his distress [see v.23-24]. But it reaches for comfort in the truth that God's plan for Zion includes the ultimate good for each of her members. Even their distress is part of God's larger scheme: their faithful endurance is not, in fact, meaningless.

Godly people in the Bible got depressed. Even Paul, who wrote 'Rejoice in the Lord always' [Phil.4:4] also wrote 'We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself' [2Cor.1:8]. Christian joy is not a denial of life’s very real pains, but a recognition that God’s overall plans for His people will prevail, that His love is eternal, and that, in the end, as one medieval saint wrote:

All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Obama on peace

"The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached - their fundamental faith in human progress - that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey. For if we lose that faith - if we dismiss it as silly or naive; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace - then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass..."

- Barack Obama

Spectre of hector

Sometimes on this blog I opine. I did it recently about Christmas and got a range of responses, the most hilarious of which was a spammer promoting Christmas hampers. I did it a while back on a book, The Shack, and again got a range of responses.

Most of the responses I quite enjoy - both hurrahs from supporters and shaddups from opponents (many of whom are friends anyway). All in the spirit of healthy debate.

But - confession time - there is one riposte that does bother me a little.

It is the accusation of being a killjoy. Of course, it came up in the Christmas post (that is, my blog entry - no reference to cards depicting softly glowing feeding-troughs). "You have managed to take the fun out of Christmas faster than the Queen doing her annual speech naked" mourned one commenter. And some felt I should lighten up abut the Shack. After all, "it's just a novel", just for fun.

My contention is that while things - from Christmas pressies to Christian novels - may be "for fun" they do have a serious side and we shouldn't shy away from facing them down and, when necessary, making some radical changes to life as a result of the convictions we unearth.

Or... is that all rather, well - over-earnest? Therein lies my fear. The last person I want to become is some kind of moralising thought-policeman, determined to stop all enjoyment of anything. Frankly, enough people labour under that mistaken view of God, without me or anyone else adding to it.

It came home to me today when I read a thoughtful and serious Christian comment on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. (See blog.kyria.com.) I could see the point the writer was making. But I found myself having the same response I know some others have had to me: "Oh come on, it's just a story - lighten up..."

I ought, further, to confess my own secret relationship with the Twilight series. Please only read on if you promise not to tell. When my wife borrowed all four books from a friend I was initially scornful ("Mills and Boone meets Hammer Horror"). But she left the first book by the loo; I picked it up... Four books later, I admit: I was hooked. Actually, I've always liked a good yarn - mythical creatures? So much the better. I filtered out the rather embarrassing formulaic romance style and enjoyed Stephanie Meyer's imaginative ideas. Rather like Harry Potter - don't look for literary genius, but it's a good page-turner.

You might expect some Christians to be twitchy about a vampire story - just as they might a witches and wizards story. Personally, I've always taken something more like the C. S. Lewis line - "faith is imagination grown up" and all that. A good story is a good thing. Enjoy them, talk about them - sometimes with your children. (Incidentally, that was, broadly, the line taken in the blog on Twilight I referred to above: the writer there was making a different point, worried about a harmful model of romantic love as all-consuming.)

Come on. Life is to live! Lighten up! Enjoy a few innocent joys!

Oops. What about The Shack then? What about the holly and the ivy? Hoist by my own petard? Found out in my hypocrisy?

Possibly. Or is the point that one can be both? Serious and fun-loving, I mean. And, that loving fun doesn't mean abandoning all discernment.

I - seriously - believe that Christmas is pretty much unredeemable, too mired as it is in materialism and sentimentalised religion. And I submit that as my considered and, yes, somewhat heavy conclusion. But - please God - I intend to enjoy a few days off and make sure my children enjoy them, too. It'll be a far cry from the ridiculous depiction of Scroogelike gloom written by an opponent of the Jesus Army on a web forum the other day:

A 7-year-old in the Jesus Army on Xmas day? ...it will be a complete non-event. There will be no Santa and no stockings, no mince pie left out (if you did some strange person would eat it). No decorations, no tree, no cards or any reminder that normal people are having fun. The day will start the same as any other day eating stale bread and cold leftovers from the night before, then it will be on with the chores the sisters cleaning and the brothers cleaning cars. Lunchtime will arrive and all the freaks will gather and bang their tambourines and pray against the forces of evil which are making normal people have fun at this time of year, then will come the same old food (stale bread and mouldy cheese with cold soup). Dinner will end and the brothers will slope off to the kitchen to wash up while the women drag their weary carcasses to do knitting or some other mundane job.

Apart from my amusement at the Dickensian language, I found this sad - and alarming. Man, I thought, is that what people think is the only alternative to a "Sainsbury's and Coca-Cola Christmas"? Worse still, has my tub-thumping contributed to the polarization?

Of course, I did try to express positively what my family and I - and our community - would be doing at Christmas (I wrote about love and - shock! - fun). And I tried to convey some of the good I saw in The Shack. But the danger is still there: people can dismiss me as a crackpot religious killjoy, parodying what I say into morose sourness.

So be it. I cannot just swing into festive forgetfulness of the world's poor and those who drown in sorrows at Christmas. Nor can I not think hard about some of the things I read. I could, of course, not write about them here. But I think I will. Because, on the whole, I like the debate, the thinking, the wrestling.

But - I hope - that this post stands as a brief testimonial that I (yes, I, dour and repressed old me) like to have fun, intend to have fun and will enjoy having fun - whenever I can.

Cheers (without a humbug in sight).

Addicts welcome (yes, that means you, too...)

Someone took issue with a testimony posted on the Jesus Army website the other day. It was the story of a guy who'd got free from addictions through his faith in Jesus. (Check it out.) They wrote: 'So what ur saying is christians don't have addictions?? Now I've heard it all.'

Actually that wasn't what the article was saying. But nevertheless, there can be a danger that Christians, keen to broadcast the amazing change Christ brings, can over egg the cake and present a picture rosier than the reality. It's misleading.

Christians do suffer from disorders, disease - and addiction.

In fact, I reckon most people suffer from addiction of one kind or another. Some are big and life-wrecking (harmful habits, substance abuse, whatever). Others are more subtle but destructive nonetheless (minor obsessions, skewed thinking...) Christians are no exception to that at all.

But they have found hope of something better in Jesus who breaks the power of all addiction (or, to use the older word, all sin). So perhaps the only difference is they acknowledge their need and ask for help.

As a Christian - I do truly believe Jesus answers that prayer, bit by bit, over a lifetime - and after.

Xmas-rated

I read a disgusting blog post today. It was written by a leading Christian.

This particular influential Christian works a lot with students and I've followed him off and on over the years. He has some interesting and thoughtful things to say - what's more, years back he led one of my closest friends to faith. I rate him pretty highly.

But his blog horrified me.

Here's how it started:

Christmas is more than just buying presents, filling up on Turkey and tinsel. Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus. But so that you can focus on the real meaning of Christmas...

Nothing too shocking about that, you might think, but I confess I inwardly sighed as I read even these words. I get tired of the well-meaning but futile 'back to the original meaning of Christmas' line. Why? Not least because the original meaning is in fact a pagan midwinter festival. Christians only hijacked the feast around about the time of the fourth century around the time of the highly ambiguous 'conversion' of the Emperor, Constantine. (Hey presto! A status-quo-challenging, marginal movement morphed into a mainstream imperial power-structure. Historians debate the pros and cons. I'm very inclined to see it as something like a disaster.)

And so it concerns me when I see well-meaning and otherwise serious and deep-thinking Christians swept along by the Yuletidal wave which is the modern and hugely commercialised descendant of a pagan knees-up, or at best a fatally compromised Christianity.

But I realise the pagan-Christian-historical question may seem a bit remote to many. Besides, many Christians would say, 'Face the facts: people are into Christmas, and we may as well use it as an opportunity to broadcast the Christian message of Christ's coming'.

Not so fast. It's one thing if Christmas is just neutral - like art, for instance, something that can be an influence in many directions.

But I contend that Christmas is not neutral. It is immoral. Would you use pornography to promote Christ? I suspect not. Because Christians would generally see that as immoral and wouldn't want Christ to be sullied by association.

Christmas is immoral because it is the absolute epitome of the greedy, consumerist, pleasure-loving, unjust, Western system that is driving many of the world's population deeper into poverty, and many of its own into psychosis.

To link Christ's name with the festival of all this is nothing short of blasphemy.

And this brings me onto the real beef I had with the blog post. Remember where it left off? 'But so that you can focus on the real meaning of Christmas...'? You might expect that what follows would be some creative ideas for worship on 25th December. Or maybe some Christian outreach ideas. Better still, suggestions for how you can engage with the poor or destitute, or use one of the many excellent charitable 'alternative gifts' schemes.

Sadly, no. Cue the next bit of the blog:

But so that you can focus on the real meaning of Christmas I have done some searching online to find the best ideas I can for great christmas [sic] presents that will stand the test of time and keep the kids amused until next Christmas.

What follows? 2,569 words of product advertising. Books, board games, gadgets (everything from mobile phones to Wii to camcorders).

This apparently, is 'so you can focus on the real meaning of Christmas'.

I would like to think that this was a clever and prophetic indictment of the orgy of materialism that sweeps the western world each Christmas. But it just wasn't. He simply took for granted that Christmas was a time to shower one's children with more material possessions they don't need, to force feed them the spirit of the materialistic, consumerism-maddened culture which surrounds us. So he was just doing us a favour by helping us avoid the stress of choosing precisely what unecessary rubbish we should join the queues to purchase.

What's more, two and a half thousands plus words of crazed commercialism aren't enough: the writer cheerily informs us at the end of the post that there are 'More ideas coming soon…'

No thank you. No - please - no.

Because behind the merry-go-round, the Christmas whirl is making many sick. And a highly-informed, leading-edge, blogging Christian communicator should know about it.

An online poll by the mental health charity Mind found that respondents were stressed and anxious about repaying their Christmas spending. 19 per cent felt less able to manage their mental health because of worries about paying off the cost of Christmas; 25 per cent were feeling depressed because of Christmas; Over 50 per cent admitted they had spent more than they could afford on Christmas; 39 per cent used credit cards to cover the cost of Christmas; 33 per cent estimated that it would take them more than six months to pay off their Christmas spending debt.

Debt is a huge problem in our country and Christmas doesn't help one bit. Debt aid charity, Credit Action, reports:

The ghost of Christmas past continues to knock on some doors as nearly 1 in 4 (24%) Brits are still paying off credit costs from last Christmas. Over a third of people on a lower income (34%) are still paying off their bills from last Christmas.

Cash-strapped families who turn to credit to pay for Christmas could be setting themselves up for a New Year debt disaster... [A] survey found that a quarter of people planning to borrow over the festive period will use catalogue credit, a fifth are planning to use store cards and one in seven are planning to go to doorstep lenders - three of the four most expensive sources of credit.

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) commissioned a survey of 2000 adults asking them about their plans for funding Christmas expenditure in September 2008. The results show that 76% of those questioned were worried about Christmas due to the financial cost. 30% of respondents said they did not budget at all for Christmas.

So it's not just abstruse arguments about religion and history. Consumerism is killing people - literally, in some cases - and at Christmas it kills more people then ever.

I want thoughtful, responsible, leading Christians like my blogger friend to be speaking out for simplicity and for sanity. 'You don't have to get on the merry-go-round' I want him to say. 'By all means look for opportunities to bless others and to relax with loved ones over the holiday season. But do it simply, include your poor neighbour, do it as Christ would do it.'

That's what I wished he'd said.

As for me and my house, what will we be doing over Xmas (as I much prefer to call it since it is more respectful to Jesus)? We will throw our big shared house open to our many friends, some of whom have no family (and little else besides). We'll play games with paper and pens, or with nothing, 'give-us-a-clue' style. We'll go for a walk in the country. Some of us will volunteer at our drop-in for the homeless. We'll play with our children. We'll laugh with each other. No-one will say 'bah humbug' but we won't eat turkey, pull crackers, or have a pine tree in our living room. We'll drink no alcohol and be riotously happy. We'll give no presents except for love - which I trust will be shared out generously.

My kids can't wait.

Twits for Christ

I did it. After an initial phase of something like laziness (thinly disguised as moral high ground), this summer I did it.

I became a twit. Or a twitterer or tweeter or whatever you call someone who uses Twitter to talk to the world.

It's long been a subject of debate around our church what our take on the internet ought to be. On the one hand, we want to take seriously the apostolic command 'Do not love the world or the things in the world' (1 Jn.2:15). It'd be short-sighted not to see the that 'the web' can be sticky and tangle Christians up in immorality, time-wasting or whatever. On the other, intensely conscious of the Great Commission and the desire to get across God's goodness by whatever means, we've not been shy of cyber-missioning: jesus.org.uk was one of the earliest Christian websites to get up and running.

But it's all moved on. Fast. Tech know-alls call it the move from 'web 1.0' to 'web 2.0'. Nowadays it's not just static websites with their content - it's all about interactivity, networking, instant exchange. MySpace, then Facebook, and now 'share this with everyone you know - now!', 'Twitter your "now" stuff all over the place - now!'...

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a tech-guru. (My friends who are would laugh at the notion.) But I do a lot of work for our church in communications - writing and editing mainly - and that has meant I've had to get my head round this stuff. Paper is so last millennium. Even websites are so pre the bursting of the 'Dot-com bubble'.

'I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some' (1 Cor.922). That was how Paul described his voyages to the centre of the culture of his day. And now it's our turn.

So I tweet my life in a colourful Christian church into the web-stratosphere. Mainly it's still received by friends and friends-of-friends. But others have joined in. (It was an exciting moment when the Religion Correspondent of The Times started following me.) Meanwhile my mate is debating with Paul Daniels whether the resurrection is a magic trick, and another is exchanging emails with Alastair Campbell about compassion towards those who suffer from mental health issues.

Evangelising on the streets (that good, old fashioned, first century, method of mission that we still do a fair bit as a church), I often exchange Facebook details with people so that the discussion of the gospel continues online. Meetings are tweeted and Facebooked and bookmarked and left around for others to 'stumble upon'. All the articles I and others write for our website can be commented on and these comments are instantly Twittered. And on it rolls.

But even so, I often feel we're really rather behind the light-speed movement of the world at large when it comes to these things. The (Google)wave sweeps onward.

So the other day we got together a group to talk through the different cyber-channels that may be worth exploring when it comes to expressing the gospel and the life of the church online. On top of social networking and Twitter et al, we considered web forums and fringe interest sites, 'viral' publicity, video and picture sharing, iphone compatibility, blogs, vlogs, plogs (actually, there's no such thing as plogs - yet - before you look them up) - and linking them all up so that we 'scatter our seed' as far and wide as we can.

We agreed the future is in the tributaries that make up the river. Individuals and little groups sharing personal stories (with words, pictures, videos, music whatever) which capture the imagination of the iGeneration - this is where its at.

I started this blog to chronicle my experiences of leading a Christian community which I still believe to be a remarkable way of living and in the hope that it would capture the interest of seekers out there. But it's got bigger than that. Now the challenge is before us to express Christ to a world which is suddenly enabled to watch - and listen and answer back - more than ever before.

(As it happens, today the EA are running a a synchronised blogging day called 'DigiMission' today to explore 'creative ideas for how Christians can use the digital space to impact mission'. Check out the link here.)

'The white rose' - no fairy tale

A friend of mine recently wrote this account of a disturbed prisoner and a Salvation Army officer. A striking story. Thought it was worth posting here.

The woman in the prison cell was like an animal, snarling and attacking anyone who came near her. The Salvation Army officer hesitated. Had she heard God right? Should she enter the cell when everyone told her it was madness? She went in and spoke lovingly to the woman – who growled and flew at her. Shaken, the evangelist escaped, but the next day tried again, then the next day – always with the same violent response.

After much prayer, the officer went again. She said nothing but left in the cell a single white rose, then left. Before long, she was called by the prison staff: could she come and visit the woman? The officer went and found her transformed, soft and tearful. The sight of the white rose, she said, had broken her apart. It faced her up with how evil she had become. Yet with it came a longing that God’s love might be able to make her clean and white on the inside. The officer realised that God’s guidance had been right; that she could indeed believe the best for anyone, because Jesus died for all. Right there in the cell, the prisoner was born again.

Quiet night in

Last night was quiet by comparison to many of our Thursday night 'Friendship Meals' (every Thursday we have a community open night - new friends and old invited round for a meal and to share in the life of our community). I say quiet, but it was still by general standards a fair-sized dinner party - about a score of us, all told.

We gathered together in the lounge shortly after 7 o'clock. Laughter and chatter before we sang a hymn, and one of our elders shared a few thoughts and prayed. Then into the dining room (drawn by smells of roasting chicken in tomato-pepper sauce).

But one of us stayed behind. For her sake I won't mention who it was, but she hung back and I noticed her tired and drawn face. She'd been a bit ill, she felt tired and delicate - and like the lively dinner scene awaiting her in the dining room was more than she could face.

'I just don't feel like I can face going in there and trying to make conversation' she said. 'I just feel like I want to go to bed.'

Now, of course, she could have just gone to bed - it can be a sensible thing to do when you're ill, afterall. But this particular woman is a pretty central figure in our community family. She knew it was a quieter night with a few of our core community members away or not there for various reasons and she felt that sense of duty familiar to those of us who form the hub of community life, that sense of needing to 'be there'. But she'd got to that point where she felt 'peopled-out'.

It's an interesting part of the dynamic of living in Christian community. We do it because we love - and we love more than we could naturally, it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. We want to be together, to share our lives, to share possessions, time - 'all things in common' as the New Testament has it. But that doesn't mean there aren't times when you run out and people - any people, even those you love and live for - are the last thing on God's green earth you want to face.

That's why it's important to work solitude and personal devotion into community life. Without solitude, no-one can live in community, or at least not healthily.

So what do you do when you've had enough of people - but it's Thursday night, you've a dining room full of people to host, and dinners on the table?

What this dear, given, loving sister did was come and eat with everyone. She was somewhat quiet and subdued and, mercifully, people seemed to pick up on this and let her eat in peace (it isn't always so! Some can be as sensitive as an unscheduled roof collapse at times...) And later on she found some solitude and space - which she used to wrap a couple of gifts for loved ones.

It can be a challenge living in community. Let no-one think it's all rosy Christian fellowship and soft-focus photography. Sometimes living in community makes you feel life you're going utterly, firework-spinningly, stars-before-the-eyes crazy. Sometimes the thought of sitting down to eat with your 'brethren whom you love and long for' is about as attractive as root canal treatment.

But in it all, in the ups and the downs - we learn love. We really do.

God, teach us silence, so that our words will not be empty, but carry power. Teach us stillness, so our activity will not be frantic, but fruitful. Teach us solitude, so that we can live in community. Amen.

T S Eliot's words make me a little giddy

T S Eliot's poem Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets, makes me breathless by its beauty and the simplicity with which he writes profound things.

This little hymn to the Holy Spirit captures well the paradoxes of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Gentle (a dove) and fiery, redeeming us from hellfire only in the consuming holy fire of his own presence. Terrifying and redeeming. For Love himself has worn our hell (and still bears the scald). The way is open, and we can walk in - to a new fire.

At a time when our church is being freshly called to apostolic passion - to burn with the Spirit's fire - I find these words inspiring. T S Eliot was part of a very different church to mine, but his poetry - and prophecy - speak at the level of the shared heart of all who love our Christ and his burning Spirit.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre -
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

Jesus Army gig

Every month or two the Jesus army has a big get together. Cue colurful occasions packed with friendship, worship, prayer, drama, dance, usually some baptisms of those who've decided to follow Jesus...

Here's some photos of our recent big bash in Sheffield: the Jesus Fellowship Praise Day last Saturday:

Prickly innocence

My aunt sent me some pictures of a baby hedgehog, so I'm posting them here for my children. Very sweet...

'mJa untamed'

One of the last words our founder, Noel, spoke to us as a church before he died earlier this year was that we ought to be 'untamed'.

As a church, we've pioneered quite a few risky ventures in our time, and sometimes taken flack for it. Residential Christian community with all things in common, I passionately belive to be a wonderful vision - but I've seen it twisted to appear like control or deprivation of freedom. Being an upfront 'Jesus army' gets to the nitty-gritty of where the UK is hurting and seeks to make a difference to the poorest. But I've seen it pilloried as the 'barmy army' a hard-recruting, over-laddish (or even thuggish) approach to Christianity. Jesus Centres, providing 'friendship and help for all' have won widespread public support, but we face all the internal risks of a venture that stretches our resources, capacity - and our faith.

We've not sat still as a church; we're nothing if not activists. Even so, there's the danger, always, that we sit back on our laurels, pat ourselves on our collective back as a 'radical church', waking up one day to find ourselves washed up on the shores of irrelevancy, living in the fading light of our former glory days.

God forbid.

And so our founding leader gave the call - stay wild, keep taking risks. Once we know what we're called to, we must ride the criticism and see it through: humbly, patiently - yet resolutely. Untamed.

We want to take the challenge to heart. 'mJa untamed' has become something of a watchword among us. It feels significant, like the last word from our founding era. People talk it up, chew it over. We've even made some t-shirts displaying it.

Well - I've bought the t-shirt. Now to live the life...

Forget fishing!

Wrote this bible study recently on the last chapter of John's Gospel.

This final chapter of John is an epilogue after the formal close of the Gospel [20:30-31]. It focuses upon two key apostles in the first Church.

Peter is disgraced. He denied Jesus three times [18:15-18,25-27] and has returned to his old life: fishing. But even that no longer works for him [v.3]; he is a broken man. Jesus deliberately takes Peter back to the beginning: the miraculous catch of fish is very similar to Peter’s first encounter with Jesus [v.5-6, see Lk.5:1-11]. Then, Peter had cried out 'I am a sinful man!' Now, three years later, he is more aware of his sin than ever – but Jesus reaffirms his love for him and trust in him. Three times Jesus asks Peter the crucial question: 'Do you love Me?' Three times Peter answers, and three times Jesus recommissions him to leadership. Peter’s threefold denial is lovingly undone; he is given a new start and called again, as at the beginning: 'Follow Me' [v.19].

John is different; he followed Jesus to the Cross. He is even called 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' [v.7, 20]. Peter’s question ('Lord, what about this man?' [v. 21]) may well mean ‘Wouldn’t he be a better leader?’ But Jesus, while not denying that John will faithfully play his part, simply reaffirms His call to Peter. There are times when you must not compare yourself to others, but get on with God has called you to.

Between life and death

If variety is the spice of life, and myrrh the spice of death, good poetry seasons everything in between.

This achingly beautiful poem by R S Thomas, who I've been reading again recently, is about marriage - and more than that. It captures the sense of the rush of time, our mortality and the fragility of the present. It's very tender and makes me want to live more deliberately. (And it makes me thank God for my wife.)

A Marriage by R S Thomas

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
'Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.