International Times: 'Spencer Reece at Bemerton'

My latest poem to be published by International Times is entitled 'Spencer Reece at Bemerton' and is based on the visit that I made to Bemerton earlier in the year with Spencer Reece:

'The poet George Herbert was priest in the parish of Bemerton for three years before his death from consumption. On his death bed he sent the manuscript of The Temple (his collection of poetry) to his friend Nicholas Ferrar to publish if he thought them of value to others. The Temple was published and Bemerton became a place of quiet pilgrimage for lovers of Herbert’s poems. Among such, was Vikram Seth, poet and novelist, who in 2003 bought the Old Rectory in Bemerton where Herbert had once lived. Seth later wrote a group of six poems entitled Shared Ground based on six of those included in The Temple. US poet Spencer Reece first visited Bemerton while a student in his twenties. In 2026, by now himself also a priest and a published poet, he returned, at the invitation of the George Herbert in Bemerton Group, to give a talk at St Andrew’s Lower Bemerton on his love of Herbert’s verse.'

For more on Fr Spencer's visit, see here, here and here. To read my interview with Fr Spencer for International Times see here and, for my review of Fr Spencer's more recent poetry collection, see here. Fr Spencer spoke at St Martin-in-the-Fields during his visit, see below for that service and click here for one of the services in our parish at which he preached:

IT have also published other of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

Several of my short stories have also been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

My other pieces for IT are: an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: the Stations project from Dunlin Press; 'William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy'; Joseph Arthur in concert; installations by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen at Hayward Gsllery, U2's 'Days of Ash', Mumford and Sons' 'Prizefighter' and Moby's 'Future Quiet'; 'Collected Poems' by Kevin Crossley-Holland; 'Lux' by Rosalía; 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere'; 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne; 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

My first review of poetry for Tears in the Fence was of 'Modern Fog' by Chris Emery. My second review was of 'The Salvation Engine' by Rupert Loydell and my third was of 'For All That’s Lost' by David Miller. My poetry reviews for Stride include a review of two poetry collections, one by Mario Petrucci and the other by David Miller, a review of Temporary Archive: Poems by Women of Latin America, a review of Fukushima Dreams by Andrea Moorhead, a review of Endangered Sky by Kelly Grovier and Sean Scully, a review of John F. Deane's Selected & New Poems, a review of God's Little Angel by Sue Hubbard and a review of Spencer Reece's 'Acts'.

I have also published pieces on poetry at Seen and Unseen - a profile of the poet Theresa Lola - and the Journal of Theological Studies - a review of Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination by Malcolm Guite. For more on poetry, read my ArtWay interview with David Miller here and my interview with Rupert Loydell here. See also Rupert Loydell's interview with poet and musician Steve Scott. My own dialogues with Steve can be read here, here, here, here, and here. For thoughts on the links between poetry and prayer see here and here.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

For more of my poems, see here, and for my poetic meditations, see here.

My key literature posts (including poetry) are:

• There were giants in those days (1)
• There were giants in those days (2)
• There were Giants in those days (3)
• There were giants in those days (4)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (1)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (2)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (3)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (4)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (5)
• The poetry of connection
• Debate: Has Fiction Lost It's Faith?
• Jesus is having a moment in literary fiction
• Endo & Scorsese: Approaching Silence
• Contemporary Fiction and Christianity
• Debate: Has Fiction Lost It's Faith? (2)
• Jack Clemo: The Invading Gospel
• Dealing with faith and with secularism is difficult but necessary now
• The poet’s eloquently passionate struggle at the junction of doubt and devotion
• Christian Arts renaissance: Major or minor?
• T.S. Eliot: Christianity, fragmentation and reconciliation
• Jesus Novels & Films: The Greatest Story Ever Told
• Acts of the Assassins and Jesus Novels
• Czeslaw Milosz, Oscar Milosz and Simone Weil
• Blogs: cryingforavision & Stride magazine
• Tasos Leviaditis: The Blind Man with the Lamp
• Religious concerns in Greek poetry
• Thomas Merton and Latin American poets
• American Catholic poets & writers
• Connections of Sister Corita Kent and Norman Nicholson
• Ernesto Cardenal RIP
• Czeslaw Milosz, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Oskar Milosz, and Aleksander Wat
• Faith, Mystery & Poetry
• Elizabeth Jennings & David Gascoyne: Mystical Experience and the Making of Poems
• Roots of the Catholic Literary Revival

See also 'Art and Faith: Decades of Engagement: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

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Spencer Reece - Hark! How Laughter Saved A Church.

Quiet Day: Poetry and Prayer

We had a wonderful day at St Mary's Runwell for our latest Quiet Day which explored poetry and prayer. It was great to share the day with Fr Spencer Reece, people from our parish, and friends from the South Essex Nazareth Community. 

We looked at poems about prayer and poems written as prayers. We reflected on poetry by John Berryman, John Donne, Carol Ann Duffy, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, Tasos Leivaditis, Ann Lewin, John O'Donohue, and Mary Oliver.

Among the thoughts I shared in my introduction to the day, I said the following:

'David Yezzi, writing in the New Criterion, states that: “Prayers and poems share an uncanny family resemblance. In fact, they look so much alike at times they could be thought of as identical twins separated in childhood.” “The common origins of poetry and prayer date back at least to the second millennium B.C., when the two functioned seamlessly as one expression.” (https://newcriterion.com/issues/2012/4/power-of-some-sort-or-other-on-poems-and-prayers)

Similarly, Derek Rotty writes that the “idea of making poetry into prayer has ancient roots, as far back as the choral chants of Greek theater. Yet, it was in the Hebraic tradition that poetry became prayer in a specific way. The Psalms, ancient Hebrew poems mostly attributed to King David, became the prayer book for the worship of the Jewish people. These Psalms contain the gamut of human emotions: from love to despair; from joy to sorry; from cries for protection to cries for mercy after grave sin.” (https://catholicexchange.com/poetry-as-prayer/)

Roughly 33% of the Bible is poetry, including songs, reflective poetry, and the passionate, politically resistant poetry of the prophets ... (https://overviewbible.com/poetry/)

Poet Gideon Heugh notes that “The Bible brims with the poetic. Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, Job and most of the Old Testament prophets are written either entirely or in part as poetry ... (https://www.tearfund.org/stories/2021/03/how-poetry-can-help-us-pray)'

With Ellen McGrath Smith we noted that many poets: “invoke the spiritual writing of Simone Weil, including her assertion that ‘absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ This … broadens the possibility for poetry as prayer, regardless of content, since writing poetry is an act of acute mindfulness.” (https://talkingwriting.com/poetry-prayer)

Spencer Reece spoke about the influence of George Herbert on his life and facilitated reflection on Herbert's Love III.

My poem about St Mary's entitled 'Runwell' takes the reader on a visit to St Mary's Runwell, while also reflecting on the spirituality of the space plus its history and legends. Click here to read the poem.

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U2 - Easter Parade.

Spencer Reece and the George Herbert in Bemerton Group

The George Herbert in Bemerton Group’s aims are to: study and celebrate the life and work of George Herbert as priest, writer and distinguished inhabitant of Bemerton; mount events relating to the works of George Herbert and the context in which he lived; and liaise and co-ordinate with other bodies with like interests.

The Group has presented a summer programme of three to five events every year since 2002. Past events include illustrated talks and lectures; poetry readings (often accompanied by live musicians playing music of Herbert's time) and appreciation groups; readings of material about Herbert and his period; and walks in the area with which he would have been familiar.

The first event of 2026 is 'A Broken Altar' (Thursday, 9th April at 7:00 pm, St Andrew's Church, Lower Bemerton) when Fr. Spencer Reece will talk about how George Herbert inspires the work of a published poet.

Fr. Spencer Reece is the Rector of St. Paul's Wickford, Rhode Island. He was ordained in Madrid in 2011 and then spent three years teaching poetry in Honduras. He moved back to Madrid in 2014 and assisted the Episcopal Bishop of Spain for a decade. He has published three books of poems, and in 2025 he was awarded the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Fellow. 

Spencer's memoir, The Secret Gospel of Mark, is a powerful dynamo of a story that delicately weaves the author's experiences with an appreciation for seven great poets. In speaking to the beauty these poets' works inspire in him, Reece finds the beauty of his own life's journey. In this talk, Spencer will focus on his love of George Herbert, sharing how writing about and to Herbert in the course of preparing his thesis on humility in Herbert became a love letter to the poet. 

Other events include:

• 'The Temple': End to End, Wednesday, 29th July at 7:00 pm, St Andrew's Church, Lower Bemerton. Dr. Oliver Peel will talk about what may have influenced the sequence of George Herbert's poems. Followed by refreshments in a local garden. 
• The Parson's Life, Thursday, 11th June at 7:00 pm, St Andrew's Church, Lower Bemerton. Reflecting Herbert's three years in Bemerton. A group presentation with musical interludes from Sami Brown (lute). Followed by refreshments in a local riverside garden.
• Poetry Appreciation, Tuesday 6th October at 10:00 am, Belvedere House, 64 Lower Road, Lower Bemerton. A small group informal discussion, led by Dr. Beth Dodd.

Visit: Fr Spencer Reece
8 – 12 April, Parish of Wickford and Runwell

Fr Spencer Reece is Rector of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wickford, Rhode Island, and an internationally acclaimed poet. His project teaching poetry to abandoned girls at the Our Little Roses orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. His dream, prayer, and ultimate goal for his time with St. Paul’s Church is to continue the ongoing work of the parish in spreading Jesus’ radical love. “Let kindness be our legacy,” he has said.

Read my interview with Fr Spencer here and my review of his latest poetry collection here.

http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/
https://www.stpaulswickford.org/
https://www.spencerreece.org/

Meet Fr Spencer at:

8 April – Midweek Eucharist, 10.30 am, St Andrew’s Wickford

8 April – Bread for the World Service, 6.30 pm, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London (Fr Spencer will share a reflection on the road to Emmaus)

9 April – ‘The Broken Altar’, a talk on George Herbert, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Lower Bemerton (Fr Spencer is giving this talk at the invitation of the George Herbert in Bemerton group - https://www.georgeherbert.org.uk/about/ghb_group.html)

10 April – Unveiled: Poetry Reading, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Wickford

11 April – Quiet Day: Poetry & Prayer, 10.30 am - 3.30 pm, St Mary’s Runwell (Fr Spencer will share poems and reflections on George Herbert)

12 April – Eucharist, 9.30 am, St Mary’s Runwell and Eucharist, 11.00 am, St Catherine’s Wickford (Fr Spencer will preach at both of these services); 4.00 pm, Showing of Voices Beyond the Wall, St Andrew’s Wickford

SPENCER REECE, 36th rector of St. Paul's Wickford, Rhode Island, is a Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Fellow. Reece’s first book, The Clerk’s Tale, was selected for the Bakeless Prize by Nobel Laureate Louise Glück. Reece was ordained in Madrid, Spain, in 2011. Awarded a Fulbright, he taught poetry at Our Little Roses in San Pedro, Honduras, where he lived with the rescued girls at the home. The work was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. The poems by the girls were made into an anthology edited by Reece, entitled Counting Time Like People Count Stars. In 2014 he published The Road to Emmaus which was a longlist nominee for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Griffin Prize. He moved to Madrid and assisted the Episcopal Bishop of Spain for a decade. During this time, he created The Unamuno Author Series, culminating in the first-ever anglophone literary festival in Madrid in 2019. In 2022, he published The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poets’ Painted Book of Hours. Acts, a third book of poems, appeared in 2024. At St. Paul’s, he created the 14 Gold Street Author Series. In 2025, he was awarded the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the “elegant standards” of his contribution to the literary arts. Farewell Symphony his fourth collection of poems will be published in 2028. In 2034, Love IV: Collected Poems is scheduled to appear.

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U2 - In A Life.

Spencer Reece visit and events

Visit: Fr Spencer Reece
8 – 12 April, Parish of Wickford and Runwell

Fr Spencer Reece is Rector of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wickford, Rhode Island, and an internationally acclaimed poet. His project teaching poetry to abandoned girls at the Our Little Roses orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. His dream, prayer, and ultimate goal for his time with St. Paul’s Church is to continue the ongoing work of the parish in spreading Jesus’ radical love. “Let kindness be our legacy,” he has said.

Read my interview with Fr Spencer here and my review of his latest poetry collection here.  

http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/
https://www.stpaulswickford.org/
https://www.spencerreece.org/

Meet Fr Spencer at:

8 April – Midweek Eucharist, 10.30 am, St Andrew’s Wickford

8 April – Bread for the World Service, 6.30 pm, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London (Fr Spencer will share a reflection on the road to Emmaus)

9 April – ‘The Broken Altar’, a talk on George Herbert, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Lower Bemerton (Fr Spencer is giving this talk at the invitation of the George Herbert in Bemerton group - https://www.georgeherbert.org.uk/about/ghb_group.html)

10 April – Unveiled: Poetry Reading, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Wickford

11 April – Quiet Day: Poetry & Prayer, 10.30 am - 3.30 pm, St Mary’s Runwell (Fr Spencer will share poems and reflections on George Herbert)

12 April – Eucharist, 9.30 am, St Mary’s Runwell and Eucharist, 11.00 am, St Catherine’s Wickford (Fr Spencer will preach at both of these services); 4.00 pm, Showing of Voices Beyond the Wall, St Andrew’s Wickford

SPENCER REECE, 36th rector of St. Paul's Wickford, Rhode Island, is a Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Fellow. Reece’s first book, The Clerk’s Tale, was selected for the Bakeless Prize by Nobel Laureate Louise Glück. Reece was ordained in Madrid, Spain, in 2011. Awarded a Fulbright, he taught poetry at Our Little Roses in San Pedro, Honduras, where he lived with the rescued girls at the home. The work was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. The poems by the girls were made into an anthology edited by Reece, entitled Counting Time Like People Count Stars. In 2014 he published The Road to Emmaus which was a longlist nominee for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Griffin Prize. He moved to Madrid and assisted the Episcopal Bishop of Spain for a decade. During this time, he created The Unamuno Author Series, culminating in the first-ever anglophone literary festival in Madrid in 2019. In 2022, he published The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poets’ Painted Book of Hours. Acts, a third book of poems, appeared in 2024. At St. Paul’s, he created the 14 Gold Street Author Series. In 2025, he was awarded the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the “elegant standards” of his contribution to the literary arts. Farewell Symphony his fourth collection of poems will be published in 2028. In 2034, Love IV: Collected Poems is scheduled to appear.

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George Herbert -  The Call.

Nazareth Community: Everyday reflections

Two initial meetings have been held in recent months to move towards the formation of a Nazareth Community for South Essex. At the first, in December, information was shared about the history of the Nazareth Community and the 7 S's that form its rule of life. Then those present experienced Lectio Divina in a listening group. Today, we began working on our individual rules of life using the 7 S's, had a time of reflection on a Nazareth letter, and shared a Bread for the World Eucharist together.

In today's Bread for the World service, I shared the following reflection:

The Bible is full of encouragement to reflect. The words, reflect, consider, ponder, meditate and examine, crop up everywhere. God encourages us to reflect on everything; his words (2 Timothy 2.7), his great acts (1 Samuel 12.24), his statutes (Psalm 119.95), his miracles (Mark 6.52), Jesus (Hebrews 3.1), God's servants (Job 1.8), the heavens (Psalm 8.3), the plants (Matthew 6.28), the weak (Psalm 41.1), the wicked (Psalm 37.10), oppression (Ecclesiastes 4.1), labour (Ecclesiastes 4.4), the heart (Proverbs 24.12), our troubles (Psalm 9.13), our enemies (Psalm 25.19), our sins (2 Corinthians 13.5). Everything is up for reflection but we are guided by the need to look for the excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4.8) and to learn from whatever we see or experience (Proverbs 24.32).

Clearly all this reflection cannot take place just at specific times. Just as we are told to pray always, the implication of the Bible's encouragement to reflection is that we should reflect at all times. We need to make a habit of reflection, a habit of learning from experience and of looking for the excellent things. 

How can we do this? In the paraphrase of Matthew 6. 34 from The Message, we hear Jesus say: “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”

Simon Small writes in ‘From the Bottom of the Pond’ that: “Our minds find paying full attention to now very difficult. This is because our minds live in time. Our thoughts are preoccupied with past and future, and the present moment is missed.”

But, he says, “Contemplative prayer is the art of paying attention to what is”: “To pay profound attention to reality is prayer, because to enter the depths of this moment is to encounter God. There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.”

This is very much what Jesus seems to be saying in Matthew 6. 34 and also in his teaching on worry and anxiety found in Matthew 6. 24 – 34.

One of the ways, I would suggest is that we use all that is around us – what we see, do and experience. Everything around us can potentially be part of our ongoing conversation with God, part of which is reflection. The Celtic Christians had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary events and tasks of home and work, together with the sense that every event or task can be blessed if we see God in it.

David Adam, who has written many contemporary prayers in this style, says that: “Much of Celtic prayer spoke naturally to God in the working place of life. There was no false division into sacred and secular. God pervaded all and was to be met in their daily work and travels. If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God. Our work, our travels, our joys and our sorrows are enfolded in His loving care. We cannot for a moment fall out of the hands of God. Typing pool and workshop, office and factory are all as sacred as the church. The presence of God pervades the work place as much as He does a church sanctuary.” (Power Lines: Celtic Prayers about Work, SPCK, 1992)

Other examples of similar styles of prayer include, Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica, a collection of Gaelic prayers and poems collected in the late 19th century, which “abounds with prayers invoking God’s blessing on such routine daily tasks as lighting the fire, milking the cow and preparing for bed.” Many of George Herbert’s poems use everyday imagery (mainly church-based as he was also a priest) and are based on the idea that God is found everywhere within his world. People like Ray Simpson and Ruth Burgess have provided series of contemporary blessings for everyday life covering computers, exams, parties, pets, cars, meetings, lunchtimes, days off and all sorts of life situations from leaving school and a girl’s first period to divorce, redundancy and mid-life crises.

Similarly, Martin Wallace suggests that: “Just as God walked with Adam in the garden of Eden, so he now walks with us in the streets of the city chatting about the events of the day and the images we see.” (City Prayers, The Canterbury Press, 1994) He wants to encourage us to “chat with God in the city, bouncing ideas together with him, between the truths of the Bible and the truths of urban life” and, “as you walk down your street, wait for the lift, or fumble for change at the cash-till … to construct your own prayers of urban imagery.”

One helpful way of beginning to do this is to identify the times and spaces in your normal day when you could take time to pray in this way. Before ordination, when I worked in Central London I used to use my walk to and from the tube station in this way and also had a prayer on my PC that I would pray as I ate lunch at my desk. As a result, since being ordained I have been sending emails to working people in the congregation of which I have been part with a brief reflection and prayer that they can use in these ways.

If you would like to pay more attention to events in this way, why not start by making a list of all the things that you see and do in a typical day? Then think how you could use these to reflect and pray. Then, as Martin Wallace suggests, you might like to try writing your own prayer, reflection or blessing using some of these things as your starting point.

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Peter Mayer - Holy Now.

International Times: Scrappy and unconventional and paradoxical

My latest interview for International Times is with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece:

'So long ago, a scared, insecure American, studying at the University of York for a one-year graduate MA on the work of the Metaphysical poets, I stumbled into the life and work of George Herbert and it left a permanent mark on me. He is my hero. A guide. I wanted, and I don’t even really understand why completely, to be him. And here we are, at sixty-two, and I have become both poet and priest in the most secular time ever. I believe in the church, and I believe in poetry and I still feel George Herbert close to me, talking to me.'

For more on Spencer Reece, read my review for Stride Magazine, of his latest poetry collection, 'Acts' - https://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/2024/06/spiritual-suitcases.html.

My earlier pieces for IT are an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Spencer Reece - The Upper Room.

Come to the feast of life

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. (Isaiah 25:6)

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long. (Psalm 23.5&6)

Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, [Jesus] took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. (Matthew 15.35-37)

In Old Testament prophecies, the Psalms of David, and the miracles and parables of Jesus, we see that God is inviting us to share in a banquet laid on the new heaven and new earth that he will create. In Jesus’ parables, invitations to the party are sent to all and sundry, including those who never get invited out, those from the wrong side of the tracks, the homeless and poor; all are invited and those who don’t come are those who choose to exclude themselves by making excuses because the one condition is that you drop everything to come there and then.

The great Elizabethan priest and poet George Herbert included some of the excuses we commonly make in his third poem about love. We draw back, he suggests, because of our sense of guilt, our sense that we are unworthy, unkind and ungrateful, that we have made mistakes with the gifts we have been given, and only deserve to serve not to be served:

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

I identify strongly with this poem because it expresses how I felt as a teenager having come to faith but then being very aware of my faults and failings and so feeling like a hypocrite who did not deserve God’s love. I had to come to a point of realizing that God loved me regardless of whether I was good enough or not and whether I felt good enough or not. The moment of realization came for me when a youth leader took the time to listen to me and then showed me Romans 5. 6 – 8 which says this: "For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose. It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us — it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!" As the old hymn says, "I love Him because He first loved me." He didn’t wait for me to become deserving of his love, instead he showed his love for me while I was still far away from him. So, there is nothing I have to do to earn or deserve his love.

So, Jesus simply says, "come" and all I have to do to enter into his love is simply come. That is what George Herbert’s wonderful poem is all about. Whoever comes simply, like a child, accepting God’s invitation as it is, are those who sit and eat, who become saints and priests, who become Christ. For "little Christ" is all that ‘Christian’ means. The meal, the feast, the banquet, the party to which we are invited is communion; sharing in the body and blood of Christ as a precursor to the coming in full of the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven.

This table, the table of Jesus is our place of gathering: here you are welcomed, wanted, loved, here there is a place set for you; come, come to the feast of life. This is the table, not of the Church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and who want to love him more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have a little, you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time, you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. Come, not because I invite you: it is our Lord, it is his will that those who want him should meet him here.

Come. Come to the feast of life that the Lord Almighty prepares for all peoples. A feast of rich food, the best of meats, the finest of aged wines, and water from the spring of life itself. A banquet at which tears are wiped away, disgrace removed, where death, grief, crying and pain are no more as God himself sits down to eat with his people.

Come, all you who thirst;
come, all you who are weary;
come, all you who are poor;
come, all you who are bitter;
come, all you who grieve;
come, all you who are sinners;
come, all you who are oppressed;
come, all you who are traitors;
come, all you who are sick;
come, all you who are lost.

Come to be saints;
come to be priests;
come to be Christians;
to be "little Christs."
Come to sit and eat
at the feast of life.

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Steve Bell - O come, O come Emmanuel.

Quiet Day: Poetry and Prayer

We had a wonderful day at St Mary's Runwell for our latest Quiet Day which explored poetry and prayer. It was lovely to share the day with people from our parish, from elsewhere in the Diocese, and friends from St Martin-in-the-Fields. We looked at poems about prayer and poems written as prayers. We reflected on poetry by John Berryman, John Donne, Carol Ann Duffy, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, Tasos Leivaditis, Ann Lewin, John O'Donohue, Mary Oliver.

In my introduction to the day, I said:

'David Yezzi, writing in the New Criterion, states that: “Prayers and poems share an uncanny family resemblance. In fact, they look so much alike at times they could be thought of as identical twins separated in childhood.” “The common origins of poetry and prayer date back at least to the second millennium B.C., when the two functioned seamlessly as one expression.” (https://newcriterion.com/issues/2012/4/power-of-some-sort-or-other-on-poems-and-prayers)

Similarly, Derek Rotty writes that the “idea of making poetry into prayer has ancient roots, as far back as the choral chants of Greek theater. Yet, it was in the Hebraic tradition that poetry became prayer in a specific way. The Psalms, ancient Hebrew poems mostly attributed to King David, became the prayer book for the worship of the Jewish people. These Psalms contain the gamut of human emotions: from love to despair; from joy to sorry; from cries for protection to cries for mercy after grave sin.” (https://catholicexchange.com/poetry-as-prayer/)

Roughly 33% of the Bible is poetry, including songs, reflective poetry, and the passionate, politically resistant poetry of the prophets ... (https://overviewbible.com/poetry/)

Poet Gideon Heugh notes that “The Bible brims with the poetic. Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, Job and most of the Old Testament prophets are written either entirely or in part as poetry ... (https://www.tearfund.org/stories/2021/03/how-poetry-can-help-us-pray)'

With Ellen McGrath Smith we noted that many poets: “invoke the spiritual writing of Simone Weil, including her assertion that ‘absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ This … broadens the possibility for poetry as prayer, regardless of content, since writing poetry is an act of acute mindfulness.” (https://talkingwriting.com/poetry-prayer)

My poem about St Mary's entitled 'Runwell' takes the reader on a visit to St Mary's Runwell, while also reflecting on the spirituality of the space plus its history and legends. Click here to read the poem.

Our next Quiet Day at St Mary's will be on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 AT 10:30 AM – 3:30 PM. The Rhythm of Life will be a day spent reflecting on Celtic Spirituality, its place in our history, its saints, prayer and worship, music and art.

Reflect in the magnificent mediaeval building that is St Mary’s Runwell, and relax in its beautiful churchyard. St. Mary’s itself is often described by visitors and by regular worshippers as a powerful sacred space to which they have been drawn. Experience this yourself, while also exploring its art and heritage.

Led by Revd Sue Wise, Team Vicar, Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry.
Cost: £8.00 per person, including sandwich lunch (pay on the day).
To book: Phone 07941 506156 or email sue.wise@sky.com.

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Mary Gauthier - Prayer Without Words.