The latest issue of The Tomorrow Bulletin from The Tomorrow Project can be found by clicking here. This issue features an article asking 'Will people give up on Democracy?' based on their online database GLIMPSES of tomorrow.
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King Crimson - Epitaph.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
The Golden Compass
The Bible Society's Newswatch email reports that The Golden Compass, the film version of part 1 of Philip Pullman’s bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy, is provoking very mixed reactions from church organisations.
On the eve of the film’s release (5/12) the Catholic League in the USA has condemned the movie for promoting atheism and for its tyrannical ‘God’ figure. Closer to home, however, Evangelicals Now counsels parents to ‘watch the movie with [their children] and then talk through the issues raised’. The Church of Scotland’s Mission and Discipleship Council go further, commenting that the film ‘provides a golden opportunity to stimulate discussion on a wide range of moral and spiritual issues’. It sees Lyra, the central character, as ‘one of the powerless who turns out to be a saint’ and says the film invites discussion on ‘human purpose and destiny, the abuse of power, the making of choices and the meaning of life’. The Church will distribute a resource to churches across Scotland.
It is good to see that, on balance, Church responses suggest engagement with the issues raised by the Philip Pullman's books and the film version. One thing that is often missed in the discussion of Pullman's attack on organised religion and the death of the 'god' figure in the book, is the extent to which there is a spirituality that informs the book.
That spirituality is primarily Blakean with the book's 'god' figure resembling Blake's 'Nobodaddy', the old stereotype of God as an old punishing father in the sky (which in Blake's mythology also equates to the image of reason). Against the elevation of reason as a set of universal principles Blake (in an anticipation of post-modernism) "celebrated ‘minute particulars’; the ‘lineaments’ of bodies, and his works of art favoured bounding lines and distinct forms. He privileged difference over identity, becoming over being, the body over reason, and energy over states. Blake engraved his positive images of the spirit and gave them dynamic and sexually different bodies. He did not believe in generalities (‘One law for the lion & ox is oppression), and he insisted that the tyranny of reason could only be overcome though the dynamism of conflict and contraries: ‘without contraries there is no progession’."
The god figure that dies in His Dark Materials can be understood as a Nobodaddy figure whose opens the way to the Republic of Heaven. For Pullman, this is a vision of all that is good in the world including all that is good in the Church. It involves, he says, "all the best qualities of things. We mustn’t shut anything out. If the Church has told us, for example, that forgiving our enemies is good, and if that seems to be a good thing to do, we must do it. If, on the other hand, those who struggled against the Church have shown us that free enquiry and unfettered scientific exploration is good – and I believe that they have – then we must hold this up as a good as well.
Whatever we can find that we feel to be good – and not just feel but can see with the accumulated wisdom that we have as we grow up, and read about history and learn from our own experiences and so on – wherever they come from, and whoever taught them in the first place, let’s use them and do whatever we can do to make the world a little bit better."
Pullman set out his debt to Blake in an New Statesman article from last year where he outines what is basically a humanist re-interpretation of aspects of Blake's mythology.
It should also be noted that there is no place for Jesus in the Magisterium (the Church that features in His Dark Materials). This is something that Rowan Williams notes in the public conversations he had with Pullman in 2003/04. In those interviews, and in an interview published in Margaret Barker's An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels, Pullman is fundamentally positive about the person of Jesus: "in the context of this notion of wisdom that works secretly and quietly, not in the great courts and palaces of the earth, but among ordinary people and so on." "The liberating angels," he feels, "continue to work in secret, by inspiring great human teachers like Jesus." It has also been little remarked that Lyra makes a Christ-like journey to bring those who have died from the land of the dead.
One of the reasons why Pullman is interesting as an author is that he goes where his story takes him even if this leaves him puzzled from the perspectives of his personal beliefs (which seem basically agnostic although veering towards support for several of the political positions taken by the British Humanist Association). It is this willingness to follow the story, as well as his fascination with Blake and Milton, that seems to open up space for a sense of spirituality in the trilogy. This sense emerges from the fascinating interview that he gave to Third Way when he discusses the relationship between Mary Malone, Lyra and Will. Mary Malone is the Satan figure in the trilogy who leads Lyra and Will to a fall into grace. As such, she is the closest to a representation of Pullman's views in the book and yet Pullman allows the story to involve the separation of Lyra and Will in a way that is, in effect, a renunciation of Malone's understanding. Pullman felt that this was essential for the story but is puzzled as to what it means. Clearly, though, it opens up the possibility of understanding aspects of the story in a way that differs from Pullman's own understanding and which could involve a spirituality that differs from the materiality that Pullman, as humanist rather than author, tends to invoke.
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Rush - A Farewell To Kings.
On the eve of the film’s release (5/12) the Catholic League in the USA has condemned the movie for promoting atheism and for its tyrannical ‘God’ figure. Closer to home, however, Evangelicals Now counsels parents to ‘watch the movie with [their children] and then talk through the issues raised’. The Church of Scotland’s Mission and Discipleship Council go further, commenting that the film ‘provides a golden opportunity to stimulate discussion on a wide range of moral and spiritual issues’. It sees Lyra, the central character, as ‘one of the powerless who turns out to be a saint’ and says the film invites discussion on ‘human purpose and destiny, the abuse of power, the making of choices and the meaning of life’. The Church will distribute a resource to churches across Scotland.
It is good to see that, on balance, Church responses suggest engagement with the issues raised by the Philip Pullman's books and the film version. One thing that is often missed in the discussion of Pullman's attack on organised religion and the death of the 'god' figure in the book, is the extent to which there is a spirituality that informs the book.
That spirituality is primarily Blakean with the book's 'god' figure resembling Blake's 'Nobodaddy', the old stereotype of God as an old punishing father in the sky (which in Blake's mythology also equates to the image of reason). Against the elevation of reason as a set of universal principles Blake (in an anticipation of post-modernism) "celebrated ‘minute particulars’; the ‘lineaments’ of bodies, and his works of art favoured bounding lines and distinct forms. He privileged difference over identity, becoming over being, the body over reason, and energy over states. Blake engraved his positive images of the spirit and gave them dynamic and sexually different bodies. He did not believe in generalities (‘One law for the lion & ox is oppression), and he insisted that the tyranny of reason could only be overcome though the dynamism of conflict and contraries: ‘without contraries there is no progession’."
The god figure that dies in His Dark Materials can be understood as a Nobodaddy figure whose opens the way to the Republic of Heaven. For Pullman, this is a vision of all that is good in the world including all that is good in the Church. It involves, he says, "all the best qualities of things. We mustn’t shut anything out. If the Church has told us, for example, that forgiving our enemies is good, and if that seems to be a good thing to do, we must do it. If, on the other hand, those who struggled against the Church have shown us that free enquiry and unfettered scientific exploration is good – and I believe that they have – then we must hold this up as a good as well.
Whatever we can find that we feel to be good – and not just feel but can see with the accumulated wisdom that we have as we grow up, and read about history and learn from our own experiences and so on – wherever they come from, and whoever taught them in the first place, let’s use them and do whatever we can do to make the world a little bit better."
Pullman set out his debt to Blake in an New Statesman article from last year where he outines what is basically a humanist re-interpretation of aspects of Blake's mythology.
It should also be noted that there is no place for Jesus in the Magisterium (the Church that features in His Dark Materials). This is something that Rowan Williams notes in the public conversations he had with Pullman in 2003/04. In those interviews, and in an interview published in Margaret Barker's An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels, Pullman is fundamentally positive about the person of Jesus: "in the context of this notion of wisdom that works secretly and quietly, not in the great courts and palaces of the earth, but among ordinary people and so on." "The liberating angels," he feels, "continue to work in secret, by inspiring great human teachers like Jesus." It has also been little remarked that Lyra makes a Christ-like journey to bring those who have died from the land of the dead.
One of the reasons why Pullman is interesting as an author is that he goes where his story takes him even if this leaves him puzzled from the perspectives of his personal beliefs (which seem basically agnostic although veering towards support for several of the political positions taken by the British Humanist Association). It is this willingness to follow the story, as well as his fascination with Blake and Milton, that seems to open up space for a sense of spirituality in the trilogy. This sense emerges from the fascinating interview that he gave to Third Way when he discusses the relationship between Mary Malone, Lyra and Will. Mary Malone is the Satan figure in the trilogy who leads Lyra and Will to a fall into grace. As such, she is the closest to a representation of Pullman's views in the book and yet Pullman allows the story to involve the separation of Lyra and Will in a way that is, in effect, a renunciation of Malone's understanding. Pullman felt that this was essential for the story but is puzzled as to what it means. Clearly, though, it opens up the possibility of understanding aspects of the story in a way that differs from Pullman's own understanding and which could involve a spirituality that differs from the materiality that Pullman, as humanist rather than author, tends to invoke.
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Rush - A Farewell To Kings.
Church action to extend democracy
As if to demonstrate the efficacy of the views in my earlier post, click here to read a news story from Ekklesia on the way Church Action on Poverty are working with the Department for Communities and Local Government to extend democracy to all.
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Don McLean - American Pie.
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Don McLean - American Pie.
'Quality & Equality' seeks to exclude faiths
An important debate is currently underway in the public arena about the extent to which religious organisations should be involved in the delivery of public services.
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has published a study called Quality and Equality on the contracting out of public services to religious organisations. It is being supported by the Trades Union Congress and its conclusions have been endorsed by public figures including Lord Warner, former minister at the Department of Health.
The report’s findings demonstrate, says its authors, that there is no evidence that religious organisations offer any distinctive benefits to the supply and provision of public services. Indeed they suggest that the government’s policy objective of expanding the role of religious organisations within the public services runs the risk of lowering standards, increasing inequalities, introducing ‘parallel services’ and damaging social cohesion.
Simon Barrow, co-director of the religious think tank Ekklesia, has rightly commented that religious organisations "share with the authors of this report a concern for comprehensive equalities and quality in public service provision" and that there are "real problems and questions in the public service arena which need addressing urgently." As a result, the report deserves to be read with an open mind as a "part of an important and growing debate."
However, it should be recognised that Quality and Equality does not approach the involvement of religious organisations in the delivery of Government services with an open mind. Malcolm Duncan, Leader of Faithworks, has rightly pointed out that in this report the BHA has "fallen into accusatory and exclusive language" and "attempts to consign faith to the edge of society, attacking and misrepresenting who we are and our motivation for what we do."
Duncan points out that there are thousands of projects and groups in the faith sector that already do what the BHA are recommending in their report but that, instead of acknowledging this fact, the language of the report "caricatures the faith sector, assuming the worst of us rather than acknowledging the best."
FaithAction, of which Faithworks is a partner together with Faith Regen Foundation and Lifeline, will be showcasing some of the excellent services that faith groups provide to the whole of society at their forthcoming conference, Money Well Spent, and through their new website (to go live over the next few weeks). These initiatives show that faith-based organisations tender for public money to deliver services that are needed in society with inclusivity and that this public money is not used to further religious objectives.
"The way ahead," Duncan says, "is not to dismiss faith, but to embrace it whilst at the same time celebrating the rights and responsibilities of humanists and secularists."
The difference between Duncan's comments and those of the BHA is that Duncan is calling for a level playing field in the commissioning of public services and in the vital link between public benefit and the use of public funds while the BHA are calling for secular services, which by virtue of being 'secular' (i.e. non-religious) would exclude religious organisations from involvement in delivery.
Hanne Stinson, BHA Chief Executive, has explicitly stated that the BHA have published Quality and Equality to make clear their position "that the most fair and most inclusive services – for service users of all faiths and none – are secular services." As the BHA state on their website they are an organisation which devotes much of its time to campaigning and lobbying on behalf of everyone who considers themselves to be a humanist or holds similar views. As a result, its reports and pronouncements cannot be received as unbiased or objective.
This reality is made clear by the statement, again on their website, that humanists make "decisions on the evidence rather than on the basis of religious doctrines." Again, this is a biased perception of their position which ignores the extent to which all human knowledge is based on faith (as has been demonstrated by Michael Polyani) and that humanism (like all religions) is a worldview based on unprovable assumptions that are held by its adherents as a matter of belief not fact. Humanism needs to be understood, not as a separate evidence-based secular position able to judge subjective religions, but as part of the 'faiths' sector because it is itself a set of beliefs. Interestingly and accurately, this is how humanism seems to be understood within religious discrimination legislation and is something that humanists have tacitly acknowledged when they have sought to join local SACREs and Faith Forums.
As Faithworks have argued: "The BHA are calling for faith to be removed from public services in a roundabout way – that’s not just wrong, it is misguided, dangerous and will doom communities to poorer services. Faith groups have a valuable contribution to make and that contribution is not only at the heart of social and welfare provision, it is at the heart of a healthy and balanced society."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Pink Floyd - Bike.
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has published a study called Quality and Equality on the contracting out of public services to religious organisations. It is being supported by the Trades Union Congress and its conclusions have been endorsed by public figures including Lord Warner, former minister at the Department of Health.
The report’s findings demonstrate, says its authors, that there is no evidence that religious organisations offer any distinctive benefits to the supply and provision of public services. Indeed they suggest that the government’s policy objective of expanding the role of religious organisations within the public services runs the risk of lowering standards, increasing inequalities, introducing ‘parallel services’ and damaging social cohesion.
Simon Barrow, co-director of the religious think tank Ekklesia, has rightly commented that religious organisations "share with the authors of this report a concern for comprehensive equalities and quality in public service provision" and that there are "real problems and questions in the public service arena which need addressing urgently." As a result, the report deserves to be read with an open mind as a "part of an important and growing debate."
However, it should be recognised that Quality and Equality does not approach the involvement of religious organisations in the delivery of Government services with an open mind. Malcolm Duncan, Leader of Faithworks, has rightly pointed out that in this report the BHA has "fallen into accusatory and exclusive language" and "attempts to consign faith to the edge of society, attacking and misrepresenting who we are and our motivation for what we do."
Duncan points out that there are thousands of projects and groups in the faith sector that already do what the BHA are recommending in their report but that, instead of acknowledging this fact, the language of the report "caricatures the faith sector, assuming the worst of us rather than acknowledging the best."
FaithAction, of which Faithworks is a partner together with Faith Regen Foundation and Lifeline, will be showcasing some of the excellent services that faith groups provide to the whole of society at their forthcoming conference, Money Well Spent, and through their new website (to go live over the next few weeks). These initiatives show that faith-based organisations tender for public money to deliver services that are needed in society with inclusivity and that this public money is not used to further religious objectives.
"The way ahead," Duncan says, "is not to dismiss faith, but to embrace it whilst at the same time celebrating the rights and responsibilities of humanists and secularists."
The difference between Duncan's comments and those of the BHA is that Duncan is calling for a level playing field in the commissioning of public services and in the vital link between public benefit and the use of public funds while the BHA are calling for secular services, which by virtue of being 'secular' (i.e. non-religious) would exclude religious organisations from involvement in delivery.
Hanne Stinson, BHA Chief Executive, has explicitly stated that the BHA have published Quality and Equality to make clear their position "that the most fair and most inclusive services – for service users of all faiths and none – are secular services." As the BHA state on their website they are an organisation which devotes much of its time to campaigning and lobbying on behalf of everyone who considers themselves to be a humanist or holds similar views. As a result, its reports and pronouncements cannot be received as unbiased or objective.
This reality is made clear by the statement, again on their website, that humanists make "decisions on the evidence rather than on the basis of religious doctrines." Again, this is a biased perception of their position which ignores the extent to which all human knowledge is based on faith (as has been demonstrated by Michael Polyani) and that humanism (like all religions) is a worldview based on unprovable assumptions that are held by its adherents as a matter of belief not fact. Humanism needs to be understood, not as a separate evidence-based secular position able to judge subjective religions, but as part of the 'faiths' sector because it is itself a set of beliefs. Interestingly and accurately, this is how humanism seems to be understood within religious discrimination legislation and is something that humanists have tacitly acknowledged when they have sought to join local SACREs and Faith Forums.
As Faithworks have argued: "The BHA are calling for faith to be removed from public services in a roundabout way – that’s not just wrong, it is misguided, dangerous and will doom communities to poorer services. Faith groups have a valuable contribution to make and that contribution is not only at the heart of social and welfare provision, it is at the heart of a healthy and balanced society."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Pink Floyd - Bike.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Introducing Advent
Tamil Children's Choir St John's has held several events and services this weekend introducing Advent for our wider community.
On Friday evening for our 'Lights of Advent' event we set up three gazebos in the Church garden and hung Christmas lights from them before serving mulled wine, mince pies and roasted chestnuts to passers-by. Our aim was to bring some Christmas cheer to our area at the beginning of Advent and to invite people to our Advent and Christmas services and events. We were restricted somewhat by the weather but despite the rain we went ahead and in the dry periods a number of people joined us for refreshments while others took our Christmas leaflets as they hurried home.
The 29th annual Tamil Carol Service was held at St John's on Saturday. Organised by church members, Winston and Shalini Solomon, this service is a nine lessons and carols in Tamil and English interspersed with musical items and followed by a shared meal. People travelled from across London and the South East to fill the church and enjoy contributions from a children's choir and The Crusader's singing group.
Our Advent Sunday service included the lighting of Advent candles and the introduction of our Advent song. This service was followed by an Advent austerity lunch, organised by our Peace & Justice group, with time for prayer, reflection and discussion on the theme of consequences. In this time we thought about the consequences of what we say, do and buy and of what we don't say, do or buy; how small changes to our lifestyles can have knock-on effects for our planet. Finally, in the evening, we shared with other churches locally in the annual Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches Advent Service which this year was held at St Teresa's Newbury Park.
Advent is a special time of preparation for Christians and at St John's we are seeking to do that by reflecting on the consequences of what we do and say and by taking Christmas cheer into all communities within our parish. We want to come to celebrate Christmas by remembering the true meaning of the festive season. All our Advent events and services are designed to get us thinking about the reason Jesus was born; that we should become part of the change that Jesus began and which our world needs to see. As a result, we ended our Advent lunch with the following promise of re-commitment:
We have begun a journey together. We have begun to ask ourselves questions about the way we live. We have begun to ask whether we are truly following Christ's example and to make difficult decisions in the light of our answers to these questions. Now we ask for courage to continue our journey. Lord Jesus, teach us the joy of having less and being more. Lord, grant us the courage to transform our lives and to follow your example. Lord Jesus, show us how to pray and to praise. Lord, grant us the courage to transform our lives and to follow your example. Lord Jesus, may we learn from you how to live more simply and more generously. Lord, grant us the courage to transform our lives and to follow your example.
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Judy Mowatt - Joseph.
Listen to Seven Kings residents
In advance of the Redbridge Council Cabinet meeting on Monday 3rd December which is scheduled to include discussion of the Seven Kings Lorry park sale and in support of those who will gather to speak in the public part of that meeting, I ask the Cabinet to give serious consideration to the following:
1. In the course of the year that I have now been Vicar at St John's Seven Kings, many local people have expressed a desire to see a community focus return to Seven Kings and the High Road in particular. The Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services, would provide that community focus and is supported by 86% of Seven Kings residents. This bears out the anecdotal impression I have gained in my first year of ministry here. The Lifeline bid therefore has strong local support and significant benefits for the community.
2. The planning brief for the lorry park made much of the importance of community development gain for any activity on site but the Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services which support the new housing that is also included, seems to be the only one which seriously addresses this aspect of the planning brief. Cabinet should consider lessons from regeneration schemes elsewhere in the country which demonstrate that holistic, integrated solutions are needed in order to build community. In other words, simply building new homes without development of the local and community infrastructure fails to create community. The Lifeline bid should be supported because it meets this aspect of the planning brief which will also vital in the long-term success of any initiative involving housing on the site.
3. Lifeline have offered a strong cash bid in addition to the obvious community gains outlined above. Their £13.2m package (initial cash offering of £4m, buildings to be given to the Council adding another £3.7m and additional community facilities costed at £5.5m) would bring a mixed use development to the area. including creating full and part time jobs. In terms of both net economic benefit and added value, the Lifeline bid must therefore exceed any housing-only bids; including that of Swan Housing, which appears to offer only an additional six housing units to those in the Lifeline bid while only netting the Council £7.7m.
I have worked previously with Lifeline on inter-faith and training initiatives in Barking and Dagenham and can commend their effectiveness in delivery and in community engagement. I, therefore, have no hesitation in commending their bid to the Cabinet for the reasons outlined above.
On Friday, at the Community Cohesion conference held at the Town Hall, the Leader of the Council stated that community cohesion is good in Redbridge because the different groups in the borough listen to each other. However, in Seven Kings local people do not feel that they are being heard; little of the Seven Kings Action Plan has yet been implemented, residents have consistently have a long-running preference for a new library to replace the old 'sold off' library at the other end of the High Road; and 86% of residents consulted expressed a preference for the community facilities included in the Lifeline bid. Because decisions on the bids for the Lorry Park sale have been referred back to Cabinet, you now have an opportunity to make the Leader's words reality and show that Redbridge really is a listening local authority by listening to and acting on the preference expressed by Seven Kings residents for community facilities to feature strongly in a multi-use package on the Lorry Park site.
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Bob Marley & The Wailers - Concrete Jungle.
1. In the course of the year that I have now been Vicar at St John's Seven Kings, many local people have expressed a desire to see a community focus return to Seven Kings and the High Road in particular. The Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services, would provide that community focus and is supported by 86% of Seven Kings residents. This bears out the anecdotal impression I have gained in my first year of ministry here. The Lifeline bid therefore has strong local support and significant benefits for the community.
2. The planning brief for the lorry park made much of the importance of community development gain for any activity on site but the Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services which support the new housing that is also included, seems to be the only one which seriously addresses this aspect of the planning brief. Cabinet should consider lessons from regeneration schemes elsewhere in the country which demonstrate that holistic, integrated solutions are needed in order to build community. In other words, simply building new homes without development of the local and community infrastructure fails to create community. The Lifeline bid should be supported because it meets this aspect of the planning brief which will also vital in the long-term success of any initiative involving housing on the site.
3. Lifeline have offered a strong cash bid in addition to the obvious community gains outlined above. Their £13.2m package (initial cash offering of £4m, buildings to be given to the Council adding another £3.7m and additional community facilities costed at £5.5m) would bring a mixed use development to the area. including creating full and part time jobs. In terms of both net economic benefit and added value, the Lifeline bid must therefore exceed any housing-only bids; including that of Swan Housing, which appears to offer only an additional six housing units to those in the Lifeline bid while only netting the Council £7.7m.
I have worked previously with Lifeline on inter-faith and training initiatives in Barking and Dagenham and can commend their effectiveness in delivery and in community engagement. I, therefore, have no hesitation in commending their bid to the Cabinet for the reasons outlined above.
On Friday, at the Community Cohesion conference held at the Town Hall, the Leader of the Council stated that community cohesion is good in Redbridge because the different groups in the borough listen to each other. However, in Seven Kings local people do not feel that they are being heard; little of the Seven Kings Action Plan has yet been implemented, residents have consistently have a long-running preference for a new library to replace the old 'sold off' library at the other end of the High Road; and 86% of residents consulted expressed a preference for the community facilities included in the Lifeline bid. Because decisions on the bids for the Lorry Park sale have been referred back to Cabinet, you now have an opportunity to make the Leader's words reality and show that Redbridge really is a listening local authority by listening to and acting on the preference expressed by Seven Kings residents for community facilities to feature strongly in a multi-use package on the Lorry Park site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Concrete Jungle.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
The promise of journeying
Thank you all so much for your prayers and concern.
We heard on Thursday that the hospital do not expect Dad to see out the coming week. As a result I am shortly going to Birmingham to spend Dad's final days with him. I'm expecting then to stay in Birmingham to make arrangements for and to hold Dad's funeral.
All of our family would be grateful for your continued prayers that we will be open to the Spirit, exude humble strength, celebrate life emergent, and find the promise of journeying.
Death
A death
takes the wind from our sails
the petrol from our tank
the spring from our step
if we are wise
we reflect
in the silence
we may not connect
with anything
but, as we arise –
as we must,
it is what our loved one
would want –
we believe that
peace will come
God is near by
and hears our cry
and that
life goes on.
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Daniel Lanois - The Maker.
We heard on Thursday that the hospital do not expect Dad to see out the coming week. As a result I am shortly going to Birmingham to spend Dad's final days with him. I'm expecting then to stay in Birmingham to make arrangements for and to hold Dad's funeral.
All of our family would be grateful for your continued prayers that we will be open to the Spirit, exude humble strength, celebrate life emergent, and find the promise of journeying.
Death
A death
takes the wind from our sails
the petrol from our tank
the spring from our step
if we are wise
we reflect
in the silence
we may not connect
with anything
but, as we arise –
as we must,
it is what our loved one
would want –
we believe that
peace will come
God is near by
and hears our cry
and that
life goes on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Lanois - The Maker.
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