Rev Jeannie's poetry blog

Gideon (Judges 6)

If I were you, God

I would never have chosen me.

Ensnared as I was in doubts -

A thousand “Why, God?” questions -

Only one voiced but thousands

Tearing at my bruised heart

And co-existing with my fragile faith.

I would never have chosen me;

Enslaved by family history

Riddled with insecurity

Feeling the least of all

And almost hoping

When i returned

You would be gone.

I would never have chosen me;

In need of a sign

Again and again

That you could really

Have a task for me.

No, if i were you God

I would never have chosen me.

  /  

Honest Thomas

Desolation

is hard to describe

unless you have felt 

its icy grip.

I’d watched Him die

hanging in humilation

and with Him

every dream 

i ever possessed

every desperate, wasted hope

that my worst fears

might not be

the whole story.

The darkness around Him

matched my inner darkness,

His icy cold, my torn-up heart.

And so I vowed;

“Never again” -

never to have a hope 

which could be dashed

a wish

eternally unfulfilled

an expectation

to be - as always -

disappointed.

Let them share

their moment of delusion.

Let me alone

in my despair.

And then -

He came.

  /  

The healing of the leper

It is not easy

to explain.

The crippling isolation

beginning when the priest

looks you over

your skin burning

with humiliation

as real as the spreading

war with death.

In the end

it was almost

a relief to leave:

sit out the shame

in private;

not face the sorrow

battling with fear

in the eyes

of those you love.

Shouting “unclean”

the least of it,

feeling that no-one -

God included -

could ever accept you.

Crippled with pain

more inside than outside:

spirit lacerated more

than nerve endings

ever could be.

It was not my skin

He healed that day

with touch as gentle

as His gaze.

It was my soul.

  /  

Serving woman at Simon’s house

The serving woman at Simon’s house

As I entered

Carrying the feast

I could not share

Fragrance greeted me;

Smell before sight

Gentle invasion

Of my senses

Pervading soul

As much as body.

And then I saw her,

Come from the street -

In every sense -

Privilege of paupers

To claim the leftovers.

But that was not

Why she had come.

Knelt at his feet

Tears streaming

Down her face

Etched with her suffering

Eyes reflecting pain

The men around her

Could never understand

But piercing my heart

With its intensity.

And then I saw

What she had brought.

Every penny she owned -

And earned at such a price -

Future hopes and dreams

Poured out in love

To this mysterious stranger.

And so at first I marvelled

At such a risky step

Until at last

I saw the love

Reflected in his gaze

And then at last

I understood.

This is the third time I have posted on this passage. It continues to fascinate me and I have been looking again thinking about Lent readings for the church. I wonder if some of the women, present only to serve and not to enjoy the meal, might have had the opportunity to see something the others might have missed?

Such absolute, risky adoration of Jesus, so open to misinterpretation, can only surely have come from her experience of having been loved by Jesus in quite a different, life-affirming way from anything else she had experienced?

I wonder if at times our worship is less than it could be because we are too proud, too heavily defended, to allow Jesus to love us into life, warm our hearts and spirits so that it is easy to pour our love back in return?

  /  

Nativity poem

Dirt was its clearest feature:

on floor, walls,

encrusted in clothing,

on world-weary feet

and hands that held

the new-born.

Bloodied by birth

Surrounded by grime:

This is no sanitised

Victorian sentamentalised

scene of perfection.

God chose

to make His entrance

in the messy reality

which hides so often

beneath the surface.

This is our God

who turns dirt

into beauty,

brokenness into offering,

and crucifixion

into life.

 I have been reflecting of late how easy it is to see the world, others or ourselves, quite differently from how God sees them. So often we see only dirt: for some it is easy to see the beauty in others but not in themselves. Yet what the nativity story tells us, if we can remove ourselves from the sentiment, is that God is to be found in the ordinary, in the less than perfect: in the place where dirt or neglect are the most obvious feature. By His presence He transforms it into a place of beauty. So the human heart, with all its complexity, its mix of the godly and the fallen, is transformed by His Incarnational presence.

  /  

Of roots

Sometimes roots

Go very deep.

And, whilst a plant might flourish

in another soil

it still feels

like Macbeth’s birth

untimely ripped.

You are the Master Gardener

who disturbs the soil

only to good purpose.

Probably one of my shortest poems! It comes from my reflections on moving churches after 38 years attending and 28 years working. Whilst loving my new church and its fabulous people, I am still a newcomer and there are unsettling moments when I see those who have known me a lot longer and where the deep sadness sits alongside the equally real joy, as it has this last weekend. Somehow Christmas - especially perhaps this first one - adds extra poignancy to that mix of feelings.

So utimately it is a matter of trust - that God who has without doubt called us to the new environment, does so from His deep love. He calls us to be real about the complexity that exists within us - He also knows us better than anyone else.

  /  

The woman anoints Jesus Luke 7:36-50

It was more an act of desperation than bravery.

I had heard the rumours: that this rabbi

ate with people like me;

that something in him was different.

And as I heard

familiar pain wrenched my guts

as all the years of agony

flooded again across my memory

and drowned out hope.

I knew what people saw:

either the smiling mask

keeping the customers happy

so they would never see

the fragile girl beyond:

or, at times, the brazen anger

equally a defence

so none could penetrate

to see the frightened, hurting child

behind the woman’s glare.

And so I came.

Unable to hope

yet somehow sensing

one last chance

to grasp at freedom,

and poured not just all I had

but everything I was

at his feet.

And as my years of hurt

flowed out with my tears

another tear fell from him

and i knew my wounds

mirrored in his.

This story has always fascinated me, for a whole host of reasons. It always pains me that it is labelled “a sinful woman anoints Jesus”. Why the need to continue to label this woman in this way, since we all are, and she was forgiven? More importantly, what gave her the courage to come? I’ve written a number of poems about her, but what struck me over the last couple of days was not so much the forgiveness - hugely important though that was - but the fact that these tears perhaps flowed from a number of sources within her. She is not forgiven until the end of the encounter - it does not say she had lived a sinful life - and there is no indication she had met Jesus before. (Scholars say this is the same story as Mary anointing him for burial, but I see no reason why two similiar stories could not have occured)

Perhaps then her tears were desperation and pain rather than, initially, gratitude? So often under our sinful (less than God intends and so damaging to ourselves) behaviour lies a wealth of hurt, rejection and pain. Jesus’ tenderness towards her, his gentle acceptance, must have been in stark and releasing contrast to all she had known before. That perhaps allowed in time her tears of pain to become tears of thankfulness. Perhaps too the poured out anointing oil symbolised all the precious things that had been lost: childhood, innocence, hope…yet somehow even that loss could be transformed to become worship. For us too, that which seems hopeless and is full of pain can somehow become an act of worship….

1 note  /  

And Why Did Angels Sing?

And why did angels sing

not weep

at all he lost

when glory

was channelled

into mortal flesh?

And why did angels sing

not weep

if they but saw

the smallest glimpse

of darkness

on a friday

when evil

seemed to laugh?

And why did angels sing

not weep?

Because they saw

behind the pain

that was to come

the love

beyond all else.

It always seems to me that at Christmas we miss all the loss involved. For Mary, for Joseph (hopes, dreams, reputation…) but most of all for God. The separating of the Trinity who had through eternity had total contact and communication: for Jesus the loss entailed in becoming human: and the loss, the appalling loss, that the crucifixion represents. It seems to me that the song of the angels is because somehow they were given a glimpse into the heart of the Father and so saw beyond the loss to the extraordinary love for frail humanity….

  /  

Submitting comment

If you want to submit a comment, go to the “open…..” button on the right and click submit. It lets you leave a comment, I just can’t work out how to put a link on each blog!!

  /  

At His feet

All I saw

reflected in my tears

was smeared grime

years old

yet never fading:

each thought, each memory

each word

burning in my memory

and then at last

I looked on nail-pierced feet

and saw

you’d set me free.

I’ve always loved the story of the “sinful woman” who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears in Luke 7. His wonderful acceptance of what was (in those days) outrageous behaviour because He understood her need for acceptance and her love and devotion I find incredibly moving. I’ve written a poem about her before (in my collection called “Unnamed women of the Bible - some have appeared in the Baptist Times but basically they are written just to reflect).

Last night I was at a worship evening at my church, and while I had my head down praying I “saw” feet in front of me. They were nail-pierced so I realised it was not so much about this woman, but about me. It is so easy to hold on to all that we remember about ourselves - more a thousand “petty” sins perhaps than those that people consider major, not that there is any such distinction to God. Seeing these feet I was reminded that the forgiveness of Jesus means just that. I can adore Him with my tears, but I need not hold on to my shame anymore.

  /