One retreat, two poems

I was on retreat on the Island of Lewis last month with three friends, directed by a fourth friend who lives on the island in a community of two Anglican religious. We four stayed in a self-catering house in Back; Sister Clare came over from Gress - though one day we walked there for the Evening Office. It was memorable in several ways, which I don't intend to go into here, and produced two poems.


OUTBURST

O, be silent when the God speaks - 

do not blurt your blunted vision

to distort or seek to bend

the flow of love and pain.

Listen. Open. Feel the keenness

of the shaft that wounds the soul;

feel the way you change, but quiet

like a child that hears a call.

Only then, within that silence

can the music truly sing,

make the wordless song of heaven

sweep you up until your tongue

is freed from all the weight of language

 - free to wonder, free to cease -

and your soul can shed what has been,  

free to wander heaven’s peace.

© C.M.M. Back, Lewis, June 2019

JORDAN

The burden of that sudden light

Overwhelms my shrinking self

As I step into the surge

Of life and what will come.

The holy dove, its wings outspread,

Hovers close. No comfort there.

I see the darkness pressing back

Around the edges of my world

Through eyes half closed,

Through lash and hair

That covers my defenceless face.

The water swirls. I feel the tug

Of forces far beyond my reach.

I will obey. God, I accept

- will lift this burden that is Light.

© C.M.M.

Back, Lewis, June 19.

This second poem was inspired by a painting by Daniel Bonnell of the Baptism of the Christ, which you can see here: http://www.bonnellart.com/2012-2015.html

(The Baptism of the Christ II, 42x68", oil on canvas, Sold)

Prayer and prayers.

I was listening to Desert Island Discs yesterday - or rather, it was on in the background and I suddenly became interested. The castaway for the week was Sister Wendy Beckett, and what she had to say about her life - in a caravan - fascinated me. (Quite apart from the notion of living in a caravan - not having done this thing I can't help wondering if they're warm enough in winter, cool enough when it's hot ... that sort of thing.)

The focal point of her life is the Eucharist, and the occupation without which, she told us, is prayer, contemplative prayer. I think I knew this already, but I found myself thinking about solitary prayer in a different way. Apparently, Sister Wendy gets up at midnight and spends seven hours in contemplative prayer. Put like that, it sounds to the would-be Christian such as I am like a penance. Seven hours for me would end either in sleep or in complete distraction. Someone like me gapes at the thought and - in her more self-chastising moments -  wonders if she ought to try harder. But listening to Sr. Wendy speak, it became apparent that the hours spent thus are for her an enormous pleasure. It seemed to me that she sinks into prayer in much the same manner as someone who is looking after a young baby, say, sinks into bed; she longs for the time in prayer as a sleep-deprived person longs for oblivion.

The brief moments of such prayer that I have achieved were enough to convince me that such attentiveness can be hugely rewarding, and I suddenly saw this apparently rigorous lifestyle as something chosen, something pleasurable, not something to feel humbled by. Wendy herself admitted that she doesn't need people, she needs God; she may be wonderful on the telly talking about art but really what she was going to miss on this putative desert island was the Eucharist. Someone, she said, once remarked how she didn't need other people, and she didn't think it was necessarily a compliment.

People like me need other people, connections, feedback, performance. Solitude requires distraction. In a way, I suppose you could regard the contemplative life as one spent largely in the silent company of one person. Extend the metaphor to communication: if prayer is a phone call to God, it can be brief or it can go on for hours. But often in human existence these days, it is enough to receive a brief but loving call - or even a message on social media. It's the checking in that counts. So I'm going to recognise that my full life isn't a drawback or a hindrance, or something to be deplored. It's the way I thrive, and as long as I make frequent phonecalls it doesn't matter how long they last.

And just once in a while, if I'm lucky, I'll manage to stay on the phone longer.

Birdsong in Gethsemane

In the darkling garden

a lone bird  drops

liquid notes like dark blood

beneath the quiet trees. And then

silence. And in the silence

the old struggle surges

as flesh and soul pull

apart. The body aches

to be the prayer, to feel

the God’s warmth

in the darkness. But

there is only stillness

and the blood’s song

and the everlasting longing

as somewhere far away

innocence sleeps.

C.M.M. 04/11

Thinking about language

I'm currently putting together material for a workshop on Poetry and Prayer. I've had my wrist cyber-slapped for insisting on the close relationship between the two; I'm passionate in my belief that banal and over-specific language has no place in our liturgies and refuse to accept that the language of the supermarket is suitable for every situation.

At the moment I'm wondering just how much non-specialists (and I don't necessarily mean liturgists) are aware of language as a tool. Are they like me with this laptop - able to use it fairly effectively to do what they want it to, without any glaring errors, but unable to tell you how or why it works, even if they wanted to? For I'm aware that my "class" will be an amazingly bright and thoughtful one, in no need of background info on the subject matter of the poetry - but what about the workings of language? imagery? rhythm? Do people who have not spent their lives teaching others how to communicate effectively, or how to analyse the writings of others, think about the effect of a word, or a line break, or the connotations of an expression? I don't know.

So, dear readers, you have two days in which to enlighten me - and to ensure that my workshop isn't going to teach my grandmother to do something she can do standing on her head!

Words, words, words....

Interesting discussion on prayer today, in the context of looking at keeping to a rule of life. Words can be such a barrier - a snare, a temptation or merely a smokescreen. And listening is so very hard ........

So that's all I have to say about that. For now, anyway.