Human child of human mother,
see the Christ has come to birth,
demonstrating now in living
every person’s human worth.
Crises drive us from our comfort
to the edge of vital choice,
children speak the words we’ve hidden,
simple words we’ve failed to voice.
Senses sharpened in the silence,
gently, quietly, feel your breath,
know God’s love will never leave us,
now, or in our time of death.
Human child of human mother,
see the Christ has come to birth,
demonstrating now in living
every person’s human worth.
We need another language
that we can live on earth,
to move us further forward,
to give the Word new birth;
to live the love of Jesus,
incarnate through our lives.
Aligned with God’s own spirit,
the love of God survives.
When theology unnerves
those who seek a mythic past,
are there echoes of the Christ
shaking faith that it might last?
The picture, speaking of itself,
not shaping something else we know;
imagines mystery makes it glow
beyond all earthly sight can show.
A bloodied child foreshadowed by a cross,
both share their taste of evil and of loss,
and when will people ever live and learn
that hurt and harm is all that war can earn?
They’re carted off like cattle,
yet we’d refuse a bed
to those who flee from carnage
now drowned, or lost or dead?
No shallow prayer
but words which plumb
the depth of our desire,
to which we might aspire.
Idyllic beaches break the waves
as bathers line the shore
This view of peace is now disturbed:
an aftermath of war.
If we claim to love our neighbour
while the hungry queue for food,
are we prey to self deception?
Is perception quite so crude?
Hopeless to help in this violence, this crisis,
here in the focus of bloodshed and fear,
common humanity binds us together,
love at the centre, not hatred’s veneer.
This day we have witnessed a man for all nations,
a man who was human, held fast what is right,
for this he would live with profound resignation,
he shone in the world, don’t extinguish that light.
Eternal fury fires the saints,
who shake and rattle, push and shove,
who challenge every bland excuse,
who seek for justice, work for love.
The spectrum of our faith and praise,
the art that serves through craft or phrase,
brings vital energy and power
to colour this and every hour.
The Spirit of God is both humble and gentle,
devoid of hypocrisy, sharp as a sword.
And when we are driven along by that Spirit
we live with God’s courage, embody God’s Word.
A cuckoo in the holy nest, can I admit to what I see? A Jesus who is rough and hard, a normal bloke like you and me, a Jesus who could moan a bit, a Jesus who …
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We are guardians for the people,
called by God to care and serve
acting out the love of neighbour,
giving all without reserve.
Slightly religious, God without boundaries, wanderer, traveller, ragged, unwell, vulnerable vagabond, needing a comforter, surfing the cosmos while riding the swell. Lover unlimited, hanging on providence, trusting the whim and the will of the crowd; twisting and …
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To simply bask in ignorance, to shy away from facts, can masquerade as ‘simple faith’, or veil our foolish acts; and then the world will look at us, a church so old and stale, no longer worth …
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“God’s on each side, God loves us all…” Andrew Pratt’s words to “Amazing Grace” give us the balanced view from both sides of conflict. No one wins until we all do.
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Lift high the banner of these games, in this Olympic year, that as we forge relationships, respect might cast out fear.
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We recognize the depth of love, the grace that held us from our birth, but all too soon we lose our grasp and other things have greater worth.
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Who can know the different pathways
that have brought us to this day,
sharp felt scars, forgotten mem’ries
words affirm, or facts betray?
“Mother us gently, Father us lightly, God of our being, ground of our care…”
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God is less tangible than a neutrino
(taking a short-cut? Or faster than light?
