THEME From Answers to Questions
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
PRAYER
Save us, O God from the fierce pursuit of truth and the illusion that reality
is so simple that it can be contained within the confines of the human mind.
Give us instead a commitment to the journey into the unknown and an openness to receive the loving embrace of the mystery.
HYMNS
The darkness and the light. (BL)
Not in grasping or in holding. (BL)
We are always part of the other. (BL)
Beyond the boxes we create. (BL)
When masks of God both age and die. (BL)
You are the process God. (BL)
O God the great all-knowing One.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
There shall be life and love.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Darkness is my mother.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Buried in my being.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Between our thoughts.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Come let us dwell in that place.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
All will be well.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Christ the tent.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Empty lay the tomb. (STS1)
Epiphany of wisdom’s dawn. (STS1)
God the Sacred Cosmic Life-Blood. (STS1)
What image shall I use? (STS2)
Though rocks move. (STS2)
When Earth wakes from out of sleep. (STS2)
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011, Vol 2 2014 World Library Publications
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
DYING IMAGES
Must dying images
be replaced by new images
or can we worship an imageless God?
A God who is more than a human face,
who is indeed a cosmic presence,
indefinable, beyond limitation,
a rainbow beyond all rainbows,
an inclusive divinity.
NOT AS IT SEEMS
All sound is surrounded by silence,
All stillness is part of the cosmic dance,
All light is composed of color
THE IMAGE
Jailing –
or liberating
the image
bears
and
unmasks
the power
and plight
of oppressed
and oppressor
in provokingly
unpacking
layered reality
of God-like
mystery-filled
life-evoking
pictures
of unlined
unframed
existing.
CERTAINTY AND DOUBT
Into the temple of reason bring mystery,
Into the temple of humanity nature,
Into the temple of order the chaotic wind of Spirit,
Into the temple of light the nurturing darkness
of the all mothering God
SECURITY
Outer security you will never find.
Inner security you already have.
All you need to do is to be aware of it and rest in it.
A PUZZLE
I used to believe that the ultimate mystery was death but now I wonder, for killing seems an even greater mystery – not the how for that has a thousand forms but the why.
I suppose I should be filled with gratitude that I have not been directly involved in the horror of killing another human being.
However that does not mean that I am not a killer! for I have killed mice and rats, flies and spiders, mosquitoes and sand-flies, ants and cockroaches, silverfish etc, etc. Indeed if I hadn’t killed some of them I might well have died or at the very least become seriously ill.
But there are also all the things that other people have killed in order that I might live – cattle and poultry, fish and sheep, etc etc.
Of course I could have become a vegetarian but that would not have been the end of the killing for the lettuce and cabbage etc have been killed before I eat them.
And what about my garden – the limbs I have severed from the trees, the grass cut, the pests destroyed in order to protect my flowers and vegetables.
No it seems that I cannot escape the cycle of killing for all living is dependent on some form of killing.
So what sort of God is there that could allow all this to happen – to have killing built into the very fabric of the universe. And if there has to be killing could we not be spared the sight of animals eating other animals while their victim is still alive.
What answer does the Cross provide for all this? A rather strange one it seems for according to the Christian story God did not intervene to stop the killing of his Son on the Cross but rather seemed to accept it as an inevitable consequence of the behaviour of Jesus. After all Jesus did say that the rich would not be blessed in an afterlife, that the poor would inherit the Earth, that religion can be the enemy of spirituality and compassion, and that we should listen to the wisdom of the earth as well as to human wisdom. Small wonder then that all this inevitably led to crucifixion.
For better or for worse it seems then that God is acquiescent in the process of killing or indeed may even be part of the process. It is then useless to rail against the reality or to pretend that the process does not exist. What we can do is to be as compassionate as we can, to avoid creating unnecessary physical or psychological suffering and to leave behind thoughts of retribution and revenge.
Then when it comes to our time of decrepitude, the time when all other parts of nature are killed by something which is stronger and younger then perhaps we might have the grace to allow each other the dignity of ending our own life rather than idolizing senility.
THE JIGSAW
My life
is a pile
of jigsaw pieces.
In the past
I struggled
to fit them together
into one coherent picture
but every time
there were pieces
that would not fit
so now I have
abandoned
the puzzle.
Perhaps one is not meant to fit them all together.
Perhaps living is more important than problem solving.
Could this be what Christ meant when he said
“I have come to let people encounter life in all its fullness?” (John 10:10)
UPSIDE DOWN
The beams
of the Cathedral’s ceiling
looked like
ribs of an upturned
lifeboat
providing
protection
from elemental
fury.
God when the church
becomes a
life-denying canopy
insulating us
from the full
beauty and passion
of your love
overturn us
that we may sail
boldly
on the waters
of questing faith.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.
Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
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