There are a variety of gifts but always the same spirit.
There are all sorts of service to be done.
We worry that our gifts are without merit.
Perhaps we should be happy that for one brief moment we may shine.

Can we remember those words?
One body, many parts.
Even the tiniest has a role, a small lever lifts heavy loads.
We really wouldn’t do so well if it departs.

I am hopeless at any foreign language.
They pummelled me with French from a baby.
And still I am not fluent and in Italian not at all, how can I then manage.
But does it matter that this tongue of fire has not descended on me, maybe.

We are not heroes, we are not given the disciples’ spiritual fitness.
But in some small and insignificant inadequate way we can just witness.

I was told it was just a giant weed of a tree.
I looked at the sycamore, should it be felled?
Then I remembered how Zacchaeus had used one to see.
He was short so he just climbed.

A tax collector, no one rated him.
My tree interrupted the view.
Zacchaeus’s one immortalised him.
Now I will keep mine in review.

Zacchaeus means pure.
Blessed are the pure of heart.
He gave away half his wealth, his pride to cure.
And pay back those he had cheated as a start.

He had been rich in wealth.
Now he was enriched in spiritual health.

Three times he asked St Peter, do you love me?
More than the others do.
That is our only fee.
To love him too.

St Paul the Sixth asked us this question so that we should constantly thirst.
He lived for love of Christ and begged us there to dwell.
Putting Christ and gospel, not in the past, but here in all things first.
Our duty to tell.

In Pensiero allla Morte, he wrote my approaching death
Is a gift of love for his church.
I can say I have always loved her and nothing else, with my dying breath.
That is the goal to which he asked us to march.

In his last will and testament, he said build no monument to me.
His legacy is surely love, that is what we can and should see.

A troubled life.
Daughter of an executed father.
Mother of an executed son, herself put under the knife.
But a blameless life, to a priest a mother.

No trial was possible.
There was no treasonable evidence.
Executed by an attainder all too risible.
Not for what she did but for what she was, innocent in every sense.

Loyal to her faith.
Her crime, mother to author Reginald’s De Unitate.
Cromwell could find no crime, her inner truth, she saith.
De Laudate.

At the scaffold she still had the courage a statement to make.
Her last words, blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness sake.

On St Philip Neri’s feast day, a boyhood memory.
Walking to the Brompton church from St Philip’s school.
On my blue cap the three stars of the Oratory.
Our confirmation day, the bishop asking a question and me a fool.

Putting my little hand up, I answered and didn’t get it right.
But St Philip loved laughter and said we should make ourselves ridiculous.
God loves us as we are, our smallness to his might.
He was terrified of being looked up to, don’t, he said, be saintly meticulous.

If you confessed to him, trembling at the saint’s feet,
He might give you an absurd penance.
Perhaps carrying his cat through the street.
Or he stood on his head to make you laugh, giving you joy out of nonsense.

Serving him is not about being good, I never thought as a boy.
It is about finding joy.

In the midst of the church he opened his mouth.
And the lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.
I pondered Saint Bede today , his life and writing both.
And his life and work thirteen hundred years ago and still running.

This untroubled solitary life.
In closed monastic walls in Wearmouth and Jarrow.
The only source for England’s fledgling history and her strife..
Our very first writer of English prose now lost to our sorrow.

We can read of him in St Cuthbert’s life.
His last days and death , his life and work replete.
He joked , learn quickly I don’t know how long I will last in mortal strife.
Dear Master he was told the book is almost complete.

His last thought , little gifts to his brothers, pepper, napkins and some incense.
But to us only an incomplete history
His last word , glory be to the father before losing all physical sense.
And then he entered the greatest mystery.

The boy had said the book is now completed .
Like his lord he said it is finished.

After Jesus was taken up into Heaven.
All those joined in continuous prayer.
Their first thought was prayer, life’s leaven
That transforms our life for the better.

What is prayer but placing oneself
In the presence of the Lord?
They had gone just a short Sabbaths walk away, their grief to engulf.
But we ourselves have never crossed this holy presence’s ford.

Our prayer is distant and doubting.
Tentative, distracted, and questioning.
Our pride slowly humbled.
A difficult rock strewn path walking.

But they who had seen so much, would see him no more on this earth walking.
We are no less than they in that upper room praying.

Ask and you will receive.
And your joy will be complete.
A joyful resplendent weave.
No taste more sweet.

But do we ever ask.
Pride, doubt even inattention impedes.
The question corked in life’s care filled flask.
Cloaked in fortune’s fickle weeds.

So let us ask in his name.
Pride set to one side.
Merely in a single breath to acclaim.
Joy then is taken at full tide.

Loving him, we love the father.
And his love for us will never falter.

Do not be afraid to speak out.
Nor allow yourselves to be silenced.
Can we cast away self doubt.
Has courage triumphed.

He said, I am with you.
And no one will even attempt to hurt you.
Is resolve made anew.
Can witness accrue.

At first we will be sorrowful
But that will transcend into joy.
The gifts will be plentiful.
A life to enjoy.

Is the time for questioning over.
Are we now to truth a lover.

Go therefore make disciples of all the nations.
I was reading this summoning line.
Normally I just carry on half believing faith’s obligations.
Now for an instant, I knew He had said this and given this sign.
Was this the working of the Holy Spirit?
Is this why we can witness
That we can do nothing on our own, every small victory is pyrrhic.
And then only for an instant of concentration from life’s business.
As He said this He was lifted up.
Rationally does that make sense, like turning off a light?
Or like a rocket disappearing, rising up?
No, He just vanished from our sight.
But this I understand from that instant of lasting value.
I knew it was absolutely true.

It is for your own good that I am going.
Because unless I go the Advocate will not come to you.
Our restless mind with worry is toying.
The end result, if we are honest, we have no clue.
But a pained parting
makes for a joyous reunion.
Someone leaving
makes space for a new communion.
We lie awake worrying.
But every difficulty will in its own time end.
Will not death then lead to a new beginning?
And we have the Advocate, His helping hand to selflessly lend.
And anyway is this consciousness separate and real?
Or a gift made only under his seal?

Why are we so mediocre?
Anything I plant from seed comes out horribly stunted.
We spend forty years in a job and never succeed, they say what a joker.
We try to write poetry and it’s painful to read.
In the Territorial Army I never rose higher than trooper.
In tennis my ball hits the net, my serve is so light.
When singing I sound like a clapped-out scooter.
I have never sailed further than the Isle of Wight.
Skiing down a mountain gives me a most dreadful fright.
Our campaigns always seem to fizzle out.
My oil paintings are childlike, a pitiful sight.
Sometimes we seem to have all the charm of a lout.
But we can console ourselves merrily.
If we have our faith and if we have our family.

That spirit of truth.
He is with you. He is in you.
A gift of eternal spiritual youth.
An amazing thought that we can be made anew.
Is it true then that this spirit never leaves us?
But this was His promise that He has kept.
We need never fear if this gift is truly thus.
Not only in us but we in Him, this hope to accept.
His spirit is our advocate.
We may stumble.
He is there to pick us up, if we call He is never late.
But He is only the precursor when into death’s embrace we tumble.
On that day His promise is this that we will be in the Father and the Son.
And them in us, His will then will done.

As the Father has loved Me so I have loved you.
It is easy to love father, mother, children.
Why can we not love others without hullabaloo?
Why can’t love for the world be a given?
We know why we are not a saint.
That would indeed be extraordinary if we could be.
But perhaps when we never succeed we should not worry, it’s enough it’s meant.
Is not the effort enough, even if little result we can see?
Would we lay down our life for all the others.
For our children, yes.
But we would struggle with the rest of the world, with all its selfish tethers.
But indeed there would be no greater love, we should try to give no less.
So to climb the mountain, to achieve the injunction is impossible.
To attempt it, to walk in the overgrown foothills is possible.

I am the true vine.
And my father the vine dresser.
They came to cut the high trees on the steep inline.
The ashes, sycamores and beeches are getting old and their growth lesser.
They abseiled dangerously high.
Up upon the great trees branches now withering.
Towering majestically into the sky.
Cut down in an instant with with chain saw stuttering.
Pruned now the healthy trees will grow better from their high healthy spire.
The old branches will die and wither.
Collected they will be cast into the log fire.
Cut from the tree they are useless, their dead leaves will scatter.
And are we pruned already to bear more.
Is it his word that is the mystical pruning saw.

Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you.
A peace the world cannot give.
We search for an elusive peace which never comes unless to cares we say adieu.
It will never come if we seek it through the world’s cloying sieve.
He tells us do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
Yet we are both troubled and afraid.
Can we not let for one moment our troubles to be laid.
In quiet thought leave them in some shaded spiritual glade.
He came from his Father.
He said the Father is greater than I.
One day we will follow Him to His altar.
That thought is the way to His peace, can this we try?
He cannot talk with us any longer.
But for his peace, we must believe he will return, our fear to conquer.

Anyone who keeps my commandments and keeps them.
Will be the one who loves Me.
But can I keep all these commandments and find this hidden gem?
Is this the only way to love him and reach this apogee?
The task is too hard.
The way too difficult, my will too faint.
I can only give love’s sliver of a shard.
Not be a saint.
But He says anyone who loves Me will be loved by the Father.
And I shall love him and show myself to him.
But how can I know this and don love’s armour?
In God I must just trust, the cup full to the brim.
So are actions and words not enough, a mere toiling wraith?
Is love the only way to true faith?

The walk was long and lonely, the green pasture empty.
I rested by the sign that said there was a Roman villa in this field.
Now all is quiet, not a trace, not one mound has evaded time’s sentry.
No lives, no stories, no distant echoes does it yield.
Was this a Villa Urbana, a retreat from Lindum or a Villa Rustica from civilisation severed?
A simple farmhouse or, my thoughts took flight, I imagined frescoes and toga wearing.
There was a mosaic found here after seventeen hundred years, now with pasture covered.
Under the trace of a ridge from medieval farming after countless years ploughing.
The mosaic was geometric, I’m told, with some blackbirds etched on a fourth century floor.
Did some pagan household God or Nonne Deo speak from a new universal religion.
Did slaves work here, what family tragedies played out, what ancient lore.
Will our own lives lie buried waiting for the trowel of an archaeologist on knowledge’s mission?
Now in rural solitude, I hear only a humming trace of a distant local bound car.
But did once noble carts seek by nearby Fossdyke travel to empire’s far.

Inspired by John 14:1-14

Philip said Lord let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied.
How often have we ourselves doubted, saying, how could a man do all this?
Do we not always demand everything to be verified?
Can we believe this “I am the Father and the Father is in me,” how can this truth we miss?
But who am I?
Am I just a consciousness, an electric current neurone branched tree?
No, I cannot rest content with what must be a beguiling lie.
I cannot accept that I am not a soul and the physical presence is all there is to me.
We search for this elusive truth of who we really are, a spiritual essence.
Can we not accept the evidence of his work?
How else in a court of law is truth determined other than by evidence?
And slowly can joy emerge from the world’s clogging murk.
Can we just not accept His promise that if we ask anything in His name
He will do it and this we must know, our death He by His, overcame?

We have come to tell you the good news.
Yet I can scarcely watch the news, it is so depressing.
Full of perplexed and discordant views.
If for a moment a restless soul can recall, there is another path to a joy growing.
On this day 75 years ago there was welcome news, a triumphant day.
They heard it, my parents at Bletchley Park, my grandmother in occupied France.
Here was much to celebrate, a dark cloud lifted, for one day cares aside to lay.
And perhaps to remember friends gone, struck down by war’s fickle lance.
Did this generation ever lose hope, did they doubt their path?
Lord, we cannot know or understand Your will did they say?
Or did they ponder that there is one truth?
There is one way?
And now we too grapple with death’s hand
Can we not console ourselves with his love for our land.

The cottage is filled with gadgetry, zooming around the world on an Amazon sell.
I think of a quieter time remembering.
Of the cottager going to work at the farm’s 5 a.m. bell.
Walking to his work at the yard, the horses preparing.
I think of the first electricity in the valley and a burning oil lamp.
The first bathroom arriving in the 50s, the outside loo.
Of warming range and wet stone walls ringing with damp.
Of the three pigs brought, two for market, and one in the shed for the family too.
But I think of a quieter life too and a certain repose given.
Of walking to market six miles away and staying in one county place.
Of the village school, long closed, once filled with children.
Of the community gathered in the village hall and a sense of peace.
And on Sunday the hymns at the tin Methodist chapel and others walking to Eucharist at the village church and a burning candle.
And maybe a few others on a five-mile walk to the nearest pub to open a barrel.

Paul and his friends went by sea from Paphos to Perga in Pamphylia.
A train of thought, the running sea.
So spiritual and calm yet sailing to questioning Judaea.
Implacable light, reflecting, blinding us so that land’s troubles we cannot see.
Yet in my own small boat, never far travelling.
Gentle Solent traversing.
Welcome anchorages unveiling.
Water rippling down the boat’s side, sails singing.
Alone no distraction,
No excuse to not sing forever of your love.
The wind shifts, going about, concentration.
And for you Lord from this surging sea a tranquil love.
The ropes laid out to berth side’s quay, a cup of tea.
But my vision of him in this bustling harbour place, I no longer see.

Deus Misereatur.
God be merciful unto us and bless us.
A prayer for Parliament, our intentions to pour
A psalm before the nations affairs to discuss.
Interest and commitment may come from many things.
But joy comes more often from religion.
We may be absorbed in the affairs of kings.
But how do we find true happiness, this is our decision.
We cannot meet God in rational argument.
We just have to accept and feel.
He comes unexpected not as a theory proved but as a presence lent.
We do not need to argue, but press to Him our heart’s seal.
Then the prayer is over in four minutes.
And we move on to discuss secular affairs for six hundred minutes.

How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ tell us plainly.
We ask this question ourselves, but this message can impart no lasting sense.
Yet hasn’t He told us this so many times and so clearly?
The problem is not being told, it is believing.
Does His life and work not bear adequate witness?
If He walked into the room now would we believe or stand there uncomprehending?
What is it in our minds that leads to this spiritual sickness?
He asks us to think of Him as a shepherd.
But we are too proud to follow as humble sheep.
We need to reason to question and never leave our doubts unheard.
But the prize is so great if only into this instant of faith we can leap.
Imagine that, eternal life.
That was His promise, pray cut our doubts loose with your merciful knife.

Who to pray to pray to for a petty problem, thinking about me me.
I had forgotten today is the feast of the English martyrs slain.
I had long neglected to pray to one, the blessed Richard Leigh.
An estate’s eldest son, he could have stayed in Cheshire and to his family no stain.
He could have said just one scaffold word of loyalty to the nation.
An agonising death by halter they chose rather than compromise their belief.
To them a higher loyalty called than to country or family or Queen, it was to God’s reaction.
And praise too to those Protestant martyrs true to their faith despite fiery pain’s grief.
Richard had a younger brother Peter.
My ancestor he stayed at home, married , prosperous and peaceful.
And I too would conform, swear any oath to forgo death and touch of the Tower’s beefeater.
For our faith is so weak, our will to conform so deep and so dull.
But we can at least do this before our fall.
To salute all men of faith who give their life, their all.