If any were so rash as to challenge him for reasons.
One in a thousand would be more than that they could answer.
Job was his for all seasons.
For fate was as fickle as any dancer.

If disaster struck.
Could I be so sanguine.
I know I would never be a man of such pluck.
Hope would be left hanging.

Could I be reassured wherever disaster came on this scale.
Could I just say his works are beyond all reckoning.
Would I wail.
Would I reject his mercy beckoning.

In the end the book of Job is reassurance.
From cruel fate can come reassurance.

O God, grant that our life may be defended.
By those who watch over us, both angelic and human.
These angels are like a heavenly fender.
A celestial lumen.

Oft times have I doubted their existence.
Many doubt an angel with wings in an annunciation.
But I hope for and crave their assistance.
Do I really have a guardian angel protecting me from agitation.

So I have no idea in reason if you are there.
I just have this feeling, this sense that you might be.
To this I cannot swear.
It’s as mysterious as the one in three.

But as to whether you are at my shoulder.
This I believe more and more as I get older.

Naked I came from my mother’s womb.
Naked I shall return.
Job’s good life stands out as the shadows loom.
His acceptance is extraordinary as his fortunes turn.

To lose all your possessions is one thing.
To lose all your children that is the worst fate that can befall a man.
His refusal to curse God is something sublime taking wing.
He stood steadfast, into God’s merciful hands he ran.

Anyone, Jesus said, who welcomes this little child welcomes me.
Today I helped take my granddaughter to her first day at school.
In these little ones, it is his reflection we can see.
Far better is the innocent example of children than any rule.

How many of us would have Job’s courage if fortune deserted us.
Without divine help human nature is always thus.

The first son answered, I will not go, but afterwards thought better of it and went.
The second answered, certainly Sir, but did not go.
We can ask ourselves: do we go where we are sent?
Or do we go where the wind does blow?

We judge.
But those who know they are wrong have the better idea.
They we grudge.
But we rest in our own anaemia.

Perhaps for one moment we could be full of gratitude.
And full of love.
Often, it is not others we should criticise but our own mood.
For what is resented or regretted by the dove.

But the moment passes and we go on our own way paying lip service.
In the end it is only to us that we do the most disservice.

Let your heart give you joy in your young days.
Follow the promptings of your heart.
In our mist bound time we seek out the sun’s rays.
The world may baffle for it is abstract art.

Is it true that everything is mere vanity?
I was young and strong once, now I am old.
But there is always one final home, Christianity .
It, I hope will come to my aid when all is cold.

But is this also mere vanity.
False hope from ancient legend’s myth.
Perhaps in this universe there is just humanity and no God.
Forging alone the World like some great terrestrial blacksmith.

No, I will not give up hope.
My hand grasps from under water this unseen celestial rope.

Man who is merely a breath
Whose life fades like a passing shadow.
It is only our memory that we can bequeath.
Soon we shall pass below.

What do we read in Proverbs, there is a time for everything.
A time for giving birth, a time for dying.
Why do we spend endless hours fearful of not just death’s but life’s sting?
Everything will surely resolve itself despite our crying.

We will lose.
And we will keep.
We will choose.
And we will reap.

We will spend no doubt sometime dancing.
But we must accept now that we will spend some time mourning.

All things are wearisome.
No man can claim that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their full of hearing.
Today I could not help but feel wearily lonesome.
The soul quietly keening.

But I thought now content of those Autumn pilgrim days in Walsingham.
At the Anglican shrine, sitting alone in the black-bricked little house.
Offering oneself to the Celestial Lamb.
The place so quiet you could hear a heavenly mouse.

Outside is the shrine’s fountain.
At that late and deserted hour, you can listen to the water through the open door, tinkling.
The stillness of a high lonely mountain.
The light in the dark of candles burning.

All is shaded and without trouble.
The statue of Mary, her remade statue, the old one cast into fire, welcoming, sad, inscrutable.

As for those who do not welcome me:
When you leave the town shake the dust from your feet.
Why do we encounter so much venom to me and thee?
So many a nasty tweet?

Don’t bother to read the answers.
Just have your say.
Those unpleasant replies are just festering cancers.
If you don’t read them you can keep them at bay.

We can walk our own path.
We can be in company or alone.
We can dispel from our mind all wrath.
Casting off our thoughts, our only millstone.

We need take nothing for our journey
By way of mind cluttered scurvy.

The hardworking man is thoughtful and all is gain:
Too much haste and all that comes is want.
Can we just imagine ourselves walking down a country lane,
Towards a beloved haunt?

Calmly thinking.
Not restlessly doing.
Happily thanking.
Not constantly regretting.

Contentedly holding.
Not Refusing.
Satisfied with keeping.
Not uneasily gaining.

O that we could just be,
And not be a busy bee.

Bear with one another charitably.
In complete selflessness, patience and gentleness.
Oh dear, please cure my irritability.
Perhaps I’m a bit short on goodness.

To some his gift was that they should be apostles, to some prophets.
To some evangelists and teachers.
No we will not be bright starred comets.
We will not attempt to be preachers.

Perhaps we plodders.
Can plod our weary way.
Perhaps on our path not produce too many shudders.
We are entitled to our say.

For everyone has something worthwhile to say.
To no man or woman should we say nay.

The first will be last.
And the last first.
For what then do we cast.
For what do we thirst.

Do we crave recognition?
Do we resent others who get more for less?
This is the way to perdition.
A path to pointless stress.

I am like the first worker at the vineyard.
But happy the first who does not resent the last.
Happy the man who accepts what is given him even the worst card.
His colours nailed to a self denying mast.

We will sadly always compare.
Accepting is rare.

Whatever you sow in the ground
Has to die before it is given new life.
My thoughts on life and death go round and round.
But this simple truth can end this questioning strife.

Why do I fear death when I know this is how nature works.
If you want to live, really live, you have to die.
Of course fear of this unknown lurks.
I am afraid I must admit, I cannot lie.

I like this life, I don’t want change.
But change is necessary to progress.
I see myself standing bound at the end of life’s firing range.
The great leveller is raising his rifle, I feel this fearful stress.

Then I cut away my fear of the future with a gentle spiritual knife.
I close my eyes and wait for new life.

With Him went the Twelve.
As well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits.
Do we always strive to heal with salve.
Do we judge people on their merits.

Today I was on a train.
Opposite me a man had no ticket.
No one helped, everyone was ready to complain.
Was there no where out of this thicket.

He was evicted.
I tried to help.
All I could do is offer some water to the afflicted.
All he could do was whelp.

I’m a pretty poor Samaritan.
Out there is certainly a better humanitarian.

Look upon us O God, creator of all things.
That we might feel the workings of your mercy.
I searched in vain at Mass to give this thought wings.
I was marooned in present doubt, not embarked on any spiritual journey.

Then I remembered once how in a visit to St Marks, distracting piano music had wafted from Florian’s cafe and and I had felt alone.
Every seat in the chapel had been taken and I was hot and tired.
And then at the raising of the host, I had knelt on the ancient worn and rough flagstone .
In that moment of one with countless thousands that before had there knelt, disbelief retired.

I felt at one with generations of Venetians.
The consecration came alive.
For two thousand years these words had been heard by Romans and Grecians.
I had need no longer to strive.

It was not the fine words but the very grittiness of the stone.
That set in train acceptance and touched me to the deepest bone.

If I have faith in all its fullness to move mountains but without love.
Then I am nothing at all.
Faith and love seldom fit like a glove.
They often wait for a spirit given call.

Lucky the man of little belief
He need set no example.
But if like me you are a walker in the lowest foothills you will not come to grief.
You can rest awhile at the entrance of the temple.

But if love and faith test,
Then so does hope.
It is a lifetime battle without rest.
Often downwards not upwards tends the slope.

But we are not asked to be the victor.
It is enough to have tried, not with ourselves to be ever more stricter.

The Madonna and the Goldfinch

This child is destined to be a sign of contradiction
And your own soul a sword shall pierce.
This timeless tragedy is no work of fiction.
Like a monk in his quiet time of prayer at dawn study it from prime till tierce.

Look now intently at Raphael’s The Madonna and the Goldfinch painting.
See her calm and loving pride in her son.
Look again at her child, the offering of St John, caressing.
The two children intent on their gaze at each other as if they were one.

Look beyond at the Leonardesque landscape.
Bathe your eyes in gentle browns, blues, and greens.
Here is all fused and calming shape.
Conjure up in your mind hope filled scenes.

But beyond in time this bucolic idyll.
Lies our salvation’s blood-stained riddle.

Dante Alighieri died on this day in 1321 on the 14th September.
Creator of the Inferno and Purgatorio in the Divine Comedy .
Surely this is a day to remember.
For this greatest of Catholic poets praise should be ready.

You can stand before his tomb in Florence.
It stands resplendent in the vast nave of the St Croce Basilica.
Here you can bury all vestige of material sense.
This work of genius is truly eroica.

The essence is not inferno.
It is purgatorio.
We are all on a journey, our clinging sins in tow.
But with hope and redemption we will never be laid low.

Dante is not consigning us to grotesque horrors.
He is giving us hope of undreamt of honours.

John Chrysostom. Saint.
Golden mouth in Greek.
His voice will never be faint.
Because his immortal soul will always seek.

He asks us to forgive.
Not seven but seventy seven times.
This simple command will always live.
Whatever we suffer from others’ crimes.

We are the dishonest servant.
He forgives us our misbehaviour.
We walk out immediately and demand from others redress with thorough cant.
We spare not a thought for what is given us by our Saviour.

One day I may learn.
In some other life I may discern.

Out of the darkness of death.
There will come the new dawn of life.
Our end approaches with every step we take with stealth.
But the end will come as sudden and total as any executioner’s knife.

In the quiet country graveyard.
We stood today around our friends remains.
Hope of eternal life is but the narrowest and flimsiest of a cosmic shard.
But that hope alone washes away life’s stains.

In life our friend’s rang out strong.
In wit and energy incomparable.
Perhaps occasionally he was wrong.
But for telling truth as it is his life was a parable.

He has reaped his reward and he is gone now.
And we that our left continue in hope to sow.

So although I am not the slave of any man.
I have made myself the slave of everyone.
This race we have ran.
We owe to father and son.

The autumn sun was glinting on the water.
The wind gentle on my cheek.
With the sails and lines pulling all worries put to slaughter.
I was just in the now with no need to seek.

I did not need to consider my fate.
I had just this job to do to go about.
I might be early or I might be late.
But past and future are in this moment put to rout.

So I will seek to be no one’s slave or master.
No one asks me, save perhaps this gentle breeze if I pass muster.

Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
The name of St Ambrose Barlow lives down the centuries.
For being gentle and loyal they him slew.

This Benedictine monk of Douai now Downside.
Paralysed by stroke, of no threat taken at Morley’s Hall by the Vicar of Leigh.
After twenty four years ministering in secret, against him turned the tide.
Executed with no chance of a clemency plea.

At his death he blessed those who cursed his stoicism.
He loved those who hated his religion.
Devoid of all egotism.
Content with his own vision.

Perhaps now we should learn not to judge.
Hoping that others against us will hold no grudge.

Happy you who are hungry now, you shall be satisfied.
Alas for you who have your fill now you shall go hungry.
When disaster struck us, how we cried.
When we did not get our way, how we were angry.

We never will accept trial and tribulation as a good lure.
We never accept that if we mourn now we will be rewarded.
We never will be a saint, we want success not failure.
But we should accept our success in that regard not being awarded.

It is not whether you succeed,
Or if you fail.
It is your attitude that counts in your hour of need.
We do not ask from our judgement a kind of celestial bail.

So if you don’t mind, I would rather be happy in this life .
I can only apologise and hope not to be punished if I have avoided strife.

Let us celebrate with joy the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
For from her arose the son of justice Christ our God.
The priest at mass today was so sure of her divinity, I can’t help being contrary.
Always there is a nagging doubt, is that so odd.

I had a dream last night, I was staying in a monastery and asked to do the laundry.
It was hard work, I would rather have been with the monks singing and praying.
In the way of weird dreams I was doing as well the cooking which put me in a quandary.
But despite no skill, I felt fulfilment in working .

My doubts are the same.
I listen, I question my faith, I refuse to be blinded.
I admire the conviction of others, their hearts aflame.
But I remain open minded.

And then during Mass of a sudden the clouds lift.
It is true and swift comes belief’s gift.

Pharisees were watching to see if He would cure man on the Sabbath, He read their thought.
He said to the man with a withered leg, Stand Up.
Rules are made for man not man made for rules, or free will is put to naught.
We should lap this cup of freedom up.

Last night I dreamt I lost my granddaughter in a crowd.
How distraught I was, how joyous when she reappeared to see her much loved impish face.
I realised then, position, money, reputation, long life are not important, love sing aloud.
Enjoy the slow pace, forget the race.

Don’t worry about what the others say about you.
Love everyone as you love your fiends and family.
You are great too.
You can get on just as you are quite happily.

Forget the Pharisees.
Praise the individualities.

In a small Midlands market town stands an Old Hall.
It might be placed in a rural part of a quiet shire.
But exactly four centuries ago it answered the separatists’ call.
They sought freedom from state religion and authoritarian mire.

Shielded by the Hickman family, heeding John Smyth’s preaching.
They made their way to Boston Stump, for they were staunch.
And then the Pilgrim Fathers to the new world sailing.
The small leaky Mayflower was their launch.

It may seem a far cry from the Old Hall to that September day on Cape Cod.
From Tudor Manor House to Thanksgiving’s first plantation.
From royal visits by Richard the third and Henry the eighth, hardly roughshod.
To aid from Wampanoag native Americans.
Who then were cursed to damnation.

But freedom was the call.
And their story can still enthral.