Life to me of course is Christ.
But then death would bring me something more.
My soul is enticed.
After this life I see before me an open door.

Should I welcome death, will it come early or late.
I have a one hundred per cent chance of meeting this rendezvous.
Why then fear Covid with a ninety nine per cent survival rate.
My meeting is anyway overdue.

I see the running stream before me.
In its cool waters I could submerge and soothe my fears.
But I will be patient, I will neither advance nor flee.
Fate will decide as well as passing years.

The gate is there but what lies beyond.
I do not know and never will until I cut this life’s bond.

Praise me the Lord, I will praise.
In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.
But why would an almighty God want or need praise.
I may love Him but do I require praise from my beagle or an Alsatian.

How do I know He’s there anyway.
I cannot prove it.
Because I feel good because when in His church I stay.
But that could be some natural trick that the mind may permit.

But this I know, I feel His presence.
I cannot know if He really is there.
To feel the presence I just need patience.
All that is required is prayer.

So do not worry about what you can prove.
Enjoy what you feel and feel the joy move.

Grow strong in the Lord with the strength of his power.
Put God’s armour on so as to be able to resist the Devil’s tactics.
Can we hell’s power scour.
Is this reality or mere semantics.

Does hell exist as an entity.
Is the devil just within our own mind.
Are we just one identity.
Or do two forces good and bad grapple forever twined.

Is there a devil seeking our scalp.
Or is this just a figment of our own imagination.
Can we only defeat him with God’s help.
Is it possible to draw any deduction.

Only this do I know that evil exists and I am not alone.
It is only with help that I shall atone.

Jesus went out into the hills to pray.
And he spent the whole night in prayer.
But I forget prayer for much of the busy day.
Business is the snare.

Bed like the hills is a lonely place.
We lie in the stillness of the night.
Alone for a moment enveloped in his grace.
In the long patient wait for morning light.

And now to in this quiet country place.
I idly watch the branch swaying outside the cottage window.
The glass being lightly tapped in an autumn trace.
As restful as night’s pillow.

His prayer led him to call the apostles.
But I do not worry that is only in my own mind that I find disciples.

It is like a mustard seed.
It grew and became a tree.
Faith can sometimes feel like a broken reed.
But give it time and it will grow by gentle degree.

A crisis erupting so close.
My mind swirls, I prayed to Newman.
Immediately a sense unbidden of peace arose.
In a frail ship of peace I now was a crewman.

The seed you don’t have to see.
But it is there growing.
One day, like birds sheltering in the great branches of a tree.
Your fears and doubts there to will be resting.

Meanwhile I cannot do this on my own.
Into the quiet pool of prayer I can just cast my stone.

His leaf also shall not wither.
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Beautiful autumn golds come hither.
Your leaves may fall now but in spring you will be all the stronger.

Do not concern yourself with winter’s bare bough.
Live now for autumn splendour.
Think not of feeling good but bring attention back to now.
Do not worry if you do it well, do it anyway, you are no offender.

In the long autumn night I attempted to be in the present.
My mind wandered to future worries, family and work.
I had tried and I had failed and lost the calming scent.
But the task I must not shirk.

Every time I try, I fail.
And then with prayer I repeat the call.

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart.
And with all your soul and with all your mind.
How can we pierce the heart with love’s dart.
The mind calls yet we are blind.

What is the body save corruption halted for a day.
What is the mind but a mere extension of the body.
And what the soul is, we do not know we cannot say.
So all that is corporate dies, only the incorporate can survive, the soul to embody.

The secret of happiness is to live for the here and now.
Except not to try and live for the here and now.
We should live as if there was no future, neither calm nor a row.
We need just to plod on and follow the plough.

So we cannot be sure what heart or soul is or fathom our heart.
But unknowing we can try love for a start.

For three years now I have been coming to look for fruit and finding none.
Leave it one more year, it may bear fruit.
The truth is I am a long way from a home run.
Do I think it time to uproot.

It’s autumn, I look at my vegetable garden.
A few beans, some small potatoes, that’s all.
I wonder if I should just give up and ask for pardon.
Or am in this for the long haul.

Faith is like the vegetable patch.
It lies fallow, it grows, lives, withers and dies.
We start and return to scratch.
We have our lows and we have our highs.

But leave it one more year, dig round it and manure it.
It may bear fruit, if our time on earth permit.

I tell you you will not get out.
Till you have paid the very last penny.
I know now I will be paid for my doubt.
But I ask about the pennies, how many.

The future worries us.
We will all end up in purgatory.
I will try not to make a fuss.
But in my dream I saw myself trudging through an endless quarry.

I saw the priest far ahead in the queue.
His shoulders sloped as he was trudging.
We were both in the same stew.
We both received the same purgatorial mugging.

I can console myself and this I note.
We will most of us be in the same boat.

Glory be to him whose power working in us.
Can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
It has always been thus.
Its power so gentle if we meet it, it will just happen.

I once saw an old man clothed in white.
His speech so slurred I could hardly hear him.
But here in Lourdes his dignity was in plain sight.
To courage his conduct a hymn.

When I am old will I fight to the end.
Against infirmity will I surrender the battle.
Pride will I finally suspend.
Or will I continue to wave my little ego‘s rattle.

Yet once I saw this old man, his body wrecked.
His life force but not his spirit almost checked.

If the householder had known at what hour the burglar would come.
He would not let let anyone break through the wall of his house.
We all rely too much on comfort’s crumb.
Our faith is as timid as any harvest mouse.

In my dream I climbed a never ending staircase.
Below me, sun dappled, a beautiful port lay spread out.
I sought the viewing tower and grace.
Then others queue barged and put my dreams to rout.

With these people I was angry.
And I was rude.
I stared at them blankly.
Perhaps I should have spared a thought for the Holy Rood.

But I was too obsessed with some passing slight.
To look upon the glorious view and see the light.

See that you are dressed for action.
And have your lamps lit.
In our hearts we all fear rejection.
We almost wonder if we will make it.

Keep the door unlocked.
He may come anytime.
Are we always ready, the cupboard well stocked.
Or are we in this game part time.

I dreamt I was reading the Gospel.
I stumbled and stuttered the writing come and went.
Nothing was simple.
Disgusted out they all went and I left the tent.

But when I finally succeed or fail.
There I know will be the one to tell the tale.

It is by grace that you have been saved.
Through faith not by any gift of your own.
It’s not just about how we behaved.
If we attempt belief our chances are never blown.

Christianity should be a happy creed.
It should be based on positive thinking.
It should plant in our mind’s the happiness seed.
Our hopes should be rising not sinking.

But we do not need to worry about eternal life.
Or whether we have enough faith to have confidence in it.
We can view it as a path now to the end of strife.
It’s to the here and now in this life that we can commit.

We may or may not end up in paradise.
But in the present we can rely on love, we don’t need to roll the dice.

Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
And to God what belongs to God.
Now we give all to the state, the new Kaiser.
To God we give a passing nod.

The state is all enveloping.
Under its shade freedom withers.
Where will all this end, there is no telling.
But one thing is certain, everything it tethers.

We are the nation that forgot God.
Or are we the nation that God forgot.
Does he lie under the all forgetting indifferent sod.
With most religion put to naught.

But somewhere there is a small flame.
If only two or three are gathered together, indifference we can tame.

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands.
The moon and stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind.
You alone stand outside time’s shifting sands.
You alone stand outside man’s remorseless daily grind.

My argument with belief has been, how could the maker of the Universe stooped to us.
But the psalmist was amazed too, but believed that he cared for mortal man.
Thus he did not doubt only discuss.
What right have I to doubt, am I just not one man.

So should I like the psalmist.
Agree he has made mortal man little less than a god.
Through a heavy questioning mist.
I join reluctantly faith’s squad.

Others before have looked to the night sky and wondered.
But still my restless will remains un-surrendered.

ST RICHARD GWYN

Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in daylight.
And what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetop.
So few of us dare to proclaim views or our religion in plain sight.
We are ready to give to changing fashion any sop.

St Richard Gwynn, layman, father of six, married he met the storm.
He refused to compromise, his loyalty to Queen as Queen not Head of Church rejected.
Offered freedom again and again if he would merely conform.
Tortured, imprisoned, bullied and finally executed.

One word is all it would have taken.
Even this he was not prepared to do.
His wife supported and comforted him to the end, he was surely not forsaken.
A patriot and a man of principle through and through.

I don’t even have the courage to speak my mind.
But maybe to weakness, my judge will be merciful and kind.

ST TERESA OF AVILA

Grant that we may always be nourished.
By the food of Saint Teresa’s heavenly teaching.
For long years prior to her great task she meditated.
She was not satisfied just with writing.

She discarded the easy path and founded the Discalced Carmelites.
Shoeless signifies a commitment to poverty.
This was a movement of duties not rights.
Of mercy and charity.

Yet with St John of the Cross, hounded.
And persecuted.
Her convents closed.
Her reformist views rejected.

To God she said, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few, she died exhausted.
Saint and Doctor of the Church now she is vindicated.

ST CALLISTUS

Alas for you lawyers.
Because you load on men burdens that are unendurable.
Well I’m one of those barristers.
Are our actions so unconscionable.

St Callistus was a failed banker, broke it seemed.
A slave imprisoned, cast overboard.
But he taught that repentant sinners can be redeemed.
Slip, sin, but you should not be put to the sword.

Was Peter and his successors given power to bind and loose.
Yes, emphatically, that was a power not just given to him but his successors.
As long as repentance is honest and not a ruse.
Angels not men should act as our assessors.

All of us sinners owe a lot to St Callistus’ sentimentality.
A life lost temporarily can be regained permanently.

What matters is faith.
That makes its power felt through love.
Whatsoever you saith.
If true to yourself, your voice will rise like a dove.

I know Thorney Island, this is where I live, work and tarry.
Here surrounded by marsh, Aldrich had a vision of St Peter and built a church.
Here St Peter’s Abbey was founded in the seventh century.
Here St Edward began building the Abbey as a royal burial church.

Here a week before Edward died his church was consecrated.
Here he was buried.
Here was the present Abbey by Henry the Third constructed.
Here until 1539:the Benedictine monks lived and here were monarchs crowned and married.

But we know so little of St Edward buried in Anglo Saxon mists yet revered as a saviour.
Save listening patiently, generosity to the church and to the poor.

Stand firm therefore.
And do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
Self slavery lies in the mind’s inner core.
It is with ourselves that we need to show the greatest bravery.

Suffering comes not only from wanting too much, denying ourselves or not caring.
Suffering comes from a death fear.
We cope with temporary setbacks, what troubles us is that death is unsparing.
And it is for ourselves that we shed a tear.

But death is pain free annihilation.
Or death is glorious new life.
We should not fear the body’s extermination.
For death is the end either way of all strife.

There is one who came to free us from the yoke of slavery.
We just need to free ourselves from life’s vain glory.

On this mountain he will remove.
The mourning vale covering all nations.
We despair but we have nothing to prove.
Self suffering is the greatest of all temptations.

It is wanting physically and emotionally that leads to suffering.
But suppressing what is natural also leads to suffering.
And losing all interest in wanting also leads to suffering.
Is not the answer just accepting.

We are invited to an amazing wedding feast.
Too often we think ourselves too busy to go.
We could enjoy this hope for the future, listening to the high priest.
But our worries bring us low.

So accept.
Then we will not have wept.

Before faith comes we are allowed no freedom by the law.
We were being looked after till faith was revealed.
Before we neither heard nor saw.
In ignorance our fate was sealed.

St Paulinus converted Northumbria by royal marriage.
A mighty kingdom stretching from Firth to Humber.
Beset by strife showing enormous courage.
He built churches and congregations without number.

But one on my heart stands out, in Lincoln a lost church of stone.
Here in ancient Lindsey once he walked.
His work now gone but his memory alone can atone.
From a Bede we know only of his appearance, but his mission was finally balked.

He would have known today’s words of Paul that there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female.
His work largely lost in Anglo Saxon mist, all that remains a distant echo of his tale.

I am ugly, my head is wizened and blackened.
I droop in the wind headless.
Men avert their gaze as I hang slackened.
The chilly Autumn showers soak my once multi coloured headdress.

But not so long ago it was high summer in my story.
My head was golden, my face glorious.
With my brothers I gave these vast wold hills a yellow glory.
Sun dappled, my strong green storks straight , I was victorious.

Once long ago my forbear was by Van Gogh painted.
They pay millions now for my painting in oil.
Who would now waste a shilling on this shrivelled and matted head.
Soon they will cut me down ending this weary toil.

But in time in a different world, I will grace bread golden yellow and no longer be forlorn.
Such is life, in death we are reborn.

The spirit reaches the depth of everything.
After all the depths of man can only be known by his own spirit.
Today when I looked for Newman’s kindly light I saw nothing.
Was it because my spiritual seeking was without merit.

I wondered if there is a God , he could stand hearing all these complaints.
I find it difficult enough to be patient with the few addressed to me.
I know we cannot all be saints.
And what a dreary world that would be.

We can never plumb the depths of God because we are not spirit.
Perhaps we can only know God not from what we can see but from the gifts given.
Through humanity’s surrounding fog we can dimly see it.
We know these things if at all spiritually not rationally, thus it was always been.

We can only follow that barely perceived light.
For we are given human not spiritual sight.

Ask and it will be given unto you.
Search and you will find.
Yet I knocked and no door opened, I still stood in a mind created queue.
I asked and I did not receive, my request declined.

I was looking at the sea.
Others and I before had found it glitteringly beautiful.
Now it was as if I could no longer see.
In its constant motion, it’s utter disregard for us, it seemed immovable.

Then I noticed the small stream trickling down the beach.
It’s waters were insignificant but cool and fresh.
Soon it would be subsumed in the whole out of reach.
But now it seemed a metaphor to escape this mind meshed and depressed.

If you look.
You may find a open book.