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.

If your brother does something wrong,
Go and have it out with him alone.
How do we curb earth’s temptation song?
Does not Judgement have its own self-righteous tone?

So does heaven echo with what we do?
Is there anyone out there who hears?
Does retribution come on cue?
Or are these groundless fears?

If heaven is not there,
Life is value free.
Only on this earth will we shed a tear.
And the wind of wrath only here will ruffle judgement tree’s lea.

But I prefer to think that what you bind here will be bound there.
So if you don’t mind, I will have a care .

It is not for you so full of your own importance to go on taking sides.
Has anyone given you any special rights, what do you have that was not given to you.
He who accuses is he who self derides.
If we do not judge our faith we can ourselves renew.

The Pharisees said, why are you doing something forbidden on the Sabbath day.
He said the son of man is master of the Sabbath.
We should make our own judgements on own conscience not on what others say.
Duties can appear to lie on us like a crushing mammoth.

Who we are.
Why we exist.
We cannot shed a tear.
We cannot resist.

Anything good in us is given us.
Anything bad is up to us, it has always been thus.

Non angli sed angeli.
They are not Angles but Angels.
Si furent Christiani.
Did he mean if they were Christian would they be archangels?

Theirs was the sounds of silence.
Oppressed in that slave market.
But Gregory by his pun launched St Augustine into the wilderness.
To open to the world this island’s casket.

Panis Angelicus.
This angelic bread.
Bringing thus hope Catholicus.
Katholou, making us universal, many parts but one head.

And from those Northern mists.
Emerged new hope and gifts.

Leaning over her He rebuked the fever.
Laying His hands on them he cured them.
Is it the spirit which is a universal lever.
How do we search now for the hidden gem.

We could view all this as history.
We could say that this healing is interesting yet in the past.
Or we could ask him to heal us now rather than just think this a mystery.
We could think of him listening to us from the first to the last.

Asking.
Requesting.
Praying.
Receiving.

He is here.
We are in His care.

An uninspired person is one who does not accept anything of the spirit.
He sees it all as nonsense.
In truth in all things material or spiritual there is merit.
The value of things is in themselves and in their own sense.

You cannot understand spiritual things rationally.
The spirit is something both intensely nebulous and firmly concrete.
The spirit resides in our mind only conditionally.
Acceptance by the mind is the secret.

Deep down.
Is your spirit.
Only you can find this, others in doubt will drown.
But whatever and however you seek has merit.

You must value everything.
Reject nothing.

Far from relying on any power of my own.
I came among you in great fear and trembling.
If we have faith, it is given to us merely as a loan.
It is a doorway into the light coming and going.

And if faith is not a difficulty be sure there is always another adversity.
St Aidan was at the start beset with difficulties.
But he triumphed against his followers perversity.
He found that every difficulty led to new opportunities.

Those tides at Lindisfarne you never forget.
They sigh and beat against that Holy Island.
The tide rises and falls like our faith lost and reset.
But remember these men whose words laid a foundation stone of England.

And we on that wind swept holy place.
Can find echoes of zeal to help in our own race.

I used to say I will not think about Him, I will not speak His name any more.
Then there seemed to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.
To go to church even to pray can be such a chore.
Sometimes, it is so long and boring, one groans.

Oft times I think of giving up witness.
I certainly think often that faith should not perhaps be talked about.
Not least because of one own’s spiritual fitness.
If you are so weak in faith and good works what right have you to shout.

The effort wearies me.
I would rather lie still.
My goal, or what is true, in truth I cannot tell.
My heart is churning like a mill storm driven.

But there is always another dawn after a dark night.
And on another day I hope I will see the light.

It was to shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning.
And to shame what is strong that he chose what is weak.
We think we can discern truth with learning.
But the key lies in other to what we seek.

I was lying awake last night for hours tossing.
My mind churning with worries what I was not, could, should be doing.
I realised there is a simple cure for that lack of dreaming.
To make the mind think not of yourself but of others under death labouring.

So I lay thinking not of this country but of Iraq and Syria’s suffering.
I tried to think not just of my family but the lonely.
Some say, force the mind into mindless mantra numbering.
Perhaps content lies in directing the mind to something else but the one and only.

If only we could appreciate compared to others our good fortune.
We would not be so unhappy about our own supposed misfortune.

St Paul writes, I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise.
And bring to nothing all the learning of the learned.
I have been too wedded to material ties.
I realise now my own spiritual path has meandered.

It’s not through learning.
It’s not by reading.
It’s not achieved by surviving.
You don’t get there by attending.

It’s by imitating.
By one’s own life basing.
On one man’s teaching.
Who two thousand years now was walking.

Imitation is one form of spiritual flattery.
To attempt this imitation is one way to recharge an exhausted spiritual battery.

Stay awake.
Because you do not know when your master is coming.
Can we be happy now and control that worrying nagging ache.
Steady down, cease the rushing.

I look at the night sky, are we are in the grip of a vast machine, a piece of passing dust.
Perhaps we should not worry if paradise or oblivion awaits .
But as I sat watching the Bruderhof community and their simple trust.
Their message, do not wait, practice what Christ teaches, it is his will that dictates.

It’s strange how new insights come, dreams can be kind.
It’s really to commit to live his life.
I do not have their commitment but I can attempt it in the private recesses of the mind.
Perhaps for a moment there is an end of mindless self obsessed ego strife.

So I will try not to worry what awaits in future.
And try to live for just this day with a spot of self aware humour.