Lord do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself.
Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, yet few are needed only one.
We are always wanting to do things, to tidy every untidy shelf.
We think too much of what we need to do, too little of the moon and sun and son.

Perhaps we should pause awhile.
And metaphorically sit at his feet.
I imagine ourselves on a tiring country walk and take a rest before climbing a style.
By doing so we take one step closer to his seat.

We work.
Maybe we should listen.
We should attentively lurk.
Not constantly hasten.

We fret that we are doing the serving all by ourselves.
It is not myself that matters but the one self.

PENTIRE POINT AGAIN

If you rest awhile and stand high above Pentire Point.
The restless sea is far far below.
It rages back and forth but the sound is faint.
All is quiet here despite the seas fast tidal flow.

Thus must the dead from a high point serene.
Look down on us weary mortals.
Our lives race in and out, our ambitions unresolved though keen.
We come in with the tide and we go out for we must pass through death’s portals.

In this great ocean.
We are a merest bubble of water.
Our lives but the merest token.
All then subsumed and carried away before our slaughter.

For us all is weary movement.
But one day on these high cliffs we will look down, cured of all disappointment.

ST ENODOC CHURCH

It was the stone rejected by the builders.
That became the cornerstone.
Nothing like failure and rejection bewilders.
We accept everything but failure it seems we cannot condone.

As we walked, the wind came gusting in from the Atlantic at fifty miles an hour.
We hurried into St Enodoc church nestled in the dunes.
Once buried in sand now bedecked with flower.
We came here for evening prayer and to unpick spiritual runes.

This tiny church.
Once rejected.
Now a keystone of search.
And which flourishes, thirty of us today were collected.

And here tarry awhile beside John Betjeman’s grave.
And think on what can save.

PENTIRE POINT

I walked slowly up to high Pentire Point, the wind teasingly cold.
Two hundred feet below me the sea surged, waves were crashing.
I pause on rocks where Laurence Binyon wrote his poem, They shall not grow old.
It has been a good time from historically tragic Port Quin walking.

The sea is implacable, beautiful , impervious , so in that sense surely unthreatening.
The sea does not react to ones emotions, it just is.
I find it inspiring yes but still frightening.
You cannot forget or deny it or so close it miss.

I know you are powerful, what you conceive you can perform.
Am I the man who obscured your design.
I am old , dimly can I see the approaching storm.
The sleet and rain are a fast approaching blue line.

Then I look at the cliff top plaque again. As they that are left grow old.
Our life and it’s sorrows should not be a story untold.

ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT

Water cascading over the causeway.
In England’s far South West mist and rain rolling in.
Here the sea will never be kept entirely at bay.
The Westerly wind scraping the skin.

I walk through the Terrace Gardens, a riot of colours.
Indian shot, tree aeonium, blue aster, bigfoot geranium, guernsey lily.
I miss my box of watercolours.
But how could I do justice to this with my hands so chilly.

The crowds walk up to the castle.
All is bustle and interest.
I wonder if people wonder in all this hassle.
What this place was born to witness.

That once this was a priory dedicated to the Guardian Angel St Michael.
From Monastery to Castle besieged and tourist haven a thousand years is but a cycle.

The Lord led her and taught her and kept her as the apple of his eye.
Like an eagle spreading its wings, he took her up and bore her on his shoulders.
Therese felt herself to be so low yet he raised her so high.
For one so weak, so great a love for the Lord in her smoulders.

If anyone is a very little one let them come to me.
She was in her own estimate utterly little and weak.
You do not have to be a hero to be able to see.
You do not have to take great steps to be able to seek.

There is the great way.
Of scholarship or martyrdom.
There is the little way.
Of seeing God in a speck of flowered dust, in one small petal of a geranium.

When she said we were children, our parents loved us as much when asleep or awake.
She as much as any martyr gave her life in her quiet way for our sake.

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.