I Am Said I (Huruma)

I'm in the sacristy of a neighbouring church waiting to celebrate a healing Mass in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes. There's the persistent and heart rending sound of a child crying coming from the church. It's not an ordinary cry; it's one of deep distress and somehow I recognize the sound of this child. I have heard this child before. A woman comes to the sacristy to ask if it would be alright to bring the child for anointing after Mass had finished because she couldn't remain for the duration of the Mass. I said "why not bring her to the sacristy for the anointing now so that she doesn't have to wait." They brought the little girl to me a few minutes later and of course I know her. We were together in Lourdes a couple of years ago. She's about five years old, is autistic and cannot speak. In retrospect I should have done the anointing outside becasue she has a fear of enclosed spaces and buildings. Her distress continued in the sacr...

Brothers and sisters, our time is growing short. ( 1 Corinthians 7:29) This day last week, two women in their 50's living very different lives in different places had no thought of dying and yet by Friday and Saturday I was celebrating their funeral Masses. A very sobering thought! A sobering message from St. Paul! Our time is growing short! My time is growing short and there is wisdom to be discovered, there are lessons to be learned in the shortness of time. Over Christmas I learned two simple and important lessons. On Christmas day my two youngest nieces received lots and lots of presents. Mine were the last to be given them and by then the girls were so saturated with stuff that my gifts to them had little or no impact. I might as well have given them nothing and I think that next year I will give them gifts at a different time. What really had an impact on the girls was the fact that I was sleeping over in their house, an event that excited them more than ...

I dream that I’m travelling on an old ship, something like the Naomh Eanna but bigger. It is night time and very stormy. Making my way through the bar there are lots of people watching rugby on a modern black plasma wide-screen which is suspend high on the wall. At the far end I go through a door onto the deck. The ship is swaying heavily from side to side and the sea is black and foaming. The destination is Hollyhead but suddenly in the middle of the Irish Sea there’s a pier where the ship docks. I think the ship is coming in too fast, that it will crash against the pier but in the end it heaves and rests gently. And then the morning comes. I’m still out on deck in  the calm after the storm. A large bucket of jelly is standing on a table. Susan and I are sitting on  deckchairs. She’s as she was when I met her last Friday and she has a book open in her hands. She’s on my right hand side and I’m eating a bowl of red jelly. She says to me “It’s really very easy”. ...

Awaking what is dormant…giving sound to the silence I’m thinking about the arrival of Jesus, the new arrival for this time in my life, for all our time and I wonder in what space will he choose to be born again. There are the usual suspects – my sin, the areas of my life where I’m not in control, my vulnerability. But then I remember an add on tv. A man is walking along the corridor of his company building when he hears an old phone ringing. The sound comes from behind a door of ‘The Complaints Department’. The man enters the room which is covered in dust and cobwebs; he answers the phone, listens to the voice on the other end of the line and replies something like, “sorry, you’ve got the wrong number!” The product they are advertising has not had a complaint in years and there is no complaint now, so the man emerges from the room satisfied and he closes the door on the gathered dust within. I’d like to be able to stand before God with no complaint made agai...

Nights I cannot sleep Mornings I cannot wake It’s one of those times Now Twenty five minutes Past twelve Midday This house is my soul The kitchen its centre Telling the prayer Of a battered chair Ablutions in a cold Basin Cinder ashes tumbled On the concrete floor No fire An idle shovel leaning There for want Of a hand Holy water Faded photo Clear memory The sieved life Womanly pink painted Over manly blue Peeling away The old distinctions Male or female No different now In Him ii He is not here The One I love He might have gone The One I need My Saviour Brother Beyond The fields of herding Cows Over the hills of grazing Sheep It could be late When He returns Or am I the absent one The blind who cannot See The numb who does not Feel? The Immaculate Heart On the mantle piece Must help me here Assure me That we will connect Again That He is here Even in the waiting Emptiness Take the shirt that hangs There waiting too , She says Be covered, comforted Warmed in the scented Meantime...

Scent of white Jasmine mingled With burning turf Taste of arabica Coffee ground brown Toast Sounds of the house Stretching awake The creak Of beaking day Damp hiss of wood On fire kindle Crackling Repressed flame leaping Into life The uncertainty of wounds Not healed finds expression Blended ecstasy Of agony and hope

You’ve had it As a serious artist Now Your songs are on The mellow music playlist Of Sunshine Radio Stroking The nostalgic flabbiness Of the middle-aged Who hanker pastwards Your edge Sharp with meaning Relevant Become a blunted Blandness You can have it As a serious artist Now In the stripped down Stillness Prophetic silence That gives birth To forward thrusted Yearning Fire of soul Sharpness of sword Sound of the deep