I Am Said I (Huruma)

‘The Lord has abandoned me; the Lord has forgotten me.’ Everyone knows what this feels like at some point or time in life. The sense of abandonment, desolation and isolation that can befall us for whatever reason and for no reason at all. In times like these we can be confronted by, what I call, the tyranny of joy. Not that there is any tyranny in joy itself but there are people who slap us in the face (that's how it feels) with a version of it and present it to us as if it were something that can be turned on at will. It’s like saying to a depressed person, “snap out of it” – the “don’t worry, be happy” kind of thing. These comments are well meant but totally unhelpful because they are powerless to create joy. They remain external to us. The response of the Lord God to our sense of abandonment and desolation is, first, that He enters into the experience with us and offers us a Word that is relevant and has a power within it to stir even the tiniest flicker of joy. He res...

Be holy in all that you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you. (1 Peter 1:15) The Climb The Cloud The Vision and The Voice Word without Speech No Sound The Holy One Calling Be Holy I am struck With amazement Astonished Transported To the hushed Half-light Of Saturday night's Cathedral Waiting For confession's Mercy The ardent Thirst for holiness Inflaming My soul Centre-point On the horizon Of my destiny Hope that Sustains My every endeavour The mountain The valley The desert and The river Of my heart Oh my Holy One My Love I offer you Childlike obeisance On the earth floor Of my life Glimpsing glory Through a prism Of clay

Winter was slow To release its grip On the springtime                                             Of our content Adulthood barely tasted We tested fresh waters Finding new reasons For laughter And how we laughed In the Spring of seventy seven In the loving Of countless homeless Children in Care Going together after work To the Continental Where we drank as little As fast as we could afford When we hadn’t A soda-and-lime or a Pint of Harp between us We went to Seapoint For the last dance for free Throwing down our coats The girls threw down their bags On the floor where we danced Together in our circle And the Memories  Did Bohemian Rhapsody Better than Queen So it seemed to us Dry ice and all And the night would not Be deep enough And we being slow as Winter Gate-crashed the party ...

The church stood alone in the middle of nowhere and, on a bleak January day, it looked fairly wretched and worn. The inside felt cold and inhospitable. It was hard to settle. The people gathered for the baptism milled around talking, hesitant to sit for fear of being gripped by the chill. I noticed a little boy standing in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin. He was mesmerized by the shimmering of the votive lights burning there. "They're moving" he said to me. "They do that" I replied and explained that people say a prayer when they light a candle. "Would you like to light one and say a prayer?" I asked. "I would!" he said. "Do you know any prayer?" "I know this one", and he proceeded to say the prayer 'Jesus Loves Me this I know for the Bible tells me so,' It went from recitation into song! Beautiful! "Would you say that prayer during the Baptism?" I asked. He said he would an...

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.   We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;   persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;   always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.   (2 Corinthians 4:6-10) I’m a fan of Leonard Cohen and like his song ‘Anthem’ which has a line that says, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” It’s like what we read in 2 Corinthians, except Paul tells us that the light is already within us. We are the earthen vessels that contain the radiant light of Jesus, a light that goes out from us through the crac...

Totus Tuus Jesus Christ Is everything Alpha and Omega Beginning and End Apart from You Nothing In You All find Their home It is Your Face O Lord...hide not Your Face Glory be To the Father The Son and Holy Spirit Totally Yours

In the beginning Gay was happy Before the word Became the name Of the most vulnerable On the earth Hidden Silent Reviled The repressed Oppressed voice Burned like a fire In the bones Until it could No longer be Contained Restrained It cried out EQUALITY And gained it ii And having come To this Will you not now Hear another Silenced voice? The one to whom EQUALITY Of life May be denied Will you not now Stand up and shout For them? Or is EQUALITY Just for those Who can shout The loudest And not for those Who cannot shout At all?