SOUL SURMISE

THE DAY BETWEEN (EASTER SATURDAY LAMENT)

THE DAY BETWEEN (EASTER SATURDAY)

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday of Easter weekend has always intrigued me. Jesus is dead. The Kingdom defeated. The disciples are in denial. Interesting day!

We can find ourselves in such places in our lives. I used Easter Saturday to pastor some friends through dark places. Call it, my Easter lament!

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen

The world switched off the light

And cracked the thin veneer

It all started very good

How did we end up here?

 

Now where is perseverance

The secret of slow burn

Should I focus on the not yet come

And be vowing not to turn

Should I be bedding in

I’m not going to go away

Yes I am hanging on

No matter how thin this frays

 

When did I go wrong

Where did I get lost

And all these things I gained

Were they worth this cost

For it wasn’t crazy living

Just an ordinary mistake

All it takes is one tiny slip

For a domino effect.

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday of Easter weekend has always intrigued me. Jesus is dead. The Kingdom defeated. The disciples are in denial. Interesting day!

We can find ourselves in such places in our lives. I used Easter Saturday to pastor some friends through dark places. Call it, my Easter lament!

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen

The world switched off the light

And cracked the thin veneer

It all started very good

How did we end up here?

 

Now where is perseverance

The secret of slow burn

Should I focus on the not yet come

And be vowing not to turn

Should I be bedding in

I’m not going to go away

Yes I am hanging on

No matter how thin this frays

 

When did I go wrong

Where did I get lost

And all these things I gained

Were they worth this cost

For it wasn’t crazy living

Just an ordinary mistake

All it takes is one tiny slip

For a domino effect.

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday of Easter weekend has always intrigued me. Jesus is dead. The Kingdom defeated. The disciples are in denial. Interesting day!

We can find ourselves in such places in our lives. I used Easter Saturday to pastor some friends through dark places. Call it, my Easter lament!

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen

The world switched off the light

And cracked the thin veneer

It all started very good

How did we end up here?

 

Now where is perseverance

The secret of slow burn

Should I focus on the not yet come

And be vowing not to turn

Should I be bedding in

I’m not going to go away

Yes I am hanging on

No matter how thin this frays

 

When did I go wrong

Where did I get lost

And all these things I gained

Were they worth this cost

For it wasn’t crazy living

Just an ordinary mistake

All it takes is one tiny slip

For a domino effect.

 

The great idea is buried

We talk on the day between

What we watched on Friday

And a Sunday no one’s seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHERE THE LAGAN MEETS THE SEA

At the 4 Corners Festival committee meeting last week, many of us were challenged about a growing depression about our city.  The recent inertia in our local government has extenuated our polarisation and has us looking back to violence and injustice. Rebecca, interning from America, took a different perspective. She is new and fresh to the city and is loving it. She lifted our spirits. Watch out for that in next year's theme and events. 

Still marinating that committee meeting, I came across this poem. It's a love poem. It's a double love poem. Written for Janice and my anniversary last year, it is a celebration of our love for one another and our love for Belfast. Love changes things. Let us love our city into a more beautiful day!

 

Titanic Quarter on a Friday night

Al Fresco, my red and your white

How beautiful this is

Cruise ship docked a mile away

Tall ships basking at the end of day

We celebrate with a kiss

 

Were the Lagan meets the sea

We gaze out, you and me

And we are enough

Where summer sundown lights the land 

At a window table hand in hand

We toast to love

 

I caught your smile in the sails

And your deep joy never fails

To light up my heart

Getting better forever we dream

This is the best ever it seems

In a place apart

 

They say that nothing has changed

All I am seeing says it has

Yes we need more forgiveness

But there is the start of a new Belfast.

HERE

In difficult times, it is not about escaping from where we are as much as taking the time to take in all that is going on… to learn about ourselves in the waiting… This is heavily influenced by David Wagoner’s poem Lost, that a friend sent me in my recent convalescence…

 

Here, was once for Peter

Cowering disillusioned in an upper room

Where Mary muttered the impossible

And he ran to an empty tomb.

 

Here, was once for Paul

Thorns he couldn’t get rid of

Where the end of all the prayers he prayed

Was God’s grace to be enough.

 

Here, was once for Jesus

A bloody cross, all God forsaken

Where even the very sky grew black

As the interruption of mad love beckoned

 

Here… now… this… for me

I stop, take time and breathe

I gaze out at my surroundings

From my shelter of belief

Though my soul is bruised dark blue

I hear a holy call to embrace it

Gently, I hold on to my very self

Because no one is going to replace it.

 

In this uncertain terrain of tears

Gazing across these unfamiliar fears

I’ll wait ’til my deepest gladness reappears

Here.

SCRATCHING MY SOUL (for the parents of Cookstown)

Heartbroken for the parents of those teenagers who lost their lives in the tragedy at the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on St. Patrick's Day... 

 

Angel, you got your wings too soon

Heaven didn't lend you long enough

And you showed me that in this old world

There's nothing like a parent's love

And everybody's conversing words

That I'm thinking only God can say

While I just sit here scratching my soul

And long to hold you 'til your body decays.

 

I guess you can't look both ways

And avoid what this life throws at you

But while we shake our fists at God

Maybe God is angry too

Maybe God is weeping too.

 

Angel, you got your wings too soon

There was so much love still to do

When I think of all my reasons for living

Most of them stopped breathing with you

They say that you dance on higher ground

My heart is stretched trying to reach those ways

While I just sit here scratching my soul

Longing to hold you 'til your body decays.

 

I guess you can't look both ways

And avoid what this life throws at you

But while we shake our fists at God

Maybe God is angry too

Maybe God is weeping too.

 

 

 

ON THE TRAIL OF THE CELTIC CROSS

From September 1991 to August 1994 I had the privilege of living in Dublin. My job as Youth Development Officer took me out across Ireland to Churches from Cork to Donegal.

This poem began in South Africa. I had gone to visit Janice who worked in Pietermartizburg for most of 1993. I am not sure exactly what I was reading that led to the opening line but I know the Book of Kells line was from something that Doug Gay said to me at either Arklight or Greenbelt that year.

"Through villages and towns" has to be a straight steal from Deacon Blue's Dignity though I only realised it now.

The poem is about me going back to work. It is about me driving across Ireland, seeing all those Celtic crosses. They had become a serious theological statement in my journey of faith at that time. God's redemption in the centre of his creation.

It is also a bit of a love song for Ireland. 

 

Reading books in far away beaches

Of home and all it’s sadness

Stories of our peculiar contribution

To this world’s racist madness

Where it seems we are pushed and pulled

In thoughts of those who went before

We believe the fairytales and myths

Without rational reason anymore

And tomorrow I’m heading home again

To the midst of bigoted oppression

To try and be something better

In spite of my own confession

I’ll go on the trail of the Celtic cross

Through villages and towns

Balancing creation and redemption

’Til the Kingdom comes around.

 

Back home to lush and emerald fields

Blessing of our soft wet weather

Where mountains green and bluest water

Are so beautifully sown together

There are songs and rhymes of love and wisdom

And poets wrestling with the truth

Book of Kells showing how far we’ve fallen

From the saintly art of our youth

There are shrines and statues and painted walls

Telling our history in religious signs

Some that I will never understand

And others that I claim to be mine

I’ll go on the trail of the Celtic cross

Through villages and towns

Balancing creation and redemption

’Til the Kingdom comes around.

SPRINKLE

Today, we celebrate the 21st birthday of our daughter Caitlin. This poem was written on hospital paper towels in the early hours of the morning, as we sat in the maternity ward waiting for her to appear. It later had a chorus added about Jasmine's birth and became the opening song on the Stevenson and Samuel (my collaboration with Sam Hill Jr) album Grace Notes. This is the original, as on the paper towels. Happy birthday Caitlin!

There's a bird on the roof below me

That knows nothing about buying things

About looking good or successful living

Or the ads a failed pop star sings

There's a tree moving in the breeze

Waiting for its buds to bloom

There's life confined to what life's about

Contracting in a mother's womb.

 

Two magpies are feeding their families

That's supposed to prophecy joy

But there isn't three and there isn't four

I don't know if you're a girl or a boy

But they're are oblivious to the sound of the Lisburn Road

They live far from the clutter and fuss

These noises we've made to distance our souls

From these things that are happening to us.

 

There's me and you and someone else

And love knitting the ties that bind

There's awe and wonder and fascination

And the blessings of this life of mine

I'm standing in this holy place

To gaze upon the world's most beautiful face

Leaning on the promises of Jesus grace

Licking my lips with just a sprinkle of its taste. 

 

 

YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE

I’m driving through Nakasongola

My favourite word in the world

How did I come to love Africa

I look across and wink at you girl

Roads we take can all be decided

In the trigger of the very first kiss

I'm smiling at everything I've seen

And wondering what I would have missed.

 

Only with you I could have come here

And done all these things that we have done

Only you could make who I’ve become

You’re the only one.

 

The wind’s blowing through the window

My hair’s all over my face

I put it back in a pony tail

Tie all the freedom I am into place

It’s your heart that drives my direction

It’s your love that fills up my sails

Like God’s little helper beside me

Allowing all I can be be unveiled.

 

Only with you I could have come here

And done all these things that we have done

Only you could make who I’ve become

You’re the only one.

DREAMING SCANDALS

Dreading the scandals of 2019

The celebrity mogul who sexually assaulted a teenage client

The sportsman who throws a punch in a night club

The school principal with porn on his school computer

The politician who frauded their parliamentary allowances

The CEO who sexually harassed her mail boy

The Scandals of 2019

Like the scandals of 2018

With different names in the headlines 

And underneath the photographs

 

Dreaming of the Scandals of 2019

Scandals of forgiveness

Where Republicans and Nationalists forgive the British

For 400 years of brutal Colonialism

And Unionists and Loyalists forgive the Republican terrorists

For the bloody paramilitary campaigns of the Twentieth Century

Like Jesus forgiving those who nailed him to a cross

"...for they don't know what they do"

Scandalous forgiveness

Dreaming of scandals in 2019

Scandals to build a future on.

 

Scandalous Forgiveness - 4 Corners Festival 2019

BY GENTLE ON YOURSELF (Surmises on Grief)

surmises on grief... how it feels... the disorientation... the reconstruction of who you are... the places you find solace... 

 

I’m the reed by the lough shore

That suddenly swishes and sways

The deep fibres ripped from root

And all that I know gives way.

 

Culture shock silently creeping

I’m trying to track where’s next

It’s not that I don’t understand

But I cannot cue the context.

 

I know your mouth is moving

And I am here, I’m listening

It’s not that I cannot hear you

It’s the relevance that I’m missing

 

Being still to know that God is God

Working out, who now I am

Surmising where this wouldn't sting 

Crazy dreams of lions and lambs

 

Melancholy melodies salve a soul

Piano strings of redemption ring

That beautiful piece of heartache

As Karin like an angel sings

 

Be gentle on yourself, my soul

Walk the valley right on through

Stretch your hand in the loving direction

To the hand reaching out for you.

TODAY, WE REMEMBER THE KINGSMILLS MASSACRE (THE DAY AFTER...)

Today (January 5th), we remember the Kingsmills Massacre

 

John Bryans 

Robert Chambers 

Reginald Chapman 

Walter Chapman 

Robert Freeburn 

Joseph Lemmon 

John McConville 

James McWhirter 

Robert Walker

Kenneth Worton

 

The day after we remembered the The Reaveys and O’Dowds

 

John Reavey

Brian Reavey

Anthony Reavey

Joseph O’Dowd

Barry O’Dowd

Declan O’Dowd 

Murdered just a couple of miles away.

 

People’s loved ones 

Murdered

Tit for tat

Of the heinous hate filled hell

We heaped upon one other

In our irrational inhumanity.

 

We remember today

The futile loss

The parental pain

The excruciating grief

The torturous trauma

The shots through the heart of our hope. 

 

God forgive us

Forgive us all

Forgive our histories

Forgive our holding of grudges

Forgive the twisted tamper to our causes

Forgive our gloating at the hurt we caused

Forgive our sectarian nurtured default

Forgive our excuses to not love neighbour… or enemy

Forgive our reluctance for forgiveness.

 

Today we remember Kingsmills

The day after the Reavey and O’Dowds

God help us remember forgiveness

And never forget the madness.

 

The theme for this year's 4 Corners Festival (Jan 30-Feb 10) is Scandalous Forgiveness... check the programme - https://4cornersfestival.com