5 Poems from a Hard Place
5 poems from a hard place
Silvia Purdie, June 2019
On the edge of extinction
I suppose I’m a bit of a dinosaur
end of an era
last of the line
keeping company with a few old relics
old hymns, old liturgy
huddling in buildings from another age.
I am trained for a job rapidly ceasing to exist,
equiped for a project that hardly anyone
my age or younger
cares much about.
Do I?
care, that is.
I caretake these treasures
but who will inherit them?
I guess I knew when I began
doomed from the start
set up to fail
this way of being church
left high and dry
a quaint remnant of the way things were
Parish ministry is so last century!
Hits
I’m bruised, Lord, battle weary.
I can still feel every hit
every harsh word
every angry glance.
I can still feel every ache,
every polite rejection
every absence when I hoped they would come.
I’m pretty good at bouncing back
re-inflating each time
trying again
But
give me a break!
give it a rest!
Can’t things just go well this week
and everyone be OK??
Gratitude
When I go looking for how to cope better
I can’t get far without bumping into gratitude.
Complaining gets boring pretty quick.
Gratitude leads me further.
Thank you for right now, for this breath
Thank you for a cup of tea and sun through the window
Thank you for the people who love me
Thank you for the things I find easy.
Thank you for sending Jesus,
when you didn’t have to bother.
Thank you for making all this beauty
- I am so sorry we’ve stuffed it up.
Thank you for your Spirit who is closer than close.
Thank you for what I know of your glory.
Thank you for troubles, even though I don’t welcome them.
Thank you for endurance, for pulling me through.
Thank you for character; I just want to be like you.
Thank you for hope, for “hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5
Honesty
A man once asked me, as we stood in line waiting for tea,
‘What is counselling, really?’
I had an answer, though I hadn’t found it until that moment:
Honesty.
The therapeutic process is being honest with yourself,
and the counsellor is there to help and to witness.
Mostly we don’t make room for honesty.
‘Keep calm and carry on’ is our motto
which is all fine and good as far as it goes
but when it is perched on non-honesty
it gets harder and harder to keep up.
Me, I need silence and solitude to find what is true.
The TV and the internet fill every corner with everything else.
Meetings and emails keep us too busy
and honesty is too dangerous.
In conversations we only want a tiny slice of truth,
well packaged for ease of consumption.
People who really do want to hear what is real
are rare as hen’s teeth.
I want to be one.
I want to be honest, with myself and my God,
and to help other people find what is true.
Total Submission
In the Our Lady of the Trinity Monastery in Leithfield
(how does that even work, ‘Our Lady of the Trinity’?
Is she part of the Trinity? Does she birth the Trinity
or belong to it? I don’t quite get it)
the Sisters pray every morning
an Act of Consecration:
In the presence of all the heavenly court
I choose you this day, for my Mother and Queen;
I deliver and consecrate to you,
in total submission and love,
my body and soul,
my goods, both interior and exterior
and even the value of my good actions
past, present and future;
leaving you the entire and full right of disposing of me
and all that belongs to me,
without exception,
according to your good pleasure,
for the greater glory of God
in time and in eternity.
Amen.
Written by St Louis-Marie Grignon de Montford.
I guess it flowed a little better in the French,
but the power of it is there.
If I prayed this to ‘my Father and King’
it would be more biblical
(more protestant at least)
but the act of commitment would be the same.
Me, I could say this to Christ my Lord, no problem.
I’m not sure I need the heavenly court watching on,
but hey they’re welcome.
I’m intrigued by the idea of interior and exterior goods;
what is ‘all that belongs to me’?
Does my property belong to me? It’s co-owned with my husband, not mine to give away.
My heart and my body is also co-owned with him.
Then there’s the kids of course, they have a big share of me and my goods.
As for my ministry, that belongs to the Presbytery,
the parish is not mine.
I can divvy up and share myself out all day long
and miss out on the good pleasure of God.
But if I started the day here,
in total submission and love,
how would it turn out, I wonder?
Silvia Purdie, June 2019
On the edge of extinction
I suppose I’m a bit of a dinosaur
end of an era
last of the line
keeping company with a few old relics
old hymns, old liturgy
huddling in buildings from another age.
I am trained for a job rapidly ceasing to exist,
equiped for a project that hardly anyone
my age or younger
cares much about.
Do I?
care, that is.
I caretake these treasures
but who will inherit them?
I guess I knew when I began
doomed from the start
set up to fail
this way of being church
left high and dry
a quaint remnant of the way things were
Parish ministry is so last century!
Hits
I’m bruised, Lord, battle weary.
I can still feel every hit
every harsh word
every angry glance.
I can still feel every ache,
every polite rejection
every absence when I hoped they would come.
I’m pretty good at bouncing back
re-inflating each time
trying again
But
give me a break!
give it a rest!
Can’t things just go well this week
and everyone be OK??
Gratitude
When I go looking for how to cope better
I can’t get far without bumping into gratitude.
Complaining gets boring pretty quick.
Gratitude leads me further.
Thank you for right now, for this breath
Thank you for a cup of tea and sun through the window
Thank you for the people who love me
Thank you for the things I find easy.
Thank you for sending Jesus,
when you didn’t have to bother.
Thank you for making all this beauty
- I am so sorry we’ve stuffed it up.
Thank you for your Spirit who is closer than close.
Thank you for what I know of your glory.
Thank you for troubles, even though I don’t welcome them.
Thank you for endurance, for pulling me through.
Thank you for character; I just want to be like you.
Thank you for hope, for “hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5
Honesty
A man once asked me, as we stood in line waiting for tea,
‘What is counselling, really?’
I had an answer, though I hadn’t found it until that moment:
Honesty.
The therapeutic process is being honest with yourself,
and the counsellor is there to help and to witness.
Mostly we don’t make room for honesty.
‘Keep calm and carry on’ is our motto
which is all fine and good as far as it goes
but when it is perched on non-honesty
it gets harder and harder to keep up.
Me, I need silence and solitude to find what is true.
The TV and the internet fill every corner with everything else.
Meetings and emails keep us too busy
and honesty is too dangerous.
In conversations we only want a tiny slice of truth,
well packaged for ease of consumption.
People who really do want to hear what is real
are rare as hen’s teeth.
I want to be one.
I want to be honest, with myself and my God,
and to help other people find what is true.
Total Submission
In the Our Lady of the Trinity Monastery in Leithfield
(how does that even work, ‘Our Lady of the Trinity’?
Is she part of the Trinity? Does she birth the Trinity
or belong to it? I don’t quite get it)
the Sisters pray every morning
an Act of Consecration:
In the presence of all the heavenly court
I choose you this day, for my Mother and Queen;
I deliver and consecrate to you,
in total submission and love,
my body and soul,
my goods, both interior and exterior
and even the value of my good actions
past, present and future;
leaving you the entire and full right of disposing of me
and all that belongs to me,
without exception,
according to your good pleasure,
for the greater glory of God
in time and in eternity.
Amen.
Written by St Louis-Marie Grignon de Montford.
I guess it flowed a little better in the French,
but the power of it is there.
If I prayed this to ‘my Father and King’
it would be more biblical
(more protestant at least)
but the act of commitment would be the same.
Me, I could say this to Christ my Lord, no problem.
I’m not sure I need the heavenly court watching on,
but hey they’re welcome.
I’m intrigued by the idea of interior and exterior goods;
what is ‘all that belongs to me’?
Does my property belong to me? It’s co-owned with my husband, not mine to give away.
My heart and my body is also co-owned with him.
Then there’s the kids of course, they have a big share of me and my goods.
As for my ministry, that belongs to the Presbytery,
the parish is not mine.
I can divvy up and share myself out all day long
and miss out on the good pleasure of God.
But if I started the day here,
in total submission and love,
how would it turn out, I wonder?