Book Learnin'

I'm writing this post for two reasons. One is that I've been writing several posts on books recently (here, here, and here,), about stuff I've learned from books. Some of which I didn't know I knew until I wrote the posts. I just started talking about a subject, and saw where it took me.

I once wrote a poem called 'Books', which was about books being carriers of ideas. Any books, not just textbooks. Any and every book has ideas contained within it. Ideas which go together with other ideas; which go along with or collide with, sometimes producing totally new ideas.

So, that's just to say that I've learned more from books than I will probably ever know. Even just a few books push together and against each other, forming new shapes, new patterns; and I've read more than a few books. Literally more than I can remember, so how many different ideas have come into being and become something more, I will never know.

Fiction clashes with poetry and philosophy, and mixes with mythology and theology, all to produce a new, fresh view of the world; of the whole of creation. Ideas are dangerous things; they live and grow in directions you never thought they might. And can change everything you thought you knew.

And the other reason is that when I started writing about books, I did it because I didn't think I'd have as much to write about in the 'real world':- i.e. the one where ideas change things. But recently, I've discovered I'm reading a lot less than I was; and one of the reasons for that is that I'm doing more. More different things, out there with people. Maybe it's time to do something with those ideas...

Blood And Chocolate

    

                                                      Blood And Chocolate

Arrested at night, illegally

Surrounded by soldiers,

Blood, sweat and tears matting his hair and beard;

Violence erupts, swords slice-

'Enough' he says, and it is enough.

Grabbed, pushed, he is beaten:

Who hit you? Sneers and scorn.

Spat on, bruised and bloody;

Then he is punished;

For being the King of the Jews, the punishment is harsh,

What the Jews have always been given:

Betrayal, abandonment,

Torture, humiliation, death;

Death on a cross.

Flayed alive, nearly to death,

Crown of thorns, blood blinding him,

Staggering up the hill, the Place of Skulls;

And then, the crux of the matter,

Nine inch nails through his wrists,

Shoulders dislocated, hanging there,

He is crucified.

Looking out with love, he forgives us all,

And so he dies.

He dies, for us,

And, about two thousand years later,

We celebrate with chocolate.

                                                               Bloodshod Gospel

Bloodshod, the men struggled on

In the war to end all wars;

Tired of fear of death at any moment, no sustenance in sight,

They continued because they had no choice

If they were to defeat the evil oppressor.

Yet we are in a far greater war,

That's been going on almost since time began;

And we don't fight as hard.

We have no choice either, given the alternative,

Yet we give up all too easily.

They fought (and died) for years

In hellish conditions,

Can we not do likewise?

They fought for their countries, for freedom,

That many they would never know could live in hope;

They gave their lives, should we not do so too?

No-one warned them what war would be like,

And how many of the flowers of youth would meet their end;

The four horsemen sowed and reaped their harvest there.

Nothing we could go through could be as bad,

Though it may go on longer;

And we have a constant companion,

The Helper, to save us when things overwhelm.

Lord, bring us to life, bring us to love:

May we have hard feet instead of hard hearts,

And may those feet be bloodshod.

 

I got the title for the first one from an Elvis Costello album; apart from that it is pretty self explanatory, but the second may need a bit of explanation. The title comes from two places, a line in the poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est', "...Many had lost their boots/But limped on, bloodshod"; and the phrase 'Roughshod Gospel' talking about preachers moving from town to town. The wars referred to are WWI, and the fact that we are actually in a spiritual war. One that we can't win on our own; but we're not on our own. And the end comes from something that Jackie Pullinger once said, along the lines of 'the gospel needs people with hard feet and soft hearts; the problem is too many have soft feet and hard hearts'.

Christmas Presence!

As I mentioned in my last post, on Friday I wrote a poem-something I haven't done for a while. So I felt it was right to share it here. Enjoy (and maybe more...)

Christmas Presence 

A time for family,

For sharing - everything.

Sharing meals, sharing time

And experiences;

Spending time with old friends and new,

And giving presents;

But, most of all, sharing yourself.

A time for a family,

To remember - it all.

Remembering the heart, 

The centre; 

The real meaning of Christmas,

The baby born;

Who then grew up to change history.

There, that's it. Quite a short post.

Turn Off The Dark

Turn Off The Dark

When you are surrounded by Darkness,

Covered, smothered by the Dark,

It overwhelms-

You can be deafened by Silence,

Crushed by the feel of Nothing;

All you want is for it to go away,

Or to go away yourself.

You cry out for it to go, to fade, to disappear;

But it does not:

 You cannot turn off the Dark.

Darkness is not a Thing,

It has no presence, no substance,

It is (merely) the Absence of a thing.

In the same way, silence is where Sound is not;

Nothing is no Things,

As there is 

blankness in the spaces between the letters and words.

You cannot turn the blankness off,

But you can put something in it.

It does not matter much how much

You do so,

But when you do, it is that that is seen

And remembered.

And, in the same way, that is how to defeat the Dark;

You can never turn it off,

But you can fill it with light.

Even one match, one candle is enough to fight the darkness;

And a flame can spread like wildfire.

Moving Out, Moving On - Poem

So, as promised, here is the poem I wrote. A bit later than I hoped, but it's here now.

Moving Out, Moving On

It is not good for me to be alone,

And though I try to cope

It is only coping;

I need to be in relationship, closely,

And while alone, I am not.

And I have been in the same place 

For a while now,

I need to move on, to stretch my wings,

To see who is out there

 In the big wide world.

It may not be far in terms of distance,

But in circumstance

It couldn't be more different,

Moving from business to friends,

From friendly acquaintance to good friend.

And more than that,

It will give me opportunities to reach out,

To build community;

The resources to do it,

And the time to be (it).

I have been called to lead in this,

To be a leader,

To help build community;

To see ways into this,

And to walk along them with others.

I was going to say something about it, but I think it's pretty self explanatory. This is what I was like, and what I hope I will be like-that's what I'm aiming for, anyway.

Post Script Poem - Giving

This subject has continued to be on my mind since I wrote the previous post, and I felt like writing this poem, which came out quite a bit different to how I thought it might. I'll explain a bit at the end of the post.

                                       

Giving

If giving is better than receiving, 

Then we know giving must be a good thing:

Not only does it do good, 

But it does us good

As we do it;

The more we give, the more we gain, 

And those around us gain as well-

God loves those who give hilariously,

As their giving blesses those who see

And those who receive;

And as we give cheerfully, hilariously,

We are blessed ourselves

(Before, during, after).

So give, because giving is good (for you).

The main thing I guess I need to explain is the reference to hilarity. There is a verse in the Bible often translated 'God loves a cheerful giver'; however, the word translated 'cheerful' is actually closer to the word 'hilarious'. So I was thinking about this, and what it could mean, and the only thing I could come up with is that 'cheerful' giving should be giving that is both enjoyable to watch, and inspires the watchers in some way-as well as being enjoyed by the givers themselves.

Incidentally, I got a message from a friend who lives and works in Kenya who liked the previous post-she said she found it interesting, being in the situation she is in. Which is that her and her husband don't have much (money or otherwise), though they have more than enough. Because they don't need much where they are. But, because they still have more than most people they know, they get asked for help a fair bit. But, no matter what they do, there will still be need-that is clear and obvious. But them being there does help - when I was there in the summer, one of the things I did was go to a children's home and help hand out shoes. Shoes that the money was raised for by people from our church - but those people would never have thought about it, or even known, if she hadn't told people. That was something that would never have happened if she hadn't been there. And that made me think about the effect that each of us have that only  we can have, where we are. What can you do - in your place, your situation? What can you do that no-one else can?