Old Man Quinney

I’d be sprawled on the back seat
Beltless and free
When small, perched on a child’s seat
A clear view of the wild
Speedometer reaching 50
And feet playing with pedals

In front, a parent
Winding down a dirty window
And old man Quinney
Leaning in
His unshaven chin
Wobbling with the effort 

“Fill her up. Four star”
Words I’d hear like a mantra
Watching the petrol ball bobble
And numbers roll round
Gallons and pounds, just like
The one-armed bandit at the golf club 

Only winners here
As the pleasant fumes invaded
The Zephyr Six:
Money handed over, a brown
Ten bob note, and change given
And cheerfulness 

Now the age of my father
I speak to no one
I can’t remember when I
Last talked to someone I paid
Exchange is a series of beeps
Before I belt home

Master’s in Creative Writing Update: 11.30 on Thursday 11th December.

It’s an odd feeling and amusing.

Odd in that I’ve rarely felt so nervous as a few minutes ago, submitting two essays to Exeter University. The umbilical cord is cut. The two babes: a short story and a self-reflective essay, are winging their electronic way to my tutor’s inbox for her and a.n.other to mark and moderate.

And amusing, as, apart from a huge sense of nervous relief, my second reaction is to tap away on this ageing laptop and write about it! You’d think I’d have reached some sort of saturation point with writing!

Here’s the reality.

A sense of incredible weariness getting off the train yesterday evening. The kind of weariness that forces the surrounding world to recede into the background so far that the funniest joke or most tragic of incidents would barely register a flicker on my face.

Home, and switch into Chemistry A-Level tuition mode. Energy returning after a cuppa and toast. It seems that the brain has compartments. I’m fully awake now, enlivened not by the rules of grammar but by discussing the purpose of nucleophilic addition of hydrogen cyanide in situ to carbonyls with student A.

Bed. Slept through to 5. Up, usual routine followed by a return to the two essays. By 9, I was drowsy and crawled back into bed for an hour straight. Deep sleep.

In the following hour, awake again, finishing touches made before hitting the Submit button and…nervous relief.

Of course, relief is short-lived. I now have a Poetry Collection and a Self-Reflective Essay to submit before its deadline a week tomorrow.

But it’s time to collapse and watch some daytime TV with coffee and dark chocolate

But it’s time to collapse and watch some daytime TV with coffee, dark chocolate, ignoring all claims on my time. Christmas cards and messages…in the In-tray. The mould on the wall upstairs…can grow happily for an hour or so before chemical warfare is unleashed. Shaving? Nah.

That 5K run? Jog on.

The Healing of a Man with Dropsy - on the Sabbath

You may be familiar with this miracle in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 14. We…I…can easily become too familiar with recognisable bible passages that we fail to see what we need to see.

This happened to me this week. I have a fresh way of looking at this passage.

The scene. Jesus is invited to dinner on the Sabbath. It’s quiet in the streets. No shops open. No beasts of burden dragging goods up and down the road. Children are inside, getting ready for bed. A ruler of the Pharisees has invited various guests, including Jesus (and maybe his entourage), for an evening meal. It’s Friday evening, after sunset.

I prefer thinking it’s a Friday evening, not Saturday lunch, as the work that would have had to have taken place on a Saturday to prepare the meal may have broken the Sabbath, something a ruler of the Pharisees would not have permitted.

Note, the Pharisees were a hugely popular movement, calling the people back to the Law of Moses, blaming Israel’s misfortune on their disobedience to the Law. It’s a simple message.

Jesus disrupts the proceedings by asking,

‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’

In the shocked silence that follows, he heals a man of dropsy, then goes on to tell the parable about seeking the best seats. It’s about humility:

‘Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted’

Lastly, he says,

‘Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind…and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’

Here are my points.

1. The sons of God are led by the Spirit. On this occasion, the Spirit led Jesus not only to accept the invitation but to fall into conversation with a man suffering from dropsy. Dropsy is an affliction where its victims swell up with excess water in their bodies. There may have been many there with a variety of medical conditions, but the Spirit led Jesus to this man, or the man to Jesus. They talk. Jesus offers to pray for him. He is the centre of attention. Everyone is silent. Watching. The man would love to be healed, but he, too, is aware of the potential condemnation in the air for breaking the Sabbath, by ‘working’, ie performing a miracle. Jesus is looking around. The man is looking around, but he agrees and is healed. His excess weight drops off him, his clothes don’t fit anymore, and he takes himself off home rejoicing. It says ‘Jesus let him go’ – he wanted to remove himself from the party, perhaps with the hypocrisy of the host revealed, and the charged atmosphere, he wanted to leave early.

2. The healing is key. It illustrates all of Jesus’ teaching, which disrupts the familiar scene of popular politics. Something greater was here…the kingdom of heaven. Jesus goes on to reveal the nature of the kingdom and the nature of the King:

‘Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind…and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’

By all means, take this literally, if that is what God is leading you to do by His Spirit. But keep your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus in this passage, not the setting, not the Pharisees, not the Sabbath, not breaking the Sabbath. What did Jesus do? He healed a man who could not heal himself. The man with dropsy could not repay Jesus.

The real sabbath is this: God does ALL the work. The Spirit led Jesus to the house. The Spirit led him to the man with dropsy. The Spirit spoke to Him and led Jesus to stretch out His hand to heal.

We have rested from work, altogether. ‘For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works, as God did from His’ Heb 4v10.

Does this mean we laze about all day? No. Did Jesus? No! But Jesus said, ‘I only do what I see My father doing.’ Often, we break the Sabbath, we rush around doing our own thing…and that might be reaching out to the lame, the blind, the blind. Ou life can be full of good works, but if they’re not what the Spirit has led you to do, you have broken the Sabbath, however ‘Christian’ it appears to be!

3. The first shall be last. First, we must stop. In Psalm 23, the sheep are MADE to lie down. That’s the starting point. We are prone to wandering around, full of our own will. No, this is a completely new way of living in the kingdom. What God is doing today is our only concern.

4. True contentment and radical living. The fact is that much of most of our days is routine. The Christian life is not a miracle a minute. Think about Jesus in this passage. It was just a Sabbath meal. An ordinary Friday evening. He’s been to countless Sabbaths before. And then, on this particular occasion, his heart starts beating as God speaks to him whilst he’s talking to the man with dropsy, probably about his day, his vineyard, his family, the weather…small talk. At some point, the man tells Jesus he’s suffering, or Jesus points it out. And then, in an instant, everything changes. Jesus knows He has healing for the man; the power of God is present to heal, and everything else follows on. The miraculous and the mundane. Don’t mistake the mundane…it’s often where God is at work.

No Heroes

Five men and a crane from dawn
Hoisted, laid, connected
A sewage pipe, its effluent carried
Daily, out to an incoming tide
No journalists, no cameras, no heroes

The mudflats at low tide
Like a magnet, drew the boys
To its edge. Tide one side.
Land the other. One found a
Mirror, flotsam, and turned

The world the wrong way round
The tide, without asking, seeped
In between the boys and the land
Darkness and dampness in the sea
Found its way to the sky

Surrounded by the inrush
Five boys inched their way
Drenched with storm and tears
Astride the unsung pipe
To landfall

Met by flashbulbs
And family
The famous five
Pictures in the paper
No heroes?

Wazzock On the First Tee

So small, helmeted and unstable
In the crook of the parabolic head
Of a bright orange tee
Sliding down its edge, unable to
Avoid the strike

A spoon selected and deselected
He heard the hyphenated word
Mashie-Niblick float down
For the first of four practice swings
Shuddering the air

Exploding in a shower of
Hurt and soil, Wazzock,
Now one with turf
Renamed as Divot
Landed on the fairway

Laughing as helmet and mud
Rolled from hillock to trough
A puncture in the 18 holes of
Wedged and puttered pain
Sliced to oblivion

Longing to be lost
Out of Bounds
To rest, recuperate
Bunkered back to
An above-par condition

A wazzock walked home

The Arithmetic of a Dead Tree

There’s a field north of Tiverton. In its centre is a dead tree. It’s either landed from another world and no one noticed, or it was abandoned by its fellow trees, removed by some inhuman force. Either way, it has lost the fight.

Pleasantly chilled this corpse
It was a stray thought
Not unlike the effervescence
Tumbling up from the morning’s antacid
Prior to the first incision

A hangover beat against her skull
Like lower-branch apples
Bouncing rhythmically
In the breeze, on hard ground,
Crushing to the cranium

Cause of death: unknown
She noted, adding abandonment
Internal contusion
Dictaphone didn’t argue

The timeline of death,
A matter of philosophical debate
Last moments preceded by
Irreversible decline
Autumn’s gorgeous browning

An annual preparation
For the final apple pluck
Its trunk and branches
Thrust up to heaven
In fist-like silent protest

Skeletal and off-white
Reflecting the sun that
Gave it life, reduced,
Unswaying, ready to rot
Subtracted to zero.

To the windward side
An apple, softened and bruised
Unloads its cargo
Nomadic cells multiplying
Secretly in the soil

In tiredness, she lay a palm
Flat on the upturned fist
Cause of life – touch

Alpha and Omega….and the gate-crashers called prophets

Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet, with 22 letters in between, unlike our 24 letters in between A and Z.

In the New Testament, Jesus is described as the ‘Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ (Rev 1v8, 21v6, 22v13). He is, therefore, equated with God, consistent with the trinitarian description of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout the NT.

In our society, we are linear in our thinking about time; we divide time into the past, present, and the future as if the universe is travelling towards an end from a beginning. Just as all living things are born and die, or a book starts with a word and ends with a full stop, so the Universe started and will end. In terms of science, the universe is bookended by the Big Bang, the beginning, and Entropy, an end state of disorder, things falling apart.

The Bible looks at this quite differently.

In the Bible Jesus IS the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; not was the beginning, and will be the end, but IS the beginning and the end simultaneously. All of what we call time is contained in Christ.

One of the effects of this is to redefine our normal understanding of prophets and prophecy.

A purely linear approach to time views prophecy from the perspective of fulfilment, nailing it to a linear timeline; it either has been fulfilled or will be; it belongs to the past or the future, but a true biblical perspective views prophecy as a gift from an eternal heavenly realm brought into our temporal realm of space and time.

Linear thinking makes mistakes.

For example, the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah ch7. Isaiah predicts that King Ahaz has only a few years left in his reign before ‘the Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you’, the sign being a baby called Immanuel. This will occur, Isaiah prophesies, before he’s able to distinguish between good and bad food, the political pendulum will swing against Ahaz i.e. he only has a few years left.

A few years later, Israel was destroyed by Assyria; the prophecy fulfilled.

But the prophecy had a more profound fulfilment in the birth of Christ, so Isaiah 7 wriggles free from its timeline ("The Virgin Shall Conceive": Why Isaiah 7:14 Confuses People - Jean E. Jones for further reading).

‘The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit’

When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus at night, he said ‘The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit.’

Christian believers are those in whom the Holy Spirit lives. They are not predictable. They move in step with the leading of the Spirit, where and when the wind blows. Some are prophets, who are charged with ‘the word of the Lord’.

Imagine a party in full swing. There are drinks, music, people chatting, interacting, some dancing perhaps, somebody spills a drink, one or two have made it to the loo, most know each other, some feel comfortable, others not so…the usual mix. It’s fairly predictable. It’s begun, it will last, and it will fade to the last cheerio, and the clearing up.

And then, midway through, a man or a woman, or a child, appears. The host and a few of his/her friends don’t recognise this person – they weren’t invited. The gate-crasher. How will it go from here?

The gate-crasher and the host end up talking. The host offers the gate-crasher a drink. The gate-crasher answers by saying, ‘No, it’s you that needs a drink. You’re really thirsty. You’ve run dry. I am here to tell you…’.

The bible says the word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword; it divides.

There are two possible outcomes. The host could react, ‘You can leave now, how rude…’ or he/she is stopped in his/her tracks. Maybe there are tears, all the external pretence drops away, and the real issues of her spiritual aridity are laid bare, not before the prophet, but before the love of God, who loves the host enough to send someone…a prophet.

Play that scenario in a church setting: the church is well organised, and people have their roles. Sunday by Sunday is similar. It’s a popular destination. The preachers are engaging, the musicians motivate the people to worship, and those behind the scenes do their admin duties with joy…this is a smoothly run gathering. And in walks a prophet. The person on ‘welcoming’ duty speaks to the prophet, ‘Welcome, let me show you where you can sit’. ‘No’, comes the reply, ‘You need to know where you are sitting. You are an invited guest. Highly honoured. He’s waiting for you to take your seat’.

What will happen? The same two options. Either acceptance or rejection. Such is the experience of the prophet.

Accept or Reject?

There are plenty of secular versions. Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Secret Service’, Fiver in Watership Down, John Anderston in Minority Report, come to mind.

Any individual, family, community, or even a nation, can either accept or reject the word of the Lord, whether it comes from a gatecrashing prophet, unknown to the community (an extreme example) or from within. ‘Now in the church in Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers.’ Clearly, this church had identified some as teachers and some as prophets and knew how to distinguish between the two; the ‘gate-crashing prophets’ had been incorporated into the life of that community.

In Demos Shakarian's book The Happiest People on Earth, Efim Klubniken, an illiterate Russian who lived in the Armenian village of Kara Kala near Mount Ararat, received a vision after a seven-day fast when he was eleven years old. The prophecy warned that a period of immense tragedy and mass murder was coming to the region and that all Christians must flee to the west coast of the United States. Demos Shakarian's grandfather and other Pentecostal families heeded this warning, sold their property, and emigrated to America in the early 1900s. Those who remained behind, including the entire population of Kara Kala, were massacred in the Armenian Genocide that began in 1914.

Christ, the Alpha and Omega, loves the church. He is the bridegroom, and we are His bride. The church is His body. Prophets bring the ‘word of the Lord’ to woo the church back to its first love, to warn, to encourage – it’s the language of love, and, even if the prophetic word has a sharp edge, it finds its origin in same love that took Christ to the cross.

Remember Jesus’s tears, ‘He saw the city (Jerusalem) and wept, ‘If only you had known the things that make for peace…but they are hidden from your eyes’

Psalm 112 – Part v

He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor
His righteousness endures forever
His horn is exalted in honour
The wicked sees it and is angry
He gnashes his teeth and melts away
The desire of the wicked comes to naught

I trooped out of church, aged six or seven, to a Sunday School which resembled the exam halls I was to later endure at school and University. Desks were arranged in three long columns, and a man with a white pointy stick and some maps at the front.

This was too much. I refused to go the following Sunday. It was, of course, one of those early experiences of defiance that intrigued me. The power of No. A short word, used unwisely on many occasions – but not then!

Had I stuck at it, I may have discovered the standard Sunday School joke that has lasted for generations – the answer to every question is Jesus.

And that is where I shall start this final post on Psalm 112.

Line 1

It was Judas Iscariot that Jesus put in charge of the money bag. He was the one disciple who had a close-up view of how Jesus handled gifts and money; how, day to day, he divided up the funds to buy bread and how he decided to give to the poor. He would have fulfilled ‘distributing freely and giving to the poor’.

Lines 2 & 3

‘Authentic’ might be the word of choice today. His authority stemmed from his integrity. He was as righteous with money as the rest of life; he ‘handled his affairs with discretion’ v5. Later, his disciples and Paul the apostle would say, ‘he was tempted in every way yet without sin’

Line 4 & 5

One of the deep mysteries of life on earth is that we tend to alienate, ostracise, and exile those who lead foul lives and those who lead exemplary lives. Both drive us mad. Perhaps both hold up a mirror to our own souls, our potential for ‘sin’ and our inability to be very good.

Jesus, despite his innate goodness, miracles of healing, mercy and kindness, parables, treatment of the outcasts, and spiritual teaching, had his very vocal opponents. In the end, the politico-religious authorities nailed him to a cross. There was a lot of anger and gnashing of teeth.

Less than a generation after Jesus voiced his pronouncements e.g. ‘you are the blind leading the blind, both will fall in the ditch’ the Temple had been destroyed and the nation of Israel dismantled by the Romans whereas the church had successfully spread all the way to Rome and beyond, carrying the message that Jesus the Messiah (Christ) had been crucified under Pontios Pilate and rose again on the third day, as the Anglican liturgy states.

Line 5

I like the poetry of this line as translated in the RSV. Try reading it slowly, emphasising the final word ‘naught’ as you slam your bible on the desk. It’s unavoidably final. In the final analysis, whatever your eschatology, Jesus, the Lamb of God, is on the throne, has all authority in heaven and earth, and is Lord. His adversaries, including Satan, are no more. They have melted away and brought to…naught. (I prefer the American spelling…but replace with nought if you must!)

What is true for Jesus will also be true for us in whom Christ lives.

If you have received Christ and confessed that He is risen from the dead and is Lord, then this life, His life, has become your life. You are indissolubly joined to Him, and so His life is lived out through you, changing you en route.

He will prompt you to distribute freely and give to the poor. At His prompting. Not your good ideas or your political preferences, these are all put to one – you are now becoming attuned to the voice of His Spirit communing with your spirit. Once, I was talking to a lady whose clothes, posh accent, and whole persona exuded wealth, education, and success, but the Spirit whispered to me, ‘Money problems’. It turned out to be true.

As He lives out His life through you, you will stir up a mixed response. In some nations, persecution is rife, far worse than is usually the case in Western Europe. Confiscation of property, unemployment, violence and murder are commonplace. If a Jew or a Muslim abandons Judaism or Islam for Christ, they can expect to be shunned and exiled from their community and family and, in some cases, killed. The opposition to you may take other, more subtle forms: silence, unspoken irritation, fear, exclusion socially, or vocal derision and sarcasm.

But it will come to…naught.

Yes, of course, sometimes we, I, will fail to hear the Lord speak to us, or mistake His urging for our own, or we undermine your own integrity through foolishness or disobedience, and sometimes we will bring undue suffering upon our own heads, not because of our righteousness but by being insufferable.

But the answer to all Sunday School questions - and the answer for us in our experience - is Jesus. We are His disciples. We are learning to live as He lived, through His life, hidden in us as we are hidden in Him, oozing out into the world.

Mustard on Lamb?

The liturgy having passed through us
Once more, we scurried, smiling
Through the tended graveyard
With the organ raging in full retreat
To the silence of a Zephyr Six
And home to remove our polished shoes

Every third week
Sunday roast turned to beef
To remove the sickly nothing
Of communion wafers
And I, with a dollup of tap water,
Twiddled Colman’s Mustard powder
Into a perfect paste

If done, if repeated, if attempted
For pork or lamb the following week
My mother’d recoil in horror:
‘Mustard on lamb!’ Then,
‘You heard your mother, John
No mustard. Period!’

This house with its maze
Of mustard-like rules
A puzzle too perplexing
Too burdensome
Like an empire tottering,
Its final stumbling steps
Crumbling under a heavy load:
An indecipherable conformity

This house was my liturgy
My home, my rhythm of days
Of coal fires, ice on windows
The radio in the background,
Crosswords and pipe smoke
Dress patterns and pins
A piano barely played
The sweet smell of Airfix glue
And another Spitfire
To fly me far away.

Psalm 112 – Part iv

Surely he will never be shaken
The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance
He will not be afraid of evil tidings
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord
His heart is established
He will not be afraid
Until he sees his desire upon his enemies v 6-8

This is one of those biblical passages whose first impression is that it’s off-beam.

On the one hand, isn’t it a bit Hollywood hero-ish? One can imagine the long chords, building the emotion as the hero, courageous and unflinching, defeats all his foes and comes home rejoicing. And on the other hand, we dismiss it as an unattainable ideal, like heaven on earth.

The romantic and the realist slug it out.

But romantics and realists are all brought to their knees (aren’t we?) in repentance, in acknowledging our deepest spiritual needs before the love and true judgement of God.

The rich young ruler ‘went sorrowful away’ from Jesus, unwilling to relinquish his material wealth to obtain true spiritual wealth, the kingdom of heaven.

This Psalm is addressed to the righteous. And, though space forbids a long discussion, the staggering truth turns out to be that ‘righteousness’ is a gift on offer to the most unlikely recipients….us…sinners. But like all gifts, we have to let go of anything already in our hands to take hold of the gift, unwrap it, and explore all it can unleash in our lives.

The New Testament has some extraordinary statements; here’s one, speaking about Jesus on the cross, ‘He became sin that we might become the righteousness of God’.

To the extent that we believe this, we can start to enjoy Psalms 112 and others addressed to ‘the righteous’ and let the word of God reconfigure us.

The potential of evil tidings to flood us with fear is not an uncommon experience

1. Evil tidings

In some translations, it simply says ‘bad news’. Whether we are Christians or not we all face reversals, suffering, grief, loss, and pain due to bad news. The potential of evil tidings to flood us with fear is not an uncommon experience. We are shaken to the core, to the depths of our souls.

2. Unafraid

How can Ps 112 state so simply that we are not shaken and our hearts remain steadfast and unafraid? Years ago, I used to wake up at 3am, sit bolt upright in bed, my heart and mind racing out of control with fearful thoughts. I felt as if I was being unzipped. If you’ve ever suffered from panic attacks, you’ll recognise this description. All I could see was personal and financial ruin; all my molehills were mountains, and everything became grossly exaggerated. In that period of time, I found Ps112…and 1 Sam 30 v6 ‘Now David was greatly distressed…but David strengthened himself in God’ The bible doesn’t tell us how David strengthened himself in God…and I think I know why. There is no one way; it’s not a method or a technique. In my distress, I learnt to strengthen myself in God by reminding myself of the essential truths of the gospel, of what Christ achieved for us all on the cross, his resurrection, and His ascension…and therefore me. I preached some good sermons (!) - to myself! As I did so, and this happened on many occasions, I worked myself away from panic and towards God’s loving purpose to ‘establish my heart’.

3. Until

I may come back to the final sentence ‘his desire on his enemies’ in the next post, but for now, sometimes we need to realise our enemy is the fear itself…and whatever voice is feeding those fears. What I will say here is that mountains can be turned back into molehills. The true circumstances that evoked such fear have not gone on holiday but have shrunk back to their true size and now your soul, rather than being frozen in fear, is being thawed out; he warmth of faith is returning…so that you can take whatever appropriate action is needed and not remain paralysed by fear.

Final note. We are not called to be romantics or realists, but have entered a new kingdom whose resources of faith, love and courage are inexhaustible…our faith is not that we have to be unflinching heroes or confined to realism but that in us the faith of Christ is at play and at work in times of trouble, anxiety, distress and ‘evil tidings’.

Psalm 112 – Part iii

Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness
He is gracious, full of compassion, and righteous.
A good man deals graciously and lends
He will guide his affairs with discretion v4,5

First of all, I don’t want to dodge or flatten these verses: they are addressed to men. And therefore to me.

Yes, I know if you are a woman reading Ps112, the Holy Spirit who inspired the unknown author to pen these words, can use them to speak to you, personally, but it is also true to say that if the Holy Spirit inspired the author to address these thoughts to men, then we men need to sit up and take notice.

Imagine by John Lennon speaks of a longing for a kind of universal peace – a ‘brotherhood of man’, but this can’t appear except through the type of men…and I mean men…who fit the description of Psalm 112.

Line 1. These are men who maintain a moral integrity even under severe temptations and trial, or darkness of soul, or circumstance…they hang on, waiting for light to rise like the sun to rise each morning after the night. Men of radical faith, whose hope is not easily overcome by darkness.

Lines 2 & 3
There is a direct link between a life of faith, love, and hope, and how open our hearts are. Open hearts can be measured quite easily…follow the money. These men know how to be generous but with discretion. They are, by nature, men of good judgement and discern automatically how, when, and to whom to ‘disperse abroad’ and ‘give to the poor’ ie those in need v9.

Line 4 discretion
It’s quite easy to read such verses and think these are ‘good ideals to strive for’, or ‘the world would be a better place’ if everyone did this, and we end up becoming moralists in danger of self-righteous bigotry, measuring everyone by these standards, disapproving of those who fail in some way. In other words, seeking salvation individually, or for society, by ‘works’, by human effort.

Goodness! As a former teacher, how easy it would be to produce a training programme for children, teenagers, and the workplace around these verses! After reading some of the terrible, banal Vision Statements or Logos for schools and companies – verses 4 and 5, or indeed the whole of 112 would be infinitely better!

But it would be a disaster. Righteousness is not obtained by effort. It’s a gift from God. To be received.

Wrapped up in that gift is Christ Himself, and the Father, and the Holy Spirit, God, three in One. When they come and take up residence in us, change, discipleship, the transformative training really starts.

All these ‘fruits’ start to grow. If you are a believer, and have received the gift of righteousness, that work, the work of God in you, through you, in your form, as you…has begun. How’s it going? It’s a gradual rejigging of your patterns of thinking; it’s a maturing process. What is the Spirit of God turning His attention to in your life at this moment?

So, these verses are great descriptions of how men in the kingdom, indwelt by God Himself, are en route (none of us do these perfectly, as well as Christ!) to fulfilling these verses…even if they are experiencing darkness at this time. Wait and see. The sun shall rise. Light shall rise in the darkness.

In the first of these posts about Ps112, I mentioned that the Spirit highlighted Ps112 to me during a time of considerable pressure, of darkness and injected me with an extra boost to my faith, to hang in there, for the light to shine. It did. Darkness is not a strange phenomenon. We have a physical reminder every 12 or so hours.

Let the night and day cycle encourage anyone stuck in the night…morning is coming.

Been to Church and I don’t know

It’s true to the wind
I don’t know where it blows
But it’s blown us here
A reverse-play building site
Living stones assembled
Drawn by unheard words

In file the called
Drenched in sweet oils
Instruments in His hand
Servants soaked
In the fragrance of heaven
Hear them as they sing

A river tumbling and still
Full of life and lights
Fountains pouring
From a throne unseen
It’s the Bridegroom
Calling to His beloved

Eyes only for Him
He plays one, then another
A word here, miracle there
Yes, I’ve been to church
And I don’t know
Where the wind will blow

Psalm 112 – Part ii

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord
Who delights greatly in His commandments
His descendants will be mighty on the earth
The generation of the upright will be blessed
Wealth and riches will be in his house
And his righteousness endures forever v1-3

The bible asserts that the word of God is ‘living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit’ so we need to put the brakes on if we think that the ‘prosperity gospel’ is either a pernicious distortion of the faith, or that ‘prosperity’ is a faith consequence of the gospel.

Neither does that leave us searching for some middle-ground like a hapless British diplomat succeeding only in fomenting accusations of double standards whilst trying to bridge the gap between those that preach glory and those that espouse suffering. Let us be clear, these verses do indicate financial and small ‘p’ political clout. It’s disingenuous to hit the panic button and spiritualise ‘wealth and riches’ as some form of inner wealth rather than materially in dollars, sterling, or the yen.

So, how do we handle these promises when we worship a man who ended his life virtually naked, hanging on a cross in full public gaze, and owned so very little?

A Christian is a man or a woman who has been crucified with Christ and who has entered an entirely different life, the life of the Son of God, living out His life through you, the Holy Spirit living in your new spirit and on out through your soul (thinking, feelings, will) and body to the world around you. (Galatians 2v20). The old you is gone, and a new creation stands in its place.

As a Christian, then, you hear God speak. To be a Christian is to live in a Spirit-spirit communion. This is, to borrow Watchman Nee’s book title, The Normal Christian Life.

Over 20 years ago, God ‘spoke’ this Psalm into my spirit; it seemed to jump off the page and speak to me. That seems to be how it works. So, to write these posts feels like a kind of homecoming, or a house survey, inspecting the foundations.

At the time, I was financially in a weak position, and my children had yet to enter adult life to build themselves up at work and so on, but these verses leapt from the page and have been living in me ever since, initially as seeds. Seeds are sown underground. Once the soil covers them, there is no visible evidence of their existence; the work of germination goes on unseen, away from public gaze. Twenty years on, I can report…visible growth.

I thank God for giving me a measure of faith, but ‘descendants’ is referring to generations to come. I have four grandchildren at the time of writing, so a further dimension is taking shape. We have to come to terms with the fact that we are of the Abrahamic faith and God spoke to him in terms of generations, it seems that this is God’s ‘normal’, seeing way beyond our horizons and speaking of them to us. We carry His words, believing, but scratching our heads!

We carry His words, believing, but scratching our heads!

Lastly, there is another biblical dimension to the word ‘generation’. The generation of the upright and descendants can, of course, be quite prosaic and mean ‘your kids’, our physical progeny. And we mustn’t dodge that! But it also has a spiritual dimension. The third stage of spiritual growth à la 1 John is fatherhood, in the child, young man, fatherhood progression.

Fatherhood comes in an infinite array of avenues. It is not confined to physical children or the nuclear family. It comes about when whatever wealth inside a man is passed on to whosoever. (Of course, I’m using the term ‘fatherhood’ as a non-gender specific term…though us blokes need to hear this!)

St Paul wrote ‘though you may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, you do not have many fathers…I have begotten you through the gospel, imitate me’.

That’s what father’s say: ‘Do it like this. Imitate me’.

Lastly, none of these promised riches, or descendants, come about automatically simply because we are believers, or because we have trusted in Christ and His work on the cross for us, to forgive us, to take the punishment we deserved and so on. Wonderful though that is, it won’t move us an inch into the fulfilment of these promises.

Fulfilment is dependent on fearing the Lord and delighting in His commandments. The measure to which we humble ourselves by fearing the Lord and obeying his commands is the measure to which He can fulfil these amazingly encouraging promises in our experience.

Foul Drain

West Midlands Police ban fans of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending their Europa League fixture at Villa Park on November 6th

‘National disgrace’ – Kemi Badenoch
‘Wrong Decision’ – Kier Starmer

One step beyond the unsteady gate
The cast-iron drain cover
Forged to fit tight to its borders
Disallows even a whiff
Of regular human discharge
Sludge and stench
Slipping inexorably downhill
Not a foot below, out of sight

Until its long-felt antipathy
For light and public gaze,
Old shackles cast aside,
Erupts and,
Seeping from beneath
Floods the public square
With a miasma of words

Who will shovel the shit
Back to the bottomless pit?
Will pulpits lie dumb?
Will uninvited prophets
Uncover awkward memories
Of Clifford’s Tower
And King David’s hotel?

Clifford’s Tower: 1190 in York, the massacre of Jews, approx. 150 dead
King David’s hotel: 1946, the Jewish Irgun militia bombed the British HQ, 96 dead

Psalm 112 – if you dare!

My bank balance forbids me from indulging various personal dreams, none more so than purchasing my ideal property portfolio.

Property number one is a ramshackle house overlooking a beach, veranda, wooden floorboards, random furniture, large fireplace. Property number two is an apartment high above the road in Chelsea with a grand piano…modelled on one of my favourite films, 101 Dalmatians. Number three….and so on. There are five in all.

In my imagination, I live in all five; they are the places I call home. I actually do live in one of these five!

If the bible can be equated to all the houses on earth, Psalm 112 would be one of my ‘homes’ I often return to, and one that I discovered at a time of particular pressure.

I don’t know how many of these posts it will take to show you around my Ps112 house, but that’s the spirit in which these posts are written. Like all properties, each room requires different types of work or decoration…we’re all in the process of dealing with timetables of neglect and action.

Verse 1.

Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments

You may well be thinking ‘This is one of your favourite Psalms, John?’ even if, out of politeness, British reserve, or puzzlement, you say nowt. For one thing, it’s countercultural. We invest so much of our inner philosophical resources striving for ‘freedom’, or ‘individual autonomy’: Brontë’s Jane Eyre famously exclaims, ‘I am an independent woman!’, Martin Luther King intoned ‘Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!’ In the banishment of slavery, and with gadgetry all but replacing household servants, the concept of living within the confines of another’s command has shrunk to smaller domains such as the military. In general, we shudder at the thought of putting ourselves under the command of anyone else so schooled are we in the virtues of freedom.

So verse 1 is a stumbling block. And an issue that we have to confront.

Whilst it is true that Paul in Galatians wrote ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set you free!’ and Jesus Himself said ‘…the truth will set you free…’, the freedom that the bible speaks about is about freedom from sin and freedom from man’s traditions…not freedom from God’s commands. As many have said before, Jesus is not just my Saviour, He is my Lord.

From the outset, as believers, we wear the clothes of a servant, and we know something of the fear of the Lord and yet we also find something else which perhaps we didn’t anticipate: a strange delight in His commands.

There are clues to this unlikely pairing of fear and delight. Look at the dogs you pass in the street or on a country lane. The ones who are happiest are the ones who have learnt obedience! The tale’s wagging, the love for the owner is in their eyes, and seemingly in contradiction to ‘obedience’, they are the dogs that spend most of the time off the leash!

I fear I still struggle against the leash at times. Battles rage.

Many commandments are written, of course, that is the Old Testament way of doing things, obedience to written legislation. In the New Covenant, the Spirit writes the law on our hearts, so we obey from the heart. It can be in relation to a written command e.g. ‘love your neighbour…’, but it can also be in real time, ‘go and speak to that person now!’

The more I obey written commands in the Law of Moses from the heart and the nudges of the Spirit, the more I find that the fear of the Lord and delight go hand in hand.

The key is realising the truth that Paul wrote in Galatians: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who lives but Christ lives in me. The life I now live I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me’ Gal 2v20

As Christ lives out His life through me, in my form, my soul and body are discipled, or apprenticed, and I learn His way of living in the fear and delight of His Father’s commands.

Jesus, of course, did this perfectly: He expressed this by saying, ‘I only do what I see My Father doing’. That constriction turns out to be perfect freedom.

So, I hope you enjoyed the first room on this tour. It’s delightful…but there’s work still to be done.

I Was There

I was there
To witness the first shove
And the wild, confident
Aggression of the man, Jacob
Who crossed the Ford
At Jabbok, weighed down
With fear and promises,

And I was there each hour
Of the moon-lit night-fight
I saw the lion-man’s eyes
Flash with unearthly colours
And music leak from his lips
In the struggle
Until dawn

I was there listening
To mighty Jacob gripping
The lion-man, yet finally
Disinterested in victory
Reduced to the whisper
Of one request
Bless me

The Lion-man extended a finger
Made of light and word
And touched Jacob’s strength
His hip joint dislocated
As a new name descended
From heaven and a new man
Walked the Earth

Remembering the Future

It wasn’t dementia,
I’m sure of that
But a glance

Along my outstretched feathers
Above the clouds
Wings left and right

Making the sun dance
Iridescent and normal
Thermal swimming

Strong and unhindered,
I left all my memories untended
Slipping into the present

Far below the cloud banks
Through to a tight circle of
Proudly assembled eyrie

I hear someone unfamiliar
Calling, pulling me into a dive
To unclench my prey.

Talons relaxing
I drop my dormouse load
In front of a hair-filled

Inquisitive, pleading ball
As recollection fires
And I watch

Myself forming again

MA Creative Writing, Exeter University The Other Module: Prose Week 4: Disaster – bad day at the office

Came away from today befuddled, feeling like a literary dwarf compared with fellow students, and rather downbeat…but that wasn’t the disaster.

I knew I’d be walking into a room of students and staff with heads far fuller than mine with English literature. Although that can leave one daunted, that’s exactly why I’m here…to wear L plates and learn from others.

No, the disaster was simple.

A third of the class uploads work each week. ‘Homework’ for the rest of us is to write critical reviews on their posted work, ready to share our perspectives verbally in the second half of the workshop.

The upload is to an online animal called Padlet. The disaster, as I found out after the lecture, was that I had failed to scroll Padlet right and so missed all but one of the offerings, was lost, had nothing to say, and wanted the earth to open up and swallow hard.

It’s one thing to be in awe of others’ relative ability, but combine that with simple incompetence: that’s my definition of a bad day at the office.

Home now. Sanctuary. Safe space. Last week’s pieces printed out, ready for me to write critiques and catch up in the morning…AND get on with this week’s assignment.

Live and learn, eh? We press on.

Sinatra, where are you when I need you?

Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race
That's life

Hostage Return: Prisoner Release

‘He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death’ Exodus 21v 16

Is this post written with the release of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct 7th 2023, from the Nova Music festival and the kibbutz, in mind? Yes…in part.

The other part is to explore the question of how we should distinguish between the OT Law written on tablets of stone and papyrus, and the NT, or new covenant, where the law is written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

I’m writing this on Sunday, 12th October 2025, listening to news reports during the day, hoping that the hostages, alive or dead, are handed back to Israel tomorrow.

If the Old Testament Law were still in place, it would not apply to Hamas; it only applied to Jews and foreigners living within the borders of Israel.

St Paul, writing to Christians, mostly non-Jews, in Galatia, wrote, ‘the law acted as our schoolteacher to bring us to Christ.’ In other words, the Law teaches us right from wrong, but it cannot change our hearts; the bible contends that this can only happen through faith in Christ.

Reading the verse from Exodus, we can discern right from wrong in terms of the outward action of kidnapping; however, the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel foresaw a new covenant, the New Testament, where the Law is written on our hearts. This changes our perspective on the Law.

Those who put their faith in Christ are promised a spiritual heart transplant, after which the spiritual truth underlying the above verse begins will sink in. The Holy Spirit, in writing this verse on our hearts, begins to point out the awkward truth that we are all prone to taking others hostage! If we treat others as commodities, a means to further our plans, or when we manipulate circumstances so that others become pawns on our chessboard, are we not taking others hostage?

(That could, of course, include actual hostage taking, as has been the case with Hamas, but at the heart level, it’s far more subtle, invisible, and unobservable).

Under such conviction, the believer is forced back to the love of God, knowing that Christ took the punishment that we deserved by His death on the cross, to bring us forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

And it is forgiveness that brings us to the heart of the issue with Israel and the Palestinians.

A two-state solution alone will not resolve the problem of Israel-Palestine. Only forgiveness. That’s not to say a two-state solution isn’t a laudable aim or necessary political objective, but, in itself, it could exacerbate the mutual distrust that exists between Israelis and Palestinians as easily as playing a part in solving long-held grievances.

A two-state solution alone will not resolve the problem of Israel-Palestine

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the older brother could not find it in his heart to rejoice at his younger brother’s return and the favour, it seemed, their father gave to the returning prodigal. Despite the father’s best efforts to lift his oldest son’s mood, he failed. If we run the parable beyond its finishing point and revisit the family home the following morning, and the day after that, and the day after that, what do we imagine happened next? Perhaps there are two possible outcomes:

A. The antipathy remains, and the two brothers occupy two different zones, unable to restore their closeness. The bitterness of the older brother prevents any reconciliation. A ceasefire, maybe, a truce, but no peace.

B. Or, mutual forgiveness and mutual respect. Brothers, yes, but not one person. Mutual zones, maybe, but very porous borders, through whose pores, forgiveness, blessing, and peace flow – in both directions. It’s still a two-state solution, but not a standoff.

Today, the ceasefire is holding.

Tomorrow, I hope, along with the world, that the hostage and prisoner exchange goes smoothly and with respect.

The Day after? Phase 2. Far harder. Our prayers ascend to Almighty God.

For Zion’s Sake I will not keep silent – Isaiah 62v1

Whilst the world holds its breath to see if the Israel-Gaza ceasefire will evolve into a lasting peace, we have some space to explore our own hearts rather than our minds. What is lurking there…the good and the not so good, the fears, and the hopes and longings?

The second anniversary of the appalling premeditated attacks carried out by Hamas against unarmed young civilians at the Nova music festival and against those living in the Kibbutz Be’eri was Tuesday of this week, October 7th.

On Tuesday, I travelled to Exeter to attend a lecture at the University, with Keir Starmer’s appeal to pro-Palestinian protestors to desist from protesting on the anniversary as a mark of respect, in the background and on my mind.

What did I find?

Two things of note.

1. No Palestinian flags or protests on campus – that I saw or heard

2. In the Forum, a large open space, containing the library, Sainsbury’s, two coffee shops, and a large atrium area in which various groups set out their stalls, sat two students manning a stall advertising the Jewish society; a young man and a young woman, sitting peacefully and quietly. On their stall, they had photos of the remaining hostages, candles to light, and small yellow ribbons to wear to indicate support.

I lit a candle and fumbled with the pin before managing to wear the yellow ribbon.

I was impressed with the calmness of the two students and the atmosphere of ‘normalness’, if that’s a word, that seemed to pervade the Forum; a remarkable Pacific oasis. I was, unconsciously perhaps, steeling myself en route to Exeter, to wade through vehement, loud, well-organised protestors, waving Palestinian flags and denouncing Israel, Netanyahu, and so on.

I find myself saying, as the years pile up, ‘nothing surprises me anymore’…but the reality was a pleasant surprise: two brave students, manning a stall, whether they would be the target of antisemitic protest, hatred, or something far worse, or support.

Isaiah, also, was brave. He spoke up. He protested. Often against his own government or rulers, the kings and priests of his day. And against Israel’s enemies. The rest of his quote is worth examining.

‘For Zion’s sake, I will not be silent
And for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not rest
Until her righteousness goes forth as a burning torch’ Is 62v1
What is Zion’s sake? What is Jerusalem’s sake?

One of the strengths that democracies espouse is upholding free speech. Whilst I have been staggered at what has been permitted to be stated on banners and in chants during the pro-Palestinian marches – well beyond the bounds of free speech – the sheer fact that such freedoms exist and society doesn’t resort to rioting and civil war is testimony to the strength of our democratic society…at least for the time being.

The final test of the righteousness of a nation embroiled in a war, however, is determined by how it acts after the war

Such freedoms exist in Israel as well. But not in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel is a society driven to extremes by this latest onslaught unleashed by Hamas from Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. Many Israelis, including some of the families of hostages, are bitterly opposed to the conduct of the war in Gaza. Others support the dual aims of the war – the return of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas – and the military option taken by Netanyahu’s government.

The final test of the righteousness of a nation embroiled in a war, however, is determined by how it acts after the war.

I think it would be true to say that most British, French, Norwegian, and Polish citizens and other European and non-European allies after WW2 were able to differentiate between Nazi Germany and the general German population. The rebuilding of Germany into a free, democratic state happened remarkably quickly, with good relations restored between, say, Britain and Germany occurring in double quick time.

Much will be expected of Israel in the recovery from the shock of Hamas’s attack and promise to repeat such attacks, and the chant heard in Western countries, ‘Free Palestine from the River to the Sea’ – a chilling reminder of the combined jihadist and Marxist aim to remove Israel from the map…a publicly declared genocidal aim. And we have permitted this in the name of free speech!

Can Israel delineate between Hamas and the general population in post-war Gaza?

The world holds its breath. I hold mine. Righteousness is on the line.

Will Gazans denounce Hamas in the same way that Germany, largely, has distanced itself from Nazi ideology and created a state that opposes dictatorship and fascism, whether the fascism of the left or the right?

It’s no wonder that Jesus taught us :

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be filled’

The world holds its breath. I hold mine. Righteousness is on the line.

I want to see a Gaza and West Bank that seeks to live cooperatively and at peace with Israel, to seek Israel’s security and blessing. I want to see an Israel whose righteousness shines like a burning torch and returns the blessing to Gaza and the West Bank, helping to rebuild a Gaza physically shattered after two years of war.

I worry that the deep sense of injustice that fuels Palestinian antipathy against Israel – and Israel’s largely western supporters - will again descend into the kind of inhumane action taken on October 7th 2023, and that terror attacks will continue against Israel and the West.

I worry that the far-right. ultra-orthodox, ultra-nationalist Jews in Israel will continue to push into the West Bank, claiming it is Judea and Samaria, and seek to displace their neighbours either directly or indirectly.

I worry that Netanyahu will continue along the path to place the government above the Supreme Court in Israel and undo one of the vital lynchpins of any free society to hold its government to account.

I worry that the new international administration in Gaza will prove to be as stable as a paper boat in my morning coffee, will collapse and ruin any prospects of a lasting peace, and, in the end, sow the seeds for a resumption of war.

I have my hopes and my fears, but, to conclude, I’m with Isaiah

But I also have my prayers before Almighty God.

And they are neatly summed up by Isaiah. In fact, I would recommend reading Isaiah chapters 61 and 62 in the light of the delicate political situation – this pause – that we find ourselves in.