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.

The Need for Ice

It’s 11am, or thereabouts
The kettle switch flicked and
The red-light beams,
Noises build from the kettle
Creating the time to assemble
The familiar cup, unwashed
Rinsed, maybe
Then a heaped spoonful
Instant coffee, plus a sugar lump
The spoon circling and clinking
The cube to oblivion

Then the tipping
Boiling water…
…mind drifting now…
I jump back, legs burning
Hollers suspended
In lingering curses

A longed-for cause
Occupying the moment
Where my mind ended
Anchored in a movie
A scent
A memory of light
Falling from the overflow
Of her hair

Disturbed, once more
By the very thing
Designed to bring me peace
Trapped again
By a fire sent to burn
Away all that I don’t need

I shake myself
Free of meandering
And return to hard-core life:
Of the need
For ice

A Tabernacles Trilogy 3. Yom Kippur/Manchester/Hostages

I am well aware that I am writing this blog post just a day short of when Jews around the world celebrate Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

This year, as the world holds its breath over Hamas’s response to the Peace Plan on the negotiating table, and as Jewish eyes are blurred with tears not only with hope but grief, Sukkot 2025 could mark real change in Gaza, Israel, and the whole of the Middle East.

Hope, because no one wants war, conflict, destruction, grief, and hopelessness to set up more than a temporary home in the human heart. And hope, for Israeli’s, that the remaining hostages, alive or dead, will be returned during Sukkot. And hope for some Gazans at least that they can wake up very soon from the nightmare that has been Hamas’s regime.

Grief? Of course. The murderous attack on Yom Kippur in Manchester has chilled the bones of not only Jews but also horrified Britons who have had to clear Jewish blood and the blood of the attacker from their streets; blood spilt days before a credible peace plan might bring the horror of the Israel-Hamas war to a close.

Tabernacles, one of the three main Jewish feasts that Jews were commanded to attend each year, and, therefore, which Jesus would have attended many times, is the final feast in the calendar.

It is no surprise then that many bible commentators link Tabernacles prophetically, despite its evident purpose as a reminder of the temporary tents (tabernacles) that the Jews had to erect in the desert en route from Egypt to the Promised Land, to the end of the world and the final judgement (Rev 21v3).

My comment here is not that this is incorrect, but it falls short of the relevance of Tabernacles in this age and its prophetic significance to the church.

Just as William Seymour and others rediscovered the fulfilment of Pentecost to the church in preaching and receiving the baptism of the Spirit…hence the Pentecostal churches and the Charismatic movement in the 20th Century…so we are on the brink of a rediscovery, this time of Tabernacles.

1. Jesus as a mobile tabernacle
2. Christians as mobile tabernacles
3. Church as mobile tabernacles

Jesus
‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory’ John 1v14
‘Jesus said “destroy this temple and I will raise it up after three days”…but He was speaking of the temple of His body’ John 2v19-22
‘the Father in Me does the works’ John 14v11

Christians - individually
‘If anyone loves Me…My father will love him and we will come and make our home with him…the Spirit…will be in you’ John 14v17, 23
‘Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ 1 Cor 6v19
‘You are the temple of the living God’ 2Cor6v16

Church
‘You are…a building being fitted together and growing into a holy temple…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit’ Eph 2v21,22
‘We know that if our earthly house, this tabernacle, is destroyed, we have a building from God, not built with hands, eternal in the heavens’ 2 Cor 5v1

The question facing us is: What are the implications for our church experience of the Feast of Tabernacles?

The clue comes from the simple ceremony conducted by Jews from tomorrow onwards for a week. They will meet in specially erected booths, the roofs loosely covered with palm branches and the like, and they meet under these roofs with holes to eat and drink, say prayers, and sing hymns. The holes in the roof mean that it is open to heaven.

It is a picture of the church gathering, the ekklesia (those called by Christ, not a human organisation) bathed in God’s presence (the light through the holes). It is not for one week in the year, but a picture of the potential reality of any church, at any time, anywhere.

Those believers who know the church is the temple of the living God will come with expectation and faith, not simply in a future fulfilment à la Revelation 21v3 ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people…’ but an expectation and living faith in God’s presence now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief

New Testament churches are places where the kingdom of God has already broken in, where the presence of God is normal, and where each believer is functioning as a priest and a king in training…learning, for example, to only do what they see the Father doing. It is a holy place. It is a place where, metaphorically, man removes his shoes, God is there, and the church moves as He moves. It is an awesome place. We become like Moses before the burning bush, where all our doubts, all our fears, all our past sin has been dealt with to such an extent that referring to our ‘old man’ or our ‘old creation’ is irrelevant…we grow in our understanding that God is fellowshipping with churches full of new creations in Christ. Moses lost his arguments with God at the burning bush, ‘I can’t speak’, or ‘I’m afraid’. It’s a place where we lose all our arguments with God. A holy place.

It is now 7pm on Sunday, 5th October 2025.

Jews around the world will be celebrating Tabernacles from sunset tomorrow, 24 hours from now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief. The rebuilding of broken lives, broken homes, broken politics, broken hopes, and broken dreams can begin.

Universal Haiku

Dark, old universe,
It cannot contain itself,
A laugh bursts all bounds

A Tabernacles Trilogy 2. Sports Junkies and Ugly Scenes at the Ryder Cup ?

Oh dear, I confess, my normal early morning devotions have been severely disrupted by a trinity of compelling sports events; a Ryder Cup sandwich, in fact.

Friday: Ryder Cup
Saturday: Ryder Cup + Women’s Rugby Union World Cup Final + Match of the Day
Sunday: Ryder Cup + Match of the Day

Early morning devotions are not exclusively ‘spiritual’ as if the spiritual can be neatly separated from other aspects of life. But my routine, after a few seconds sat on the edge of the bed with as many thoughts as there are gold balls in a bunker…not known for brisk movement, and often plugged, is to perform some limbering up exercises. Exercises over in about 5 – 10 minutes, I can move in a less zombie-like manner. Then follows either walking boots or running gear and an exit for 30 minutes or so of madness, listening to a podcast, if the earbuds are charged.

Back, shower, cereal & toast & tea, I flip the pages of the bible open; these days in the book of Revelation, followed by prayer.

But, if, like me, you’re a sports junkie, this routine can suffer a series of setbacks, particularly in the summer months.

Here’s the thing, before we approach an indirect link to Tabernacles. The unpleasant, rude, coarse, uncalled-for and provocative comments, jeers, and boos from the American crowd at the Ryder Cup are a form of trespass that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Nothing wrong with being partisan and a passionate supporter of your team, but ugly comments come from somewhere. Jesus said, ‘The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.’

So, what has gone wrong? Why has the normal restraint characteristic of the thousands that watch that curious of all sports – golf – a sport in which all its participants accept such an old-fashioned concept as ‘Etiquette’: behaviour expected that has little or nothing to do with the rules of the game.

Here’s my thesis. Those who abandon self-restraint and cross the line in terms of foul behaviour and Etiquette have misunderstood ‘sport’ altogether.

The unpleasant, rude, coarse, uncalled-for, and provocative comments, jeers, and boos from the American crowd at the Ryder Cup are a form of trespass that leaves a bad taste in the mouth

For sport to exist, there has to be cooperation; surprisingly, perhaps, it is an exercise in respect and humility. Sport cannot exist unless one is willing to lose. If you, as an individual or a team, are unwilling to lose, you spend your life on the practice ground, all alone. For sport to exist, two teams must contact each other, agree on a date to do battle, play within the rules, and defer to the referees on hand to settle disputes, whoever wins.

True supporters understand the tension between partisanship (I have been a passionate supporter of Portsmouth Football Club for 60 years) and respect, admiration, and even applauding one’s opponents, especially if they conduct themselves in the spirit of the competition…including playing to win and within the rules.

To pour scorn on your side’s opponents or make personal remarks about family members not only means you have misunderstood the nature of sport but have impoverished yourself; in demeaning others, you have demeaned yourself, become mean, narrow, and embittered, and, if your support is defined by the level of abuse you can hurl, you are blind and cannot see.

Finally, we arrive at Tabernacles, a picture of not two teams but twelve going at it. The twelve tribes of Israel. Or the twelve apostles of Christ. Or the umpteen apostles of our age.

First, a reminder of the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. Jews from the twelve tribes of Israel would make their way to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the week-long feast. In part, it was a reminder of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land, from camp to camp, living in tents (tabernacles) in the wilderness, but it also serves as a prophetic sign, like Passover and Pentecost.

So, if Passover represents salvation and Pentecost the baptism in the Spirit, what about Tabernacles?

Evangelical churches have preached salvation as a free gift, or ‘grace’, through faith in Christ – a Passover faith – since the Reformation. And Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have added Pentecost, preaching the baptism of the Spirit and the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the church in terms of supernatural and miraculous gifts and fruit.

But what about Tabernacles? The third major feast of the Jewish calendar, what is its prophetic fulfilment in and through Christ?

So, if Passover represents salvation and Pentecost the baptism in the Spirit, what about Tabernacles?

Jews celebrate Tabernacles today under a roof strewn with palm branches; they eat and drink, say prayers, and sing psalms. The roof has holes open to heaven. It’s a prophetic picture. The whole body of Christ, all believers of all persuasions, under one roof – and, like sport – one referee, God. There is no one leader.

We get two glimpses in John’s gospel that I will end with.

‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us’ John 1 v 14

And in John 7 on the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, in the temple, Jesus cried out

‘If anyone is thirsty. Let him come to Me and drink…rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being’ This He said about the Spirit who had not yet been given’ John 7 v 37-39

The twelve apostles were not naturally on the same team. One was a zealot (terrorist or freedom fighter), one worked for the Romans collecting taxes, a few were northern fishermen, and so on. But the Spirit was poured out on all of them – and the 120 – and they became replicas of Christ, or ‘mini-Christs’ as CS Lewis wrote, temples or tabernacles of God the Holy Spirit.

There was no leader, apart from the Spirit. Each led by the Spirit and the Spirit trusted to choreograph the whole body. Until they were dispersed, the apostles formed a joint eldership in Jerusalem and reproduced this elders-led congregational model elsewhere.

Just like sport. Real sport. Once the final whistle is blown, both sides meet at the bar for a drink. Rivals but only rivals for the sake of doing what all wanted…to put a small white golf ball in a small hole under the Stars and Stripes and the European flags, each player bringing his unique swing, strengths, eye for the shot, club selection…I could go on…but I acknowledge the parable of the best and the worst from the Ryder Cup serves as a poor parable.

The question is – have we got eyes to see what a Passover+Pentecost+Tabernacles church looks like? What songs will be written? What happens when they gather? I don’t know about you, but, at best, I can only see a small cloud on the horizon.

That’s where we’ll start – small clouds – in the third and final part of this Tabernacles Trilogy in a few days time.

MA Creative Writing, Exeter University Creating a Poem…live…part one

This is an invitation to join me in a 4-stage writing process to give birth to a poem.

Nine of us were assembled in a small seminar room waiting for kick-off to get the Writing Poetry module underway.

Anticipation, a little conversation, but we don’t know each other, so it’s muted.

In walked a poet…and a teacher. I won’t name him; description is more important. Maybe early 50s, torn jeans, old jacket, various rings on a variety of fingers, earrings, an impressive head of hair, and peering eyes. Every inch a poet. And with a rich vocal delivery.

And the content of lecture 1 was formational, rather than a download of information; an introduction to his way of detecting the ‘sweet spot’ in a poem as a combination of imagery, musicality, and shape (form, direction, and energy).

So, this blog post is to invite you into the process of writing a poem.

Stage 1. Read and reflect on
Stage 2. Write a similar poem. A list. On an object close to hand. I chose the fountain pen I was holding to take notes as a starting point
Stage 3. Pinch one line from the poem and build from there
Stage 4. Submit the poem to the group and lecturer for critical appraisal….next week. Yikes.

Stage 1 George Szirtes poem, Some Sayings about a Snake

Loved this poem. It enters by the ear and exits through the navel. Come on! Whatever he had in mind that rocks my boat.

Stage 2. My ‘List poem’ on a fountain pen…written during the lecture, no time for edits

Some Sayings About A Fountain Pen

I don’t know, it’s a handful high
Spending time twitching to and fro
Weighing less with each hint of movement
A clock of sorts in indigo
Disturbing, that so much darkness
Lies at the core
A column of unformed words
It draughts Constitutions
Annoys restless Monarchs
The slender curve of the nib
Calms the writer
Fools the writer
Disappoints the writer if
It scratches or flows like glue
A pen should not be hard work
It lasts until it fades
The outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

So…not quite a strict list. I found it impossible to constrict an image to a sentence. Maybe with time, I could have pared it down to essentials? But the task was to extract a line or a phrase, a key idea from the poem and re-work it. The last two lines, for me, were the message in the bottle.

Stage 3. Reworked poem (you may recognise this as Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner Post)

Unlike the writer

Don’t be duped
Nothing escapes
The onward march to
I don’t know where

Swan Spring quills
Sleek-black biros
Grass-green rollerballs
SmartScreen scribblers, but

Who designed us
To chance upon
A charcoal brew of dyes
To daub, to draw, to draft?

Attached one end, and
Conceived in mystery
Words, hidden in ink,
Flood onto the page

And to mediate?
A handheld instrument,
Twitching to and fro
Emptying its gifts

Until the ink fades,
Nib-scratching the paper,
It’s outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

Stage 4. Next week. Seatbelt on. I can see the editors’ sharp knives, glinting in the eyes of my fellow students and my every inch the poet, lecturer, AB.

A Tabernacles Trilogy 1. Our green and pleasant land.

There’s something quite magical and evocative about a warm September afternoon. The air may retain its early morning autumnal chill, the grass, which had turned brown until a week or so ago, is green once more, and leaves are beginning to fall to cover the acorns scattered on the ground.

To top it all, the fields have been invaded by hay bales, which sit peacefully, possessing a proportional beauty somehow pleasing to the eye, awaiting transport to who knows where?

Rarely do we see how they’ve formed; it’s an agricultural conjuring trick. You wake up one morning, go for a walk, and the field that not a week or so ago was knee-high in grass or wheat has been harvested and transformed into bales.

There is a certain peace in a field strewn with bales. It’s difficult to put your finger on it, but there is that ‘Ahh, all is well with the world’ feeling, even if it is not. Forget expensive therapies, find a field with haybales and breathe. The quiet, the peace, the lovely aromas, and the light tan colours have only come about after the mowing, cutting, and baling of a combine harvester. There are no screams, of course, but it’s noisy work separating the grain from the straw and the chaff.

That tearing apart of the useful from the useless or the waste is a picture of the sudden polarisation of our society.

With society at large witnessing the formation of Farage’s Reform Party situated to the right of the Conservative Party, Corbyn’s, Your Party, sitting to the left of the Labour Party, and the radical Islamists, everyday Muslims, and Palestinian supporters shouting ‘Free Palestine From the River to the Sea’, it feels as if Britain’s seams are being stretched and tested as never before.

Add to that Scottish nationalism and the ructions over leaving the EU, and we can view the past few years either as a demonstration of the robustness of our democracy or a threat to its integrity.

So, is it escapism or good sense to find a field and simply enjoy the sight of a good harvest and luxuriate in the warmth of a sunny September afternoon?

the choice between escapism and good sense is a false dichotomy

In Old Testament days, the men of Israel were commanded to travel to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate three feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. That’s at least three weeks ‘off work’ per annum, away from work and wars, in addition to the weekly Sabbath.

There’s some wisdom in that, isn’t there?

Tabernacles, or Sukkot, as it’s also called, is right around the corner, sunset on Monday, October 6th and ends at sunset on Monday, October 13th, coinciding with harvest, the end of the agricultural year. Special ‘booths’ are constructed; it might be a plastic corrugated roof covered with palm branches and pampas grass on top to remind Jews of the temporary tents (tabernacles) they constructed on their journey through the desert to the Promised Land. Jews today meet in replica booths under the roof, to eat and drink, recite prayers, and swap news. It’s provides an occasion to remember the past but also a look into the future, as we all do when we take a break.

It is also a call to unity. Jews of all political persuasions meet under the branches, under the roof, in the booth.

I hope you can see what I’m saying?

In church, amongst Christian believers, there has been much talk and many sermons preached about Passover and Pentecost. But we have a deep spiritual need, whether we are Christians or not, to hear the message of Tabernacles, or Sukkot and to meet together under a roof with holes, somewhat open to the heavens, so that we experience a fellowship that transcends political differences and is open to God in heaven, like the light streaming through the roof; not an atheistic socialist utopia of unachievable equality and unity, or a capitalistic freedom that turns a blind eye to the losers, but a deeper note, a reverberation, the call of the Spirit of God. You know it when you hear it.

It's a call to the satisfaction of harvest, a call to completion, a call home, to feet up, to rest, for barriers to collapse, and friendship with neighbours and God to soak into work and world-weary souls.

So, the choice between escapism and good sense is a false dichotomy. To escape, to take time out, to celebrate, to worship, is time well spent; and it is good sense. There are plenty of days to attend to the affairs of the world of work and life.

Go for a drive, maybe. Find a field with hay or straw bales. Go in. See if you don’t go ‘Ahhh’ and relax to your core.

Unlike the writer

Don’t be duped
Nothing escapes
The onward march to
I don’t know where

Swan Spring quills
Sleek-black biros
Grass-green rollerballs
SmartScreen scribblers, but

Who designed us
To chance upon
A charcoal brew of dyes
To daub, to draw, to draft?

Attached one end, and
Conceived in mystery
Words, hidden in ink,
Flood onto the page

And to mediate?
A handheld instrument,
Twitching to and fro
Emptying its gifts

Until the ink fades
Nib-scratching the paper,
It’s outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

Book Review: Lila, Marilynne Robinson, Virago

‘The life she’s decided she would never have was there the whole time trapped and furious, and in that minute she knew that if a man she ought to hate said one kind word to her, there was no telling what she might do.’

Marilynne Robinson has a gift of opening up a character’s innermost thoughts and taking you, as the reader, there, swimming around inside another person’s way of thinking about the world.

The world that Lila is set in is a post-war small town called Gilead, in Iowa, following on from her other novels, Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Orange Prize-winning Home.

Lila, tells the story of Gilead from Lila’s perspective, how she was a homeless wanderer whose only possession was a knife. The knife keeps reappearing in the novel and is Lila’s physical connection with her past, which is very much in contrast to her present. In the present she is married, happily, to John Ames, an elderly church pastor.

Much of the book is a detailed monologue of thoughts drifting from the past to the present and back again. There are no chapters. It’s almost a stream of consciousness but is saved, if that’s the right word, by a tight timeline; the journey could be described as from one baby in the past to another one in the present.

Although there are many bible references dispersed throughout the book and, of course, the perspective on the world through John Ames’s eyes as a church pastor, I found the references to the Christian faith incomplete and frustratingly incapable of conveying an answer to a fundamental question ‘What is a Christian?’ and its corollary, ‘How does someone become Christian?’

‘His body still had the habits of largeness and strength’

Whether purposefully or not, the sacramental perspective ie someone becomes a Christian when they are baptised (not what I understand from the New Testament), is introduced in the conversation between John Ames and his life-long friend Robert Boughton, the minister of another church in Gilead.

But Lila is not written as a Christian tract!

It is beautifully crafted. Some passages are as poetic as they are descriptive, and if you enjoy close detail and honesty about the human condition, this will enthral you. Speaking of John Ames, Lila (or is it the author, it’s not always easy or necessary to choose) is caught thinking, ‘His body still had the habits of largeness and strength’.

If you’re after action, adventure in the sense of fast talking, fast movement, this is not the book for you. There is plenty of action and adventure, but at a much slower pace, that’s all.

MA Creative Writing, Exeter UniversityDay 1

First lecture at Exeter University for 48 years, having arrived here with dark hair in 1977, feeling rather lost, excited, and ready to smell the Chemistry labs for the first time.

Now, the hair colour has changed, it’s always a surprise if a dark hair hits the barber’s floor, but a similar mix of trepidation and excitement at switching disciplines and attempting to absorb what I can from my lecturers and fellow students.

Day 1 was so nearly a disaster.

Firstly, the sleep parking app decided it would not communicate with my banking app. After muttering – that didn’t help – and repeating the failure two or three times, I resorted to the card option. But that required confirmation from the bank, which it gave! Now with less time to reach the platform before the train was to arrive, I had to walk back to my car, put the old-time slip on the dashboard, and trog back to the station.

Upon arrival at the platform, the electronic scoreboard announced that my train had been cancelled.

 Arghhh! With the lecture starting in 2 hours' time, I was forced to drive to Exeter (with an engine warning light on all the way and all the way back later), praying for a parking space.

There was one…one…left. I parked and walked into my lecture as if there had been zero hassles from bed to Writing Prose Workshop 1.

 15, I think in the class. 4 blokes, 11 ladies. Varying ages. Probably every decade from 20s to 70s represented. Ice breaker wasn’t too difficult, a brief bio. Then, after a sausage roll and flat white break, a wide-ranging discussion about Truth using The Salt Path as a leaping off point.

 C, opposite, a bloke, had looked at the background reading for the lecture – swine! – and was well away, having thought through the nature of truth in fiction and non-fiction. I feel as if I’m already languishing. There’s an award-winning literary student from Texas to my right who gets lost in her monologue…but respect to all who spoke up. Quite a few did. I did in fact. Nice open ethos in the room. I warmed to the lecturer.

I parked and walked into my lecture as if there had been zero hassles from bed to Writing Prose Workshop 1

 After, I walked to the timetabling room and changed my Tuesday lecture to a Wednesday.

 At the time, it made sense to put both lectures on one day instead of travelling twice a week. Upon reflection overnight, this was not the right decision as the train times leave no time on campus for trips to the library, timetabling, personal tutor, IT and so on.

So…some hassles, but so good to get underway.

A sunny and warm September day. Exeter is well known for its campus arboretum, squirrels and the like. It was, of course, swarming with energetic undergraduates, and the various coffee shops were doing a roaring trade. Although many were looking at mobiles or screens, there were a great deal of conversations going on. A good sign, I feel.

If I’m allowed to switch back to the original group, I’ll be very chuffed as I felt the lecturer was a good enabler; only saying the minimum to get everyone else thinking and participating.

The reading list: 6 books, 3 fictions, 1 creative non-fiction, and 1 memoir.

Writing Poetry today. 9am train. Hopefully no cancellations.

Sunrise amongst acorns

Lumpy and thick white
A surprising layer of ice
Clung to the windscreen
The clouds long since
Had slithered away
Accidentally like a
Duvet discarded
During the night

Ferreting, I find my
Woolly hat and gloves
Hidden away
While the acorns grew
And the horse chestnut
Spiky capsules
Fallen now, the summer sun
Has dried out the twigs

It is this blue-sky snap
That chills the bone and
Hunches the shoulders
A hope drilled in
Splitting the sheath
Rending the cage
Death running backwards
Life following on

Above the car park
Rises a hill and a trig point,
A freezing vantage point
Where water is arrested
And the wind howls
There are no trees here to witness
The broiling globe
Cast its first light

And fail to retrieve
The summer cauldron
And yet, zero degrees and less
Does its work, cracking
Open the seeds
The hidden hopes
And dared-for dreams…
…maybe this autumn?