Small Stones - Blessing of the First Day

New Years Day

Maybe it's not about being happy

It's about being Blessed;

And knowing that you're Blessed

Even when you're unhappy

wordinthehand2013

Small Stones - January Blessings

There is a genre of poetry and prose that travels across the blogosphere known as 'small stones'. A few lines of mindfulness that capture a moment or a mood. Writing our Way Home has a January project for 31 days of small stones. Let's see how we go?

New Year's Eve

Fire works

Fading Moon drifting through clouds of aftermath

Fireworks

against the darkness; sparkled screams letting go of Old Lang Syne

Fire works

burning a bright hope into the New Year

wordinthehand2013

Nativity - the Fourth Shepherd

There are many characters in the story of the Nativity but one that we rarely hear of is the Fourth Shepherd.

When the angels came that night to bring the Good News, they began with the most unlikely. Shepherds were a tough lot who had to survive out on the hills protecting their flock from the weather, the wolves and their own stupidity. 

Once the shepherds had gotten over the shock and wonder of the glory of heaven shining all around them, they immediately wanted to go and find the baby; the lights of Bethlehem beckoned as brightly as the stars – ‘Come and see’. The could barely stop to wrap their cloaks around them; pick up their staffs and catch a light from the fire.

 All except one. One young shepherd remained seated, looking into the fire. When the others asked him why he wasn’t ready, he replied that he was; he was ready to stay behind and take care of the flock. The other shepherds shook their heads with disbelief but they were too excited to argue and shouted over their shoulders that they would be back as soon as they had seen the Christ Child.

The Fourth Shepherd took his staff and moved to the crest of a hill where he could see clearly across the fields to Bethlehem; he imagined that he could see the very place where the angels had sung of; he imagined the smells of the animals and the hay and the delight of a mother and father as they held their new born baby boy.  His imagining didn’t last long, however, as the sheep gathered round him bleating and huffing for attention. Reminded of his responsibilities, he turned his gaze to the shadows and the horizon.

The shepherds didn’t come back the next day, or the next. In fact, they never came back. The importance of their message had taken them to many far off places. So the Fourth Shepherd took charge of the flock for that year, the next year and for many, many years until he was an old, old man. People talked about him and how he wasn’t like the other shepherds they knew. He took care of them by himself; he birthed them and healed them. He was a thoughtful man who treated his flock like his own children, knowing each of their names – from the grandmothers to the lambs.

One winter’s evening, the Fourth Shepherd was walking along a hillside path, one of the lambs wrapped in his cloak, when a man walked towards him and stopped to ask about the bundle he held. The Fourth Shepherd told him that he had searched all day for this lamb only to find him caught up in some brambles and close to death. ‘He’s warmed up enough now,’ he said and swung the lamb onto his shoulders. ‘Not much of a flock’, the man smiled.

‘O, there are more troublemakers,’ the Shepherd returned the smile. ‘They number about a hundred. I’ve left them in safe pasture so that I could chase after this little one but it’s getting dark; time to get back. I’ve never lost a sheep in all my years and I’m not going to lose one now. You’re a long way out yourself, my friend. If you’d like a warm fire to sleep by, I’d be glad of the company. And I could tell you a tale of another winter’s night full of stars like this one.’

The man smiled and turned to walk with him. ‘I was born on a night like this,’ he said, ‘and there were shepherds that night too. Perhaps there is more than one story worth telling.’

Wordinthehand2012

Lamentation - End of the World

 

The world will end today

 

It will end in hospital wards

in speeding cars

in shop doorways

in dark alleys

 

It will end in unrequited love

rejection and betrayal

denial and loss

in goodbye

 

It will end in dreams shattered

expectations dashed

starved ambition

regret

 

It will end in abuse and misuse

in humiliation

random acts of neglect

apathy

 

The world will end today

and another and another

until the weight of the universe

presses down on human hearts

 

And a new world will not be born

If Pandora's box cannot be made

of rough timber and straw

if Hope will not fit in an infant's hand.

 

The world will end today

 

wordinthehand2012

 

O, Come

When you are nothing but a number

When there is no room

When you hear only 'no'
And the road winds through 
a unknown land 

There - in the darkest of nights

in the coldest of dawns

- will come

 Love 

wordinthehand2012

Psalm 142 - Heart of Stone

Teach me to do your will,

  for you are my God.

Give me back my heart of stone,

so I may love no more.

But 'no' 

you said 

And broke this heart 

already crack'd

So I may love

more.

Blessed be

wordinthehand2012

Feast of St Hilda

'All who knew her called her Mother' - Bede

Hilda was born in 614 into the Deiran royal household in bloody and fractious  times.

Nothing else seems to be known about Hilda up to 648 except that she was  baptised with Edwin's court in a river near York.; possibly she did marry,  was widowed and then, as was the custom for royal household,planned to  retreat to a life in the church. Oswold became king of Northumbria in 633 and brought Aidan from Iona to  form a monastery at Lindisfarne.  When he became Bishop, Aidan of Lindisfarne  asked Hilda to form a monastery. Hilda accepted the call and was given a  small household at the mouth of the river Wear.  In 649,  Aidan made a further request to Hilda to become abbess of the  established monastery at Hartlepool, a community of men and woman. When Oswiu became king of the Northumbria and overlord of southern England, Hilda was given land to form a monastery at  Whitby. At the age of 43,  Hilda moved to Whitby and formed another double monastery  for men and women. Her abbey was to become one of the greatest religious  and centre of learning in the known world.

Although Hilda had been baptised in the Roman tradition by Paulinus, the contact and influence in her very formative years was very much with great Celtic people like Aidan and Finan  and later Cuthbert. 

Oswiu, decided to call a meeting of church leaders in 664 to resolve these differences once and for all. This became known as The Synod of Whitby as it was held at Hilda's monastery. Hilda very much supported the Celtic view put to the Synod by bishop Colman but it was the Roman view, championed by Wilfrid that won the day. Hilda accepted the change to Roman ways but remained a critic of Wilfrid .

Through the rest of Wilfrid's stormy life until Hilda's death in 680 she remained at Whitby continuing to build on her good works and offering council and advice to kings and bishops alike. She was also responsible for nurturing the talents of a humble cowman called Caedmon who became England's first poet. Hilda  died at Whitby. The night before she died, Begu, a nun from Hackness monastery, had a vision. Whilst resting in the dormitory, Begu saw the roof open revealing the soul of Hilda as it was carried to heaven by angels. Begu told the Prioress and all the sisters were praying when monks from Whitby arrived to tell them the news and found that they already knew. 

Hilda is someone I have come to know, admire and love through the Celtic tradition. When I first learnt of her feastday I took a double-take, surely the 17th November was already taken? And by the patron saint of my childhood parish and the saint who I asked to walk beside me at my Confirmation (not Mary's cousin as many people assume - though I hold her in  great affection). Much less known, Elizabeth was canonised only four years after her death as the first royal Franciscan for her devotion to the poor. 

This window is in St Mary's on Lindisfarne.

Elizabeth of Hungary lived for only twenty four years yet she was a child, princess, mother, queen, widow, exile, and one of the most pious women to ever live. 
Elizabeth was a child devoted to God. She was an intelligent, well-educated girl who practiced penance and regularly gave alms to the poor. At an early age, she put herself under the protection of the Blessed Virgin and Saint John.

 Elizabeth was married between the ages of thirteen and fourteen.  The match proved to be a happy one. Ludwig loved her and believed his position put him in the  service of God. Ludwig died leaving Elizabeth with three children, a widow at the age of twenty. In her devotion she became aware of the Rule of Francis and wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. She built a monastery for the Franciscan order in 1225 at Eisenach. After a difficult few years she formally relinquished worldly possessions and then became one of the first tertiaries, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis. Her last act of the outside world was the completion of the Franciscan hospital at Marburg in the summer of 1228. After this, she devoted her heart and soul to the aid of the poor and sick, especially the most severely afflicted. She died only a few years later, at the age of twenty-four.

St. Elizabeth is generally represented as a princess holding roses in her lap. According to a legend, she was met unexpectedly as she went secretly on an errand of mercy, and, so the story runs, the bread she was trying to conceal  suddenly turned into roses.

Amongst others, she is the patron saint of widows, bakers, the falsely accused and tramps.


The Communion of Saints certainly gives us something to aspire to.

wordinthehand2012