“No-one puts children in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land”(1)
No-one risks their own child’s life.  Is this so hard to understand?

Can you imagine what it takes, to make the choice to flee?
When the life you know is blown apart, and you face the perilous sea?

When the hand of the tiny child you grip, seems slippery in your own?
Cries “too tight , you are hurting me!”,  but you will not let it go.

This tiny life, this enormous love, that trusts in you to know,
What’s right to do, when’s right to leave, and where on this earth to go?

Stop
Think
Can you imagine?

(1)  Benedict Cumberbatch 

 

I smile a lot when I am depressed

My cheeks ache with exertion

I do it so that you won’t see

– My smile’s a diversion

I don’t want anyone’s attention

I know you cannot help me

I’m trapped inside my world of sad

I can’t escape from me

And so I smile and often laugh

Not wanting you to know

I feel a pain I can’t express

That has nowhere to go.

Just be my friend and understand

For help, I’ll never ask

But you can remind me now and then

That this too soon shall pass

Pat my hand and say you care

A hug works wonders too

Hold me tight and say a prayer

… I’ll do the same for you.

 

I had it a moment ago and now it’s gone!

Am I mad? Am I blind?  What’s going on?

Surely “What is hidden will be seen”

Or so it says in Luke eight seventeen,

So why then do  I panic and call it  “lost”?

And invest turgid emotion – to my cost.

When I know that everything will come out right,

And every missing thing, be brought to light.

For everyone who asks (we know) receives

And the one who seeks finds always what she needs.

So even though you knock upon the door

Until knuckles seem intolerably sore

It will be opened to you, if you stay calm.

No need to panic or to feel alarm.

The sage advice is to retrace your steps,

Whether missing concepts, people or objects.

Go back to where you were when last you saw

And gain a new perspective of that door.

A  number of things have happened to me today

A number of things that caused me to lose my way

Until  I was surrounded by blankets on a rocky shore

Convinced that God, like me, just loves a metaphor 🙂

 

I burnt my fingers holding up a mirror

And possibly it made some see things clearer

But some, not keen on seeing imperfection

Blamed the mirror holder, rather than the reflection.

 

I was distressed, regretting impulsive action

Thinking the mirror cracked to cause refraction

Until prayers showed me what I’d framed

And then I understood why I was blamed.

 

Friends warmed and cuddled me with their support

And allowed me space for clarity of thought.

And God was there, (obscure but clearly there)

Listening with patience to my prayer.

 

The gilded mirror emerged inside a dream

I was confused, not knowing what I’d seen

A crystal mirror on a rocky shore

A mirror that must be a metaphor.

 

When trying to describe how God is love

I’ve thought of snugly blankets from above.

So imagine my surprise at what I saw

When I opened to the knocking at my door!

 

Sharon and Bella standing there with fancy

Blankets made with love by lovely Nancy.

Nancy, I woman I’ve never met

But who taught me something I’ll never forget.

 

She makes blankets that she gives away for free

To warm a cooling heart or arthritic knee.

She doesn’t even know me, and much less

She will never know who’s getting her kindness.

 

God is moving in his mysterious ways today

God is certainly hearing me when I sink to pray

And answering me forever in metaphor

As he brings a pile of blankets to my door!

For Nancy, Sharon, Bella, Libby, Vee, Jackie and Sandie,
with my love and thanks

The greatest paradox of all
Is that truth is what you believe.
I believe that,
Therefore it is true.

You may believe in your own capacity
to judge truth objectively.
In which case you will say
That what I say is false.

But is it impossible
we both be right?

Our minds are not designed
to see things just one way,
or for all of us
to see the same things.

Jesus really did
walk upon the water,
– if you believe he did.

But if you don’t believe
he walked upon the water,
– then he didn’t.

And there is a parable
to explain exactly that point.
For Peter sees Jesus
Walking on the water
and he believes
then he disbelieves
then he nearly drowns
then he believes again.

What Peter believes becomes real
but what he cannot believe
causes him to splutter and gasp
as he sinks.

Peter puts his faith in Jesus
and believes
and the world conforms
to Peter’s belief.

Just as Jesus always
promises it will.