meditation

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Against such- there is no law

January 30, 2009 in Uncategorized by chris | No comments

fruit-1

A continuation of some stuff based around the list of the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter 5.

You can see some more here.

Love is not against the law
Although in judicial circles
It is not encouraged

But where the Spirit of the Lord falls
Love is between us like oil on bearings

Joy is not forbidden
But wherever it breaks out
It is fragile
Like a bubble
In a pine forest

But where the Spirit of the Lord rests
Joy beats like a dancing drum in the middle of us
Calling us to dance

Peace is never prohibited
But like a dove above a shooting range
Its flight is fraught with danger

But where the Spirit of the Lord lives
The boundaries we keep are soft
And we are learning how
To forgive

Patience is permitted in most places
But only if you use it quickly

But where the Spirit of the Lord lingers
Patience is like the summer sun
Drawing out the sugars in the ripening fruit
Sweetening the harvest

Kindness is condoned even in the most unlikely places
But it will win you few contracts
And is not conducive to
Promotion

But where the Spirit of the Lord comes close
Kindness kind of follows after

Goodness will not result in a jail sentence
But neither will it pay its way
In the global village superstore

But when the Spirit of the Lord smiles
Goodness becomes the common currency
Gentleness is no crime
And in many places it is a clinical necessity
But it is easily overlooked
In the shadow of another conquest

But where the Spirit of the Lord draws near
Then hands all rough from hard works
Become softened to hold
And to heal

Faithfulness is never a traitor
Yet we live like weathervanes
Spun by the seasons
To face the prevailing winds

But when the Spirit of the Lord moves
Promises no longer require the threat
Of legal recourse

pulpit

Self control is thundered from the pulpit
But just in case the message falls on deaf ears
We deploy the secret pew police
Rule books at the ready
Swinging their
Truncheons of truth
To crunch the knuckles
Of the apostate

But when the Spirit of the Lord comes amongst us
There is a perfect law called…

Freedom

Emily and Will, somewhere in Wester Ross, 2003

Emily and Will, somewhere in Wester Ross, 2003

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Fragile circles of life…

January 15, 2009 in Uncategorized by chris | No comments

This is an excerpt from one of the wilderness meditations that our group Aoradh have been developing. There are more here.

All around us, life is circling.

Some circles are big, some very small.

Insects that live a whole life in one of our days. Breakfast sees the end of childhood, lunch the weight of middle age responsibility, tea time the creaking of age, and with night, the sleep of the dead. Until the next generation comes into being.

Or consider the life of these tall trees.

Each slow forming ring of growth, evidence of their elevation over our own anxieties.

Each falling leaf layering the soil, laying down the food for the coming spring.

Each spreading branch offering the arm of shelter to a thousand lesser creatures. And me.

Seeding slowly and deliberately.

But even the tallest trees

Will one day

Fall.

And what of us?

What of our life time? We tend to see our journeys as linear. Even then, perhaps we are comfortable with the now, less so with the tomorrow, and the future is a foreign country, were be dragons.

Away we go, off into middle distance - always forward, but often acting as if we are standing still.

But we are born not to die,

But to live.

To trace our own arc through this space of ours -

To windmill wide and open,

To love this life

And let it love us back

Perhaps unlike any of these other circles, we humans have this gift (this curse) of knowing

Knowing and seeking to know more

Seeking to connect and to overlap these circles-

Seeing where they depend one on the other

Seeing where they smash into one another

Vulnerable to the sharp jagged things

But capable

Of such joy

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