The Burn

In acknowledgement of the hurt we cause one another I offer this as an opportunity to express our pain and seek healing for our wounded hearts and hands.

He burnt me

And I held my hand over that flame

For far too long

As if spellbound by the sensation,
Oblivious to its destruction. 

He drew me in

With his fiery intrigue.
I became mesmerised
As the flames danced

Round about me.

Before long
I was paralysed.

Now I'm scarred

And not so nimble.
My movements are cautious

And calculated.
My eyes, ever observant
Watching for the slightest flicker
Ready for quicker withdrawl.

So I hide away
Never to be hurt
Or burnt

Again.

But you, you are the One

Who is burning but not consumed.
You are ablaze with glory;
Igniting my soul

And setting my heart alight.

Christ be our light
Christ bear our pain
Christ bring us life

Christ be the flame

Prayers and Piggy-Back Rides

Caleb Wallis is as exuberant and faithful as only a six year old can be. He has wide eyes and a wild grin, he loves life and he loves God. He is, quite simply, delight-full.

On Sunday afternoon a group of us gathered together to pray, as Adrian poetically puts it;

with our hearts, our mouths, our hands, and our feet
our ears, and our eyes, and our souls complete.

There were different stations set up with different forms of creative prayer and we moved around them in small groups with a couple of adults and a couple of kids each.

Our first stop was ‘Stepping Stone Prayers’. In a circle on the floor were the big blue cushions we borrowed from the kids space. We each stood on a squab and took turns praying aloud. With each ‘amen’ we jumped to the next. In his excitement Caleb rolled his ankle and rolled around on the floor. I gave him the sufficient level of sympathy and bent low as he climbed on my back. We continued praying and jumping and delighting, and Caleb giggled in my ear in agreement.

Our final station involved finding words and forming prayers. Caleb got frustrated because he couldn’t always find the words he wanted to pray. I can identify with that. I had to explain to Caleb that ‘you’re’ is the same as ‘you are’, and that sometimes you have to see the word before you know that it’s the one you want to say. When Caleb got stuck he’d moan and groan. I can identify with that. So I leant across and offered him alternatives. This is his prayer:

You’re the Father
You are Gracious
We are full of blessing
Protect us and everyone on earth
In the eyes of God, give us life

On Sunday Caleb taught me that in prayer there is room for giggling and groaning. I am grateful to God for his goodness.

Ashley

I first met Ashley when we were nine years old. She was new to our school and Ngaire, Jane and I put up our hands to befriend her. Somehow we knew what it meant to include the easily excluded. Maybe it’s something I’d learnt about at church, maybe it’s something our parents had taught us, maybe it’s just instinctive to children who know they are loved.

Ashley had Downs Syndrome and an old, old soul; like she’d accepted life and life had accepted her and they both got on just fine. I was blessed by her friendship. Without even knowing it Ashley taught me compassion and how to delight in daily life – taking time to pick the daisies, that kind of thing. I wish she’d taught me how to be cheeky and sneaky and get away with it. Ash was much more mischievous than me and to my annoyance she’d always get off scot-free, appearing innocent to the authorities.

Ashley died when she was twenty-three and I’d never realised the seriousness of her heart condition. Perhaps that’s a good thing: that I’d never lived in fear of losing her.

I’ve been remembering the friendship I had with Ashley lately. One Sunday evening last month my friend Murray and I headed out to St James Presbyterian in South Dunedin. We’d stopped at the supermarket on the way to get coleslaw, cold ham and ice-cream.

After a few wrong turns and a hurried phone call, a google maps search and some pretty poor navigation on my part, we made it to the old church hall. We’d tried to sneak in the side door undetected but we were late and our efforts at inconspicuousness were thwarted. Everyone turned towards us and we were faced with a roomful of the most beautiful people I have ever set eyes on.

St James holds a weekly evening service – followed by a good feed – for all those in their community who have physical and intellectual difficulties. There were electric wheelchairs and wild cries, sign language and big bright eyes, handshakes and bodies that ache, and words and prayers for Christ’s sake. That night we ate, we talked, we sang, all in the name of Christ, our forerunner and fellow traveller.

The people of St James are children who know they are loved. They know what it means to embrace vulnerability, to include the excluded, to be dependent on God and one another, and to be fed physically and spiritually. They know all this – they live like this – because they know the One who cares for the vulnerable, welcomes the stranger, embraces the outcast and gives food to the hungry.

In this congregation I encountered Christ; I saw his scars and they were beautiful, I heard his voice in words of welcome and embrace, and I felt his presence in the fondness and familiarity I experienced. I first encountered Christ in this way in Ashley, only I’d never realised it ‘til now.

Not the Same

I am not the same girl I was at twenty-two
When I fell in love with you.
Nor are you the same man that you were
At twenty-four
When we first met.

I remember that September
When we walked and talked and ate together.

I am now twenty-five
And much more alive
Since I've let go of hurt and held on to hope.

You are twenty-nine
And I guess you're fine
Because we haven't spoken since you left.

I remember that day
When you stood in my doorway.
You politely declined a cup of tea
Yet let in as you hugged me.

But this time this really is goodbye.
This time though, there's no need to cry.

A Lament

I thought I should write something deep and meaningful and hopeful by way of introduction. But I don’t know how.  I can’t couch this with explanation this time around.

On Tuesday my classmates and I watched ‘God On Trial’ – a film about a group of Jewish men in a bare wooden hut in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. These men were asking the tough questions of faith; they were asking God and each other why this hellish stuff was happening, and why God wasn’t doing anything about it.

I imagined what I would say if I were there. I imagined that my kids were sick, or stolen, or dead. I imagined that people had cut off my hair along with any connection with the reality I once knew. I imagined that my clothes and my dignity were in tatters and that there was nothing I could do to cover my shame. I imagined that I’d say this:

It’s dark and I can’t see you
It’s so noisy, I can’t hear your gentle, quiet whisper
But sometimes, it’s so quiet, yet all I can hear
                is the voice in my head
                and the voice of my soul
                screaming in agony
It’s cold, and I can’t feel the warmth of your presence
I can’t see you
                or hear you
                or feel you
And I’m scared
Because I’m lost, I don’t know where I am
But worse still, I don’t know where you are
O Lord, do not be far from me
Come quickly to help me
For trouble is near and there is no one to help[1]

Lament – that’s what I would do. I’d wail like a Kuia at a Tangi. I’d curl up on the cold, cold ground and cry out. I’d tear my clothes and cover my body with ashes and dust.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me
Why are you so far from saving me.
So far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out to you by day, but you do not answer,
By night, but I find no rest.

(Psalm 22)

Jesus cried these words too. Jesus knew suffering. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows, a Suffering Servant.

My friend Ed said, “’who needs a God who suffers?’ I do! I need a God who suffers because I am suffering.”

The question of suffering is a big one. And the answer is…that none of us can give an answer – not the most astute theologian, not even Bishop Shallard himself. But we can know this: Christ is with us in our suffering. And we can cry, along with Alistair as he echoes Peter’s words to Christ, “Where else can we go? You alone hold the words of eternal life”, and along with Gary Ma and the people of old, “for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”[2]

Immanuel, God is with us, we are not alone anymore.

[1] Psalm 22

[2] Psalm 42

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We Were All Children Once

We were children once, we all were

Eyes wide, wild with excitement

Grinning and giggling with infectious delight

Faces bright, alight with adventure

Feet quick for exploration

Open hearts to love, hearts open to be loved

We were all children, we still are

Author and play write J. M. Barrie, created the character Peter Pan; a boy who never grew up, a boy who’s friends were fairies and other lost boys who lived together like brothers, a boy who desperately needed his mother but was too afraid to admit it.

We’re not so defiant as Peter Pan, I don’t think. He didn’t want to grow up. We don’t mind it so much. But what would it mean for us to take a leaf out of Peter Pan’s book (or a feather out of his hat), and not be too quick to relinquish our youth or lose our identity as children – even when our childhood years have long since passed?

 It’s not about being childish, it’s about being childlike.

In Christian circles we have been guilty of saying that our children are to be seen and not heard. I think we got that one wrong. And, at the other end of the spectrum, we have been guilty of saying our children are the church of tomorrow. We have said these things with our words and we have said them with our actions, and I think we’ve got this one wrong too.

Our society at large has been guilty of saying that the elderly are no longer contributing members of society and are in need of being put out to pasture. We haven’t always said it with our words but we said it with our actions and we said it in the things that we haven’t said. Sadly, this has happened in parts of our society, and perhaps even more sadly, this has happened in parts of the Church. I think we’ve got this one wrong as well.

Our generation of children is not the church of tomorrow; they are the church of today. In the same way, our more mature generations are not the church of yesterday; they are the church of today too. Right from our infants to our elderly, and everyone in between, we are all the church of today. The church is the family of God, and we are all children of God – nothing changes that; not age, not ability, not anything.

So, unlike Peter Pan, let us be boys and girls who do grow up, but just like children, let us all enjoy and delight in life – with all its safety and all its surprise. This is the life God has shared with us through his Son by the Spirit. This is the life that grows in us as we grow in Christ. This is the life.

We were all children once. We still are.

Enjoy.

Cate Burton
A child of God

Understood

For all those introverts and internal processors out there, who think a million thoughts before they say a single word. I hear ya!

You don't speak
Just to fill the silence.
Words come easy
But don't get wasted.

Often your eyes
Communicate your thoughts
And speech
Is only secondary

As for me
Words get in the way
Or can't be found
Amongst the clutter and dust

Rather than resting
While they emerge
I stumble about
And add to the mess

But with you
I won't worry
'Cos you patiently wait
As I look around

When I catch them
At last
I hold them
Tight in my grasp

But before I let go
And release them aloud
You already knew
What I was trying to say