We Grow Accustomed to the Dark

Today's 'work' has consisted essentially of three meetings, two of which were primarily pastoral in nature, and the other a long overdue catch-up with a ministerial colleague.

Three very different encounters; three very different circumstances; three different people.

Three unique privileges.

This has been a long week, and a busy one - I can't quite recall when I last had evening stuff three days running, or, for that matter, a week with quite so many meetings and events.  Small wonder I am tired... but tired for the right reasons I think.

The Other

by Ruth Fainlight

Whatever I find if I search will be wrong

I must wait; sternest trial of all, to sit

Passive, recpetive, and patient, empty

Of every demand and desire, until

That other, that being I never would have found

Though I spent my whole life in the quest, will step

From the shadows, appropach like a wild, awkward child.

And this will be the longest task: to attend,

To open myself.  To still my energy

Is harder that to use it any cause.

Yet surely she will only be revealed

By pushing against the grain of my nature

That always yearns for choice.  I feel it painful

And strong as a birth in which there is no pause.

I musthold myself back form every lure of action

To let her come closer, a wary smile on her face,

One arm lifted - to greet me or ward off attack

(I cannot decipher that uncertain gesture).

I must even control the pace of my breath

Until she has drawn her circle near enough

To capture the note of her faint reedy voice.

And then as in dreams, when a langauge unspoken

Since times before childhood is recalled

(When I was as timid as she, my forgotten sister -

Her presence my completion and reward),

I begin to understand, in fragments, the message

She waitied to long to deliver.  Loving her I shall learn

My own secret at last from the words of her song.

I have...

checked the met office weather warnings and the church roof

swept up leaves

participated in a reflective service for Advent

scanned and circulated some documents from the city council on refuse and recycling

attended the launch of a new community intitiative responding to food poverty and social isolation

attended the service to unite two C of S parishes

eaten three lots of 'free' food

and generally had a fun time... if not an espeically 'holy' one

These things they don't teach you at vicar school!

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

by Sylvia Plath

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, not seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Leap incandescent

Out of the kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then ---
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.