The first Sunday of the month is, unsurprisingly, Communion Sunday at the Gathering Place.  Recently I have to an extent 'formalised' arrangements for taking communion with those often termed "shut-ins"... trying to ensure that it happens in the week following the church's celebration of communion and making sure that at least one, and preferably two or three, other people go with me.

This week was the first time we managed to organise to share with each of the two people who are no longer able to get to church.  Each was a very special time, and each moving, humbling and a sign of community.  For any Anglican or Catholic readers, we were almost at the 'reserved sacrament' level, as I took the left over bread and juice from Sunday (though had to buy new bread yesterday for the second visit) and for ordinance theoligians like me it was just common sense not to waste food!!

A coffee table is set with mismatched glasses

(A wine glass, a tumbler and what looks suspiciously like a whisky glass)

A quarter loaf lies on a serviette

From memory we sing a hymn, and half a hymn, and a psalm

"The Lord's my shepherd"

"Blessed Assurance"

"Great is thy Faithfulness"

Familiar words and forms transport us back in time

And across in space

Linking India and Aberdeen, Northampton and Glasgow

"When you do this, remember"

Another coffee table is set with gleaming crystal sherry glasses,

(A source of amusement to host and guest)

A perfect roll sits on a sideplate

Next to it, on a large plate, a splendid, iced sponge cake

Awaits its fate

Hymnbooks this time, No 144, No 555

Pitched too high, then too low, by verse three we get there

More links of place and time

Wales and London and College and Kirk

"When you do this, remember"

Two nonagenarians (one almost a centenarian)

Re-membering and re-connecting

With times and places and people

And with the God who comes close

When a few people gather in Christ's name -

"When you do this, remember"

This evening is the first of our Advent Pauses - a thirty minute guided reflection based on material from Christian Aid and focusing on the lectionary Isaiah readings for Advent Year A!  I am looking forward to leading this first of three (we couldn't make four work this year!) evenings.

The same material will be repeated tomorrow lunchtime, led by one of our many talented folk, and will be followed by a simple lunch, with donations for Christian Aid.

Anyone who happens to be passing the Gathering Place at either time is very welcome to drop in, slow down and reflect.

Shadows

by D H Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands [of] the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

Autumn's Fall

by Kerrie Hardie

It seems the rain will be its end - the smell

of rotting-down in ditches, under trees,

the sharp scent of late apples in wet grass,

the spent leaves guttering in the stone-flagged well.

The spaces in the branches stretch and grow.

High spiralling of crows in thin sky.

The grey drift of the distance.  Nothing more

Of hope or exultation in the flow

of damp air from the windows that I leave

to let the year move quietly through the house

preparing for the long dark and the cold,

loosening the nets spent thoughts still weave,

clinging as cobwebs.  There must be space for death,

and witness for this seep of emptying light;

for winter, pressing with the cattle at the gate,

clouding the darkness with their frightened breath.

November Sonnet

by Elizabeth Jennings

Spirit of place.  Spirit of time. Re-form

The rugged oaks and chestnuts.  Now they stand

Naked and pallid giants out of storm

And out of sorts.  It is the Autumn's end

And this Winter brought in by All Saints

Fast followed by All Souls to keep us in

Touch with chill and death.  Each re-acquaints

Us with the year's end. Yet we now begin

A life of realism, watching out

For a red sunset, grateful for a dawn

Of rich light now.  Tall shadows step and and strut

Facing the big wind daily coming on

Faster.  This is the season of right doubt

While that elected child waits to be born.