Learning to live in the unforced rhythms of grace
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.
.
Alone among the shapes I meet,
you rest, content and incomplete;
no rounded symmetry I see,
nor perfect immortality.
Your half-formed body, foetal soul
seems broken, wounded, far from whole.
Your pair of angles doesn’t quite
square the circle, set things right.
.
Yet, should I look beyond such flaws,
open up my blinkered doors,
perhaps I’d see through different eyes:
your gentle promise, silver-bright
shining half-moon in the night.
Today, Helen’s Birthday, I look back to the words our friend Hennie spoke at her funeral:
I first met Helen, Peter, Esther and Jo when they moved up to Coventry from Bristol, and made their home here at Holy Trinity, when I was the curate. I can remember one of the first things that struck me, as a family, was their incredible love for Jesus, and how that love impacted their public and personal lives. Of course very soon after they arrived we were to learn about their involvement with Servants, their time living & working out in Cambodia, and Helen’s continuing work in the UK Servants role, as well as her involvement abroad. It didn’t take long for me to realise Helen’s own servant heart, and her passion and compassion for the poor and oppressed. What broke Jesus’ heart, broke hers.
‘I am the resurrection and the life.’
David’s words boomed down the church.
David’s words? Jesus’ words?
‘I am the resurrection and the life.’
His powerful voice seemed to fill every corner of the building, rising to the medieval doom painting above us, echoing round the massive stone pillars, projecting up to the towering spire and forward to the far east window, where a stained glass Jesus hung on a stained glass cross. The author of those words hanging, lifeless before us.
He only said the words once, and yet they reverberated round and round, floating over the heads of the motionless, shimmering blur of people who filled the pews; drumming through me so that I didn’t hear the other words that followed as we followed David down the aisle.
‘I am the resurrection and the life.’
I had heard those words so many times before. As a child in Sunday School, hearing the wonderful tale of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Sitting in so many services as the words of the gospel were read. ‘This is the gospel of Christ.’ ‘Thanks be to God.’ Even at funerals – of friends and family members. But never like this. As a teenager I had sung those words, thoughtlessly clapping an inane beat after each line of one of our favourite youth group songs: ‘I am the resurrection’ (clap) ‘I am the life’ (clap-clap, clap-clap) ‘he who believes in me shall never-er die’ (clap, clap-clap). Oh how we’d loved those Saturday evenings, full of fun, untouched by the reality of this world’s pain. Joining in, keen to be part of the crowd, inspired with the youthful enthusiasm of a shared faith that would carry us through thick and thin. Oblivious to the real impact of those seven words.
‘I am the resurrection and the life.’
Words of hope. Words of immense, grave-shattering power.
Words of utter despair.
~
We are living in the gap
between the way things are
and the way they will be.
We are living in the gap
between starving children
and MTV,
living in the gap
between military budgets
and illiteracy.
We are living in the gap
between the world that’s coming,
and this world we see
“No more crying then,
No more dying then
No more sighing then”.
But in this mean time,
our arms are stretched
to breaking point
trying to hold onto
something, anything
in this gap between
hope and pain
this gap between
you and me,
this gap in our lives
where you had been.
Kristin Jack, June 2012