Thursday 1 October 2020

In These Days (closing worship #cofereimagining )

 

In These Days ( A poem – many of the phrases in the poem are taken from talks we’ve heard – a collation and elaboration)

 

In these days of Covid chaos

Collective confusion

And separation

We need a transfiguration without tabernacles

There’s no space for distraction by tasks

 

In these days we must be willing to be distracted by people

Their needs, the gospel, enacted through

Serving hands and wondering words

 

In these days of change

From one day to the next

With the ups and downs of laws and legislation

Advice and statistics and guidance

We need to support each other

To be cloisters of Christian hospitality and care

 

In these days when words whirl and widen

We recognise the absence and lack of silence

Heads and hearts filled with fear and trepidation

Tiredness, frustration and expectations

We need more curious questions

And renewed imaginations

 

In these days we need to be humble

To hold space for lament and self-care

And have a willingness to pause

To pause

To pause

To pause and stand with the confused and grieving

 

In these days we know and are aware

That we need to be leaner

Unencumbered by the cumbersome

To be agile

To move out beyond the lychgate

Re-imagining the way we

See our situation

And our part in any solutions

Because we’re part of the many

We’re not the whole

Shaped by openness and humility

Receptivity and vulnerability

 

In these days of top-down voices

We need to be aware of our own cadences

And to seek new Caedmons to sing new songs

Songs of the voiceless

Songs of the silenced

Songs grappling with cognitive dissonance

Songs freeing captives from violence

Songs in regional tongues

Songs sung from Spirit-filled lungs

 

In these days

We long for a church that

Re-fires the Spirit

A church that watches for the little sparks

And lights the beacons

A church filled with Aidans holding their torches aloft

 

In these days we long for

A new Pentecost – not the domain of the few but the many

A Pentecost of online groups and innovation

A Pentecost of preaching in the quietness of 8:30 Communion

A Pentecost among the people of peace of our places

A Pentecost of the local, rooted in the soil

A Pentecost of flame that can’t be tamed

 

One that won’t be held back by bricks and mortar

One that will flow and spread like living water

Like a baptism of water, fire and Spirit breath

A baptism of hope in what is left

And what is still to come.

A baptism of Father, Spirit, Son

A baptism of God, the three in one.

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