Breathing the Breath of God Now

Breathing the Breath of God Now

From time to time we encounter people, even among our own family and friends, who suffer long bouts of physical decline. In recent days, some, known to me, have come to eternal rest after a time of lung diseases.  This poem grapples with some of the hope.

Scene: Near Sebastopol NSW during ‘burning-off’.

Breathing the Breath of God Now

In memoriam

He’s breathing the breath of God,

Like a soft summer breeze,

Walking where angels trod,

His lungs all clear of wheeze.

He’s resting the repose of peace,

No flail and no more toil,

From the pain he has release,

In God’s harvest from the soil.

From soil of a life spent,

Within family and the farm,

Now to be sent,

To a land where there’s no harm.

Somehow the memory lingers,

Among others of slim and slender frame,

He’d passed on his lengthy fingers,

To children who bore his name.

He’s seeing not as we see now,

As he sees face to face,

There’s no furrow in his brow,

Before the fullness of grace.

Simon C.J. Falk  3 February 2018

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From Harrowing Towards Wholeness and Healing

From Harrowing Towards Wholeness and Healing

While driving around the countryside for work commitments I was listening once more to Parker J. Palmer’s  ‘Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation‘.  In this book, Palmer describes how he experienced a clinical depression after trying to live a life that was not his to live.  Seemingly, it was a life that did not fit, or suit, him.

As he emerged from a bout of depression, he discovered that, in some ways, the depression was a veiled gift to him.  It taught him that the life he was living was harming him.  He drafted the poem “Harrowing” included below.

(‘Harrowing”, a poem by Parker J. Palmer).

I know there have been times in my life where what was then perceived as a harrowing, later opened up to become a gift.

Some of us may be coming through tough times, saddening times, exhausting times. They may be matters personal to us.  Alternatively, they may be triggered by recent horrific events in our world.  Whichever the case may be, I post Palmer’s poem, as a promise of hope in regeneration and rejuvenation after times of trial.

Simon C.J Falk 4 June 2017

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The #Sun Rises

The Sun Rises

The Sun Rises

The sun rises,

Dawning

A new day.

The night shadows

Recede,

Then pass away.

What hopes arise

Afresh

On this morn?

What adventures

Begin

From the refulgent dawn?

 

Simon C.J Falk 8 January 2017

Flight UB181/182 or IC777

Flight UB181/182 or IC777

It is sad to see destruction in our beautiful world.  This biting verse uses imagery to grapple with how some people pillage their ‘conquered land’ and others, by the bombings and other attacks, create a ‘Hades’ or place of underworld and death.  The final words seek a ray of hope.

 

Flight UB181/182 or IC777

Paging

Paging

Customers for flight

UB181 and UB182

Can you come through.

Flight UB181

Will land first

On ‘Conquered Land’.

Flight UB182

Will descend to

‘Hades’.

You will arrive

On your ‘dead-line’

If you choose UB flights

On ‘Death Culture Airlines’

For those

Who wish to indulge

Their fetish

Of fury.

 

Those interested in ‘Horizons of Hope’

Are called to board

Flight IC777

To land at ‘New Dawn’.

No return flight

From there

Will be

Desired.

 

Simon C.J Falk 10 July 2016

Gone

Gone

In the wake of those stricken by suicide.  If this raises concerns for you, or for one whom you love, seek assistance now.  Australia https://www.lifeline.org.au/ ; USA http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  ; Canada http://suicideprevention.ca/thinking-about-suicide/find-a-crisis-centre/  .  Or check where you live.

 

(i)

Gone.

You were.

Now

Not.

Gone.

No longer here.

The dance of dark and light,

Padding within,

Has come to

It’s zenith;

Or

To is plummet.

The darkness has cloaked you,

And the light

Has gone.

Except for a glimmer

That we grasp in memory,

Holding it in our hands,

Lest

It too

Is gone.

Were you freed

As you crossed

That final breach?

Or was it a sudden last jab

Or pain?

Then did you rise?

Like a raptor aloft,

Away from the soil of your sorrow?

Do you now feel pain?

Or a new one,

As you witness the wake,

The grief,

Of the remnant

Who mourn the loss,

your passing

From their midst?

In their lives now

You’ve left.

And left, yes,

A capacious hole,

Like the cold fissure

Of a crevasse,

Deep, sharp, biting and

Dark at its bottom.

As the pain left you

It alighted

On those who love you,

Who miss you.

The hurt is not gone,

Just transferred to others

Now needing,

Oh yes, needing much,

To do the healing

That needs to be done.

 

(ii)

May the dance of light

Leap over the shadows.

May its rays bring a new warmth

To the cold hurt.

And may those who remain

Catch the light

To illumine their pain.

And may that light,

Ever so bright and warm,

As it animates them,

Shine forth.

And may it beam so brightly

That it goes to you

And completes the cycle.

But,

This time,

Encircling your darkness in its ray,

That you may become

A star shining,

A beacon of peace,

And

The darkness

Gone.

 

 

Simon C.J. Falk   13 December 2015

Healed Home

Healed Home

Danced!

My soul

It danced

The day

The healing

Came

To me.

Pushed,

Crawled,

Lurched

And leaned

Onward

I went

Through the crowd.

Touch

If I could touch

But the cloak.

Reach

Stretch

Yes

Oh!

I am whole

I am healed

One with myself

No longer alone

I can rejoin

My people

My own.

I am

Healed home.

Life

I now have life

He dried the flood

That led to death.

Humbled

I am before

But oh,

The gratitude

Bursts from my heart

In the new springtime

Of my days.

Simon C.J. Falk                       27 June 2015

In the common Christianity Lectionary (book of Bible readings) this weekend, an account from the Gospel of Mark (5:21-43) tells of the healing of both Jairus’ daughter and of an unnamed woman with a haemorrhage.  The verse above attempts to catch the jubilation the woman may have felt.