I was searching for a poem to begin a staff meeting: I think it is something that would deepen most business meetings and get all of us that can’t step back and become too intense and focussed to think in a different way, but I digress.
I was looking for something that was Christian in theme, but left a lot of ‘space’ for those who weren’t or weren’t sure. I found this in a mailing: Christmas is increasingly bittersweet the longer that most of us live on this planet and I like how this talks of darkness, but echoes that line in Tracey Thorn’s ‘Joy’, a song that never fails to move me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maRckqODJnA:-
‘It’s because of the dark
We see the beauty in the spark’
Happy Christmas.
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BE STILL AND KNOW
Deepening dark, with a chill
wind and the uneven sounds of sheep
cropping on the stubble hill.
For now, simply stand still
under the slow stars’ glisten
and sky creep. Wait. Do not sleep.
But listen.
Deep silence and shadow tells
the essential story.
No trumpet blare. Not a single bell.
Watch as the clarity of dark
shows up a minor spark
—an oil lamp flickering
in a cave under the hill.
With that wick’s brief bud on light
a child’s first ragged cry
splits this night.
Pray that his just-born bright-ness will flare and fill all space
—until the dark’s annihilated
by the glint of grace.
Luci Shaw
Wearily Hopeful 