An Affirming Call to Communion

 There’s a whisper on God’s lips 

And the whisper is your name. 

Come to me…
Meet me in the place where stuff and soul are one. 
Where I am in you and you are in me. 
Come, share in this historic tradition that has been handed on, 

that calls to us through communities across millennia 

and that the Spirit reclaims and re-infuses. 

Come, join the table of friends and betrayers, of friends that are also betrayers. 
Come to the table that is not without its confrontations and pain; 

but at which we all have a seat and a name and a hand that gives to us in knowing grace. 

[Pause/Silence]

We have before this meal, a moment for confession. 

This is a moment in which we may bring before God those private things that weigh heavily on our own hearts; but it is also one of humble solidarity with each other and in our warring world, recognising our varying but shared woundedness and ability to wound; yet doing so around a table that nourishes us with its resonance of liberation and its offer of redeeming grace.

Ode to a Rainbow

Written earlier this year, for my bright and brilliant, rainbow-loving 

colleague and friend: Anne-Marie.

You’ve rainbow clothes, and rainbow kids;

All manner of rainbow bobs and bits;

Had rainbow hair, get rainbow cards, and

Made a rainbow fairy garden;

There’s rainbow art in your loo;

You’re cute as a button:

Yay! To you!

But what I’ve heard, what I’ve seen

In you, the woman opposite me?

So much more than kitsch-bitch bland -

The shit's been real that built your brand;

Dark storms that split your soul’s white light

Dark brutal storms, lightning-spiked;

But through that all your light has stayed -

Now broken into full array;

Red, orange, yellow, blue and green;

The happy hopeful bounce I’ve seen,

With righteous rage, and courage too -

A vibrant spectrum makes up you.

Thank you, beautiful, for the show;

My prayers are with you as I go.