Reflections during lockdown

During lockdown two of our trustees have shared reflections and poems that have helped them keep perspective during this challenging time. We hope you find them as inspiring as we did!

The fence

I look out at the sprawling backyards with their derelict remnants of life that was. An old armchair and a broken washing line. I raise my head and enjoy the geometric panorama of roof tops. I look higher and I see the city before me. I lift up my eyes still further to the green hills far away.

My grand daughter comes to the other side of the fence and we are both so happy to see each other. We long to hug and she tries to wriggle underneath. So her dad lifts her and from on high, she sings. And we all try to dance.

With our neighbours we created this fence for security. But now it’s keeping out our loved ones.

Safety and security? Or prison? It’s a thin dividing line.

A young man in a nearby garden stands for hours, looking through the fence, and I wonder what are in his memories, his thoughts, his dreams? I can’t speak his language, and he can’t speak mine. An invisible dividing line.

My thoughts turn to Palestine where so many young people are trapped, looking at a fence, a wall, a separation barrier built in the name of security. It imprisons – but try as it might, it cannot lock down dreams.

A fence and social isolation – they cannot lock down our dreams.

A butterfly lands in next door’s yard. Perhaps one day we will be like the butterfly and emerge? Different from who we were, different from who we are now. Will we be ready to fly and live, beyond our wildest dreams?

It’s Easter Day! The stone has rolled away! Perhaps it was a thin dividing line between heaven and earth? The way is open for New Life! New community! A new order of things.

One day too, the checkpoints that divide Palestinians and Israelis will swing wide open. People will greet each other, delight in each other, and rediscover a shared new life.

And one day the gate in our fence will swing wide open too.

We will walk through

Run through

Dance through

Throwing our arms around our neighbours, our friends, our family,

With hugs, and noisy whoops of joy,

New Life. New community. A new order of things.

But for now, we dream, we pray, we prepare ourselves for the new life which is to come …

Jenny Richardson

11th April 2020

God’s Paradoxical World

We are told that God’s ways are not our ways

but that we are made in the image of God.

Surely then, we should try to discern these ways,

to follow them – in God’s world

which is also our world.

Our ways of government

often involve

compulsion,

violence,

injustice,

oppression.

God’s ways seem to involve

justice,

love in action,

humility,

but how can we, mere humans,

make any difference?

Jesus taught that love is like yeast.

Insignificant amounts

moistened and warmed

gradually transform the whole,

little by little,

an ongoing process.

We have the Spirit’s water of life,

the warmth of the light of Jesus,

enabling us, as the yeast,

gradually to make a difference,

taking time,

never succumbing to despondency.

God’s time is not our time either.

We must not be impatient,

but play our part,

mostly unobserved,

except by God,

the master baker

who depends on us

for the infinitesimal part of the Kingdom

entrusted to each one.

Ros Murphy

Progressive Voices 33, June 2020 p.11