Long Lent Prayer

​

Into this space
getting darker
into this time
growing shorter
onto the table
messier
into the silence
deeper
we meet you O Love
breaking and broken
in the world

this is the season we need
to uncover the dust
of forgotten religion
below the surface of ritual
and power
to the ancient strands
of love
still holding
still straining
with the pain of the world

so we shall take the dust of all our religion
and clear it away
the creeds fashioned in the name of the powerful
the doctrine used to divide us all
the table that causes schism
and below it all
in this season
see
that which is still there
that holds the universe together
the strands of love
that come from the imagination of a creator
who dared dream
that love
would be celebrated
enjoyed

And below the surface of all that is powerful
and all that is loudest
and all that is mightiest
in this season
we find that love
still

So in penitence
and in love
we remove what crowds out a God
who gives of self
and in trust
and grace
clear away
the baggage of faith
and reveal again
in our deepest souls
the truth of this season:Love
still
loves
God
still
moves
Jesus
still
walks
and the tomb
still
waits

From this space
may we remove
what we do not need for the journey
From this time
may we fold away
what distracts and confuses
From this silence
may we silence the noice of the loudest
that we may hear
the cry of the weakest
and hear love
call
from the deepest places
where she still strains
holding the universe
together

silence

In this season of penitence
and reversal
may we find ourselves anew
ready to follow
towards dawn
and resurrection

 

Lent

the world takes on a different hue
when everything is weighted with a story
like the one buried within us
ready to bud in this season

the brighter spring colours betray the events
of the man of light and his journey
towards the darkness, now the day
newly makes ground on the weaker night

words unfold with new irony now
tinged with purple and passion as they are
but it is the silence between the breaths
that hold the deeper story of love

who has never been this way before
desperate to believe she is greater, deeper
more light-filled than all the darkness.
The man of love seems so fragile

to face the cosmos-weight of all the moments
where love has failed to make ground on the dark:
the violence and hurt of too many individuals
who know too little about hope

yet here we are, on the sheer precipice of salvation
where this choice is the whole of the future
and the darkness either wins
by the silence of undisturbed crowds (Sanity Overture)

or the tomb of all our hopes shatters
with a love is not allowed to die
resurrected in every word of every story
uttered in rejection of the dark