‘Let the children come to me!’
A man who couldn’t walk,
amazingly,
let down through the roof;
a lost son found.
Friends encouraged me
to seek some more,
and so I trawled
through the Book of Books,
trying to untangle
Paul’s ecstatic thoughts,
John’s mystic visions,
tales of dreams
and giant fish.
Then still more vistas opened up.
Teresa led me deep within
the mansions of the spirit,
and Julian helped me gaze upon
the hanging man,
the homely, mother God.
I tried by force of will
to bring my fidgeting spirit
into line,
longing to reach
the heights of prayer
and always falling short.
God found me
many years ago,
yet time and again,
I felt I had
to seek him out.
A gentle, guileless, epileptic soul
danced into my life,
and I saw God
breathing in the dispossessed.
An arthritic, chatty,
cheeky pensioner
saw through my soul
and made me smile about myself.
A nervy, gifted,
visionary priest
welcomed me,
in God’s name,
when I was in the wilderness.
And now I wince
at angry tribes
with constipated war cries:
‘Justification! Predestination!
Substitution! Condemnation!’
Leave them to their graceless spats.
Move on with love,
with God who runs
to greet with open arms
and robe and kiss
the lost child coming home.
