Readings
When the world hurts, a story for all ages
This originally appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8041
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
This is a story about Sam.
Sometimes, Sam feels really sad.
Sometimes, Sam feels really scared.
Just recently, Sam has been feeling
really sad and really scared .
Sam’s only small, and when you’re
small, you can find big feelings a bit
much to deal with.
The
We have many springs
We see the promise of Spring even in November. Spring, from
November.
That promise is given to us more clearly in January.
And we see it in February, at Imbolc in the beginning, and in the middle,
when the geese arrive back on the lake.
In early March, the news tells us we are in
My mind’s eye Christmas
My mind’s eye
Holds tears and fears
Angers and resentments
Past and present .
My mind’s eye
Feels hope and acceptance
Acceptance of all this
Hope in experience
A past and present future.
My mind’s eye
Is no longer blind, I
Can see my role in the laughter in the pain
My mind’s eye is
And we call it Christmas
And we call it Christmas yet where is Christ?
So we have no workhouses, let’s take homelessness and food banks.
So we have freedom of expression and thought, let’s take mental and sexual and psychological torment.
So we have this fabulous increase in wealth, let’s take a local inequality and make it a global inequality
Confront darkness at winter solstice
This originally appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8001
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
The winter solstice, a celebration of the shortest day, when the suns seems to be standing still over the Tropic of Capricorn before turning to push its light and warmth back towards the north. It was a time for lighting fires to encourage the sun to
Blue Christmas
This originally appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8001
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
The stories rarely mention anymore
how badly Mary missed her Dad,
how as she trudged through Bethlehem she yearned
to hear his voice, which she knew –
it made her chuckle just
to think of it! – would be raised in fury
at the faceless innkeepers,
Holiday wish list
This originally appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8025
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
Like a child before the presents are opened,
Like a man on his first bite of beef stew,
My spirit is everything-greedy,
I want holidays – and Holy Days, too.
Give me a hustle and bustle in the kitchen,
Where loved ones cook for each other,
Christmas will come
This first appeared in The Inquirer, Issue 8049
https://www.inquirer.org.uk/pages/
Christmas will come.
When the nights are so long that even the day is dark,
and the world’s balloon is a fugitive from the sky,
when hope seeps out of our collective life like breath,
like the wind punched from a downed fighter,
Christmas will come.
Christmas