It's been a while. So if anyone out there reads this it will be astounding.
There have been various reasons for my silence that I won't go into here, but largely it has been a combination of relentless work, no bandwidth and an echoing creative void. I've had a few ideas in my head but have not had the oomph to write anything beyond that which I "have to" every week.
And much of that has come to the head in the past 2 weeks, which for varying reasons have been awful. And that came to a head on Thursday on the eve of Storm Amy. But there is, and will be in the next 5 weeks at least, no let up in the diary, without factoring in other unpredictable events and happenings.
But one of these days I will have to start listening to myself.
I've been reflecting, in a number of places, on the words of Lamentations 3 and the assurance of God’s steadfast love which brings new mercies and blessings every morning.
And what was one of the daily lectionary readings from the Old Testament for this morning, in the wake of Storm Amy?
You guessed it.
Lamentations 3:19-26:
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
Those words spoke loudly in the silence, when I woke early and watched the dawn break over a strangely calm garden.
They prompted me to post the attached picture of Turner's 'The Morning after the Storm' from The National Museum in Cardiff on my #ArtintheOrdinary thread on social media and reminded me that I need to continue to trust in God's steadfast love and wait patiently...
And that's important as, both literally and metaphorically, the winds are picking up and the rain is starting to fall again.
But one thing that Thursday did, paradoxically, is unblock my creative urges. I've since written 3 new pieces and am rewriting another, as well as the things I "have to" write. I will think carefully about posting some of them as they are coming out of a fairly raw place. But I'm just thankful that I've been able to put my emotions into words again, because I was genuinely worried that things had got to such a place where I couldn't do that and the well was finally, utterly dry. But I have to remember and rely on the fact that it is not our own reserves that we are dependent on but God's boundless reservoirs of grace.
And after that ridiculously long introduction, here's my somewhat shorter poetic offering, in the form of a Japanese Tanka:
This storm has now passed.
We have survived the maelstrom.
But damage was done.
My confidence is shattered
And connections disrupted.
Selah
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