 |
| Details of a window in the Agape Centre, Lisburn Road Belfast. |
This being "All Saints Day" I read this piece as part of today's service at Glenburn Methodist Church... Two reblogs two days in a row reflecting two services in a row and two pieces of my poetry... I promise members of my congregation that this will not happen every week! I originally wrote this one in the midst of covid, prompted by the title of a festival of ideas hosted by the Hay on Wye Festival team, in turn stolen from from Leonard Cohen’s 1992 song “Anthem” where he sang “There is a crack… in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
But actually Cohen in turn stole this idea from 19th
century philosopher
Benjamin Blood who was responding to a line by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in an essay where he said “There is a crack in every thing God has made” . Blood commented '“There is a crack in every thing that God has made;” but through that crevice enters the light of heaven.'
Some also suggest that the 13th century Sufi poet and mystic Rumi said something similar.
There is also the oft told, doubtless apocryphal, tale of a parent explaining what the different parts of a church are for or mean, including the stained glass, with that child in their RE class at school subsequently defining a saint as "someone that the light shines through..."
Stained glass saints
let the light in
telling the story
to those who have
not yet encountered
The Word.
But even stained glass
gets stained with
the accumulated grime
of everyday existence
obscuring the light
of life.
No building can ever
effectively contain
all the glory of creation
never mind the Creator
who speaks the story
to be.
No sanctified sinner
can effectively express
all the grace and mercy
extended to them
and through them
to all.
Selah
Comments