Dear Friends,
This past week I was assisting Julia for a REinspired session with year 3 children from Loddon school. Shockingly, they were already looking at the Christmas story. Despite my initial grumpiness about rushing into Christmas before we had even got to Advent (!), I found myself surprised. From the behaviour of the children, it was obvious that the mention of Christmas brought great excitement. Even though it is still weeks away, its promise lit them up; and this was true, too, for the teachers. So, though at first it felt entirely out of step with the liturgical year, I came around to feeling that our pre-emptive exploration of Christmas provided a little oasis for those children and their frazzled teachers as they ploughed on through the last weeks of term.
I took from this the importance of the ‘oasis’ moments: isn’t that what most forms of prayer are about, I thought? Making a clearing in the everyday where the quiet can descend and something magical and nourishing might occur. And yet, half the problem, is justifying taking that moment out – it might seem a waste of time. The Welsh poet RS Thomas captures the dilemma, and the effect, beautifully, especially in his final image of God (‘it’ in the poem), being like a deer which only comes when we are still and attentive.
The Presence by RS Thomas
I pray and incur
silence. Some take that silence
for refusal.
I feel the power
that, invisible, catches me
by the sleeve, nudging
towards the long shelf
that has the book on it I will take down
and read and find the antidote
to an ailment.
I know its ways with me;
how it enters my life,
is present rather
before I perceive it, sunlight quivering
on a bare wall.
Is it consciousness trying
to get through?
Am I under
regard?
It takes me seconds
to focus, by which time
it has shifted its gaze,
looking a little to one
side, as though I were not here.
It has the universe
to be abroad in.
There is nothing I can do
but fill myself with my own
silence, hoping it will approach
like a wild creature to drink
there, or perhaps like Narcissus
to linger a moment over its transparent face.