Journey Prayer

I have watched the daylight
bleed away under a gash of skyline
while dark clouds clot the horizon with
a web of night.

I have felt the strong, salty wind of evening
fade to a dying breath as the
earth cools.
Even the delicate leaves
hang with porcelain stillness.
Only the owl tests the silence
with speech from another world.

In your sunsetting, moonrising, nightfalling
drift to the edges of life
may you not be afraid.

May the fragrance of heaven
honeysuckle the darkness.
May the wind be a gentle embrace.
May the starlight be bright enough
to illuminate your wonder
if not your way.

Be still, I pray,
and know the peace of God
turning the globe of your life
from one day to another

from one world
to the next.


(c) AMcN

This was written shortly before my father died when it became clear his remaining days were very few.

The Presence

It is here, in the house, in the dark,
Among us.

There are the tell tale stains
On the carpet
Glowing like an eerie
Spill of milk.

I close my eyes
The air is taut and still
With resonating expectation.
I cannot hear it move but I feel it
On my hand.
Tiny hairs tingle like antennae.

When I open my eyes
I watch it on my skin,
Burning with a cold pearly fire.
My shadow sharpens, takes on an
Independence of its own,
Gangling behind me
Like a monstrous
Insect on the ground.

I feel my senses rearranged according to another's will.
My rationality reduces
to a child's,
But all the others sharpen.
I am nose of dog and
eye of cat
And ear of bat
And skin of worm feeling the
Spider's footstep from afar.

Always it catches me,
Always in darkness,
Usually alone.

It is from another world,
It robs my reason
It utterly enchants me.
It kisses me with madness

It is moonlight.



(c) A McN

Whilst there is little evidence for statistical effects of moon phase on human biology and psychology the mere presence of moonlight has the same impact on me as snowlight, lending a mythical quality to otherwise drab circumstances.

Scrooge speaks

The most momentous event in history is about to be celebrated and somehow I'm missing it again. Dog tired from shopping, writing, posting, delivering, tidying, cleaning, preparing, socialising. It will be a late night tonight and I will enter Christmas day with a headache and another tight schedule.

I long for a year when we are prepared enough far enough in advance that we can reflect on what we're celebrating rather than being swamped by the mechanisms of celebration.


With apologies to my wife and family for the clinical yule-ophobia that always hits me at this time of year. Maybe I should become a part time monk at Christmas and re-emerge in the New Year.

The Prophecy

When Herod saw he had been tricked by the wise men he was in a furious rage and killed all the male children in the Bethlehem region that were two years old or under.

He said his first word today.
Daada - he smiled, clear as can be.
I picked him up and hugged him tightly
"Be a good boy till your Dad gets back".

I thought of Fatherhood all morning in the fields.
It was nearly Spring. I felt the green shoot stirring in the earth beneath my feet and the shy sun shining on my face.
"Life is beautiful" I said and sang the songs of Zion as I ploughed.

Tilling the dark earth as my father did before me, I knew he was not dead, but he lived on in me
as I'll live on in my son when his hands hold this plough and till this land.

Then the beauty of my dreams was broken. I heard the distant scream of women and the brutal shout of foreign men.

Swords in the sunlight, fear and anger in my stomach.
I ran, heart racing, but the blood ran faster.
When I arrived they left in clouds of dust and clanks of armour. Only the smell of horses remained and the slow seep of blood, staining the women's clothing where they held the limp forms cradled in their arms.

I wept great sobs of black, despairing grief.
He was my only child and sinless as the morning sun.
How can I pray in this dark void?
How can I start to believe You care or understand?

But in the silence Heaven wept for Time would
circle to this point again
a father would be racked with pain,
another son, more innocent, would die.

And far from distant in grief's hour
God's own death would prove fatal to death's power.

(c) A McN


If ever there was an antidote to the saccharine, sanitised commercial versions of Christmas it is this episode recorded in the gospels. As a father I found this hard to write. There is a bitter irony that even the ultimate gift to humanity can be so misconstrued as to result not in rejoicing but in heartache and pain.

The Shepherd's Tale - a little bit of whimsy

T’was three o’clock in the mornin’
and I woke with such a fright
the fire ‘ad burned to cinders
yet the ash was shinin’ bright.
The sheep was castin’ shadows,
long an’ lanky on the grass;
I rubbed my eyes - to my surprise
I saw an angel pass

I’m very good at counting
even if I’m half asleep.
I had to check the flock in case
the angel nicked a sheep
but when I’d finished countin’
(well, I’d got as far as three)
another angel comes along
and says “ ‘Allo!” to me.

I says to ‘im - "What’s up, mate? Lost?"
He says “Not me, chum, You!
The other shepherds left the hill
at twenty five past two!
They’ve all run down to Bethlehem
with coats and cloaks a flying
to see a strange and wondrous child
in a manger lying.”

“Well that’s just typical,” says I
“They’ve got no sense of calling;
abandoning their helpless sheep....
pathetic and appalling!
It’s lucky they’ve got me around
so watchful and so able
to keep an eye on all their sheep
while they’re down at the stable.”

“Excuse me if I’m wrong,” he said,
but if I’m not mistaken
you were lying fast asleep
before you were awaken.
Pray tell me how you guard your sheep
when both your eyes are shuttered
(Aside) These mortals have amazing gifts!
The cheeky angel muttered.

I felt a little foolish then,
and just a touch deflated.
It seemed so mean the other men
had gone and hadn’t waited;
And now they’d all be famous
in the stories that were told
while I was on the hillside
all companionless and cold!

But as I stood there miserable
and feeling at a loss
my own dear sheep, young Meadowsweet
my pet lamb, came across.
She snuggled up beside me
with affection, warm and wise
and in the dark her warmth and love
brought hot tears to my eyes.

The angel must have seen my tears
and known I felt unpleasant
he whispered “Hey.... the other guys
forgot to take a present”
I said “Well; thanks for thinking mate,
yeah, thanks for thinking ...but
it really doesn’t help a lot
cos all the shops are shut.

And then young Meadowsweet looked up
nuzzling against my hand
as if to say “Give me away
for I will understand”.
I found it really hard to believe
for she was all I had.
She was like a daughter to me,
I was like her Dad.

But when the angel dropped us off
and I knocked on the door
and Joseph with a weary smile said
“Ay, there’s room for more”
we squeezed into the crowded barn
and kneeled before the manger
and Meadowsweet lay down to sleep
beside the little stranger.

And then it seemed, of all the gifts,
of frankincense, myrrh, gold;
that only one gift snuggled close
and kept away the cold.
And only one gift grew with him,
and trotted at his feet -
it wasn’t gold or frankincense
but my dear Meadowsweet.

So all who hear this tale, pay heed
..the best gifts we can give
are not the sort that can be bought
but are the kind that live.

And when God gives us gifts it’s never China for a shelf,
But living, unexpected gifts
Because He gives himself.

(c) A McN

No Nobel prizes for this literature but it was fun. Parts were a joint effort with my daughter - who learns poetry considerably more effectively than I can.

Star struck

The smell of camel clinging to the cold night air;
spicing each breath I take.
The pool as still as ice; an inky blackness breathing dampness;
misting the mirror of the sky.

I am at the water’s edge alone;
idly counting stars and wondering.
The pool’s black skin is peppered with a
thousand points of light. Each one I know by name
and even recognise in watery reflection.

Stars beneath me. Stars above me.
I stoop to stir the waters with my hand.
One by one the ripples crawl away; circle upon circle, sliding silently as ghosts.

I watch the star reflections bending, bobbing,
bouncing as the waves glide through.
Each constellation quivers in its course.

The ripples run in silent provocation; disrupting patterns of a million years.

I stand; my hand still dripping, fingers faintly shining in the dark.
A shiver runs across my skin; not of cold
but of strange and awesome revelation.

I look to where the guiding star still fiercely burns,
outshines the moon;
a stranger far eclipsing all familiar signs.

I sense a presence in this swarm of stars above.

I almost glimpse a shape, man-like,
move as a shadow in the heavens;
gliding through the gaps behind the stars,
dipping his finger in the ether of galaxies;
stooping to send great ripples
through the old established order of our lives.

The star reflections in the pool still dance to unknown music.
The camel chews the cud in sleep.

Tomorrow brings me closer to my quest but tonight I will
sleep in strange and unfamiliar joy
and dream of starlight dancing in dark water
and dream of Godhood stooping near the earth to shake us
and to break our chains.

(c) AMcN


The Magi - wise men from the East. God revealed himself as much to those studying the stars as He did to those studying the scriptures. Science pursued with reverence and wonder is sometimes very close to worship. I am reminded of Kepler's quote "O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee."

First death

Lu 1:35 The angel answered, ``The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.


The thing that struck him first was loneliness.

Never had he been this small before.
Never had he known a darkness
that his eyes could not illuminate.
Never had he felt this nakedness before.

Swimming in a universe of night, enclosed within a mortal frame,
a stranger in a foreign land,
a deep and hidden presence in another's life.

Then there was the growing, groping,
filling,
forming,
fusing;
bones to bones,
flesh flowering,
fingers, toenails, toes, lips and hair
till all was there in perfect miniature.

Then the low and soothing harmonies
of pulse
and distant words
and fondling touch
that rippled the starless ceilings of this shrinking world.

A strange and changing world this was
a world within a world where tears and joy
were equally removed and only the dark (and soothing) peace
washed muffled silence with the borrowed warmth
of unknown motherblood....
and, oh, what harmonies you knew as
your pulse grew with hers
and such security emplaced
enfolded in a womb's embrace.

Until the crushing tightness closed around
and suffocating blackness wound
you like a shroud
your universe was shuddering and shaking
to a woman's cry of pain.

This is the first death
when the inner world implodes.
There are other deaths. They normally come after.

You descended, surging on a wave of blood
to cold and unresponsive straw
where cow breath spiced the winter night
with fragrance fit for kings.

Iced air sliced
every newborn nerve as your first breath
hit your lungs like a slap in the face.

You never breathed before.
It's a vulnerable feeling for a body so robust
to need the winsomeness of wind
to enter in and out our frame.

Welcome to this world, for this is our life.
Do you like it?

It is real. It is raw; the raw
skin tingling tautness of the winter cold..
The raw warm comforts of caress,
the chequered light of love and hate
that haunts our fallen race.

You are one of us now. We will teach you how we live.
And you will teach us why
you die.

(c) A.McN

Pregnancy at any time is beautiful but strange to the point of incomprehension. To host a human being from conception to birth is to be a temple of life. What, then, is it to host life's architect and to be entrusted with his care?

Introduction

Words shape thoughts and conjure pictures in the mind.
By playing with words we play with thoughts and create landscapes of the imagination. This blog will attempt to paint some pictures in the imagination.