Chaplain’s Message
Dear All,
Life is a bit hard at the moment, and I would like to help your resilience. If you have a few idle hours this summer, rather than scrolling through the newsfeeds, I would like to set you some homework! Open the Gospel of Luke in your favourite translation and read it through from the beginning to the end. It will take you a couple of hours. If you have less time, read Jonah in the Old Testament. I have written a couple of lines to encourage you!
Best wishes and prayers
Michael
There is a mystery to the Bible
There is a mystery to the Bible
It sits on the shelf
Passive and fading
As if it can do nothing to help
A knotted-up life.
And then, perhaps, in boredom
Early
On a sleepless summer morning
You reach out for it
Hoping to find some
Momentary distraction
It as if the sea
pushes the pages open
Into the furniture of your room
Instead of sadness
Divine laughter
Dancing words
Instead of gloom
And so this morning
From paper binding
Life spills out
In startling spume
And old Jonah
Seaweed covered
Coughs
And swims around my room
He splutters out his prayers and story
About a whale and a life gone wrong
About a surprising intervention
Four stormy chapters, not overlong
And here I float
On my grey sofa
Listening to my spewed-out guest
In my pyjamas and old man slippers
I feel overwhelmed quite underdressed.
Michael Roden July 5th 2022
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