The United Nations ~ a living promise

UNITED NATIONS DAY

Lord,
Lead us from death to life,
From falsehood to truth.
Lead us from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Let peace fill our hearts, our world and our universe.
Let us dream together, pray together and work together,
To build one world of peace and justice for all.

[Author unknown – it is thought to be either an adaptation of a Hindu prayer or of a hymn. The first time that it was known to be publicly spoken was by Mother Teresa in 1981.]

The International prayer of peace speaks to God of our desire for a world which lives in harmony, love and justice. We pray it because of our longing that we who have been given this planet as our home may treat it, and therefore all who live on it, as a pure gift. Too often, and throughout history, humanity has treated life here as a right and our planet as ours to exploit and dominate.
Even so, most of us are subservient to the will of a few. Throughout human history we have been dominated by a those who dictate how we are to live and before whose power we fall down and, not to put too fine a point, worship. How else could they have power over us unless we allow it.

Alongside dictators and despots there are people always willing to serve them. It is usually because they share that power and bask in a self-interest which leads to a sharing of injustice and evil.
The obvious example of this demonic is the Nazi party which grew up around one who had many personality defects but who somehow caught the mood of the moment. Hitler was in many ways a weak and infantile man who happened to touch nerves of those who had been demoralized by circumstances which took away the self-respect of a nation.
Hitler, and fellow dictators, like Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Emperor Hirohito, exploited a mood of despair and, surrounding themselves by thugs, used evil to corrupt good.
Here we can place what people did to Jesus and go on doing, sometimes outrageously in His name! Today Hitler and his cronies have been replaced by modern day despots because History has a habit of repeating itself.

Because we have often failed to see that our Creator God has allowed us to tenant planet Earth and appointed us to be Stewards – custodians – of all the good and joyful world of nature, the animal kingdom and the birds of the air and fish of the sea, human beings have fallen into a trap. We have fooled ourselves that it’s all ours for the taking. Humanity has tried to replace God. So hell-bent (and that’s a thought!) are some humans on exploiting each other and the earth for personal gain that that whole world is in turmoil.

I recently found this Native American saying from the Ute Tribe, which spoke a truth to my heart:

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

That feels like a context against which we should live our lives on earth and it’s interesting that those we call Generation X are increasingly taking a view which echoes this.
Maybe there lies our hope. There are always those who not only choose good over evil but who are prepared to work for that goodness to prevail. It is, after all, what is at the heart of the Christian and other faiths.

Each generation who has followed a despot has also produced others who challenge and show us a good and better way, even and perhaps especially, at great cost to themselves. I think instantly of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximillian Kolbe, and in the post war world, Dag Hammarskjold (second General Secretary of the United Nations). He sought to forge a new way of living peaceably, nation with nation, which, though fragile today, is still the force for tremendous hope and goodness.

We celebrate the UN today not just because for the past 80 years it has been a forum for peace but because through many differing ways it works for education, caring, peace-keeping, seeking to eradicate poverty and injustice and in this it represents all of us who try to lived goodly lives (and for many of us, Godly lives) dedicated to shaping a better, more equal, caring, just and liberated world.

Speaking of itself as a symbol of hope for Global Unity, The United Nations maintains that “There is no other global organization with the legitimacy, convening power and normative impact of the United Nations. No other global organization gives hope to so many people for a better world and can deliver the future we want. Today, the urgency for all countries to come together, to fulfil the promise of the nations united, has rarely been greater.
UN Day, celebrated every year, offers the opportunity to amplify our common agenda and reaffirm the purposes and principles of the UN Charter that have guided us for the past 80 years!”

António Guterres, the present UN Secretary, in his message for today, says

The United Nations is more than an institution. It is a living promise – spanning borders, bridging continents, inspiring generations.
For eighty years, we have worked to forge peace, tackle poverty and hunger, advance human rights, and build a more sustainable world – together.
As we look ahead, we confront challenges of staggering scale: escalating conflicts, climate chaos, runaway technologies, and threats to the very fabric of our institution.
This is no time for timidity or retreat.
Now, more than ever, the world must recommit to solving problems no nation can solve alone.
On this UN Day, let’s stand together and fulfil the extraordinary promise of your United Nations. Let’s show the world what is possible when “we the peoples” choose to act as one.

*Gaia ~ Artistic representation of The Earth by Luke Jerram*
*photo by Mr.G.*

Prayer for the United Nations Organization.

God of compassion,
walk alongside all of your global stewards who work to create a more just and peaceful world.
Equip the United Nations community with a sense of urgency and humility that lets your will be done.
Each day you give bread enough for all, grant us also the wisdom to ensure that everyone has enough.
Teach the world’s leaders to forgive, to extend welcome across borders.
Show the world a new path beyond greed, oppression, and division.
We pray for a world united.
We pray for the power to save succeeding generations from war.
We pray for a glory that reaffirms the dignity and worth of every person.
We pray that your grace might ensure life in larger freedom forever,
for all of your children.

Amen

Man with a water jar, did you know?

A Man with a Water Jar

Our weekly study group has been looking at the meaning of the Eucharist, in particular at the Last Supper, its spiritual and biblical roots in the Jewish Passover in the Book of Genesis.

As we delved into these links, we read the details in St. Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 22 and about the preparations Jesus had made for the Passover meal. We are told that Jesus sent Peter and John to get the meal ready. In answer to their question as to where they might eat it, Jesus told them : When you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you’ follow him into the house he enters” and there they were to meet the master of the house who would show them where the meal was to happen.
In our discussion we needed the signal Jesus had given them ~ a man with a water jar. We never hear of him again but as he was at the right place at the right time we can assume that he was known to Jesus and an arrangement had been made both with him and with the master of the house. Without giving much thought to it we have been in the company of two others with a role in the Gospel story and clearly, friends of Jesus.
We thought of how often this happens in the New Testament; people are encountered who simply appear and disappear, given but a sentence or two, yet were signs of a Gospel friendship that was extended to so many.
As we discussed; Pete, one of our group took the moment further and later he sent me the following poem.

Did you know?

Did you know, O man with the jug,
when you lifted water to your shoulder,
that heaven was in your step,
and the Teacher’s eyes were upon you?
Did you sense the whisper of eternity
in the clay’s cool weight?
Did you feel the river of life
passing through your humble task?

Did you know, O master of the house,
that your upper room would cradle God?
That bread would be broken,
wine poured as covenant and blood?
Did your heart stir as they entered,
those weary men, so calm yet trembling,
while the Lord of all
took the servant’s towel?

Did you know, O silent room,
how still the air would grow,
how words eternal would hang like oil lamps
in your wooden beams?
“This is my body… this is my blood.”
Did the walls remember the sound?
Did they shiver again
when the Spirit came like wind?

Three mysteries in one night:
a man with a jug,
a host with a home,
a room with an open door.
None named, none praised,
yet through them the world was readied
for grace poured out like water,
for bread shared among friends,
for love that would not die.

O Lord,
teach us to be like them:
to carry what is needed,
to open what we have,
to hold what is holy,
and to let it all be Yours.
Amen

[Pete Hellard-Malt]

Swimming in Silence …

A reflection by my friend, Kay Gibbons.

Once a month I take myself out of the fast flowing stream of life and go to a quiet space . Like being a still eddy near to the waters edge . In this place I seek and rest in ‘the still point at the centre’….

Of late I have done little spontaneous painting and drawing – making marks on paper , letting the brush go free fall and the pen trail behind on a journey of exploration … scroll through and you will see the development from blank page , paint , pen and ink …..

Initially I imagined the painting was a selection of leaves , a joyous expression ‘of being’ and as my pen drew a line here, another there the shapes of the leaves turned into fish , akin to a much earlier style of work by @kaygibbons_art.glass.sculpture

This maybe a work in progress on many levels- I can envisage loose brush strokes of paint on glass with the fish swimming vertically within a larger panel of clear textured and coloured glass; I can also see more fish with the drawing becoming a playful gathering joining me in the still waters of the eddy at the edge of the stream ….

Swimming in Silence in my Quiet eddy at the edge , bringing it into the centre…..

and on into another day …….

For more of Kay’s work, follow her on Instagram ~ kaygibbons_art.glass.sculpture or via Google.

Brian Patten, Poet of Human Nature

On October 2nd, it was National Poetry Day in the UK. Even the Archbishop of York took part by reciting a poem on his internet postings. Wisely, he chose to recite a poem by our Poet Laureat, Simon Armitage, who is a Yorkshireman.

The day was observed just a few days after the death of one of my favourite and influential poets, Brian Patten. He died on September 29^th.
We shared the same birthday year and month and I was privileged to meet him in the 1970’s not long after his first published poems, Little Johnny’s Confession. I have my signed copy along with several others he also signed.
He had already made a name for himself through an anthology of poems which he shared with Roger McGough and Adrian Henri. ‘The Mersey Sound’ earned them the title, The Liverpool Poets, and it keyed into a remarkable time in that city’s life which began with The Beatles, Cilla Black and all who played at the Cavern Club. The vibrancy of Liverpool is legendary, especially because so much emerged from characters formed from hardship, poverty and in the face of an under-dog mentality conferred upon it from elsewhere. It is a city of broad culture, amazing architecture and deep humour. The Liverpool poets captured all that and their stated aim to make poetry accessible to all bore great fruit.

Brian Patten was to go on to write poetry which addressed the human condition with humour and with a sense that, at heart, it is love which holds things together. Sometimes this love is mixed with loss and with a searching that gives impetus to our exploring. So, Brian would say that it is often in times of stress people turn to poetry, including many who have dismissed it as, ‘not for them’.
He also said that “poetry helps us to understand what we’ve forgotten to remember. It reminds us of things that are important to us when the world overtakes us emotionally.”

In the 1970’s when I was attempting to deal with what direction my life was seeking to take, including wrestling with what my vocation might be and who I am as a person, it was the poetry of Brian Patten which became one of the anchors in a time of uncertainty.
So I discovered in his collection, The Irrelevant Song, a poem which told me that It is time to tidy up my life! At a pivotal time of personal change I read:

Into your body has leaked this message.
No conscious actions, no broodings
have brought the thought upon you.
It is time to take into account
what has gone and what has replaced it.
Living your life according to no plan,
The decisions are numerous and
The ways to go are one.

The whole poem contained a huge message for me as it addressed inner thoughts, issues and feelings that I had deliberately not dealt with. At the end of the poem I was directed that You must withdraw your love from that which would kill your love.
That came to mean for me the distractions, the claims on me that was wasted in Irrelevance! Time to get serious in my intentions. Otherwise I would discover the power of hurt which leads to self-hate. I was reminded that tenderness is the weapon of one whose love is neither perfect nor complete.
The way forward then was to cultivate that tenderness and kindness, that would set me on a journey towards discovering more and more the power of love. It didn’t take long for me to discover that seeking perfection in love leads to God.

What I discovered in the poetry of Brian Patten was really two things.
One was that poetry has a way of reaching into the heart and soul of life and revealing new meaning. Brian’s style was partly playful and hints of Liverpool humour abound but there is a seriousness which I cannot ignore. It directly touches my very being with challenge and with a call to become more true to oneself.
The other thing I discovered was the power of words and, in their use, the responsibility that brings. So much pain is caused by the misuse of words! Deliberate hurts thrown into peoples’ lives. There is a warning in Brian’s poem, Having taken to necessary precautions, (Notes to the Hurrying Man p.23)
“Flowers won’t cover the hurts, the half-inch deaths
we pile up; a rose the size of two fists
won’t cover a pinprick of hating.
Dreams larger than ourselves we killed,
not wanting our smallness measured against them…”

So, in another poem, “The Astronaut,” (Little Johnny’s Confession) he suggests,
We will take a trip
to the planets inside us
where love is the astronaut.”

It is this profound insight, which takes me towards an understanding of a poet who began life in poverty and turned loneliness into aloneness and who through experience used words to express the almost inexpressible, which has drawn me to him and helped me on life’s journey.

I do not know where he has gone now. There are hints in some later poetry of a kind of searching for faith, particularly in Storm Damage. Or maybe he still believed what he wrote in a poem in Little Johnny’s Confession, that “death is the only grammatically correct full stop.!
I rather hope not. A poem he wrote is often used as a reading at funerals.
So many different lengths of time:

How long does a man live after all?
A thousand days or only one?
One week or a few centuries?
How long does a man spend living or dying
and what do we mean when we say gone forever?

Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification.
We can go to the philosophers
but they will weary of our questions.
We can go to the priests and rabbis
but they might be busy with administrations.

So, how long does a man live after all?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret and ask so many questions –
then when it comes to us
the answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
for as long as we ourselves live,
holding memories in common, a man lives.

His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touch:
his children will carry the weight of his love.
One friend will carry his arguments,
another will hum his favourite tunes,
another will still share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces,
then the weeks, then the months,
then there will be a day when no question is asked,
and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach
and the puffed faces will calm.
And on that day he will not have ceased
but will have ceased to be separated by death.

Not separated by death…Roger McGough spoke of being laid low by his friend’s death adding, “RIP – Rest in Poetry”
May he find love and joy in the poetry of heaven and in God who gave him the words.

[Mr G ~ 4th October 2025]