Tag: Hope

And weep

The hand of a little girl clutching a cross at the siege of the School in Beslan, Russia
in September 2004. She was rescued and was a survivor.
This photo taken by a journalist at the scene went viral and spoke of the horror
and also the hope which often emerges in the most evil of situations.
In our current world of darkness and on a day of Remembrance we too must hold on to hope
and strive for peace and and work for love to prevail.
(Remembrance Sunday 2024)

and weep

Photographers and film-makers
take their images of devastation,
and weep.

Reporters, clad in flak jackets,
tell their story of human failure to live in peace,
and weep.

Old people,
once more sift through the rubble of their homes,
heavy with despair.
and weep.

Medicine men and women
try to bind up wounds,
and weep.

Parents watch children play
among diseased and crumbled streets
of a lost childhood,
and weep.

Mothers, fathers, grandparents
hold bundles of the dead,
hearts bursting with grief,
and weep

We, who cannot bear their pain,
switch our televisions to football matches
and bake-offs
and try not to weep.

And God …
seeing once again
what his children are doing to one another,
climbs upon a cross
and weeps.

[Mr. G. ]

Hope & Vision

Warton Tarn, English Lake District, photographed by Gill Henwood.

My friend, Gill, sent me this beautiful photo which I want to share with you.
This is what she said about it.

Shimmering in the late afternoon sun. The tarn is below High Cross, the pass over Hawkshead Hill towards Coniston. Rarely visited by comparison with nearby Tarn How’s. A delightful, wild tarn fringed with perfumed bog myrtle, with water lilies ringing the shallows. Nesting in the waving birch, willow and reeds. Badgers visit at night too…

Very peaceful in the light breeze and western sun – after the cold wet windy week. Hope!

God of new beginnings
we pray that you will transform
your world, our country,
our neighbours, ourselves,
as you renew us by your love.
Give us a vision of your creation,
wide, inviting, beckoning,
that we may travel hopefully
and with eager anticipation
that through faith and with your blessing
we may be empowered and inspired
to work together to build a better,
more just and fairer world;
where all may be sustained by the peace of Christ
and live in harmony with each other
and with the planet you have given to us
as our temporary dwelling place
on our journey to your Kingdom
Amen.

[Mr G]

Pride

Rainbow over Telly Tubby Hill Newhall, Harlow. posted by Steve Townsend on his Facebook page.

Pride

After the rain
we trooped with rainbow flags
past buildings spotlit by the sun
against the dark smudge of loaded clouds.

A straggling, motley bunch,
we gathered in solidarity
to share, to encourage
and to remember.

As we listened to rallying words
of inclusion and love
and the diversity of creation,
a seven-hued arc
flamed against the charcoal sky
– each colour distinct, yet
joined in song,
without need of borders or hard edges.

Making our song,
against the dark clouds of hate and menace,
more vivid and more resolute.

poem by Piers Northam
after a gathering in Harlow to mark the end of Pride month
30 June 2022