Terry Chapman's - Sabbath Journey

SABBATH JOURNEY

In addition to the ponderings on this blog the Sabbath Journey 

is a resource for individual and group reflection

 on the theme of Sabbath.  

Click here to begin the journey find other Sabbath resources.

The Annual Clergy Gathering

We inscribe the circles
Of our loneliness
With words collected
Over the years like
Souvenirs from places
We have visited briefly

The walls of isolation
Thicken until
Well ensconced within
Our certainty we feel
Completely cut off
Exiled from our
Home land and temple

Around the table of
Our fellowship we
Bump up against
Each other like
Children's marbles whose
Beauty lies encased within

Then at the last there
Is a remembering when

Like a smiling child
Playing with bubbles
The Breath blows gently
And walls now glistening
Thin ascend into the
Sky before bursting into oneness

Or like when the Old Man
With wise calloused hands
Forms a hole in the soil
Sighs a prayer and lowers
The bulb into the ground of being
To await the flowering spring  

Dream of a Writer in Exile (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

“Mortal, Can These Bones Live?”

Ideas are scattered
on the floor of
my study like
dry bones in a
wide valley.

It was you
Divine One
who sat me down
here among these
bones.

Yet You ask me
if they can live?
I want to put the
question back
on you

but could
not find the
place in me
where such a
question lives.

Even deeper
still resides the
spark that was born
from the flint of
your image.

Now in this dry
valley, amidst the
rattling kindling of bones,
I blow on that shard
of Presence as I

hear my heart's cry,
“O, Divine One,
only you know.”
Again you speak,
this time in the imperative.

“Prophesy to the bones!”
I would prefer
a Divine speech.
Perhaps offered in the
voice of James Earl Jones.

But, after a time of mustering
courage I yield, “Ok, we
can do this” and watch
as my small breath joins
Creation’s four winds.

Suddenly the chapters
come together, idea to
idea, sinuous plot joining
flesh of narrative holding
together the whole living story.

Even upon waking
from the dream I am
encouraged by the
promise and I
begin once again:

The Sabbath Journey
Chapter One:
The Beginning. . .
hoping my publisher too
is given to dreaming.

FEAR

I ran into an old friend today
who paid an unexpected visit
in the middle of the afternoon
during the devil’s hour
when I am not usually home.

Fortunately, for both of us
I decided to stay inside.
Putting off the errands
for another time, some whisper
perhaps a premonition, or poem,
invited me to wait for the visiter.

So I sat in my chair
by the door and waited
as the winter sun began to
set in the west and the
deepening silence settled
like a frost over my heart.

After some interminable moments
he came. There was no knock,
no invitation to enter. He was
just there, sitting in the chair
beside me wearing that old
worn-out jacket my father gave me.

You know how some friends
just don’t know how to listen.
He went on and on
about this, that, and the other thing,
while I spoke not a word.
“You can’t. You don’t. What if?
Who do you think you are?”

“What is it you want, my friend?” I asked.
After a pause, as a tear
rolled down our eye,
we said in perfect unison,
“Just know I’m always
here for you.” We embraced
and he was gone.

Deep Time

On Autumn’s edge
all the earth leans
silently into winter’s
long night.

Drained of color,
trees wait like
courageous sentinels
standing guard at the
gateway to great mystery.

Their roots hold ground,
naked branches ready,
wholly resolved to
embrace winter’s wind.

Those waking among us
prepare too for the deep time
when life is held open to death
and ego’s rainbow melts into
the grey winter horizon.

There is a Christmas gift
given in the time when
waiting is the only possibility.

In time, deep, deep time,
a remembering comes
to life as gently and gracefully
as Spring’s incarnation.

But now on the edge of
the long night it is only
an unutterable whisper,
carried on the winter wind
through soul’s bare limbs.

A poem about discernment

Mother's Quilt

Cool morning mist
Floating over the pond
Cotton batting yielding
To Mother's invitation

Pay attention to the
Patches of story
Soon to be woven
By Her nimble fingers

The thin threads
Of desire effortlessly
Run through
Needle's impossible eye

Sheet of muslin
Ground of being
Floated across
the Quilter's table

And then batting is
Spread and lovingly
smoothed to become
The comforting in-between

Patches of color
Each telling a story
Red's passions
Gray's doubts

Green's invitation
Blue's cleansing
And dark shades too
Are formed into a mosaic

Now comes the miracle
When She pushes the
Needle through one patch
And then the other

Though soft batting
And then muslin
Back again and again
With gentle practiced precision

The fine stitches
Bind together love's
Wild narrative into
One story that when

The restless sojourner
Pulls over chilled shoulders
Sinks into a warm
And comfortable rest

New Brunswick Theological Seminary

I am having a wonerful time teaching a class at NBTS titled "Spiritual Disciplines".   I feel a little like a kid in a candy store.  Of course the accompanying feeling of incomleteness seems to always follow the sugar high.

Making room for hope

The spiritual rheostat 

regulating the current 

of faith and doubt

slowly turns the bright 

lights of certainty 

dimmer and dimmer

and dimmer

 

soon the lights will be out

we will sit together 

in the dark and wait for God

when the light comes 

back on, if we are 

still breathing we will know 

 

we have been to church

 

At Home in the world

We may yearn to come to rest
in some small piece of pure humanity,
a strip of orchard between river and rock.
But our heart is too vast to be contained there.
We can no longer seek it in a place
or even in the image of a god or an angel.
Rilke

From the Second Duino Elegy

For me this speaks to the invitation to hold our restlessness or what can be referred to as inconsummation with respect and an increasing sense of indifference.  On one hand continuing to explore our longing for "a strip orchard between rock and river" and on the other a knowing that there is no "place" (relationship, faith, idea, worship, religion, vocation...) that is big enough for our eros, the imago dei (image of God) which forms our essence.  Recognizing that this place of tension between reality and longing and making a home there is our work, and we need each other to build such a home. Thanks for being on the journey with me.

 

The Gathering at the Funeral Home

What happens when "emgergent" ages and we are faced with more rituals of death and dying? Here's a poem that reflects on this after reading Rollins.

 

                         deus ex machina

They sat on sofas 

in front of the assembled

fold of friends and relatives.

 

The walls, papered in a

green 1950’s floral pattern,

told the story of layered grief.

 

A hush came over the 

room like thick fog shadowing

over the valley of death.

 

For now it was time

for the words of

comfort to be offered

 

up to the gods 

like incense in a

dark ancient temple

 

by the minster who 

no one knew, least of

all the deceased  

 

who never was

much of a church goer

but by all accounts

 

a wonderful father

beloved husband

and really good fisherman.

 

“Let not your heart be 

troubled and 

be not afraid.”

 

The words were lowered

onto grief’s stage

like a deus ex machina

 

in a bold yet tired 

attempt to resolve

death’s plot.

 

The tragedy, yes

that is what death

must always be,

 

accompanied 

the corpse into 

the grave.

 

Bereft of music and

the mourners groan, 

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach-thani?

 

true consolation 

was not to be found

despite the well 

 

intentioned benediction,

words of peace, that

rose with the incense-

 

an offering 

to an unknown 

god.

 

Love this song