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March 2006, Page 4.
Index of articles:
by subject,
by date.
In this issue:
(March 2006)
Lent,
Attendance,
Keepers.
Keepers
The keepers polish the jewels lovingly treasured in their sacred chest.
Faithfully, carefully, reverently, as their forebears worked, so they honour the name.
With diligent care they cherish
the inheritance trusted to them.
Reverently they polish
holy jewel, sacred gem.
Lovingly they treasure
these stones in this holy place,
their strivings and their leisure
they offer with heavy grace.
For they have been entrusted
with the burden each one owns,
the knowledge that many years before
God’s light shone through these stones.
The occasional visitor listens politely,
respecting the weight of their years,
enjoying a sense of the ancient,
while dismissing the story she hears.
For her, light is found in her children,
in the beauty of nature around,
in the charitable gift to a stranger,
in the orchestra’s breath-taking sound.
As she looks at these keepers of stones
she sees something strange in their eyes,
an absence of light, a quiet dullness,
a morbid fear of surprise.
A little later she ponders the keepers,
with their lives of polish and care,
and the jewels they cherish and treasure
for a light which is no longer there.
God’s light was never in stones,
however precious or bright,
it wasn’t the jewels that were holy,
it wasn’t the gems which held light.
Rather, it was in the seeing,
the looking with wide-open eyes,
the sense of God’s goodness
in all things,
the openness to life’s surprise.
The place gave them language
to say this,
a context in which to meet friends,
a time set aside for rejoicing
in a God whose love knows no end.
But as most of us treasure those places
where life’s richest moments are known,
so those with God’s light in their eyes
came to cherish those temples of stone
where they’d first heard the language
of seeing,
where their eyes had been opened
so wide –
but in cherishing places, not people,
slowly, so slowly, they died.
For they limited God to the inside,
to their set-aside stone-bounded place,
and closed their eyes to the outside,
to the presence of God in each face.
Copyright © Nick Blundell, 23-7-05, reprinted by permission.
This poem was used at “Space for God” in Eccleshill Methodist Church on 15th February, when the theme of the prayer time was “Transfiguration”. Nick introduced it by reference to the disciples’ desire to build shelters (or memorials).