What is holiness? I spent some time considering this today. Somehow in a world of profanities its hard to know what it looks like. I find the Sunday School images are not sufficient.
So this poem is an exploration of first what it isn’t and then how it can come to my life as I open the space for holiness to enter in.
Holiness
Surrounded by the profanity of
me first arrogance,
Elbowing through the crowded
streets of emptiness,
Milling around,
Readying for,
The mad rush to nowhere,
Mindless decisions,
Consuming everything,
Adding nothing,
To the conversation
of Eternity,
Holiness replaced by
Busily,
building straw houses.
Holiness no longer needs,
To trample down,
Stepping over others,
In the urgent rush
of not being left behind,
Satisfied by
recovering the lost art,
Of wonder and surprise,
Found in a place,
Or, a moment of beauty,
Or, a word of hope
Appreciated by stopping
to understand,
Kindness,
gathering fragments of hope.
Holiness steps with me,
Into this moment,
Opening,
Into a world unimagined,
By my humanness,
It’s the celebration of
my weakness,
With shame removed,
The oil flowing down
my forehead,
Mixing with my tears,
Realising lost love,
And, restoration’s promise,
No longer limited
By my frailty,
Winter seeing spring coming,
Discovering,
fresh shoots seeking light.
