This Lent my Father and I are leading a Lent group with the title ‘Worship and Wonder’ at the village’s Church of England church my parents attend. The idea is to look at the work of poets and songwriters and see what insights might be gained about our preconceived ideas of what worship is; and what it isn’t. We then hope to enable others to delve further into their own faith journeys by sharing approaches for reflection and contemplation, whether that be in word, music, journalling, painting, photography, and so on.
It will be my first foray back into facilitating public group discussion for ten years, and I do not know if I will be well enough to last the course. For the sake of my health and sanity I will be adapting the material we have developed for that group on this blog during Lent. Some posts will just have a poem and a photo, others might have a historical contextual detail, others might have a more personal pondering - it will vary depending on my energy levels. It should also be noted that this series begins with words and the images are a response to the words (since normally I try to craft this blog with the image taking precedence).
Wherever our energy levels may find us this day, I hope and pray that by Grace we may find our hearts opened anew to the Beloved in this season.
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Love (III)
George Herbert
Reading this poem today I realise I am struck afresh by the ‘seeing’ metaphors of the second stanza. I have never contemplated them in the light of this blog before.
I cannot look on thee.
Who then am I giving my attention to?
And when I cannot look at God, when I cannot bear to spend time in the same ‘room’ as God, what is it that stops me?
Like Herbert, I am frequently cast down by my shame.
Turning away from the presence of God is indeed unkind, to myself at least. Does God look for my kindness? How might I be unkind to God? And what is the role of kindness in my seeing?
How can I be kind in worship?
I recognise that the easiest way for me to work my way back to God when I am in a lost place, is to count my blessings, mine my days for gold, practice gratefulness and gratitude; the most natural way for me to do this is to see what is in front of me and see God’s Presence there. For slowly it dawns back in on me that this is Grace at work in the very minutiae of my life.
As I begin to write a new series with some trepidation, not least being aware of my own hypocrisy about living a life of worship outside of any conventional or even recognisable church structure, I realise that this welcome of which Herbert writes, is already the gift that is being given to me as I type this sentence.
For what is my whole aim here on this blog but both to point to, and to attempt to answer, the question which encapsulates every creator’s ever rebounding co-conspiracy with their Creator:
Who made the eyes but I?
I am invited to bring my creativity to the feast of the Creator’s seeing.
That is ‘all’ and everything my worship is: my seeing.
If only I am prepared to open my eyes to see.
Who made the eyes but I?
I feast on the gaze of Love.
seen through by Glasswinged Grace. Canon 7D. 1/60. f6.3. ISO 800.
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