BLEND BLOG no.2 Through all the changes, we walk into spring
For nearly a year, some of us at the Living Well community have been able to gather around the piano on Friday afternoons, as a distant part of the Friday lunchtime queue. We wait for food, for music and spoken word and good conversation. In recent weeks we have noticed some signs of spring: slow, small sparks of optimism, accompanied by appearing daffodils ; there’s even the odd hyacinth.
Spring kicks in, as we leave a traumatic year behind us. What in our world will go back to what used to be normal? What will be changed? Will we almost look at a new world?
As we face a more hopeful future of spring, we deal with traumatic losses. Changed and forever marked - on our own and as a community - we also re-enter a world facing its own climate change. Coming out of this year, we might have to rework some of our relationships with friends and family, as well as the relationship with the natural world around us. Both areas need our attention.
How are we coping with what we leave behind and are we marked as we move into what is next? How will we (still) engage with a world, which is crying out for our care and consideration?
The two poems below were written by two writers in our Blend Community. One poem carries the theme of leaving loss and ‘an old world’ behind. The other brings our relationship with the world and its climate change to our attention.
Somehow they remind me of a Psalm about change and decay around us. The Psalm speaks of a God who doesn't change, but who is neither absent from his creation, subject to change: ‘Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear like a garment. You change them like clothing’ ….
Change and decay can be hard. Personally, without putting questions and worries aside, and being aware that all change is far beyond my grasp, I try to keep putting my trust in the One Unchanging: Beginning and End beyond the horizons of my limited understanding.
May you be moved by our two poets below.
And may spring unfold to us promises of what is new,
Kerst
RON
What do you Remember
You were always there he said
Not now
It just seemed so
You do not need to be there - to be there
The Furrow and Seed
The River and Flow
The Barn and Corn
The Shire and Stable
The weft and weave of Country Life
They were You
Lifting your pickle spiked with hay
Leaning with easy grace between Earth and Sky
In those Early Days
Not Now
Your Death has shaken the soil off my country boots
Closed the five barred Gate to my Country Past
Animal Farm
peck peck peck each other through the cage
listen to the sound a mammal outrage
wonder why you're all not well
poor creatures in a living hell
to make them more tasty fill them with drugs
it’s not their fault we’re the mugs
we changed our habits
turned more savage
poor creatures on the rant and ravage
we’ve got spots while they are pure perfection
we are naked in the opposite direction
one day too long you will find out the meaning
species to species it’s not their demeaning
so tighten your belt careless talk costs life
look to the creatures they know how to survive
leave them alone and eat less is more
and we can bring the ship to the shore
so shove off to the high seas
we don't want your help
after all we eat grass we are one and the self
so now is the time of truth and some wine
eat less, love more and don't watch the time
Posted by: Kerst Sikkema Date: 28th February 2021