The deep places of the earth by Philippa Linton

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Deep places (Pixabay)
During Holy Week I attended a retreat called  Encountering God through Creative Writing.  It was led by writer Sheila Jacobs at the Chelmsford Diocesan House of Retreat in the picturesque village of Pleshey in the Essex countryside.  It was an excellent, very practical day (thank you, Sheila) and I met some lovely, creative, gifted people who had great things to share about their lives and their writing.

It was a moment in the chapel which triggered inspiration.  I was struck by a translation of a particular verse in the mid-day prayer service.

‘In his hand are the deep places of the earth’
Psalm 95: 4 (New King James version)

'The deep places of the earth' … the phrase made me think about how God can meet us most powerfully in the deep places.   So I wrote this prayer/poem/reflection, in the quiet spaces of Pleshey, and it’s my offering for today.  It’s a second draft and still fairly rough – but I think it works.

THE DEEP PLACES

The deep places,
the deep, cold places,
the abyss
into which we stare.

We are orphans,
we are all lost children,
wondering who and whose we are.

The desert places,
desolated, desolate,
deep places
cold and dark
are where God is,
are where Jesus entered
into darkness, cold, despair.
Utter abandonment,
no sense of God,
no sense of a loving Father
(or mother)
alone
abandoned
rejected
cold and dying
in the deep places
of the earth.

God himself
was buried in that deep, dark place,
in mother earth.
Cold flesh,
white bone,

blood frozen.

New life rising ... (Pixabay)
And then the buried grain
shoots from its root
unfurls
uncurls
towards the sun,
it rises in the earth
bursts forth
the new life rising
like fierce fire,
unstoppable.
The earth is singing
with the dawn,
a new world breaks,
a new world shines,
a power above all powers
has shattered stone,  
the light has broken
through the tomb,
new life cracked open,
the universe has tilted
on its axis,
the universe is re-made,
re-born,
its laws undone,
reversing death,
the Lord of time,
for he is in the garden,
he has risen.

Lord, I hold before you
Lord, turn our winters into spring.  (Pixabay)
all those I know
who are stuck and suffering
in deep places.
Turn their winter into spring.
Lift them up from death
into your life.

And, Lord,
I have so often lived out my worship
on the surface only
so reluctant to let you in,
refusing to allow you into
those deep places in me,

refused to let your Spirit
transform me,
refused to die to self
to kick my idols aside,
to say, ‘here I am,
have all of me.’

Lord, this must change.
For life is short,
and eternity beckons closer.



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