Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality

(Barbara Messner has a poem in this book, and would like to encourage people to read it and to contribute to the project it supports. The following is a description prepared by the editors:)
“Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality is a chapbook edited by Maren Tirabassi and Maria Mankin in support of Peace Cathedral in the Republic of Georgia’s physical and spiritual embrace of full Interfaith community. It includes the works of thirty-two contributors from seven countries sharing experiences of inclusion and connection.
Peace Cathedral in the Republic of Georgia was established as First Baptist Church of Tbilisi in 1867. Its history is full of dangerous activist stands, and it has been involved in interfaith work for more than twenty years, trusted by Muslim, Jewish, Yezidi and other religious traditions, in a context where the more dominant Christian culture often responds violently against minorities. They are constructing a mosque and a synagogue under the roof of their church building to turn it into a spiritual home for Abrahamic faiths. In addition, there is a Centre for Interfaith Dialogue, an interfaith adult library and a children’s library with programming and summer camps. Their pilgrimage program brings people to visit the Republic of Georgia to learn about the hopes and struggles of people of all of these faiths.
Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality is offered in support of this project, as the writers focus on issues of inclusion and connection in their own situations and from their own history or heritage. These are extraordinary poems from widely varied perspectives.
This book’s purpose is to raise awareness of Peace Cathedral’s work and to raise money for its ongoing project. If you would like to receive a copy of the book, please follow these instructions to make a donation (suggested donation $10):

  1. Go to the link: https://allianceofbaptists.org/give
  2. To pay by credit card, select 1. On the second line of the form, where it states, “Other Designation,” please write in Peace Project – Tbilisi. To pay by check, choose 3, and write in Peace Project – Tbilisi on the Memo line.
  3. Use the following Book Funnel link to receive your free electronic copy of Pitching Our Tents: Poetry of Hospitality with a choice of e-book formats and a PDF version for those who like simplicity, in thanks for your support of the Peace Cathedral. https://dl.bookfunnel.com/q5j6on197f
  4. If you would like a print copy, it is available on Amazon. We’ve set the cost as low as Amazon will allow (this only covers the printing cost). We do not receive royalties from this, nor will the proceeds go to the Peace Cathedral, so if you’d like to support them, please follow the donation steps above.

If you can’t make a donation but would still like to receive a copy, go to step 3 and enjoy the chapbook and share this information with those you know who might be interested in learning more about the Peace Cathedral’s mission or need encouragement with their own struggle for justice, reconciliation and hospitality.”

Anxiety

Anxiety
Anxiety hops like a toad in my guts:
it swims in my stomach and climbs up my throat.
Like seagulls, it splatters my hopes with its buts;
it circles my living like wall or like moat.

But if it’s like toad, should I kiss it and see
if it will turn royal and make me a bride?
Or if it’s a bird, should I watch it fly free,
and let its harsh calling entice me outside?

Or if it’s a moat, make a ditch to the sea
to clean out its waters with tide and with salt,
then lower a drawbridge to where help might be,
or climb up the walls and cry; “Who goes there? Halt!”

I’ll raise the portcullis and parley with flags,
and find there are terms that can set aside fear,
then offer a welcome to strangers with bags,
and find when they stay awhile, all becomes clear.

Who then is this?

Who then is this?
Pentecost 4, Mark 4:35-41
“Who then is this?” we ask.
Do winds and waves obey
a being set apart
with words we dare not say,
not even when we pray?

“Who then is this?” we ask.
A man so spent and worn
he cannot help but sleep,
although the skies are torn
and there may be no dawn.

“Who then is this?” we ask.
A person steeped in trust
who dares to stay at rest
as wind and waters thrust,
and fear burns fierce as lust.

“Who then is this?” we ask.
Though waking to distress
as friends and storm wear out,
he knows when more is less,
and what he must address.

“Who then is this?” we ask.
He stands and says: “Be still!”
The storm reverts to calm.
His peace flows out to fill
clear space beyond our will.
	Barbara Messner 15/06/2021

Changing our Point of View

Changing our Point of View
Pentecost 3, 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34
For anyone in Christ
a new creation calls
in love that urges change:
to walk by faith not sight,
to live not for ourselves
but with the risen Christ,
to lift our blinkered gaze
from human points of view.

The old has passed away:
the world no longer spins
on axis of myself,
my efforts and my worth,
priorities and goals,
achievements and control.
The Lord looks on the heart;
our preconceptions fail.

So Jesse’s older sons
were not anointed ones.
Appearance, stature, age
did not determine choice.
The youngest shepherd boy
would be the future king,
endowed with Spirit power
though shadows lurked within.

For God can choose a child,
or be a homeless babe.
The smallest seed grows high
so birds can nest in shade.
We can’t control or know
how earth will bring to bear
the harvest that’s a gift
to reap with thankful prayer.

Waking Up in Winter

Waking Up in Winter
Well cocooned in winter blankets
I cling on to skirts of sleeping,
while uneasy dreams are shredded,
gone before I grasp at meaning.

Let me stay a little, hidden
in this cozy muffled stillness,
pulling up a layered muting
over morning sounds and greyness.

I admit that I’m delaying
facing cold and morning muddle,
stiffness and my fears of ageing,
while I’m curled in this self-cuddle.

Though I try to stay suspended,
something swings me into rising:
I remember impulse purchase,
soft warm pants with stripes surprising.

As I slip into their colour,
I am heartened by such boldness,
red to ward off melancholy,
grey of clouds and winter coldness.

Clown-like legs – can’t help but smiling
as I stumble into morning!
Coloured comical, I’m strengthened;
I can picture wings are forming!

Home not Home

Home not Home
Pentecost 2, Mark 3:19b-35
Then he went home; perhaps he hoped
for quiet time with family,
affection free of fresh demands,
a sheltered space of privacy
that might restore his energy.

But crowds came, urgent in their need,
and sought him out. The streets were lined,
and villagers, resentful, said:
“Young carpenter has lost his mind!”
Familiarity is blind.

Perhaps his brothers felt ashamed,
or thought (for his own good!) they must
restrain him, take him out of sight,
and silence him until the dust
had cleared, the town no longer fussed.

I wonder what his mother thought?
She’d be upset when scribes accused
her son of using demon power,
and fearful that he’d be abused
by those whose status was misused.

The Spirit that set spirits free
they called “unclean” in jealous spite.
He questioned whether they blasphemed
to be so closed to Spirit sight
while claiming they discerned the right.

His family were left outside –
he claimed instead a wider kin
of those who heard with open mind,
not limited by class or skin,
but linked by Spirit born within.

Nicodemus at Night

Nicodemus at Night Trinity Sunday John 3:1-17
Then Nicodemus came by night –
a man of law-trained, literal mind
replete with Scripture he could cite.
He knew his peers would be unkind,
so sure of ways they thought were right,
but he must see what he would find.

Perhaps this Jesus came from God -
some words rang true, he’d seen the signs,
but what he heard this night was odd,
and blurred the clarity of lines
to which he’d always given the nod,
assured by what the law defines.

What might it mean to be reborn?
His reason would not give that room,
and challenged, he replied with scorn:
“A second time in mother’s womb?”
Yet hope was stirred like wind at dawn.
If God is love, the world might bloom.

“How can this be?” A longing doubt
unsettles all he thought he knew.
Sometimes like him we twist about,
and try to test what might be true,
but then God’s love will call us out,
and Spirit birth a life made new.

Pentecost

Pentecost Acts 2:1-21 (written 2005)
The flames still strike,
though the walls we hide behind
for fear of fear and fire
are more opaque,
the cracks papered over
with copies of The Times,
The Age, The Advertiser,
and Sunday Mail.
It’s hard to speak
an unknown tongue
in such a spate
of foreign news.

The flames still burn, 
the words still form,
though our upper rooms
are more distant
from the pilgrims
in the street, and we
who try to wait and pray
are seldom together,
huddled in corners,
clutching our separate books
of rules and forms more dear to us
than any unbridled tongue
the Spirit speaks.
We light our small safe candles
in lieu of risky flame,
and mute ecstatic experience
into private devotion.

The wind still blows,
but to fill the entire house
it must batter doors, 
tear down shutters,
rip the headphones from our ears,
and television sets from the walls
to let us see and hear.
We still wait for resurrection
while the Risen One walks
unheeded through our walls,
and raises wounded hands,
and waits to breathe on us,
to stir the flame
and speak through us
the words that can be heard.

From Autumn to Winter

From Autumn to Winter
In middle May the seasons shift
and winter looms in one bleak week
while leaves still fall and twirl and drift.
The south wind chills my wrinkled cheek
and stirs the leaves to swirl and lift.

I stand to watch them sifting down:
some join the scatter on the ground,
their fading gold among the brown,
while others ride the wind around,
and some still cling to summer’s crown.

I see myself at this life stage:
a part still clinging to the tree,
that burgeoning of middle age,
while I have dropped some parts of me
that held me in like outgrown cage.

Come, storms and cuts that shape and prune,
reducing my unbalanced spread.
The song birds still unfurl their tune
from branches bare, or dry and dead,
and leafless twigs can frame the moon.

So I must stand in that cold breeze
and let it strip the growth that’s past.
The winter frost works change in trees,
and rich soil forms where leaves were cast,
so now I wait for buds and bees.

Destined to be lost – and found?

Destined to be lost – and found?
John 17:12, Acts 1:15-17,21-26, Matthew 27:3-10, Easter 7

If one or some are destined to be lost
in order that your word might be fulfilled,
are they not also yours, O Lord? What cost
to Judas when his desperate hope was tossed
upon the temple floor with silver spilled?

For when he saw his friend condemned to die,
he tried to change his choice and buy him back,
but “What is that to us?” was their reply.
The silver bought a field where strangers lie,
and Judas took his life at mercy’s lack.

Did Jesus find him then beyond the grave,
and offer absolution in his need,
restoring him to love he still must crave?
Can there be those eternal Love won’t save,
those destined to be lost, not found and freed?

There may be some with evil so imbued,
they set themselves upon a path apart
from God and love in some unending feud
that gives no space to turn to life renewed,
no chance to soften to a change of heart.

Yet God still wills that love should save us all,
and Christ can heal the ills that warp the mind.
Nailed on the cross, he raised us from the fall
the world has suffered under evil’s pall,
restoring hope to all of humankind.