all around: unbelief:

water off the duck's back!

you are who you are.
but Only who you are.
Not what we want you to be.

"Give us a sign!
How can we know?"

but there is no sign
here is the problem.

vision fails
hopes fade
disappointment
even despair
letting God be God is a Problem!

only you can carry us
to that place where we bear to be willing
to let God be God;
the God who is;
not the God we think you ought to be.
not our vision of you at all!

to find you
visions must fade to nothing.
the Valley of Darkness

you are there.
unseen, unheard
yet
seen!
and heard!

then:
life
and, above all, Meaning!

there
yet nowhere in particular.
light in darkness
darkness, too, in light

casting around, finding nothing:
I find you; waiting. 

frustrated at your absence
suddenly I know your presence!

in your absence we find you
 
that was today.
tomorrow I will have no clue

 I know that if you could, you would.

you do not judge as the world judges.
you turn the judgements of the world upside down.
your criteria are not at all what we expect.
not at all! 

we call you king
but your kingship is not what we understand by kingship.
another thing we get entirely wrong.

and we can only understand this by listening.  . . . . .



when we listen you overturn all of our preconceptions.
one by one.

in your silence we learn the real truth.

but if we stop listening - even for a day -
we forget everything!

it is only your presence that gives us understanding.
things that we can never know, or even remember, otherwise.

today I learnt

Today I learnt (again) that we do not need to understand;
(we can never understand)
we are not called to understand! (try as we might)
only to rejoice; to bless; to celebrate; to thank.
Not to bolster or to curry favour or placate
but only to share in your own rejoicing, your own celebration.

celebration wins over suffering.

You are already so much younger than I am!