Isaiah 42:9-10
See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
I tell you of them.
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth!
Let the sea roar and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Shrouds are for the dead
For covering up decaying remains
They do not transform
They only mask
And underneath, erosion continues
until, in time, only an outline endures,
a hint of something once treasured and loved,
remaining only in memories and myths
that have become another form of shroud
through which it is impossible
to distinguish truth
In a season when our rituals of faith
are shrouded in mystery
weighed down by tradition
dare we peel back those shrouds?
Dare we lift a corner
to peek beneath
and recognise,
before it is too late,
those things that may have served us well
in a dim and distant past
but that should be left now
to their natural demise
Dare we name aloud
a new truth for a new season?
A light for today’s darkness?
Dare we step away
from tiptoeing around the dead weights
and chart a new direction
that heads towards light and life?
Brush off the stray threads that still cling,
whose filaments, though slender, hold us back?
Dare we take good, long, freeing strides
that carry us on to a new threshold
where we are greeted by joy
and carried in love?
And, resolving not to look back
or yearn for the comfort of the familiar
by which we were weighed down
discover the new territory
that awaits with the promise
of a new course
for a new world
where these three remain:
Faith, hope and love.
