What are shrouds for?

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.