Seek division

 Luke 12:49-53

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;

they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Not a gospel I wanted to encounter today

as I celebrated Eucharist

Not a text I wished to contemplate

as we wonder what on earth is going on in the world

and as we fervently pray for peace

And yet a gospel that tells it like it is

A gospel that doesn’t shy away from the mess of relationships

and the carnage of being human

of living alongside difference

in all it’s vulnerability and power

A gospel that calls us to account

for all the ways we are indifferent

choosing the way of least resistance

that leads to an easy life.

Just maybe we are called

by the God of peace

to side with the poor and oppressed

to stand with the persecuted 

to hunker down with the hopeless

and to wail with the bereft

To take sides in conflict

and not side with the oppressor by our passivity

in the face of injustice.

Perhaps this is just the kind of gospel

I need to hear today

to strengthen my resolve

to be where God is

on the side of love at all costs

and in the divisions that may cause.

Liz Crumlish October 2023

Embracing the Cailleach

Wise women 

have always been feared

their wisdom reviled or discredited

their ‘unconmentional’ ways

seen as a threat to good order

And, though retribution may have moved 

beyond trials and burnings,

witch hunts are still alive and well

They are just more subtly disguised…

Presented as ‘concerns for welfare’,

exclusions ‘for our own good’.

Executed as persistent attempts to keep us in our own lane

and dampen down the exuberance and creativity 

of which we stand accused.

In this witching season

may we look out for one another

May we pay heed to the signs,

call out the hypocrisy

and whip up a storm of resistance  -

linking arms as we keep the sparkle polished

garnering the power of our ancestors -

all those wise women who have gone before.

May we persist in disrupting the ordinary 

with our shocking impropriety

and propensity for mischief 

confounding those who consistently underestimate our power.

And may we continue to bring healing and joy

wreaking havoc wherever we go

breathing new life into the spirit of the Cailleach.

Liz Crumlish October 2023

Praying for peace

Taking time to pray…

while revelling in the sheer beauty of creation

with the sound of wild geese overhead

and the crash of waves on the beach

seems a far cry

from the midst of the storm of conflicts 

raging throughout the world

where lives are rendered as collateral

in incomprehensible power games 

and land is raised to rubble

magnifying fear of the other.

Witnessing injured children apportioning blame, 

clutching with determination 

promises of revenge and retribution,

extinguishes hope for peaceful resolution 

as hatred and division

are passed from generation to generation.

How long, O God?

For what shall we pray

How shall we tell a new story

of justice and mercy

and inhabit the ways of peace?

Make us relentless in our efforts

to change hearts and minds

working tirelessly for reconciliation

embracing difference and diversity

and life in all its fullness