Category Archives: Women

Holy Week

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It is not Holy Week without

the heralds shouting hosannas and hallelujahs

without beginning

with an imagination that all is well,

will be well,

that the Messiah is come.

Holy Week involves the turn

from joy to lament

from hosanna to horror

from orientation to disorientation

imagined triumph to witnessed terrors

we sing and celebrate

our feet are washed

our passover transformed

we fall asleep while our saviour weeps alone

we deny even knowing him

even as we have imagined ruling with him

Holy Week reminds us that we have no imagination

for what might be

what will come

the pathways we’d never choose

Holy Week reminds us

in the great disorientations of our own lives

to wait in the darkness

for a dawn that transforms

———-

It’s been a while but I am on the other side of my thesis, on the other side of poetry written for a specific purpose. I am back to the shallow ground that has hardened from neglect. Looking to find my way back.

I am so taken with this turn from the triumphant start of Holy Week – the Palm Sunday hosannas, to a total disorientation, when everything is confused and makes no sense. How much this week encapsulates what it is to be a person on a faith journey where the one you follow refuses to give you all the powerful happy endings you think the story requires.

Holy Week reminds me of the women who set out in the dark – not with any hope for a different narrative, disoriented in grief and were offered a complete reorientation. It feels like a worthy meditation for this season.

Miriam Jessie x

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Poetry and Covid

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I’m so thrilled and honoured to have my first piece of peer-reviewed poetry published in a special edition of Stimulus Journal.

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My piece is called telos (which means goal, the ending point of things). I wrote it in response to an experience I had while making the quilt top in the photo.

I hope it encourages you.

Miriam x

 

 

Lead Prayers – Mary Anoints Jesus

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This Holy Week I’ve recorded some reflections for people to participate with. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday I’m going to post one here each day for the next 4 days.

Each one features prayer, scripture and poetry or story and are accompanied by images by dear artist friends. They are about 20minutes long.

They are designed to be done in silence and reflection and could be integrated into your prayer practice. If you are new to reflective practice I encourage you to find a quiet space free from distractions and see it as a new way of praying. The music quality in this one is not great so maybe have a song cued that you can listen to during that part.

They are not without (many) imperfections. However, I hope that they might help in leaning into the days of this most Holy Week in these strangest of times.

With Ancient Women

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I find myself, these days, unexpectedly in conversations with ancient women I never met.

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I’m about to stand up and speak about Leah, the one Jacob didn’t want, and I stop and have a whispered conversation with her.

Not exactly to her or with her. But I hold her in my heart – hoping I will do her justice, this ancient grandmother of my Messiah.

I’m stitching thousands of words at the moment and they all belong to women. It’s a big project and it will take me a long, long time but it’s transforming me too.

Right now, it’s reminding me things like, the first person to name God is a slave woman. Isn’t that so beautiful? In the light of sexism and racism and all the awful things that people say about the rejected and the downtrodden, God, of all the universe, allows Godself to be named by a woman, a slave, sent out into the desert to watch her baby die.

Wherever your heart is at today. However you are struggling or rejected or looking at the tsunami of insurmountable opposition remember the One who has always held out hands, and noticed and listened and allowed the outsider to speak aloud the sacred name.

courage dear heart, courage

Miriam Jessie x