I went on a retreat at the end of the summer. As a result of that, I decided I would do the Ignatian spiritual exercises, and as part of those exercises I've written some poems.

Warp and weft - I perhaps should explain that I grew up in Huddersfield, and Huddersfield was famous for weaving high quality worsted cloth; it isn't anymore.

Warp and Weft

The warp
of my life
stretches out
on the infinite loom
of God’s love.

The weft crosses
back and forth
weaving the thread of my life
into the pattern of the world.

Here and now,
the shuttle passes this place
on the warp of my being
but my beginning and ending,
are tethered in the eternity,
that is God.

And now I think you can see why I thought that was a good reflection for All Souls Day. Our life starts with God before this world. As it says in Psalm 139, it is God who knits us together in our mother's womb. Our beginning starts with God, not just when we were born but before the universe came into existence, and our ending ends in God as well; in God’s infinite love and God’s infinite being, in the silence that is God.

The Waterfall

Eager water
rushes to the precipice
aspiring to fly free
shoots over
falls down, down
accelerating down
hits the wide calm lake
plunges deep
throwing up mist
and rainbows.

In the depths of
the lake
slows
becomes one with
still immense waters
and finds freedom.

I was thinking about the process of meditation when I wrote this poem, but when I read it back, it makes me think about life and death. Our life is like that water: aspiring, shooting over the edge, and falling down; but on the way down, as our life encounters the lake of God, it throws up mist and spry. As the light catches the mist it makes rainbows. There are rainbows in each of our lives as we fall into God. Thinking about death, our life hits the big lake and the water pushes under, forced by the force of life, until, eventually, it becomes still. Our life becomes one with the still immense waters of God’s being, and in that becoming one with God, we find stillness, and silence, and love, and freedom. So, as we pray and think of our friends and our family who have died, their life hasn't ended but it has become calm, it has become one with the still immense waters that are God.