This is the sermon I delivered after a week of violent protests in my home town of Stutterheim, South Africa O God, sovereign over all, your overflow of life pours into everything and streams in fullness back to you. May I speak in Your Name a message of hope and peace. Amen. God certainly does have a sense of humour. Just look at our readings today! It was as if He wrote them down exactly for us in Stutterheim and for exactly this time. When you listen to these readings you get an immediate sense of the weight of God’s Word and power; you get an idea of how involved in our lives He really is. It is as if the Job reading is saying, “ Who can count the clouds? I can, people of Stutterheim. I am your God and I can count the clouds of smoke billowing from your town. Why do you fear?” Yes, God has a sense of humour, because he is God and knows all things that have been, that are and will be. Why else would we get a message like this today? Job had lost everything. His childre...
Today I present the second of my poems dedicated to the abstract. O Time What do you have in store for me, O Muse? I am so afeared that you hold nothing. If time holds nought, life and love are empty And to an end I’m endlessly running. And if the clock’s hands offer only want, Despair, discord and denial for me, To what end was I born and then shall die? For life is to love and to love is to be. If eyes stare upwards, then feet may fall. And if hearts sink downwards, their minds will fail. Neither can hearts look up and eyes look down, For his own eyes and heart are my own’s dale. O Time, you tax both man’s wits and his strength And e’en the love of his heart you besiege And your hands pull him towards death’s dark face - Who is love’s friendly foe and your dark liege. Now ‘neath the cold winter’s sun I wander, My heart and my resolve being pulled asunder, Shall I ne’er love’s tow’ring pinnacle climb? Will you prey on my joy a...