Veni Creator Spiritus

Though dimly now, the road ahead I see
Through darkened glass, I glimpse your love for me
Though now I wait, for you to come and save
Your promised words, remind me of your ways

When in my heart, so many doubts arise
A clouded sky, conceals you from my eyes
I hear your words, your kingdom now is here
Around us now, its signs and deeds appear

You are faithful
You are faithful
You can be trusted
With all my hopes and dreams

So many times, my faithlessness I know
You hold me still, your word is always true
Please come to me, embrace me in your arms
That trusting you, the storm within will calm

So here I stand, my gaze fixed on your throne
Father of lights, belovedness I know
Fix deep within, your sure and certain hope
Preserve my thoughts, your spirit now bestow

At the rebuke of the waves
All human pretentions come to their end
Man’s limit set where he can no longer build
Land’s end and man’s end where rolling waters mark the edge of our world
Beyond these limitations lies our freedom
No longer able to constrain our world, our world no longer constrains us
Shouting at the waves, my rebuke is in vain, a lone note sounding one part in a symphony of a thousand

The world was formless and void
and the spirit of God hovered over the waters
The Lord spoke, saying
Love me,
Love me with all your heart,
Love me with all your soul,
Love me with all your strength
And as his voice was heard, and as these words were spoken
the earth sprang forth and teemed with life,  singing to him.

God invited man and woman into a garden
and God walked besides them, hand in hand
The Lord spoke to them, saying
I am the Lord, your God
I brought you here into this freedom
Make me the first in your love, first in your devotion
Forget rough-hewn idols of stone
Forget gods who are not like me
Gaze upon me and be satisfied.

God spoke, and man spoke
God’s gift of words in the lips of his beloved
And man’s ears heard and felt God’s words speaking deep into them
God spoke into man’s ears his name, that man might know Him
And God said to man
My name which you have heard is precious
Not only precious but sacred above all others
Do not attack its beauty by misuse
Speak it only in love

Seeing creation in beauty and splendour
God stopped
God’s gaze rested on his work
And God spoke not
God’s eyes rested on man
Man’s eyes turned to God
This holy interchange,
a sacred day

Man and woman waited before God
and His word came to them
Be fruitful and multiply
Let there be mothers and fathers
and daughters and sons
Let children look upwards and rejoice in those who gave them life
A deep bond of honour and love

God’s gaze turned from man to man
from each man to each other
God’s mouth opened,
a gust of life into the lungs of the living
man breathed in
and understood this gift of God

The heart of the almighty
began to pound, it leapt from
the depths to the heavens
by his hand, man’s loneliness was ending
unbreakable divine bonds
drawing tighter round lover and beloved
a jealous bond, to be forever treasured

man and woman together now
turned towards the heavens
a hand of blessing lay open
outstreched towards them
by one and by many each found
blessings from one to another
they saw nowhow each had
the things for his part
andthat giving must rule
over taking

Once more God spoke
his wisdom went out
beckoning man to her way
wisdom enchanted man with her beauty
he followed her gladly
for a moment wisdom fell silent
her ear attentive to hear
whether man’s words would proceed
with such grace and such caring

God’s eyes pierced man’s flesh
through muscle and sinew
he beheld the soul of man
man stood, unclotherd before
his Lord and lover
a sweet communion rested between them
Even here, soothed his voice
is a well of my presence
guard this stream for purity
Love me.
God’s eyes turned outwards
Love them

I went to some election hustings at St Michael’s this lunchtime. I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, but in the 40 minutes or so I was there it was really interesting to get a brief sense of the different candidates.

Labour - they were going to send their guy, but then Gordon Brown came to visit the city and stole him, so we got one of their other guys instead. Very polished, felt a little corporate and institutionalised compared to most of the others, but seemed to have a good grasp of the possible complexities of the different issues.

Lib Dems - this guy was very articulate, and had a pretty commanding delivery/presence. Some of that possibly seemed a little brash/naive, but he certainly made an impression on me and made me think they are a party worth considering a bit more.

Conservatives - made very little impression on me whatsoever I’m afraid, don’t think I was really inspired in any way to vote for them.

UKIP - pretty entertaining; basically a mass of conspiracy theories, rhetoric and unsubstantiated facts?

Socialist Equality Party - I’m afraid the guy standing here just seemed a little clueless and out of it

Greens - pretty stereotyped long hair and patchworky clothing, kinda entertaining. I was pleased that the candidate seemed pretty thoughtful and able to express some opinions that felt grounded. A positive impression.

I wish the parties would stop caricaturing each other and issues - what I want is an honest discussion, not reactionary holding out to polar opinions. It’s fine to come down on one side, but in general the lack of a really balanced and open discussion annoyed me.

Election information is gradually beginning to percolate through to me now - the candidates have begun to send leaflets through my letterbox that have enough content to be worth reading, some manifestos have been launched, and there are increasing numbers of websites which allow me to compare policies online.

Let me start with one of the things that most annoys me about election fliers - the encouragement towards tactical voting. There’s a problem here. If we all believe the claims about tactical voting that are displayed on the leaflets and vote in line with those, then it becomes a self-perpetuating system. Only if we feel free as an electorate to disregard this blatant encouragement to tactical voting, will we begin to move away from a system where it is necessary. What this means for me, is that the long-term considerations of democracy and trying to do something that is right edge me away from any inclination to vote tactically.

The second thing that annoys me about election fliers is the posturing “vote for x, he understand you because he has a family” that kind of thing. That seems to me to be playing with people’s weaknesses and emotions rather than engaging them in anything solid and constructive.

What about policies then, because they’re beginning to come into the open to be compared. I’m not going to comment too much on individual policies yet, but this is hard isn’t it. When we get down to policy level, we’re getting down to lots of individual initiatives, some of them token, some of them much more which signify and fit together to form a bigger picture. We have to decide whether the picture the party leaders paint for us is really what their policies add up to, and also whether or not we believe they’ll do all these things. We have to decide whether the policies would work, and to a certain degree we’re trying to psychoanalyse those who put the material together - we’re trying to work out what they really mean and where they’re just trying to draw us in.

And the whole thing feels so artificial - we know that they’re suddenly trying to present an exciting public face, and it feels so unconnected with what they actually do the rest of the time.

I did briefly wonder again this week whether the greens are utterly crazy, particularly about their idea of a citizen’s income. I’m not sure, but I decided radical doesn’t have to be bad, and that I’m probably irrationally scared of anything that sounds vaguely communist.

I am finding website that allow me to stand policies side by side helpful, but I’m finding the fragmentary nature of the picture quite hard in that situation - none of them give you a feel of the big vision. I guess that means getting down to reading some actual manifestos.

There’s roughly a month left until our UK general election. As this is the first one in which I will have voted, I’m quite excited by this. Some of you are probably utterly disillusioned, but I figured that if I blogged a bit about my experience and views it might help some of you to engage and think a bit along with me as the election approaches.

Right now, whilst I do have some leanings in certain directions, I’m actually up for being convinced by pretty much any of the parties. It is slightly problematic, in that the lines don’t really seem to have been properly drawn yet. In the media, there is coverage over certain disputes, but the parties have spent very little time trying to present any kind of coherent manifestos to the voters.

There’s something in me that is quite up for reading these manifestos properly and taking time to try and get to grips with a broad range of policies rather than simply the things that make the headlines. Something like the rise in National Insurance may well stand for a much deeper belief, but until that belief is articulated in a broad range of policies, and those are properly presented to me I’m not really able to have a strong opinion on whether it is a good idea or not.

So, right now I have some fairly uninformed views on each of the parties, but a good starting point might be to present how they seem from this position of relative ignorance. There are four main parties which I would currently consider voting for:

Labour: Labour has been in government a long time, and this is a problem. In part, it is an image problem - the guy at the head isn’t particularly attractive, and it’s hard to be filled with hope and joy at more of the same. On the other hand I’m quite wary of wanting change for the sake of change and have to keep this feeling in check when I think about the party. Change can be healthy for all sorts of reasons, things can get old and stale, but I don’t want to make that assumption. There is something within me that feels that the socialism that Labour traditionally stand for is something morally worthy and perhaps something I have a duty to align myself with, but I also have to counter that with the positive picture that the conservatives paint.

Conservative: This is a party which I start off slightly wary about. I’m not convinced from the outset that they necessarily feel the proper social responsibility we have as a country towards the poor, or towards building something good on a communal level. On the other hand, may be they’re right, as a party they have fresh energy, perhaps fresh ideas, and they do present an alternative to the Labour picture. Whilst they don’t believe in socialism in the same way, they seem to have a vision for a society where there is social responsibility that arises within the community, and actually, this might be much more exciting and agile than anything from a more socialist perspective.

Lib Dems: I have to admit I know very little about the Lib Dems. I’m not convinced that they have any particularly solidified driving ideologies behind them, they seem much more of a pragmatic party. Perhaps that’s a good thing. I don’t really know what their vision for society is, what I tend to hear is a critique of the Conservatives and Labour on particular points where the Lib Dems feel they got it right.

Green: The greens do have a place in my heart. They seem to run counter to societies based on greed or finance, and they seem to have a vision for creating something really quite beautiful and sustainable. I don’t know whether their vision has much of a chance of working, although I do read the blog of one of their economists fairly regularly, and that’s fairly convincing. The blogs on the other side are equally convincing, however. There are some places where I feel the greens are a little to radical for my comfort in their attitudes to government and society, but perhaps that’s me, or perhaps that’s a price I’d have to be willing to pay.

So, that’s where I start. What I want now is for these groups to each take their turn at presenting me with a compelling vision for this country, one that I can latch hold of and say “yes, I want that vision, go for it, I’m behind you”

Over the past couple of years I’ve begun to get to know the world of tea. Having survived until the age of twenty something with a great aversion to the drink I couldn’t embrace it half-heartedly - it has become something of an obsession.

I’ve sourced tea from a range of places - Whittards and Cardews shops in Oxford, Dragonwater, Pekoe Tea, the Rare Tea Company, Teapigs, Char, Tea Palace, and, no doubt, others I’ve neglected to mention. The Rare Tea Company has become a particular favourite of mine as I’ve followed Henrietta’s twitter posts about her tea

When Kate Gover of Lahloo Tea offered to send me some samples of her tea in return for writing a bit about them I couldn’t resist. There were too many teas in her selection I wanted to try, and the challenge of describing the tastes and subtleties of a drink I’m not used to describing was an exciting one.

So, interests and reasons declared - here’s what I made of a selection of her teas. Hopefully I’ll do a bit more tea blogging in the future.

Orchid Oolong: This was the first of the range I tasted, and I have to say it’s one of my favourites. I’ve had an oolong sitting on my shelf for a while now which has been fairly uninspiring. Having tried Henrietta’s Oolong over Christmas I knew how good an Oolong could taste, so was excited about trying a new one. As a tea this was quite a revelation - the flavour seems to combine apricots (I’m used to my oolongs being peachy, apricots are more intense), a striking spiciness and an occasional sweetness together into something quite special. After making my way through a couple of mugs of this I decided it probably wasn’t a tea I could drink all day - it’s too powerful for that, but definitely something that I’d want to add to my collection for special occasions.

Snow Jewel - this is again, quite an apricoty tea, quite full bodied for what it is, but tastes a little milky for my tastes, the flavour has depth to it, but not quite what I was looking for.

Long Jing - for me this was the other really stand-out tea in the selection. Such a ripe, chestnutty flavour, incredibly refreshing and broad. I could drink this all day.

Mr Aoki’s - Perhaps I brewed this one a little wrong, but it didn’t have a huge body of flavour. On the other hand, it was very light, slightly grassy/sweet and refreshing.

Amber Oolong - Smokey, creamy, chocolatey… this is more of what I expect from a typical oolong, and it is a fairly pleasant one. Really overshadowed for me by the beauty of the Orchid however.

Red Dao - Confession time. I left it too long before writing about this and simply can’t remember that much about it. It was certainly a pleasant tea, and possibly slightly chestnutty (though not so much as the Long Jing), but beyond that I fail to remember.

Conclusions? I certainly need to carry on exploring a real range of teas, the ones that stood out for me here were really such a pleasant surprise, and not tastes I had expected to find in tea.

I went there today
that place where once I found you
wandering alone with that coat
watched and yet said nothing
your silence saying more than I could speak
I knelt here, stooping for a moment
doing this in remembrance of you
presence and absence held together in a gesture
I look and my gaze creates your space,
your phantom form for a moment hovering
in the eye of my soul

I haven’t written much music in a long time, so it was an interesting task to have a go at something for this year’s carol service at St George’s. In a sense this is going back to high school, when I used to enter a local competition to write a Christmas carol (I did win one year), but it’s combining that with a new-found love of writing poetry and all sorts of other things that have happened to me in the past few years.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to record the event, but for those of you who find such things interesting I have uploaded copies of the score in transposed and untransposed forms. There is also an appalling recording of me singing it with piano here.

Wandering through the parks today this scripture came to my mind and I wondered what it was saying.

Emmaus is the moment when the rollercoaster is over. The disciples have lived in hope, in fear, they’ve thought that maybe things were going to work out, maybe they were stupid, maybe Jesus was the messiah, maybe he was going confront the evils in the world, maybe this fight was going to end well, maybe it was going to go badly.

And then the rollercoaster ends.

Everything is decided - no more hopes, no more fears, just the end. This is the moment where they realise it’s all really over and ended badly, and they go for a walk with a friend. Now’s the time to take stock of the situation, where to go from here, what went wrong, what are they left with, how are they going to resign themselves to their new situation.

And then what happens? Jesus comes alongside them. “You thought this was the end? Oh no… nowhere close, you see, that’s not how God works”

Just where hope is totally given up and abandoned - that’s where he comes and rekindles it again. That’s where it really begins to come alive.