Spirituality

Poem 283 – Rituals

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Reaching for you first thing
and putting on the kettle second.
Wash, then brush my hair and teeth,
then choose my clothes for the day.
A prayerful pause, a stillness,
as I boot the computer.
Reverently playing my vinyl
when I’m home and working alone.
Grinding the evening’s coffee
and offering up its aroma.
A chapter in bed before sleep
then turning to find you again.
The day is full of rituals
and every one a prayer.

Turning an LP this afternoon whilst boiling the kettle got me thinking about my daily rituals.
(05.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Yohan Marion on Unsplash

Poem 279 – Twenty-Five Years

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Twenty-five years,
three weddings and
too many funerals.

Baptisms in the garden,
sometimes warm,
but usually freezing.

Broxbourne foodbank,
winter night shelters,
Big Picnics at the park.

Soul Survivor,
Greenbelt,
weekends away.

Two schools and
numerous toddlers
toddlering.

Neverending rotas,
conversations,
unexpected meetings.

Five Advent candles –
so, who remembers
what they mean?

Pastoral visits,
Drop-In lunches
and nursing home services.

Three electric guitars
and three road bikes
pressed into service.

Church redevelopment
requiring prayer and
grants for funding.

So many faces,
places, emotions
and activities.

So many, so much
and yet throughout,
one God, one church, one family.

Today I celebrated 25 amazing years as minister at Wormley Free Church. What a privilege it’s been! These verses don’t do it justice, but I’ve loved being here and looking forward to where our life together as a church family takes us next.
(01.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 273 – Home

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Sleeping bag grappled.
Tent dried and packed,
along with a random item to be
rediscovered next time.
Rubbish disposed of,
green and not.
Excess taken to the foodbank.
Car sought in a car park
stripped to the bare essentials.
Give thanks when I find it.
Satnav set for ‘Home’.
Strange, this is home too.
A porcelain toilet will be nice though
and a proper cup of tea.
The wristband stays on,
I’m not quite ready yet
to say goodbye.

Greenbelt’s over for another year, and what a cracking weekend it was, despite having four seasons in as many days!
(26.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 272 – Bridging

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This morning we broke bread with you.
This bread, freshly baked beforehand,
was tossed from one to another until
we all had enough to eat; a modern-
day feeding of the five thousand.

It was an unexpected twist,
this rugby ball distribution that
worked so magnificently, hilariously.
I laughed until I realised that
I could not toss Christ’s bread to you.

I could not toss it because of the wall
that stood between us, the wall from which
your enlarged face appeared and spoke.
I could not toss it because of the shrinking perimeter penning you in your home.

Remember the collapse of the Berlin Wall?
Walls can be bridged, dismantled, toppled,
but what can bridge the gap between us?
Only the outstretched bread of Christ,
the refusal to be enemies.

The biggest event at Greenbelt is the Sunday morning communion service. This morning it was supposed to be led by Daoud Nassar from Bethlehem. Sadly he could not join us, increased illegal settler activity around his farm, ‘The Tent of Nations,’ meant that he felt he had to stay. Instead he joined by live link, speaking from a large video screen. He and family refuse to respond to the threat with violence and instead seek to withstand peacefully, with the words ‘we refuse to be enemies’ emblazoned on their wall.
https://tentofnations.com/
(25.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024



Poem 271 – Greenbelt Snapshots

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Dragonflies flitting round the poet
A daughter dancing in the glade
Steam rising from the canopy
Shelter sought and thinking remade

Floral dresses accompanied by wellies
A speaker on Zoom surprised by the loos
Unexpected powercuts
A God who leaves us free to choose

Familiar faces seen once a year
Lost stories found in glorious song
The wind and rain at last dismissed
Joyous epiphany, here comes the sun

Snapshots from the last couple of days at Greenbelt. The weather continues to be a feature, but I’m optimistic that the wet and wind is more past us.
(24.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 269 – Anticipation

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The tent is up, pegged square and neat,
the sun for now my companion.
I am relieved, there’s nothing worse
than setting up when it is raining.
The wind is twitchy. Like a restless
child, it can’t sit still, but worries
at the tent. I worry too.
Somewhere that butterfly has flapped
its wings and storms conspire.
The canvas flexes but holds for now,
an intake of breath before.
Inside it sounds a little like
the sea washing at the shore.
I close my eyes content and rest
awhile in hopeful anticipation.

I’ve arrived for my annual pilgrimage to Greenbelt Festival. We’re promised the whole array of English weather! Although I’m a little worried about high winds, I’m really looking forward to what’s in store.
(22.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 267 – Numbers

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Numbers is found in the Jewish Torah,
the Christian Old Testament,
and the Muslim Tawrat.
It contains the lists of the living.

All three also share
an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth.

Here are some numbers,
but this time the dead
not the living.

In Hamas’ attack
the 7th of October
1139 Israelis were killed.
251 taken hostage.
Each number a person.
Each person a family.
Each family a community.
Each one, one of us.

They say overall
more than 40,000 Palestinians
have died in response.
Each number a person.
Each person a family.
Each family a community.
Each one, one of us.

These numbers don’t scan
or make easy poetry
but that’s not the point.
They’re awkward.
They should be.

Now I don’t know
if these numbers are true
but I know that an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth
was meant as a concession
and not an instruction,
a limit to violence
and not an extension.
I also know that each
one is too much,
that piling more on
won’t get us to zero.

Do call me naive
or say I’m simplistic
but to me it is simple:
violence breeds violence
and might isn’t right.
There’s only one way
we can stop this increase
and that is to stop.

It’s hard to know at a distance how reliable the numbers we’re hearing from this conflict are, but clearly they’re high. Sometimes the bravest and strongest response is to have the courage to ‘turn the other cheek’ as Jesus said in his commentary on ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. Naive? Perhaps. Risky, certainly. But…
(20.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Emad El Byed on Unsplash

Poem 252 – Canvas Calling

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Getting out the tents
Straightening out the poles
Counting out the pegs
Shaking out the folds
Cutting out the excess
Clearing out my soul

A lighter verse today – an antidote to the news – the canvas is beckoning! Preparing for a break in Scotland and then my annual pilgrimage, Greenbelt Festival.
(05.08.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 244 – Now I’m 52

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You know it’s your 52nd birthday
when you keep thinking it is Friday
when in fact it is Thursday.
Is my subconscious telling me
to simply skip over it?
Being an Englishman
I don’t know where to look
when people sing Happy Birthday,
how to configure my face,
or if I should join in.
You’d have thought I’d have
worked it out by now.
I celebrate by trimming nostril hairs
I never used to have and
stretching out stiff limbs.
Perhaps I’ll treat myself
to a proper coffee while I work.
As a child I received cards,
as an adult, thumbs up from Facebook.
Internet forums I once joined,
but have long since forgotten,
emerge from the mists of time
to offer congratulations.
Will I do the same one day?
A dusty poem popping up
in someone else’s Google search?
I do some sums.
Three score years and ten?
Just eighteen left;
that doesn’t sound so good.
Let’s change the parameters.
Doubling makes one hundred and four
and allows the same to come.
Possible? Perhaps.
And as every day’s a gift
and I’m a half-full glass guy
I’ll gratefully take every one.
Yes, happy birthday to me
and many more to come!

For some reason I’ve got it in my head that today’s Friday, when it’s Thursday, and more significantly (to me at least), my birthday…
(16.05.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Becky Fantham on Unsplash (you may need to change your window shape/size to see the picture properly…)

Poem 242 – Under Albert’s Mushrooms

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Back then I lived next door,
yes, Albert was my neighbour.
On summer days I used
to laze upon his lawns,
take out my books, kick off
my shoes, pretend to work.
Before that, though, I caught
Slowhand playin’ the blues
beneath your famous mushrooms.
A family friend had to
queue for tickets as
they went up for sale
prior to my coming.
Three summers and exams
were passed and then my turn
to strut upon the stage,
trying not to trip.
Handshake, applause, job done.
Top billing? No, I shared
the stage with a thousand
others and many yawns.
Later, I returned to
peruse Parisienne Walkways
as Belfast’s boy gave all.
Jaws were dropped in unison as
that note was held and held.
And then to cap it all
a Beatle stepped on stage.
Guitars did weep. And me.
Later I brought the family
to battle Daleks and
laugh at stupid deaths.
And now I’m back to see
poets rise up in anger,
tears, and fears, and hope.
It’s the hope that lingers,
hope found in new worlds
created by their words.
As one we rose and cheered,
and flowed out on the streets
and found them changed, made new.

Over the years I have been to the Royal Albert Hall many times for a whole array of reasons, graduation, guitar heroes, the proms and on Wednesday night, poetry (see: https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/events/2024/the-poets-revival/). Boy, was that a storming night.
(05.05.24)

© Ben Quant 2024