Spirituality

Poem 711 – One Month to Go (A Minister’s Predicament)

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So many tasks and services,
completing them is a constant doubt,
I’m caught between an anguished shriek,
and a merry dance and joyful shout.

And yet I love this time of year,
I love the reason for its cheer,
the coming birth of Jesus Christ,
Immanuel, God’s Son with us.

His birth that night in Bethlehem,
to a teenage mum and carpenter dad,
accompanied by the angels and
glad shepherds who to the manger ran.

What is the reason for their rush?
That Christ had come for the likes of us,
no, not just kings but everyone,
Love lifting us to the Holy One.

I’ll take a breath and dive on in,
I’ll give my all to follow him,
what else is there for me to do,
for him who lived for me and you?

And so I lift my voice and sing,
One month to go! One month for Him!

Whilst working tonight on grant applications for our church redevelopment project and various Christmas preparations, I noticed the date. Perhaps the rhyme makes it a bit twee, but cut me some slack, with one month to go, there’s a lot on my plate!
(25.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Árni Svanur Daníelsson on Unsplash

Poem 707 – The Preacher’s Task

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The preacher’s task is wrapped in mystery.
At first it seems straight forward, simple, but
On this familiarity there falls
A veil that covers what was clear before.

Then we are left to wrestle for the heart,
To twist and turn until we’re spinning, lost
Under the many layers of meaning,
And there we’re called to stay until we’re found.

Sometimes epiphany is hard to win.
We fight into the night and drag it out,
With courage bravely born of hope, refusing
To settle for another easy road.

At other times we turn to write but even
Before the pen is in our hands, the words
Become alive, a pulse that drives them fast,
A living stream that flows out of the book.

I’ve spent the decades preaching, and even now I find it an exciting yet elusive art.
(21.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

Poem 704 – Prayer Meeting

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Tonight we gathered:
Different faces on the screen,
From different places,
Different nationalities
And IT capabilities,
Different occupations,
Expectations, theologies.
Tonight we gathered,
United in our hope and faith
And prayed,
One family in Him.

Tonight The Connexion, the family of churches I belong to, gather online for prayer. It was wonderful to see the family again so soon after Conference.
(18.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

Poem 696 – The Little Things

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A look of recognition,
A smile across the room,
A name remembered, used
In conversation’s flow.

An asking after mamma,
A joke about the wine,
Then checking in to see
That everybody’s fine.

The little things add up
To greater than their parts,
A trick for all to learn,
This is the waiter’s art.

We’ve been treated by Serkan and his colleagues at the restaurant here in Marmaris. They have given a real masterclass in how much difference small touches make. Thanks gents!
(10.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025

Poem 695 – Necropolis

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Behind stone doors the dead sleep on,
two thousand years and more of slumber.
They’re waiting for the trumpet call,
but what’s another year to them?

Their clothes now hang long out of fashion,
the colours faded out of sight,
their tongue has fallen still, their names
forgotten to the mists of time.

Imagine if they woke today to
this world they wouldn’t recognise,
where billionaires fly out to space
and knowledge lives in webs online.

Where hearts aren’t weighed at judgement time
but swapped if ailing to save the living,
and gold’s exchanged for virtual digits
that dwell in plastic cards of credit.

But then they’d take another look
and smile that boney smile again,
as those that have still rule the roost,
humanity has barely changed.

On our Dalyan boat trip on the 7th, we passed the Necropolis. The ‘residents’ were buried some two and a half millennia ago. Life now is surely very different and yet, somehow the same…
(09.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025

Poem 684 – Unaware

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Stepping out from safety’s bounds towards
The unfamiliar, outside the manicured lawns,
The Father carries the Son within his arms.
The stillness strange, all sounds ring out unreal,
An eerie feel pervades the morning air.
A squirrel seems surreal, a beast at large.
But from his seat he has no cares, the child
Has eyes only for his Father’s face, the two
Absorbed in conversation’s gleeful flow.
One points, the other laughs, they pass my bedroom
Window, both unaware that they have roused
My soul and stirred my weary heart with hope.

Walking in the last morning of Conference today I was more than weary; as always it has been demanding. The passing sight from my window picked me up, however, a glimpse of the love The Father has for all his children.
(29.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025

Poem 683 – It Is Finished

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The deed is done,
the audience won, I hope,
the words delivered
without a stumble,
(well just a little one
when I became distracted).
And now I’ll sleep with thoughts
of friends and family in Him.
It wasn’t good enough,
it never is, and nor am I,
but He is all we need.

For the second year running I ended up stepping into the gap when a speaker couldn’t make it to our annual Conference. A late night scrawling turned into a poetry gig with a message – a first public ‘reading’ of my poetry.
(28.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025

Poem 681 – Look At These Stones!

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Look at these stones!
They stand so proud, so strong, so powerful.
How could they ever fall or fail, these stones?
These men of steel, they’re always men it seems,
with dreams of empire celebrated by
their self-erected statues to their honour.

Look at these stones!
These city walls that reach up to the heavens!
These tall towers built on stocks and shares
that tear the timid down to clamber high.
Exchanging life for digits gleaned, they rise
demanding that we bow before them.

Look at these stones!
These AI gods we’ve built in silicon,
their algorithms fashioned in our image,
our blindness coded deep within their souls,
lurking unseen, unknown, because
we do not even know it in ourselves.

Look at these stones!
But even stones don’t last forevermore,
these brittle bones that break will fall away.
One day the oblivious wind will blow them down,
their monuments will fade, decay to dust,
and as the sun descends they’ll dissipate.

Look at these stones!
They are but sand and every one will pass.

This morning we reflected on Mark 13 in our service, in which Jesus responds to the disciples awestruck comments on seeing the Temple, surprising them by predicting its fall. It made me wonder what our stones are today.
(26.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Jaymon S on Unsplash

Poem 678 – The Final Word?

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Tonight we finished Mark,
A tale of breathless action,
Inspired non-violent protest and
Vivid imagination.

That reaches across our barriers,
Draws in outcast and lost,
Embraces the rejected,
Values the poor and last.

The story that is Jesus,
The man from Galilee
Who stood against the Temple,
The powers and hypocrisy.

Was crowned upon a cross,
This sentence makes no sense,
Thus overturned the tables
And died a traitor’s death.

That builds to its crescendo,
Its resurrection scene,
And then abruptly ends.

I’ve been running a group exploring Mark’s Gospel, made up of church goers and non-church goers. It’s been a really intriguing and insightful journey.
(23.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash