Strange Disciple

This is Strange Disciple from my collection My Mother is an Old Elephant. It's inspired by a marginal note I found in in the gospel of Luke in an old KJV bible. The note related to the story of the man who was casting out demons in the Lord's name and was rebuked by the disciples because he wasn't one of them. That was years back, and now I don't know exactly where I found it. 

It reminds me of one of my favourite quotations from the late Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest, writer and social activist, who said:

"When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."

Enjoy!

Strange Disciple

Held no creed
believed in what he could believe
bending like a flaxen reed.
Blessing where blessing lacked
healed heavy souls and broken-backed.
Never knew the master’s gaze,
fought with his men
who thought they had the rights back then
not recognising whom they praised.
Spent his long days doing good
caring, mending, defending
putting heart in heartless places
winning some,
losing more
never keeping score.
Now buried with a single stone
by half-men from among the tombs
who knew a saint by smell alone
and waited for the carnival to leave
then carved his name
and beat their breast
full men at their very best.

Who was that man, he’d often thought
who threw the fire that he had caught?

Emmaus, by Adrian G R Scott

This is a beautiful poem about companionship by my friend Adrian Scott from his collection The Call of the Unwritten (see the Books Worth Reading section of this website).

Emmaus

Take a long unhurried walk
with a willing other,

keep a measured silence as your four
feet trudge the miles,

honour the sparse and common space
that shrewdly shapes between you,

narrate in quietness the chronicle of your living
with all its broken light,

do not spare the brittle self in your
honestly forming story,

nor judge the wounded self that wants
to nestle in your arms,

or any of the legion selves that emerge
as you summon them,

be gentle with your broken hopes
and kind to your successes,

with respect hear the restive steps
of this re-collecting journey,

recognize the natural, animate around you
life echoing your own,

then breach the generosity of solitude
with a welcome to the wanderer,

take turns in pathway sharing, break
out your spoken story,

be heedful as a deep-barked forest
to every breaking twig,

frame each exposure with the
intentness of a lens,

stop and face each other with a
bold unwavering gaze,

see the walking miles reflected
in the pupil of the other,

and by embracing what remains, you
will have reached Emmaus.