Words of Light and Hope from Jane McLarty LLM

Words of Light and Hope   Jane McLarty

The news has been very much taken up with scenes of violence from around the country in recent days. We see expressions of anger towards people who have come to this   country essentially as refugees, from people who feel marginalised and sidelined  themselves. The New Testament reminds us that all of us not Jewish by birth were once ‘other’, aliens and strangers:

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Eph 2:13-14)                  

We have also seen brave and selfless actions, on the part of those who tried to stop the Southport attack and were injured themselves in the   process; and those who have worked voluntarily to repair damage done in rioting. Both of these responses are  Christlike actions of sacrifice            restoration.  We recognise that peace and mutual  understanding is     something that has to be worked for.  But many small actions of love and reconciliation hold communities together day by day, going unnoticed – except by God.

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early                                                                                                                                                                                            and put his clothes on in the blue black cold,                                                                                                                                                                              then with cracked hands that ached                                                                                                                                                                                         from labor in the weekday weather made                                                                                                                                                                               banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.                                                                                                                                                               When the rooms were warm, he’d call,                                                                                                                                                                                      and slowly I would rise and dress,                                                                                                                                                                                        fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,                                                                                                                                                                                                    who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.                                                                                                                                   What did I know, what did I know                                                                                                                                                                                                  of love’s austere and lonely offices?

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