Creativity, · Poetry · Prayer

Prayer Before A Locked Door

We met with some friends on Zoom yesterday to share some thoughts about writing our own psalms.
This is more of a poem than a prayer, but poems and prayers are often very similar

A lock – a lock of hair
a reminder of the first time that we cut her hair
kept in a small box
somewhere
If I ever open the box,
the feeling is one of precious memory

A lock – on the canal, just down the road
I remember standing, watching an older couple
suddenly burst into action
she on the rudder
he on the bank, shoulder to the whatever you call it
opening the lock gate
to allow the journey to continue

A lock – a lock in actually
not that I’ve experienced one for a very long time
– a surreptitious gathering after closing time
when we were invited to stay
and have another drink, or two, or three, or more
feeling a sense of belonging on a Saturday night

A lock – something that stops you
you stand before it without the key
wanting to open that door
to see what’s on the other side
but you either can’t find the key
or maybe it’s genuinely lost for ever
or maybe it doesn’t even exist

A lock – a locket
contains something that’s close to your heart
it’s always there around my neck
even when that door is closed

Art and Design · community · Creativity, · Poetry · Prayers

Are You A Creative Person ?

If you saw my previous post – a photo of a padlock on a rotting wooden door … I wonder what it made you think of ?

On Thursday last week, I started on a four week exploration of creativity with Jonny Baker. It’s just an hour a week on Zoom to help get the creative brain working.

The first thing we were asked was – “Do you think of yourself as creative ?”
Then he asked – “Do you think that everyone is creative ?”

I wonder how you would answer ?

We then spent some time listening to three people, telling us a bit about their creative endeavours.

We were then asked to come up with some ideas about how to combat loneliness in our neighbourhood whilst this lockdown is going on. Within a minute the chat in Zoom was full of ideas.

I’m guessing that most of the 270 participants were churning out ideas … but how good to have other people thinking about it with you. We were encouraged to have a conversation with someone in the week – either carrying on the ideas about cobatting loneliness … or whatever …

On a similar track, together with a few friends, we’re sharing some ideas about psalm writing. The psalms is a book of prayers in the Bible, and one of our friends suggested we worked on writing some of our own. The psalms usually come out of some intense experience of life … I’m working on that today in preparation for the chat with our friends tomorrow when we share our thoughts.

Grace and peace.

By the way – Tomorrow I’ll post my morning prayer for Monday, and then post each day through this week.