BELOVED

HERE’S PAST-MIDNIGHT DISTILLATION of many a prayer or conversation I’ve been privileged to share across the years – and thresholds ecclesiastical, pastoral, practical and theological. Wisdom counsels always against “quick, slick, thick, too-certain preachers” – and I must pray each day to hear her …

Married sixty-two years and
My beloved has dementia

O God on High have mercy on me
Save me from quick, slick, thick, too-certain preachers
For nurses, bedpans and fearful tremblings are my
More immediate teachers
Married sixty-two years, you see, and
My beloved has dementia

O God on High have mercy on me

Hell! I’ve forgotten the pass-code
Where are my glasses? Where’s the bell?
Save me from quick, slick, thick, too-certain preachers
For I’m not quite sure if it’s beloved
Who’s the patient in here, or perhaps it’s me
Or him and me, or me and her as well -

Where?
Oh! Where’s the bell?
O God on High have mercy on me
Here’s Parsimonious heading this way
What, I ask you, dear God -
What shall I say?

Married sixty-two years …
Confirmed seventy-three years …
Christened eighty-five years …

Is beloved demented? – or is it me?
Or is it poor Parsimonious? – who preaches at me!

I’ve forgotten the passcode. Where’s the bell?
Save me from the quick, too slick, thick …

God help me find the bell, and
Let thy Kingdom come
On this cold awful threshold
As it is in Heaven

Because someone’s demented round here
And it feels like Hell