Thought for the Week – 7th August 2022

Our Burning World

In the light of the driest July on record, this is a poem composed in 2020 by the Rev Malcolm Guite, as part of a collaboration with the composer Rhiannon Randle. It references Isaiah 51;17-10 and Mark 13:32-42, but the words speak for themselves.

Our burning world is turning in despair,

I hear her seething, sighing through the air:

‘Oh rouse yourself, this is your wake up call

For your pollution forms my funeral pall

My last ice lapses, slips into the sea,

Will you unfreeze your tears and weep from me?

Or are you sleeping still, taking your rest?

The hour has come, that puts you to the test,

Wake up to change at last, and change for good,

Repent, return, re-plant the sacred wood.

You are my children, I too am God’s child,

And we have both together been defiled,

But God hangs with us, on the hallowed tree

That we might both be rescued, both be free.’

Rev Malcolm Guite, 2020

Rev David Poyner