I need to start with an apology: the Attention Seekers haven’t been paying much attention lately.
At least, not on this blog. Truth be told, our attention has been paid elsewhere as we put down roots in a new home, a new church family and a new role for me.
But we’re gearing up to start writing again, recognising that we miss this discipline of imposing some order on our scattered thoughts…
This entry is really dipping a toe back into the blogosphere… The seed for it was planted about a week ago, during a bedtime conversation with my seven-year-old son Daniel. He was telling me how he sometimes gets scared at nighttime. His confession conjured up memories of my own experience of lying wide-eyed in the dark as a child. I was skilled at making monsters out of the creak of floorboards and the inky shadows in the corners of my room.
And remembering this, I was able to share with son the thing that helped me to feel safe and to chase the bad thoughts away: I would say the Lord’s Prayer.
But what I didn’t tell Daniel was that, at that early stage in my life, I didn’t really understand the words I was saying. I knew that God was good, but part of me also liked the old fashioned language of the King James. I suspect my prayer was prompted more by superstition than anything else. And yet, saying these words brought comfort. They chased the monsters away.
I was thinking of this conversation with Daniel as I wrestled with the sermon text for last week – Jesus’ encounter with the demoniac in Luke 8 (that’s the one where Christ casts the legion of demons into the pigs). It’s a weird story and not the easiest one to preach on. (You can listen to my attempt here.) But it got me thinking again of my nighttime repetition of the prayer I only half knew. And I realised that, though I did not understand the full meaning, there was nevertheless power in the words.
A few years ago I was inspired to write a poem about this experience after stumbling across Proverbs 18:10 in my Bible reading: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.”
As I said to my congregation on Sunday: a sonnet it is, but Shakespeare it is not.
But given that Emma has been brave enough to bare her poetic soul on this blog, I thought it was about time for me to have a bit of courage and do the same.
Strong Tower
Proverbs 18:10
Folklore has a name for them: incubus.
Night demons. Wraiths that haunt liminal space
between wake and sleep. But to a child they
are simply monsters, waiting for darkness,
hiding beneath my bed, invited out
by sounds of a house settling for sleep,
floorboard creaks cranking my fear to terror.
It’s then I would start, “Our Father, who art...”
The words a mystery, half known. And yet,
in the speaking, their power was understood.
Before the “Amen” phantoms would vanish,
supplanted by another Ghost, nightmares
undone by learned repetition,
superstition blessed by recognition.