During these troubled times you may wish to use this page to share some helpful Bible passages, other quotes, poems or sayings. If you do please email your suggestions to Moira Wickens or Alan Frost
 

From Marion Egerton (29th March 2020)

Coronavirus is so limited…..

It cannot cripple love,

It cannot shatter hope,

It cannot corrode faith,

It cannot kill friendship,

It cannot shut out memories,

It cannot silence courage,

It cannot invade the soul,

It cannot reduce eternal life,

It cannot quench the Sprit,  

It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection!

Our greatest enemy is not disease, but despair.  

 
In the Time of Pandemic (29th March 2020)
 
And the people stayed home.

And read books and listened, and rested and exercised,
 and made art and played games, 
and learned new ways of being and were still.

And listened more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.

Some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently.
 
And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways the earth began to heal.
 
And when the danger passed,
and the people joined together again
they grieved their losses, and made
new choices, and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live
and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed.

 

From Sue Harrison and Marion Egerton (25th March 2020)

The Covid-19 song (let’s hope this goes viral)

Tune: If you’re happy and you know it

 

If you’re healthy and you know it, clap your hands;

And we all obey the government’s demands:

stay away from social clubs

and avoid the local pubs,

for corona is abroad throughout the land.

 

To reduce the risk, we all must wash our hands

to a 20-second song with concert bands,

and we catch and bin and kill

every bug that makes us ill –

it’s a rule that everybody understands.

 

If you cough, then use your sleeve and not your hand,

And we have to cancel things that we had planned,

for to slow infection rate

we must now self-isolate,

It’s the same for everyone throughout  the land 

 

Every day at noon, let’s kneel and clasp our hands,

and remember humankind across all lands;

and keep faith with God our lover,

so this world will soon recover

and rejoice, if everyone together stands.

Alison Blenkinsop

18 March 2020

 

From Sue Harrison (23rd March 2020)

Lockdown by Irish Priest Brother Richard Hendrick

Yes, there is fear.
Yes, there is isolation.
Yes, there is panic buying.
Yes, there is sickness.
Yes, there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
Across the empty squares,
Keeping their windows open
So that those that are alone
May hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
Is busy spreading fliers with her number
Through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
Are preparing to welcome
And shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes, there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness
But there does not have to be disease of the soul.
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
To touch across the empty square.
Sing.

March 13th 2020.

 
From Elizabeth Farrow (21st March 2020)
 
Noah left the ark after the flood had receded and made an offering to the Lord, who gave this promise:
“As long as the earth lasts,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
They will never cease.”
Genesis Chap 8 v22.

From Sue Harrison (20th March 2020)

May the road rise up to meet you,
The wind be always at your back,
The sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall softly on your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.