From St Cuthbert’s Church

Is it nothing to you
all you who pass by?

People who have already seen
that behind the tinsel and the glitter
there is emptiness.
Empty, weary, dreary people,
silent, burdened
looking down and inwards.

Subdued and heavy.
in the market place you
search for …………… something.

Is it nothing to you?
Through Penniless Porch
you approach a holy place.
Know yourself to be in poverty,
destitute in darkness.

In my Father’s House
glorious music, the voice of a choir
soars up through heaven’s arches

“Sanctus, Sanctus,
Sanctus Domine
Hosanna in Excelsis.”[1]

And quietly in a corner a candle burns,
adorned not with tinsel but with barbed wire
before my earthly family.

Is it nothing to you?

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world”
and “You are the light of the world”

Comfort ye my people
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.
The people walking in darkness
could see a great light
if only they would look.

Is it nothing to you?

[1] Faure’s Requiem.  Sanctus