The Twelve Are Alive In Me

The Twelve Are Alive In Me

There are days

when it feels

as though all the twelve

live in this poor disciple’s heart.

For, depending on the moment’s mystery

each has his place and his preaching

is heard in my soul.

Peter is present

A rock and foundation stone

thrice cleft by betrayal

and cleansed by tears at

cockcrow

but fitting fully now nonetheless,

this rough fisherman of grace,

overawed at Love that does not depart

in the presence of sin

or even self satisfied importance,

but teaches patiently

through the impetuosity

of one who would

build tents to contain heaven

on a hill,

and swing a leg over the side

to begin the water walk of wonder

until storm tossed seas

recall a quavering heart to the lesson of humility

and later call “Quo Vadis?”

to One whose way he will follow to

an upside down end.

O yes.

Peter is present in me.

Andrew beckons too,

the announcer of the Lord.

First called and first to call others

“Come!”

he cries in me, “I have found Him!”

And this is the life of Andrew in me

finding and losing and finding again;

only to lose again so that I may call others to

the finding in their turn,

and in that struggle to perhaps

at the last, find all that I have longed for

and sought in every teacher;

the One from whom the knowledge comes,

the One who is the Wisdom of the Ages

the Lamb walking wild towards His

Paschal place while saying all the while

“Come and See…”

“Come and See…”

O yes. Andrew is present in me.

The Sons of Thunder have their place in me,

brothers both and twice blessed

James and John; lions of the Lord,

tamed slowly into Apostles of

Mercy and Love;

they shine the light

on all unreconciled in me,

all that is yet to yield

to the gentleness of grace,

transforming fire into fire,

light into light, they smoulder within

until finally alight, the mystic flame

burns away my blindness

and gives the eagle’s eye,

the pilgrim’s staff

to see and walk the way

beyond the way

of this world

Matthew dwells here too.

Tax Collector, Publican,

who yet holds the priestly name

too in his heart, even in his broken days.

Forgiven his compromise

with the world and called clean

from the heart of horror

by One who sudden stands unbidden

in the midst of the unclean place

to cleanse and call.

His story told me to hope

that I too could be called

not once only but daily

from the hard taxation

of sin’s slavery

and its distractions to become

a living Gospel

of His grace

evangelising all

in exultation

over mercy found, not once only,

but many times,

where even the tale of my betrayals

becomes a blessed gate to grace

for all who hear.

O yes. Matthew is present in me.

Philip and Bartholomew

Brothers of the road

and companions

on the way

are found in me.

Spirit led preachers and questioners too

seeking wisdom’s light and imparting

wisdom’s blessings all in the power of

the Word.

In their pain they preached

and fulfilled their longing

to see with their own eyes

and touch with their own hands.

They teach the lesson of being open to Angels

met upon the road in all the disguises

of grace, stepping lightly and not long upon the earth

they dance across deserts and invite me

to flow freely in faith

O yes. Philip and Bartholomew are present in me.

Thomas too is here,

sometimes still appearing as

Didymus the Doubter;

needing the touch of truth,

the gaping wound that proves Love’s

Labour birthing blessedness in blindness.

Yet also, and more often

he in me affirms faith and its freedom

describing divinity in mystery

and Lordship in light

touching presence, yes

by becoming the very vessel

in which is seen and heard

the One who is the face

of the Father.

O yes. Thomas is present in me.

Three come forward now

Each with their own share

Of me, in me, with me,

Simon, James and Jude

Of the first two named

I owe the allegiance of the east,

for into the sun rise they walked

their way of faith together

once healed of the heaviness

of seeming loss and ruin on Calvary’s Cross.

In its sign they bought with their blood too

the blessing of a harvest

still to be reaped, not just in distant lands

but in this my soul that lies too often in darkness

and yearns for resurrection dawn.

Of the third what can I say

but that his gift is hope, perhaps

the greatest grace of all save love,

but can love be kindled

save at hope’s hearth?

He too lived his hope unto the gates of Heaven

where hope fades into faith’s fulfilment

and where I pray each day these noble three

may yet bring me and all I love safely home.

O yes. Simon and James and Jude are present in me.

And yes…

There is a Judas place

in which I am the betrayer,

whose faith is so frail

it cannot imagine a mercy

wide enough for me

and hurtles instead headlong

through temptation’s tumult

to bestow a kiss,

by which the silver coin of self

turns to doubt’s dust

in an unknowing dawn, a mere second away from resurrection

May I be saved from it by this sacred knowing that

O yes. Judas is present in me.

But there is too a blessedness in me,

though not of me,

that kindles faith and hope and love

even in the face of my own weary weakness,

and calls me yet, as they were called

from out the ordinary occupation of the day to know

that these Apostles, all alive in me,

are spokes of one great wheel of love,

that turns the stars and drives the sun across the sky

and pours upon us the uncreated light by which we see the light!

Known to those twelve first as Rabbi, then as Christ, and finally as Lord,

He lights my way, loves me and all that is

into the blessing of being

and asks me now, as then he asked, and he now asks you,

“Will you not come and see?”

O yes. He is present in me.