ST MICHAEL’S PARISH CHURCH  • LINLITHGOW  •   EH49 7AL

tel - 01506 842188   e-mail - info@stmichaels-parish.org.uk

MINISTER:  REV DR STEWART GILLAN  BSc MDiv PhD

St Michael’s Parish Church is recognised as a Scottish Charity  No SCO16185

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Max Ehrmann wrote that amazingly successful poem Desiderata that began ‘Go placidly amid the noise and haste, …’- a piece that I remember as a poster and even as a rather bizarre pop song in the 70s. I thought no more about it until I came across a small book of his poetry by chance in a bookshop. It is now one of my close possessions.

Ehrmann was from Indiana and died in 1945 so some of the language is now a little time worn, yet some of the pictures he painted with words still send a certain thrill through me.

One poem entitled simply, ‘A prayer’, begins…

Let me do my work each day;
and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me,
may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times.
May I still remember the bright hours
that found me walking over the silent hills of my childhood,
or dreaming on the margin of a quiet river,
when a light glowed within me,
and I promised my early God to have courage
amid the tempests of the changing years.

I like to reawaken treasured memories and let them wash over me again. I like to think such is a God-given resourcefulness that we all use. Ehrmann describes it beautifully, and the phrase ‘I promised my early God’ is so evocative.

He finishes another poem called ‘Love and Faith’ like this…

I am not always on the highway that leads to the hilltop,
but I have seen the lighted road stretching an and on;
sometimes I have even fancied that I saw the windows in the castle all aglow.
And I have hastened my steps to be in time for the feast,
and taken counsel of my courage lest I falter and fall on the way.
May I keep this vision ever before my eyes
and a belief in my heart that the journey is worthwhile,
and the castle and the glow in the windows not all illusion.

The image of the ‘castle all aglow’ may bring heaven to mind, though in my mind the image is reworked as a cottage with a lighted window. Castles can be so cold! Whatever, the whole speaks to me so imaginatively of hope and doubt and manages to give both value and meaning. As Paul says, ‘For who hopes for what is seen?’ (Romans 8.24).

I can’t finish this piece without taking this opportunity to thank you all for the welcome I have received since I have come here. It has meant more to me than many of you will ever realise.

ENDPIECE

By Rev John Paton