Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8 (links validated 7/10/23)

“Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.” If you are a fan of Edward Lear’s nonsense poetry those words will be familiar. The Jumblies, who “went to sea in a Sieve”, despite being told that they would drown if they did so, were just one of a long list of unlikely invented creatures and situations he thought up. He’s responsible for the Owl and the Pussycat too – an unlikely pairing in real life, but one we are glad to see get together in a poem. Edward Lear’s creatures are often in some way outsiders, odd and isolated, just as Lear seems to have been...

There’s a story told of the sixth century Irish saint, St Kevin, a man known for his feats of heroic prayerfulness. He was a hermit who lived in a cave by the side of Glendalough, a lake in County Wicklow. According to legend, at the beginning of Lent one year, Kevin settled down to pray. He stretched out his hands, as he was wont to do, and sank deep into prayer. So deep was his prayer, that he didn’t notice when a blackbird landed on his hand. So deep was his prayer that he didn’t notice either when she flew away and came back again with a twig in her mouth. So deep was his prayer, in fact that he didn’t notice her going to and fro for all that day, hour after hour, bringing twig after twig, weaving them together.

("There are a growing number of homeless and working poor in the Montrose area. Real people who also do not have ready access to medical and mental health care. In the past few weeks, I've heard these people, these real people-some of whom are adults, some of whom are teenagers, and some of whom are children-referred to as cattle, referred to as rats, as worthless human beings...")

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