I used some Christmas Book Tokens to buy a poem called “Let Them Eat Chaos” by Kate Tempest. she takes us to one street in the early hours of the morning – 4:18 to be precise and tells the moment for 7 people awake in the night; their thoughts, fears, worries, concerns, confusion. It’s a brilliant poem wonderfully portraying the way we live parallel disconnected lives – lost in our own thoughts, emotions and experiences, perceiving life in very different ways.

For these seven people there is a brief moment  – a passing storm draws them into the street,

Strangely dressed, one shoe and one slipper, socks falling off, smiling,

gathering slowly, tentatively in the middle of the road.

Shielding their eyes at first

but then

tipping their necks back, unhunching their shoulders

opening their bodies up to

the storm

And their hair is flattened against their heads

or puffed madly outwards

And their hands

slip off their chins and cheeks

as they clutch their faces

open mouthed

Amazing! they shout

You seen?! they shout ….

And in the morning when it’s over and they start their days as usual

They will be aware of this baptism in a distant way.

It will become a thing they carry close like the photo of a dead parent

tucked away in the inside pocket

Fading like the heartbeat.

It is in such shared moments that communities are formed and grow together. It is why it is so important to come together to share the storms and the sunshine. When Jesus calls disciples, they are not called into isolation – but into community with one another, they are not called to be separate from the world, but in and of and part of the world – eating the chaos together.

Kate Tempest concludes;

The myth of the individual

Has left us disconnected     lost

and pitiful.

I’m out in the rain

it’s a cold night in London

Screaming at my loved ones

to wake up and love more.

Pleading with my loved ones to

wake up

and love more.

Amen to that, Craig