This ground is good for growing,
And firm enough to build up high.
The bedrock was laid and made in
Covenantal love when we believed
That what we might be together was
Far greater than what we could become
Alone.

For it is not good for the (wo)man to be alone,
And yet as we grow in this our garden
We find that fruitfulness and entanglement,
Joy and sorrow, laughter and tears,
Are the landscape which shapes and constrains
Our life of love, and which creates both the
Shafts of light and the long shadows of each day.

But this ground is good for growing;
The soil enriched by the fertilisation
Of all those things which have to die in us,
And firm enough to build up high,
If only we would choose to dream our dreams,
And then wake and make them our reality.

The hills heave with pent up praise, and
The rivers roll forth, flowing with many waters,
cleansing and refreshing.
The clouds form and transform with grace as they
slow dance across their skyblue stage,
Whilst the trees reach higher heavenwards
in extended embrace.
The rocks crag their outcrops of ordered
beauty and form; ageless bedrock now overgrown
with evergreen life.
They say that all of nature is groaning
Like a woman about to give birth,
And when that genesis moment happens
we will all see and hear creation’s song performed
in full glorious chorus and rainbow colour,
So that all that was wrong will then be made right,
And join the Song of Songs which began long ago,
When, in love, what is now was first made,
And which, in love, will one day be renewed.

Who celebrated the day of my birth?
Was it like I was the only child,
Or was I just another one?
As I shared my life with brothers
Who had already taken their place,
Was there a place for me?
Was I ever going to make my mark
Or did my arrival go largely unnoticed?

I saw you from the start.
When two tiny cells first joined
And began a chain reaction of life,
I was there.
Your unformed body, your unthought
Thoughts, your unconscious awareness:
I was present and you knew me there.
As you grew I breathed my life-giving
Breath into you and knitted each strand
Of your DNA together until you were
Uniquely you; flesh of your parents’ flesh
And bone of their bone, but still you.
I watched you and I loved you and
I saw to it that you were safely held
Until the day you would be birthed.
On that day I sang over you and
There was joy throughout the cosmos.
I held you in those moments when
Your mother laid you down so that
You were never not held,
And my presence always with you.