1417
Guardian Angel
A little speck of God
And just for me;
Not because God needs you
As an extra hand,
But my sight's so poor
I cannot see infinity
And eyes prefer to focus
On what's near,
You're at my back, unseen,
But always there
Supporting when I faint
Cheering when I droop
Exhorting when I despair
Loving where I despise;
Lifting up my heart to sense anew
The path which always leads me back to You.
Brian Hick December 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 29.11.25
1374
Be with me, I need you by my side;
I need you even when you do not speak,
I need to know that your love will abide.
Be with me
Even when I think I'm at my peak
When everything is flowing with the tide
Or when I'm devastated and too weak
To argue for myself against the snide
Remarks, the callous ones who dub me freak.
Be with me.
Brian Hick August 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 28.8.25
1372
Switch off the CD player
Unplug the MP3
Turn off the television
Come, turn your mind to me.
Turn off that conversation
You planned but didn't make
Forget the acid put-down
Fired up to make them quake.
Cut through the endless buzzing
Of things you didn't do
Drop all the endless thinking
That stops me getting through.
For only when you're silent
When the birds begin to sing
And you hear the rabbit eating
Can I start to bring
My peace to still your yearning
My love to fill your soul
My joy to surprise you
Myself to make you whole.
Brian Hick August 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 25.8.25
1369
I will seek you where I know you'll be
Down at the water's edge, beside the sea,
Upon the cliff top, where the morning breeze
Cools the air and drifts towards the trees
Which rest in blossom and your spring's new green
Before summer's joy and those unseen,
Unnoticed moments of continuing life
Inevitably unfolding without strife.
Each tiny atom, or the eternal round,
Reflecting all that is, and all I've found
Searching for you, until you found me,
Touched my heart and set my spirit free;
And here I am, surrounded by your love,
From deep in ocean's depth to heaven above.
Brian Hick July 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 16.8.25
1252
The day is full of promise, so why not I?
The morning air is crisp, the sky is clear
The sun is pushing through the silhouette
Of winter trees, so why should I fear?
If you are in the sun and in the air,
If nothing can exist without your law,
If everything cell confirms your gift of love,
Why am I still shaken to the core?
Could it be your silence frightens me?
That knowing you are there is not enough;
Those indications of transcendent truth
Are pretty useless living in the rough
And tumble of our daily human lives
As in a moment all the world dissolves
Into a mass of contradiction, wrung
With guilt, adrift, and nothing holds.
For some maybe, faith hangs on by a thread
Hoping you are there, still in control,
While chaos laughs at our naivety
Believing that you over-arch the whole
In some comprehended innocence
Linking quantum leaps to summer rain
Answering all evils with a kiss,
All will be well, for Daddy's home again.
If only - but the silence never ends;
And faith is fragile in the face of facts
Hurled by the rationalist and scientific
To analyse potential god-like acts.
Brian Hick February 2013
©copyright Sally Hick 21.2.25
1335
Boxing Day 2013
Suddenly it's over
And the noise, and bustle and the expectation
Fade into wrapping paper, cold turkey and sprouts.
Peace, so sung about, descends
On our streets where lights still flash in silence,
Waiting for the New Year to erupt
And move us on to weeks of work,
Winter greyness and normality.
Shopping returns to the Tesco list
Of stuff we always buy,
Confounded only when they move the aisles.
And church? The slight excitement of the snow
Which trapped the preacher outside Tunbridge Wells
Is soon forgotten in the round
Of meetings, practices and minor arguments.
And Christmas? Just another passing phase -
A date, a day to get through like the rest?
Or did this Christmas shock us a bit,
Realising God is here with us,
Though we so often act
As if Jesus were for Christmas -
Not for life.
Brian Hick December 2013
©copyright Sally Hick 22.1.25
1225
I don't want to believe your miracles.
I can't accept you healed the sick and blind
But take no action in our fractured world
To halt the massacres which plague mankind.
I don't want to believe you raised the dead
Or met the prophets in a hail of light
When faith is an excuse for mutilation
And every preacher knows that he is right.
So why my hesitation, why the instinct
To pause, before I rush out to condemn
The simple and misguided who would follow
Anyone who seeks to flatter them?
Perhaps I sense your smile behind the haze
Which seems to complicate my rational ways.
Brian Hick November 2012
©copyright Sally Hick 14.10.24
1186
Magic Forest
A magic forest, so I looked for You
In the Serpent's Nest and Mystic Pond
The Indian Totem and the forest view;
But it seemed that You were far beyond
These tricks, which made me feel the You were there;
For all I found, thought pleasant, was the art
Of conjuring the surreal from the air
When all the time, You kept from me apart.
Deep in the woods the deer cropped unconcerned,
The peacocks lurked for snacks by picnic tables,
Sheep rambled the vineyards, while I yearned
To find You in the midst of ancient fables.
Then I heard you laugh - Can you not see
That everything you look upon - is Me.
Brian Hick July 2012
©copyright Sally Hick 17.6.24
1022
Psalm
You have blessed me this day
You have moved me on
To a place I had not expected.
When I despaired and was ready to give up
You waited, supported, then gave me the word
Which touched my soul.
A word so quiet I did not hear it
A word so indistinct it had no meaning
A word which pierced my soul
Without pain or comprehension.
A word which changed my heart
And then my mind
So now I am renewed
My body ready for the task
The Word has set before me.
Brian Hick September 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 24.10.23
981
I see you in the darkness of the night
I hear you in the silence of the seas
I touch you in the breeze upon the hills
I sense you in the garden, on my knees
While weeding out the plants which you have watered,
While warming chilly hands beside the fire,
While meditating on the evening sunlight
While singing cheek-by-jowl in the choir
For you have never left me when I doubted
Nor given up the fight I might have lost
When, ignorant, I thought that you had vanished,
Insisting I alone must count the cost
For all the stupid things, the selfish actions,
Which blight my memory and seek to crush
All hope of any single act of kindness
Which could alleviate the futile rush
To justify myself, when all I needed
Was simply to accept, not question why,
Your selfless love that's always here beside me
And always will be, till the day I die.
I see you in the darkness of the night
I hear you in the silence of the seas
I touch you in the breeze upon the hills
I sense you in the garden, on my knees.
Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 4.9.23
945
Where were you when he slashed his wrists
Or she lay pain-wracked on the bedroom floor?
Why are you silent when the racist twists
His blade into the innocent and poor?
Don't tell me how you feel our pain
Or suffer with us; afterall these years
Of genocide and butchery that claim
Is worthless, and it falls upon deaf ears.
Rational, we look for evidence,
For any hint your teaching might be true
But all we see and all that we can sense
Confirms the bitter fact that we will rue
The day that we were born and hope to be
By Death's kind release, from Life set free.
Brian Hick May 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 2.6.23
The next blog will be posted on Monday 12.6.23. Sally
944
If you are Love why is there so much Hate?
Free will alone cannot account for this.
I may have my moments but my state
Of mind is generally not averse
To all mankind, and I would rather seek
The loving and the kind, with compromises -
Emulate the blessed who are meek -
Than risk the isolation that despises.
Yet day by day the world seethes with the bile
Of desolation, creeds whose single aim
Is blocking any isolation while
Claiming to be acting in your name.
I am confused; if Love were really all
Why do so many fail to hear your call?
Brian Hick May 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 31.5.23
943
Isaiah Ch45 v 7
So you created evil; you agree,
Or at least that's what Isaiah says.
I'm glad that you admit it and can be
Honest with us even as you rage
Against those who ignore your claims
For straight obedience to some dubious laws
Set up by tribal elders whose real aims
Were crowd control, subverting the vile roars
Of sweaty desert yobs. But now we know
That everyting that is goes back to you
For good or ill, and all we have to show
For it are endless years of misery and woe.
How glorious that we know how to love
Despite the anger seething up above.
Brian Hick May 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 29.5.23
941
Where are you in all these words
Spilling out to fill the time
With little sense of the sublime
And even less of what occurs
Between the spaces and the joy
Of silence. Oh, when will they pause
To let a heart which here adours
The unspoken and unthought, enjoy
The richness that does not demand
An explanation or a fact,
Contented simply to react
To your spirit's soft command;
Because I need a sacred space
Unconfused by text or deeds,
Unconscious of human needs
Or even of specific place
But one where I can listen to
Your voice singing from the earth
Your music antheming the worth
Of everything that's born anew.
Brian Hick May 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 24.5.23
911
If I accept that I can never know
Any more than this small human brain,
With its hardwired synaptic flow,
Can compass in the brief years that remain,
How on earth can I make sense of you
Who saturate my soul and fill my heart
With joy, beyond my meagre means to show,
And love's uncomprehended, enearned dart?
Words alone can only go so far
Confusing at the instant that they reach
A willing ear, where cold semantics jar
The mind, searching beyond what words might teach
And all the while the universe runs on
In conscious hope, as when it first begun.
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 17.3.23
909
You are the elsewhere that has come to me
The un-thought thought, unreasonable rhyme,
Sudden unexpected inspriration,
Illogically divorced from place and time;
And yet you sing to me of chance perfection,
Of hope that goes beyond the written word
Turning all our plans and expectations
Into a dream which laughs at the absurd.
Why would I want to pin down this elation
With law and ritual meanly devised
By narrow-minded human misconception
Of all that is, because it's not espied
By scientific means or interception,
When all I need is streaming from the skies?
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 13.3.23
893
Now I need no words to speak to you
Writing this seems somewhat out of line
But being human, even though I see through
Ther verbage, I need to take my time
Moving away from what I thought I've known,
Even if I abondoned it erstwhile
As infantile fantasy, hoping that I'd grown
Out of comfortable habits which beguile
But simply cannot pass the acid test,
The rational and scientific stare,
Which easily dismisses any quest
For actual answers to a well aimed prayer;
But then, of course, prayer's just pie-in-the-sky
To those who have not taught their souls to fly.
Brian Hick Feb 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 27.1.23
892
Enfolded in Love
At last I can address you as my God
Without concern, for we know what we mean,
I feel no need to struggle or explain
What lies beyond mere words, which may seem odd
To intellectuals or those who insist
On disecting life up to the point
Where it has vanished and dismembered joints
Lie bleeding, meaningless, for they have missed
The beauty of the whole which was far more
Than simply an enlisting of its parts
And all scientific tools and arts
Cannot encompass that which I adore.
I looked for you, but looked in the wrong place,
Until you caught me up in Love's embrace.
Brian Hick February 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 26.1.23
On hearing yet another Unitarian Sermon
Such patronising sanctimonious twaddle will not do.
It's not just that Richard Dawkins is correct, it's more - Oh who
Will stand up to the gross semantic foggy fields thay sway
With elephantine language that knows it must have its way
And insist that its 'religion' with its liberal ideas
Is different from conservative beliefs which still adhere
To otherness and God-ness outside of all that is,
As if our quantum theory allows for this abyss,
Regurgitating of a mis-thought botch of naff beliefs
As if the Field theory can contain their god; good grief
Can't they see that we need to abandon all this chaff -
Or maybe we should just lie back and give ourselves a laugh?
Brian Hick 19.7.09
©copyright Sally Hick 16.7.22
