50) Old ghosts
Last week, and quite out of the blue, I received a card in the post from my sister, containing a poem of mine in my old neat handwriting. She’d recently visited with our aunt who, as it turns out, had been holding on to that poem I had written as a teenager back in 1985. I did remember the title of the poem, but not much else. My sister writes, “[Aunty] Jill said she had held onto it as it was so special, to both her and nanny.” I should point out; the poem itself is nothing special. Though reading it again did bring a rush of memories and feelings – about family, and growing-up, and hopes and dreams. I took the poem with me to Mt Gambier last week, so I could sit with it as I passed the lonely hours in my hotel room. And, like a window into the past, a time capsule, I came face-to-face with the longing of this 15-year-old kid laid bare.
I wonder, what would I say to that young Olly – now that forty years have come and gone, and imparted their hard-earned wisdom, such as it is? I wonder what I would say if I came face to face with the teenage me, now that I know how his story continues?
Andrea Gibson died last week. They were my favourite contemporary poet. Their poem Angels of the Get-Through literally saved my friend’s life once. I’m not surprised – there are lines of poems and songs and Scripture that have saved my life too, a hundred times or more. Andrea’s words have never ceased to amaze and inspire me, as well as inform me in ministry. I remember being on my first solo holiday after my divorce a decade ago in Asheville, North Carolina. I was there to see the fall colours, with Chris Pureka on my iPod, and a copy of Andrea’s Pole-dancing to Gospel Hymns in my lap. I read Andrea’s poems Shine and Say yes, then headed out, eyes-wide with hope and possibility and wonder, to see the colours of the mountains.
There’s nothing brilliant or remarkable about my own poem that my aunt had treasured – it won’t save a life or inspire an audience like Andrea’s words can. But all the same, three little phrases in the poem have made themselves keenly felt this past fortnight: the poem asks
“what strange calling brought me this far…?”
Throughout my 20s and 30s there were moments when I felt a profound calling into a life in ministry. I mostly brushed it to one side on account of the church’s lamentable treatment of the LGBTQ+ community. Nevertheless, those moments of gold still came: I remember a freezing-cold winter retreat with the Franciscans in Dorset; watching my brother’s ordination to the priesthood; an unexpected pilgrimage to Rocamadour. This golden thread continuing across the years until, on a silent retreat with the Benedictines at Camperdown in my mid-40s, I realised that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. But was there really a sense of it even when I was a teenager?
I think of those words in Jeremiah, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.” Or those words of David, “My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret… And in Your book were written all the days that were ordained for me.” Was that calling already at work in those young years? And what does that say about God’s patience with me.
The poem continues, speaking of “that heavenly presence that lifted me just so high to hear the birds singing.”
I remember the morning I spent prayerfully watching the blue fairy wrens hop around the gardens at Camperdown. That was the morning I decided to follow this calling. Those birds were my witness. I would indeed follow, and my first place of ministry would be a prison; its grey cement and metal and tarmac and lack of birdsong such a far cry from the serenity of Camperdown. In my second prison though, I watched the martins build their nests and raise their young under the eaves of the building where families and visitors would come to see their fathers and brothers and partners.
I remember a walk last year in Hardy’s Scrub. When hiking, my eyes are usually towards the ground and the orchids that I may spy, but a photographer, stationary and with a long lens on her camera, gave me reason to stop and look up. There, on a nearby branch, was a golden whistler. Its distinct song, once heard, is never forgotten.
I think of those words of Scripture, “The blossoms have already appeared in the land; the time has arrived for pruning the vines, and the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.” Or how “the birds lift up their voices from among the branches.” Have the songbirds – with their dawn cacophony, and their quieter chorus at dusk as they lay down their day, and with their innate understanding of time and seasons – have they been an ever-present witness to the seasons of my life?
My poem continues,
“when I prayed to the ceiling of my room each night…
And when I became anxious, who rested their hands upon my head and gave me peace?”
I was always an anxious child. I was never quite the same after some bullying during Year 8. Even then I guess, the other kids at school had spotted something different about me. Different enough to make me a target for their hate. By the time I wrote this poem, this timid teenager had brought that “difference” and its associated sorrows and bullying to God in prayer each night. Paul took the thorn in his flesh three times to the Lord in prayer. I saw Paul’s three times, and I raised him the thousand times I prayed… I am trying to remember: did that young Olly really know peace? I can look back and testify to moments of peacefulness, but I can also point to the moments in the depths. There’s an Andrea Gibson poem that says,
“The trauma said, Don’t write this poem.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones.But my bones said, Tyler Clementi dove
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone.My bones said, Write the poem.”
A 15-year-old Olly wrote a poem, which though terrible, was treasured by his aunt and his nan. I wonder, did they see me for who I was on the inside? Were they in on the secret that I thought only God and I knew? Were they lifting up their own prayers for me? That I’d find a place in this world. That I’d know my evening prayers heard if not answered to the letter. That I’d one day follow this sense of calling to wherever it may lead, and find peace on that path.
If I found myself face to face with the 15-year-old me today,
I would say, the years of being on the outside-looking-in will continue, but it’ll be ok. You will be the one who spots the lonely person in a crowd, and God can use that. In fact, God will use the person you are, for good, in His kingdom.
I would say, your tender heart will break a thousand times more, but even that is a gift. Because you will take your broken heart for the outsiders, and the poor, and right now the people of Gaza… and spend your life lifting those people up in prayer. And fighting and marching and voting and speaking-out for them. And they will never *not* be remembered.
I would say, take heart and keep writing, because your poetry will improve, and you will grow more comfortable in your own skin. God is a potter, He knows the design, and it will take the whole of your lifetime to shape you.
I would say, no, you won’t ever have a wife and family of your own, and yet you will know love. In all its forms.
I would say, your best friend on the day you wrote that terrible poem as a 15-year-old will still be your best friend 40 years from now. And you will have many friends who love you, not in spite of, but because of, who you are.
I would say, you have already met some bullies. Courage! – the worst ones are yet to come. But it will be ok. They will be short chapters in a bigger story that is otherwise full of purpose and birdsong and love and friendship and joy.
And, though the 15-year-old me may not understand it or believe it, I would quote Hafez of Shiraz: “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being!”
That light is still shining. The birds still sing their songs. There’s a crowd of witnesses cheering you on.
OP, July 2025
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Scripture refs. include – Jer 1:5, Ps 139:15-16, Song 2:12, Ps 104:12, 2 Cor, 12:8-9a, Is 64:8.
“The trauma said…” taken from “The Madness Vase” by Andrea Gibson, in Pansy. Austin: Write Bloody Publishing, 2015.
“I wish I could show you” by Shamsedin-Mohammad Hafez Shirazi, https://www.holyhill.ie/hafiz-of-shiraz/
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