At Messy Church yesterday we celebrated Pentecost a little early. Thanks to Noortje Bruins for the photos at the end of this post — sorry some are a little blurry — taken on her iPad. For more info about our bi-monthly Messy Church services, click here.

We had an excellent turnout of people of all ages, and I mean all. The youngest under 2 years, the oldest ?? let’s say late 80s. Messy Church is inter-generational quality time, something that many people miss out on in modern life. The late NZ poet Joy Cowley wrote this about the holy vocation of parents:

Family hymn

While the Angelus breaks the evening air
and prayers wash through cloisters,
Christ makes waves in his bath
and wants to know
if tiger sharks have fur.

While the scholar sits in awe
over an ancient manuscript,
tracking the history of his faith,
Christ nestles against her mother
and tells from a book held upside down,
a story about some clowns
who make rainbows out of icecream.

While the priest at his desk,
somewhere between the front door
and the telephone,
writes another homily on love
and wonders if someone remembered
to repair the lectern microphone,
Christ comes sleepy and a little tearful
into his parents’ bed
and says, as he plants cold feet
on his father’s back,
“I love you a big much, Daddy.”

While pilgrims journey
from shrine to shrine
on a long and well-blessed path,
Christ, laughing, takes her parents’ hands
and shows them the short-cut to holiness.

[From Aotearoa Psalms: Prayers of a New People]