A Lament for a Secular Age

Grieve for the thirst we no longer feel,

for the hunger numbed by constant feasting.

Name the beauty

 now hidden from our sight,

the mystery we have

trampled underfoot.

Search for the holy

 we have silenced;

for in searching,

our hearts may break—

and in breaking,

begin to heal.

I am old enough to remember

when the world spoke.

When dawn was not just light on a clockface,

but promise renewed.

When rain was a blessing,

and a loaf on the table

was miracle enough.

Meaning was not hunted—

it found us,

wrapped in the ordinary.

But we have stripped the voice from the earth.

We treat sky and soil as figures to be calculated,

not gifts to be cherished.

Our hands are quick to take,

slow to tend.

We speak of ethics

but forget the awe that gives them life.

We live in houses full of things

and call it abundance,

yet we are lonely even in our feasts.

Still—

I see the holy stubbornness of grace:

in the shy smile of a stranger,

in the trembling refrain of an old hymn,

in a grandchild’s laugh

as yet untouched by despair.

These moments pierce me,

and I wonder if hope

is not entirely gone.

Let us turn,

while there is time,

to the older ways—

slower,

smaller,

rooted in reverence.

Let us learn again the art of blessing

and the discipline of restraint.

Let us tell stories

that will outlive us,

and plant trees whose fruit we will never taste.

And so I pray:

though my eyes may not see it,

may theirs—

my grandchildren,

and theirs after them—

walk again in a world

where bread is broken with thanks,

and the stars sing over fields

no hand has claimed.

- Rev’d Jon Swales

Aug 2025, Pembrokeshire