East of Eden: Liverpool

She limps up Brownlow Hill,

collar loose,

black shirt now greying—

bearing the weight of thirty years

spent wrestling with grace.

She was in the first wave—

back when a woman

at the altar

felt like a whispered rebellion.

In a vicarage too big,

its walls biting cold in winter—

though at least there’s CCTV.

A mile or so from the city,

surrounded by shuttered shops,

smiles missing teeth,

and the low hum of sirens

that never quite fade away.

House for duty—

though most days it can feel

like exile wrapped in loyalty.

She pours tea at Chapter,

nods politely while someone fresh

from theological college

quotes Bonhoeffer or Barth

between bites of focaccia.

She wants to say,

“Try a week in Kensington,

then we’ll talk discipleship.”

This Priest

passes Lime Street,

where a busker belts out

‘Let It Be’

a voice weathered

but surprisingly in tune.

She slips a quid in his case,

murmurs a blessing neither believes

will change much—

but speaks it anyway.

By Bold Street,

she talks with a working girl

in leopard-print tights,

a smile like stone—

hard,

sharp,

kind.

They talk footie.

-The Reds were playing last night

Then faith.

“You’re sound, Rev,” she says.

She laughs as her friend lights a cig,

must’ve been a payday,

if not it’s rollies or dimps.

Sometimes ministry smells

of cheap perfume,

tobacco,

and second chances,

third chances,

and many more.

She visits a refugee family

in Toxteth—

carrying a bag from the foodbank

and colouring books,

listening to a father

tell his story in broken English,

unbroken sorrow.

She loves this city—

loves the people,

likes most of them,

the grit and the grin,

the two cathedrals:

the big stone lad on the hill,

and Paddy’s Wigwam—

spiky and strange,

like a prayer that never quite settled.

She’s always called it that—

everyone used to.

But now she wonders:

can she still say that?

Or is it the kind of thing

you quietly retire?

This priest aint woke—

not in the tick tock

and twitter sense.

She’s from the school

of bruised compassion,

where mercy is earned

in messy rooms,

not performed online.

The Liver Building looms—

a cathedral of capitalism,

history and empire,

stone birds staring seaward,

wings frozen in time.

She wonders what they’ve seen,

and what they’re still waiting for.

She imagines them as Wild Geese,

Spirit brooding and

watching the city of Scouse.

This Priest gave her youth to the Church—

Sunday school with flannelgraph,

wrote sermons on borrowed typewriters,

baptised babies

who now bury their own.

What’s left?

A leaking roof.

A pension that doesn’t stretch.

Still,

each Sunday,

she stands in a draughty nave

with fifteen faithful,

and a broken sound system.

Believe it or not,

there’s still an overhead projector

in the corner—

no money for the fancy kit

they have at the resource church.

Doesn’t matter.

It really is okay.

Her ministry isn’t planting.

It isn’t even growth,

in the numbers sense.

It’s to stay—

to offer palliative care

to a dying church—

so they die well,

in the faith,

in this parish.

She lifts the bread

like it matters.

Like he still shows up.

Like this—

this tired giving—

isn’t for nothing.

And when she says,

“This is my body, broken for you,”

she means it.

Every syllable.

Every crack in her voice.

Every part of her

still believing,

mostly,

in a Kingdom

just

round

the corner.

-Rev'd Jon Swales, pt. of the East of Eden series

This is a poem not based on any one priest or parish in particular, but it draws attention to those who serve faithfully in urban places.