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Issue 03

Ordinary Saints

Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite is a poet-priest and Chaplain of Girton College Cambridge, but often travels around Great Britain, and to North America, to give lectures, concerts and poetry readings. He is the author of more than 8 books, and you can find out more about him as well as read more of his work at https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/.

The ordinary saints, the ones we know,

Our too-familiar family and friends,

When shall we see them? Who can truly show

Whilst still rough-hewn, the God who shapes our ends?

Who will unveil the presence, glimpse the gold

That is and always was our common ground,

Stretch out a finger, feel, along the fold

To find the flaw, to touch and search that wound

From which the light we never noticed fell

Into our lives? Remember how we turned

To look at them, and they looked back? That full-

-eyed love unselved us, and we turned around,

Unready for the wrench and reach of grace.

But one day we will see them face to face.

Peter S. Smith, Stage Prop (wood engraving)