What is The Green Chapel?
Featuring original essays, poems, reflections and prayers, The Green Chapel is a bi-monthly(ish) newsletter from poet Gideon Heugh.
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For a flavour of what to expect, here’s one of Gideon’s poems:
Lines in defence of an un-augmented reality
1
Let's start with the basics, like the fact
that we have been given lips to kiss with
(a pause here to dwell on this, and smile
that smile—you know the one I mean.)
There isn't much that a machine could tell you
about the taste of your lover's skin,
or the way the night sky feels
as it sings into your eyes,
or how love is all ache and miracle
and softness and anguish.
Could anything other than a soul
tell you why grief is worth it?
2
A screen can do a lot of things,
but this morning, as my daughter and I
counted the different types of bee
visiting the lavender, I swear
that out of the corner of my eye
I could see Christ stretching out upon the grass.
An app can improve your productivity,
but do not mistake that for improving your life.
Remember how much you laughed that night?
Remember how that sunrise
made you change your mind?
Remember how good that cheesecake was?
There is no substitute for looking into their eyes.
You can neither replace nor imitate the thumb
that brushes the tear away from your cheek,
or the healing that arrives slowly
when you take yourself into the more green
and brightening airs
(and that beautiful discovery—
that you too are part of this luminosity).
3
You look to the dawn, and music is drifting
from the trees, and the horizon is a sigh of hope,
and any time that you like
you could tell someone that you love them.
Do not let anything convince you
that this gift we have is not enough.
I know you will have shared a meal with friends
and thought, ‘This is what life is about.’
Friend, this is what life is about.
The sages tell us that the spiritual journey
is one of subtraction.
If only we would stop burying the immensities
beneath layers of augmentation.
Gideon Heugh
A little note to say…
I won’t be putting The Green Chapel behind a paywall. I believe that poetry and ideas about God and other beautiful things should be as accessible to as many people as possible. Having said that, I am an independent artist, so I need all the support I can get! If you’re able to make a small contribution to my work, I’d be incredibly grateful. It will help me to keep doing what I’m doing, and keep it free. Just click the button below. Thank you, GH.
