Lent is with us now, but something else distracts and occupies
Our hearts and minds, another land, where trauma bites, a small child cries
An aerial bombardment, and sharp explosions fill the night
A people underground, too scared to brave the grey of morning light
While supermarket shelves see vital foodstuffs dwindle, fade away
And desperate people seek enough to make it through another day
A place of churches, homes and farms and factories, I little knew
Its history till now, a place the world’s concern is pointed to
A land of plains and golden spires and crosses carries now the scar
Of brutal conflict, while a world looks on in horror from afar,
But now the Lenten season makes me stop and wait and slow and pause
And think, is any simmering conflict down to me, am I the cause?
It urges me to strip back, change tack, take my cross, the desert way
Examine what is flawed or wrong in what I think and do and say
And take a cue from those whose faith sustains them in their hour of need
And let it be for me a flame of hope, of courage fresh, a seed.

For BBC local stations & Premier Christian Radio