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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Harry Baker

Good morning.

I recently wrote a poem for my wife Grace for our sixth anniversary. I had written her a poem for our first three anniversaries and then claimed to have two ‘fallow years’ so I wanted this one to be really good, and because the associated gift for six years is sugar I started writing a very sweet poem about sticky toffee pudding because just like Grace, it is delicious and warm.

As I started writing my very sincere and lovely poem, I began to feel the familiar temptation to also slip in some ridiculous puns. The more earnest the poem got, the more outrageous the puns that followed. For every: Just like the letter Y, I want to end each day with you, there was a Like a rock climbing enthusiast, you help me to feel bolder just around the corner.

My initial solution was to create a separate burner poem where these lines could exist without undermining the sanctity of the original, and yet all this meant was that I ended up being as proud of this silly second poem as I was the first, and so presented both to Grace in the hope that it would by me another year’s breathing space.

And yet love isn’t just the sincere bits. It is silly and it it is ridiculous as much as is it heartfelt and romantic, and if anything it is the combination of the two that makes it so special, so there is now a new third poem that combines the above two. This is a bit of a theme in my life at the moment, as having come through a difficult period I had been determined to focus only on joyful things, before realising in fact it is the sharing in our difficulties that makes the joy so much deeper when it does come, and it is the combination of the two once again that makes life so special.

Dear God, thank you for the wonderful spectrum that is life. Thank you that you give us both the light and the dark, and people to share it with. We pray that in those moments of hardship we can be brave enough to ask for help, and in those moments of triumph we can find people to celebrate alongside, and in amongst it all that we remember to be ridiculous and silly too.

Amen