I am tiny,
only about six years’ old.
I stand before Jesus,
looking up at him.
I tug at his garment.
Jesus looks down,
sees me there,
smiles
and gets down on his knees
so that he’s right at my level.
I look into his twinkling eyes
and say,
“Will you teach me to sing
without fear?”
Jesus grins and says,
“Of course!
And don’t worry,
it’s just like learning to ride a bike!”
© Claire Murray
One day last February
I lost my voice.
I couldn’t call to my children.
I could barely speak to my husband.
I couldn’t sing to My God.
One day last March
I sat in the café at the City Hall
with my two girls.
I missed my voice so much
and had no idea
when it would return.
I felt overwhelmed
by a deep sense of loss
and silent tears began to fall.
My two girls chorused,
“Mummy, don’t cry!”
I was mortified.
When I got home
I went to bed –
the only place in a busy house
where I could cry in peace.
Last March for me
me was a month of long, dark days.
I struggled.
This is March, St Patrick’s Day
and as I drove home from Derry
my heart soared.
It’s March
and I can call to my children!
It’s March
and I can speak to my husband!
It’s March
and I can sing to My God!
This March for me
is a month to give thanks
and to celebrate
and to laugh
and to proclaim,
“LIFE IS GOOD!”
© Claire Murray
I have a sense of myself
as a small girl
in my own garden
learning how to ride
my big two wheeler bike.
This takes concentration.
Most of the time
my cycling is fine now,
but occasionally I still wobble.
My God, My Daddy has been teaching me.
He stands in the middle of the garden
looking on in delight
at the progress I have made.
Eventually I finish my laps of the garden
and sit down beside My Daddy in the sun.
He has something to say.
“Claire, you’re a big girl now
and you know how to ride your bike.
It’s time for you now
to leave the safety of the garden.
Cycling’s not easy, you know.
You’ll encounter hills
which will be great fun to go down
but really difficult to climb.
When that happens,
you just have to remember
to keep pedalling.”
“The other important thing to remember
is that no matter how big you grow
you’ll still be my wee girl
and I’ll still be your Daddy,
looking out for you.”
My Daddy opens the gate
and I cycle out,
a little wobbly, a little scared
but determined
because cycling is something
that I really want to do.
© Claire Murray
You sit in the town square,
talking to your friends.
I approach
and stand at a distance
with my hands in my pockets.
You look up, see me
and smile.
Then you gesture for me
to come over.
“What brings you here today, Claire?”
you ask, smiling.
I hold out my hand which is tiny
as I am only a child.
In it are two pebbles.
One of them is purple,
the other turquoise.
Both are rounded and smooth.
They are tiny, but beautiful.
You examine them
in my hand.
“These look beautiful,” you say,
“special, even. Tell me about them.”
“These are the things
that I can do,” I reply.
“The blue one
is the way that I can sing.
The purple one
is the way that I can write.
I only found out recently
that I can do these things.
I didn’t know before.”
I shrug my shoulders
and look down at the ground,
embarrassed.
“Isn’t that a great discovery!”
you exclaim.
“You’ve found your talents!”
You pause for a moment
and then you say,
“Have you decided
what you are going to do with them?”
“I want to give them to you,”
I reply.
I hold out my hand
and you carefully pick up
the two stones
“Let me think about this,” you say,
and you close your eyes
for a few minutes.
When you open them you say,
“Claire, I’m delighted
that you have finally discovered the talents
that my Daddy gave to you
and I love the way
that you are prepared
to give them to me.
I would love to use your talents.
But I want to ask you something.
Will you look after them for me?
Will you hold onto them for now
and when I need to use them
I’ll come to you
and I’ll let you know?
I nod.
I lift the two pebbles
back out of your hand
and return them to my pocket.
Then we sit side by side,
contentedly in the sun.
© Claire Murray
Today at Mass
as I prepared to sing for God
I glanced over my shoulder
and saw Cuan,
our youngest folk group member
standing among the grown-ups.
Cuan is only three.
He was dwarfed by the adults who stood
on either side of him.
He looked so tiny
and so serious
and yet so determined to play his part
in the folk group.
And I realised,
“That is how God sees me
right now
as I prepare, nervously,
to sing for Him.
He looks at me,
a precious child of His, and thinks,
“Awwww!”
The nerves faded
and I felt ready to sing
for my God,
my Daddy.
© Claire Murray
Claire speaks:
It’s one of those
Lord-I-am-not-worthy-days
I try so hard
but I just don’t seem to be able
to put my trust in you
the way that I would like to.
I try not to,
but I worry and fret about things
that never materialize.
And I scold myself saying,
“You see, you shouldn’t have been
worrying about that!”
I know that, Lord.
I try not to,
but fail.
I feel devastated by my failure,
yet another reminder
of how I proved unable to trust in you.
I feel so disappointed in myself.
I long to place my trust in you
and then I fall at the first hurdle.
It’s not you who’s the problem, Lord;
it’s me.
I know that you love me
completely,
that you accept me
exactly as I am.
The trouble is …
… I don’t.
I turn my back on myself
in my disappointment.
I reject myself.
I feel like a failure.
Lord, please help me to love myself
just the way I am.
God replies:
Claire,
never lose sight of the fact
that with me
it’s the thought that counts.
You tried your hardest
to place your trust in me.
That’s all that I wanted.
What I need
is for you to give me the gift
of you trying your best.
When you really try to do something
for me
then you have given me
the raw material that I need
to my work,
to fulfil my purposes –
you have given me the precious gift
of your will.
You came before me at Mass today,
disappointed in yourself,
feeling that what you had to offer me
was something wholly insignificant.
You pictured yourself presenting to me
a total mess,
all that you had to show
for your best efforts.
I didn’t see a mess,
I saw something precious,
of incredible beauty
that held all the more splendour
for the fact that you were blind to it.
Do you remember how Niamh
used to sacrifice one of her favourite crisps
and would present it to you
smiling, as you were
in the middle of a phone call?
Do you remember how touched you were
by that gesture?
By the fact that she had taken something
that was precious to her
and had let you have it instead?
Do you remember how your heart swelled with love
at the gesture?
Do you remember how you smiled to yourself
as you accepted each damp crisp
and munched it immediately,
mouthing to her
that the crisp was lovely
because that was what Niamh wanted you to do?
And do you remember
why each crisp was damp?
Because your wee Niamh,
full of the best of intentions,
had been unable to resist the temptation
to lick all of the flavour off each crisp
before presenting it, as a gift, to you!
Was her gift of a crisp
any less precious to you?
Didn’t you just think
that your wee Niamh
was simply wonderful?
Didn’t you think
how blessed you were
to have a daughter who displayed
such love and generosity?
Didn’t you think
that your Niamh was great?
When you knelt before me
at Mass today
and presented to me
the precious gift
of your best effort,
my heart swelled with love and pride
and I was delighted
with My Claire.
Claire,
your best is always
good enough for me.
Remember that you’re not supposed
to do everything on your own;
that’s why I’m here.
Be at peace.
Rest in my love,
always.
(c) Claire Murray
Lord,
I heard your voice today!
I heard it, I really did!
Aoife bounced into the kitchen,
delighted with her afternoon in town
and told me,
“Mammy
I saw a poster in town today
and it made me think of you.
It said,
‘Sing as if no-one is listening!’
And I just thought of you!”
And that was you, Lord,
your voice speaking to me
through Aoife’s lips.
You were right, Lord,
sure aren’t you always?
That’s it in a nutshell,
what I’ve been working on
for months,
expressed so precisely, so accurately
by 15 year-old Aoife.
That’s where I need to be,
singing as if no-one is listening.
I managed it the first time,
do you remember?
Fr David had said to me,
“Forget that anyone is listening.
Forget that I am listening to you.”
And on that first day
I was able to do that,
to sing as if no-one was listening,
except you, of course!
I feel as if I’ve been climbing a mountain
in the mist
and the mist has just lifted
and I look around
and I’ve reached the place
where I wanted to be
without realising it.
I’ve been here for a while
and couldn’t see it.
So I plant my flag on this peak
with Aoife’s help.
It says on it,
“Sing as if no-one’s listening …
… except God”.
(c) Claire Murray