CHURCHcafe:
The Reverend Mark Mills
Name:- Kenneth David Hanson
Biography :- 82 years old. Widower. Family grown and left, live alone. Active Church member. I Compile a weekly news/service sheet for the Parish -Four churches-
Born in a mining village in UK in the year of the Wall Street Crash. Poverty was 
then as bad as now in third world. Youngest of 8 kids. Father died when I was 6. Was agnostic until 18yrs old. Converted by a revelation. Looked at many Christian groups but couldn’t identify with any. Drafted into Army at age 21, five years after WW2 ended. Served in occupied Germany based in the old SS barracks at Bergen-Belsen (Extermination Camp). Patrolled the Border of East Germany (River Elbe) facing Soviet forces. Learned to fear all military, whatever their origin.
Felt directed to join Church of England, despite not approving much of the teachings and liturgy. Met and married a wonderful church-girl. My whole life was changed and directed by the Lord and my wife. Starting with NOTHING, I became a qualified engineering design draughtsman, then Chief Designer of a major company, then Instructional Officer in the Civil Service training engineer\designers for the Government.
Retired 1992 as Deputy Manager of Government rehabilitation unit, re-training injured/disabled workers to take up work suitable to their physical condition.
TENSES - Past - Present - Future.
As an old man, 82 years,
I’m clearly well on the approach road to the grave,
future is of prime importance to me.
Jesus actually told us very little about the resurrection.
-- There is room in The Father’s home for every one of us.
-- There is neither marrying or giving in marriage.
-- That’s about it.
That last bit concerns me.
I’m a widower,
still hurting three years on from the scar
where death broke the bond that man could not “put asunder”.
I hope very much to meet again
that brave,clean and sparkling soul
that used to be my wife.
This poem is my love song to her
About HOMEWARD BOUND –
When I was agnostic I didn’t Think I could be converted. I thought that if it DID happen I would be given the answers to all those awful questions I myself kept asking. Well the LORD decided I should be converted but I had to realize, along with Job in the Bible, that THE LORD doesn’t explain himself. I was looking for The LORD without realizing it, and all my subsequent experience suggests that ALMOST CIVILIZED PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR HIM TOO.
My Poem examines that situation. The germ of inspiration came at a New Year celebration where a group of “Old Uns” (you would say “Good old boys”) were singing a song that always figures in England where an inebriated gathering is
splitting up. I quote the lyrics of the song above the poem.
Oh we all go the same way home
All the old collection; in the same direction.
we all go the same way home
There’s no need to part at all.
we all go the same way home
Let’s be gay and hearty; don’t break up the party
We’ll stick together like the Ivy on the old garden wall
- Early 20th Century Drinking Song
HOMEWARD BOUND
Oh! They’re not writing creeds like they used to, a saint simply won’t seem to sell.
A martyr’s a drug on the market, there’s retail resistance to hell.
We dispense our disposable doctrines; our mass-produced maxims expound,
But it’s instant, or plastic, or factory-farmed, or there isn’t enough to go round.
Whilst the sexton sighs happily,
follow me, follow me,
quite cheery-chap-ily
follow me, follow me
Warily, wearily. Charily, cheerily?
Follow me, follow me home.
Then we‘re all standing clear of the exit but we won’t put a guard on the door.
Our heads have been lifted in ethics so long
there’s scant room for our feet on the floor
And the patter of powerless, pitiless feet is an awesome, earth-shattering roar.
But we’re still not prepared to go home.
Though the trumpet plays merrily,
“follow me, follow me,
Verily, verily:
follow me, follow me.
Humanity’s malady, Easter isle tragedy,
Follow me, follow me home.”
So! We’ll hope the potential spermatozoa hear
What the seed of the seed of the ultimate ovary knew
And relent.
So that we who are sentient before conception:
We who begin in the blackness behind the birth
Holding the power of unfolding inviolate “it“
Seeking no part in the art of the infinite “I”
Sensing the fates that await the eventual “is”
Turn, petulant, back from the threshold of “am” and know------
And know that “as it was in the beginning”,
(here it comes the old familiar strain)
Know that “as I was in the beginning”,
(hear them mutter the chorus once again)
Is now? Is now!
Am now? Am now!
and?
AND?
AND
And they’re calling time in the temples; the take-away tankards are full,
The verities stand all hands to the pump,
but they’re lacking a mandate to pull.
The linkmen are kindling candles, Jerusalem, Mecca and Rome.
So like it or lump it it’s sup it and hop it and follow me, follow me home.
Seek it: try it: feel it: buy it
Grumble and stumble me home.
‘Cos we all go the same way
follow me? follow me?
Hapless the same way,
follow me? follow me?
Flat-foot reluctantly: tail-in-trunk helplessly:
follow me, follow me home.
You didn’t know but it’s December.
The day isn’t fit for a dog.
You scorned to go home in the daylight. Right?
So feel your way home in the fog.
The atrophied id has to render:
the petrified creed bear the call
Skin of our teeth through the blithering fog.
Damned lucky to get home at all.
So we all came the shame way.
Couldn’t we? Shouldn’t we?
Fault, guilt and blame way.
Wouldn’t we? Didn’t we?
Shallow me: hollow me.
Sip, chew and swallow me
Father me
Gather me
HOME
And now, though time-fettered feet falter,
as question-marks fade to full stop;
take up a place at the altar,
Behind it, before or on top