Green Patches

Pop!

" ‘Whizz pop whizz pop pop pop poppety pop pop,’ faster and ever so much faster flew the pancakes. Thicker and thicker. Bigger and bigger. They came out flatways and edgeways. They shot high in the air and stuck to the ceiling. One sailed across the room and hit the Vicar in the waistcoat, where it may or may not have reminded him of the ironholders for the South Crashbania natives. Pop poppety, pop pop pop. It was like a machine gun but much more sploshy. The Professor struggled out of his pancake just in time for another one to drop over him. Two pancakes were on the clock, four were draped over the light. The Mayor was eating his way through a complete set of pancakes of varying sizes that had fallen in front of him. The four firemen put their helmets on and brandished their axes, but only succeeded in smashing two cups, one saucer and the sugar basin. Mrs Flittersnoop put her head gingerly out from under the table and was immediately gummed to the carpet by a three-foot pancake two inches thick that had just shot out.”
From The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter

 

 My favourite pancake-making scenario: A recycled recycled recycled blog for Shrove Tuesday.

 

Lent approacheth

 

 - Bruce Munro's 'Light Shower' at Salisbury Cathedral, January 2011

 

 When Classic FM begins to slip  Gregorio Allegri's Miserere mei Deus  into their playlist, you know that Lent can't be far behind.  So continuing the theme of my last post, here's another Lenten themed recycled Greenpatch: my account of a Grand Day Out a year ago to see artist Bruce Munro's Light Shower and Water Tower's installations at Salisbury Cathedral.

Recycled Greenpatches - Psalm 51

 

From February 2008 - Psalm 51.

Challenges

Ah the joys - of the Worldwide Web!  Being aware that Holy Week is approaching, I found a couple of blog entries in my feedreader this morning that  challenged me.

First off, as one who loves to wade around in personality-type theory like Myers-Briggs MBTI and the Enneagram, infpBlog's reflections on making relationships in  'special is as special does.'  packed a punch. I'll not quote any of it here; just go read the piece in its entirety. 

Then to Maggi Dawn and 'Fast? Slow!'

"Spirituality that bears fruit is not a fast food business. You can try to make the Kingdom of Heaven more efficient if you want to; you can try and maximize effort and produce more fruit per hour of work. But in the end, like growing wheat, real spiritual growth has an optimum speed, and accelerating the growth and maximizing the harvest will be about as much good for the soul as fast food is for the body. Some things just take time..."

Read the rest here.  Nothing revolutionary, simply  that some of us need reminding more than others. I think  these reflections should be made compulsory reading for all New Christians, Old Christians and Plodding Along  The Road Inbetween Christians.

Darkness and thin places

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
        Whom shall I fear?
        The Lord is the strength of my life;
        Of whom shall I be afraid?
        When the wicked came against me
        To eat up my flesh,
        My enemies and foes,
        They stumbled and fell.  
    Though an army may encamp against me,         My heart shall not fear;

        Though war may rise against me,
        In this I will be confident.


        One thing I have desired of the Lord,
        That will I seek:
        That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
        All the days of my life,
        To behold the beauty of the Lord,
        And to inquire in His temple.
        For in the time of trouble
        He shall hide me in His pavilion;
        In the secret place of His tabernacle
        He shall hide me;
        He shall set me high upon a rock.


       And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
        Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
        I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
       Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
        Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
        When You said, "Seek My face,"
        My heart said to You, "Your face, Lord, I will seek."
        Do not hide Your face from me;
        Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
        You have been my help;
        Do not leave me nor forsake me,
        O God of my salvation.
        When my father and my mother forsake me,
        Then the Lord will take care of me.


        Teach me Your way, O Lord,
        And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
        Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
        For false witnesses have risen against me,
        And such as breathe out violence.
        I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
        That I would see the goodness of the Lord
        In the land of the living.


        Wait on the Lord;
        Be of good courage,
        And He shall strengthen your heart;
        Wait, I say, on the Lord!                         - Psalm 27 (New King James Version)

Musing today on one of my favourite psalms, which also happened to be the one set to be read in yesterday's service.  We heard it again during the second of our church's Lent series on the use of psalms as 'pillars of prayer.'I've collected together just a few of the many different ways in which  Number 27 has been set to music - (psalms were intended to be sung):First off - Alitsen's arrangement, The Lord is My Light and My Salvation, sung here by Rhys Ritter.Then John Rutter's setting,  with its haunting clarinet solo, sung here by Achill Choral Society.More familiar to most may be the Taize version - The Lord is My Light.Rutter's arrangement in particular, puts me in mind of Dr Agnes Norfleet's description of these words as a 'psalm of thin places.'[Currrently experiencing turbulence with software. Font adjustment to follow!]

Rebirth and Dark Night

"When a Christian suffers, he says: "God has touched me" - which is true, but only at the end of a series of spiritual stages. For when a Christian suffers, he should begin by saying: "God wants to free me from this diminishment; God wants me to help him to take this cup from me." To combat an ill that threatens us is unquestionably the first act of our Father in heaven. It would be impossible to conceive of him in any other way, and still more impossible to love him. It is a  perfectly correct way of  things - and strictly consonant with the Gospel - to regard Providence across the ages as brooding over the world in a ceaseless effort to spare its wounds and bind up its hurts."

 - (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Last week  saw  the  penultimate session of Sarum College's current run of The Heart of  the Divine, a wonderful series exploring Christian spiritual tradition in all its variety, and its relevance for us today. We've been so fortunate in having the time and  opportunity to reflect and explore in a way that ( in my experience) is rarely possible in a church setting. For myself, it's been so exciting to note how these monthly sessions have complemented and expanded on similar studies I'm involved with elsewhere.  Well worth the early mornings,long train journey and a brain which nearly always ends the day buzzing round and round like a swarm of bees!

The Chardin quotation above formed part of some reflective worship at the end of a day entitled Rebirth and Dark Night. We spent some time looking at how we might, encounter  and stay with God in the harsh realities  of the events of the 20th and 21st centuries, using as illustrations  the lives of Etty Hillesum, poet RS Thomas, Elie Wiesel and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Discussion and reflection on our own experiences of dark times offered no easy answers. How, or even should we begin to answer the questions of those to whom the   presence or  very existence of  a deity seems an impossibility?  I expect most of us know folk to whom well -intended, but glib soundbites and platitudes have caused irreperrable damage.

Later,  we examined  the way our spirituality changes with the 'seasons,' of life. It may be no small coincidence that most of us were if not yet in 'winter,' certainly experiencing 'autumn,' the more reflective, mellow period  of looking back and letting go, so it was on these two stages of the cycle that we concentrated.

I'd guess that I'm easily one of the youngest, if not the youngest students there. Still,  the darkness theme resonated  for all kinds of reasons, leastways because of my recent health concerns; concerns, which, after a test earlier last week showed clear, look to be happily unfounded. Yet, to confront the prospect of my own mortality, if only briefly, was chilling.  I certainly didn't have any easy answers to give myself. There was a lot of wrestling with and questioning of what to me I hold to be God -  before I began to come to any sense of acceptance, which is maybe, why the words of  Teilhard mean much to me. Yes, God has touched me, but I don't think there are any short cuts in this process for me, and I had, and in similar situations in future,  will have,  to go through the whole cycle  again and again.  I'd  not be true to myself if I didn't, however fluffy and touchy-feely that might sound.

Right old Jacob, aren't I?

Our Sound is Our Wound

You'll find an excellent review of  Lucy Winkett's Lent reflections   by Anne Brooke over on the Vulpes Libris book review site.

Dropping a Clanger

"Our lives are lived against the backdrop of external and internal soundscapes. The sounds, noise and music with which we are surrounded in modern life have spiritual implications. There is also a soundtrack within us that plays constantly through memory, dreams, anxiety and thought.

What are these soundscapes,and how do we listen for the voice of God within them? How too do we find our own voice?"

- Lucy Winkett Our Sound is Our Wound - Contemplative Listening to a noisy world, Continuum 2010

An excerpt from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book for 2010 which I started on yesterday. Readers who've stuck with this blog from its conception will have gathered that listening for the voice of God, to the music of the spirit, is something that's engaged the Greenpatch brain greatly; with varying degrees of "success," and more foot in mouth moments than is  strictly comfortable. The external soundscape alternately fascinates, puzzles, and exasperates me for all sorts of reasons. It's so loud for a start. I have difficulties hearing certain tones against  background noise,which makes sociability "interesting" to say the least. "No, Darling, I said 'Give him a bone!'" (local hearing centre poster) describes it perfectly.

Internal soundtrack? Ooh, even more of a mixed blessing. Take a bass note of profundity, weave in  a sprinkling of wobbly self-esteem and anxiousness to please, plus a  weird sense of humour  all of which sometimes cause me to open mouth before I've engaged brain.  Or not engage brain at all.  Like last night  during the Ash Wednesday Eucharist, "If the flesh, more Clang'erous still, tempt my soul to deeds of ill." For one millisecond my mind wrestled, mid-hymn, with the unlikely temptations presented by little, pink, whistling, mouse-like creatures, before light dawned - "clam'rous." (Well, no, actually, as I found when I checked with reading glasses on; it was "dang'rous."  Never mind, It amounts to the same thing.)

So to contemplative listening, and some thought about my  soundscape, given that it's Lent and all. Maybe I should rename it my "internal Clanger," given that a  faint but wobbly "Eeeeeeeep!" is  making determined attempts to crescendo. To explain, I've some health worries just now, hopefully not serious, but definitely there, for which I've been awaiting tests for some while. Up to now, with the odd blip (and the patient ear of a few, long-suffering folk) I've coped on a one step at a time, basis. But  with a test coming up next week, and a consent form sitting smugly in my in-tray, the eep-eep-eeping, not to mention the 'me-me-meeing,' (see my other blog) is threatening mutiny and a takeover of the soprano line. Or to put it more bluntly, if I don't look out, I'm likely to become one of those grumpy old souls who bore everyone to death with all the gory details of every little ache, pain and ingrowing toenail.

For example, last Sunday in church I was approached by somebody asking about one of the courses I'm doing. Wow! Was I pleased. An invitation to explain a bit about something which I've a passion for. So...talk I did, ad nauseam, blow by blow, about  guts, grumbles about NHS red tape and how concerned I was that said guts might hinder me continuing with said course.  It wasn't long before I realised that my listener  might be loosing the will to live. It took me a bit longer to twig that they might actually have had a genuine interest in hearing about what I've been up to this year; if only I'd listened properly in the first place. 

Internal Clanger? Mine needs fitting with a volume control.

Franciscan Journeying

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.
He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen.
On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.

From The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

Andy Wilkes, over at A Man Breathing, has started to post the Lenten reflections of Andrew Dotchin, fellow Franciscan and Anglican priest.  Well worth a look.

Ash Wednesday