Green Patches

In the beginning was the Word

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

  There was a man sent from God whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.  He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

  The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 - John 1:1-14

 

Mike F of the Mercy Blog got there before me in reflecting on today's gospel. 

Jesus is the living Word, and all words are somehow almost sacramental as a result.

As I've written elsewhere this morning saw me shatteringly tired in church yet as so often in the past, this timeless prologue to John's gospel  shone out for me in the mists of lethargy and confusion.  Not so much  Did the Earth move for You? Shipoffools style, this time,  just the tinest of tremors, but none the less powerful for that.

It speaks of their timelessness and power that these verses are amongst the few I know almost by heart and have been for as long as I can remember.  Familiarity never breeds contempt.    Every time I hear them, another part of the brilliant, sparkling, paradoxically complex yet simple message of grace and hope that Christ brings falls into place for me.  

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it... 

 

Return of Blog Of The Week

This feature has had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra!

Daydreamer's mundane mutterings, whimsical whitterings and transient thinks  appeals to the intuitive butterfly side of my personality. It might be whimsical and transient but I'll bet your mundane mutterings have cheered up more folk than you know.  Keep them coming.

Having nothing to say seems to me a good time to just grab a passing thought or two and transfer it to print before it escapes again...

 - Daydreamer

 

Previous Blog of The Week Inroverted Church, the Modern Mrs Darcy and Mind Journeys

"I saw that he is to us everything that is good"

St Julian's Church, Norwich

 

He is our clothing. In his love he wraps and holds us. He enfolds us for love, and he will never let us go. 

I saw that he is to us everything that is good.

 - Julian of Norwich

Advent - Waiting and hoping

Given my grumblings yesterday, the arrival, not long afterwards, in my feedreader of this Advent sermon by Maggi Dawn was pretty apposite.  God is to be found in the darkness as well as in the light - and :

If we confidently depend upon the knowledge that God's gifts, unlike Santa's, are not delivered to deadlines, then we can live within the seasons knowing that the gifts they represent will come to us eventually - not necessarily on time, and probably when we least expect them.

 - for the rest of the reflection, go here. 

Thanks for the reminder. It speaks very much into where I've been and from time to time  continue to be on my own journey. 

The artwork above comes from my recent retreat at St Beunos, from a grey, grey period halfway through the week when I was struggling with this  sense of 'spiritual  discombobulation.' 

[p.s And for once, the Linkwithin widget's choice of post is entirely appropriate!]

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday...

Now, I"ve not caved in under the pressure of the pre-Christmas razmatazz.  It's simply that I just had one of those pround 'thunks,' (as one does) as I came out from under a heavy duty card writing session just now with burgeoning RSI and that ambivalent sense of weariness and (mild) guilt: (Why can't I be better organised and write them sufficiently early enough that I've time to give some proper news instead of the falsely cheery "Must write/email in the New Year?!"). 

Much as I love the dulcet tones of Wizzard (Hey, I"m a teenager of the Seventies, after all), the thought of it being Christmas Everyday is, to be frank, my idea of hell. However, in an odd way, the Hairy One has a point, (albeit maybe not exactly the point he'd intended to make). If we were to try and live each day as if it were Christmas, that is, with our focus away from all the tinsel, turkey and stuffing and focussed outwards on true peace and love of neighbour, we'd not be forced into cranking it all up artificially - and cramming it into the space of a month or less.

Advent Blog of The Week - The Mercy Blog and Weeble's Wonderings

 

Advent Prayer

 

Lord, still us this today and in this Advent Season – keep us wide awake in these days of waiting. Take from us our anxieties and our preoccupations, our distractions and our despair. Let us be empty in this time before, awaiting your coming with empty hands, and open hearts…

 

Lord, prepare us for your coming. Fill us with the hope of your judgement, and a longing for your justice. Let our hope and our prayer be always for this broken creation of which we are part. Have mercy on all who suffer, human or animal. Help us to bring the good news of your coming, the comfort of hope, the joy of this new kind of waiting…

 

Amen

 - with thanks to Mike F of The Mercy Blog

One evening last week, I was  in  our contemplative prayer group at church, when, towards the end of the session, I was suddenly, as I've described it to myself 'hi-jacked' by a memory  of an item which I'd read in the paper earlier in the day: a particularly horrible example of  pure, gratuitous violence towards a poor, helpless animal, the which defies all belief and about which I simply can't bring myself to give any more details here.  There followed  a  fraught few minutes whilst I  tried alternately to a) push the distraction aside, or b) give  it to God, which last unfortunately and again without giving any details (shudders) seemed unavoidably to involve 're-living it.'  All clever theological explanations seemed pretty irrelevant  just then, and to be honest, pretty feeble, too. We're back to that evergreen topic of theodicy 'How could you, God?'

I've since re-commbobulated myself, so to speak...just, and can see, I think, that this struggle was likely the latest in a series of 'answers,' to a prayer I made leading on from what I brought out of retreat. Why I should be surprised, I don't know. I do think prayer should come with a health warning, though.  Do Not Be Surprised If You Get What You Ask For. 

So the petitions in the prayer "Have mercy on all who suffer, human or animal..." resonates with me as we begin Advent.

 

 

Over on A Weeble's Wonderings Avila reflects on the ever-present struggle with life-work balance and the need to know when and to press those 'recharge' buttons. I chose it for personal reasons; thanks be to God their situation is not my own although some of the issues mentioned do touch several loved ones close to home. It was the final paragraph that spoke to  me however. The 'Who Am I? What Am I?' question and my tendency to define myself solely in relation to the role (I perceive) other people see me in and to whether I shape up to that perception,  has been around now as long as I can remember. We Are Improving slowly....which is good...yet still very much a Work In Progress...

I started with the title 'Who am I? What am I?' - when we can no longer answer these about ourselves, rather than just in relation to other people or roles, then it is a sign we need to find respite, and to find ourselves again.

 - A Weeble's Wonderings - Who Am I? What Am I?

 

  

 

 

Blog of The Week - Goodgoat - Spirituality as a garden

What type of garden are you?

Goodgoat spotted this reflection on a church notice board. For reasons which I can't begin to fathom, this four year-old blog post only appeared in my reader last week.  Odd ? Never mind, it's not lost in the waiting. Thanks for this, Goodgoat. Oh, and congratulations...

A Chance to Reflect

No matter what we believe in, we are all spiritual beings. We all have our own unique “spirituality”

• our sense of the divine, of beauty
• of what lies beyond and is unseen

But how can we understand our spirituality?

Think of your spirituality as a garden and ask…what makes a garden? You can’t buy them – garden centres don’t sell them ready-made! You have to grow them…

Useful and Acceptable Gifts

I was puffing my way up the hill to church last Sunday; at the last minute as usual, but I just had to stop and pick up these conkers.  I dithered for a nanosecond (I mean, a fifty-something year-old woman getting all excited over something like this - honestly!), but my inner five year-old won in the end, you'll be glad to hear.  The same inner five-year old that I remember popping out during my first retreat seven years ago now, as I wandered round the wild garden at CSF Compton Durville.   It was like exploring a jungle! I was  so thrilled! By the time I went home I must have gathered half of the Somerset countryside on my windowsill - plus any number of creepy-crawlies besides.

To return to last week,  off I hopped to church where I arranged my treasure carefully on the pew in front of me, and, I regret to say, didn't really take in very much of the service at all that morning. Never mind, for once I've managed to get ahead of myself, what with Harvest Festival coming up and all. I came out of the sacristy this afternoon to see one of the flower ladies busy decorating the place with a lovely collection of leaves, conkers and other autumal goodies. Somebody is going to find it rather difficult to concentrate this Sunday as well, and we're not just talking about the children. My inner Busy Fauve is dying to go for a run. As I'd suspect too,  the insect life that might have come into church with the decorations. Who knows? If they hang around for long enough, they'll be able to take part in the pet blessing service the following weekend!

 The beech husks in the photo are another 'treasure' unearthed by my resident Fauve and I on our walks which make me smile.  Do any bloggers remember the classic Joyce Grenfell monologue Useful And Acceptable Gifts where she plays a (Very Buckinghamshire) countrywoman giving a lecture to a Women's Institute on how to make a 'boutoniere' out of beech husks?  Wonderful. Any road, I'm not able to pass a beech tree at this time of year now without giggling quietly to myself. 

So, I'll be up there this Sunday, ploughing the fields and scattering away. And I'll be thinking about boutonieres, earwigs and the gifts of laughter and wonder.

 

 

 

'Busy' Fauve and Contemplative Gannets - 2

 

"So beware of behaving wildly like some animal and learn to love God with quiet, eager joy, at rest in body as in soul. Remember your manners, and wait humbly upon our Lord's will. Do not snatch at it, like some greedy greyhound, however much you long for it."

 - The Cloud of Unknowing cp 46 

'Busy' Fauve and Contemplative Gannets

 

Well, that won't win us  the photographer of the year award, will it? Still  it captures our resident French canine 'Busy Fauve,' to a tee. Greenpatch dog operates at two speeds only: full speed ahead or dead stop. This morning we enjoyed a  long, wet, muddy walk where from  start to finish it was nose to the ground, tail in the air and a 100 mph demo of a weaving technique so impressive that I'm tempted to hire him out to the local Caledonian Society for their next Scottish Dancing demo. Life for your average happy, well-fed and loved pooch is happy, shiny and full of exciting discoveries. For who else is  rolling in unidentified, pongy  substances the equivalent of a 5 Star Spa Experience? The sound of a slab of cheese being unwrapped three rooms away like  Grand Opera!

When I wasn't trying to stop GPD dragging me into the canal I got to thinking that  he and I bear a striking resemblance. (apart from the wagging tail and parfum de boue et crotte, of course).  Not that my nearest and dearest could exactly describe me as the life and soul...However, contemplative though I fancy myself to be, and however still I may look on the exterior.. inside..oh dear! At times  I dart about from one fascinating idea to another, sniff at one tantalising possibility, glance off it onto something else , soak in ideas until my head is bursting.  I want more! It's  easy to mistake quantity for quality. It's so insidious, creeps up on you just as you think you've learnt from the last time.  Spiritual indigestion isn't a pretty sight. Though thank goodness I don't have the spiritual equivalent of GPD's dicky digestive system; all  his cavorting around frequently ends up with him bringing up his breakfast. One thing he does get right, however, is living in the moment.  Something I could learn from.

Our cat, though...she simply 'is.' No explanations needed.

To see a 'busy Fauve' in full flight, have a look at the clip below. It's not of our GPD, but 'Bazou' is a joy to watch and for me captures the happy-go lucky attitude to life of this cheerful little dog. Enjoy!