Green Patches

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!]

Franciscan Advent Resources - Peace Made Flesh

From the Franciscan Friars of The Holy Name -  this was published  in 2008; I gave it a mention last Advent , but could easily be used again each year.

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…

Three Ways of Making a Rule of Life

With Francistide and review of my TSSF Rule of Life still fresh in my mind,  here's some advice on the process applicable to anybody looking to live life more intentionally and holistically:

 

A rule is a document embodying the values which are central to your life, and the praxis which allows you to live this out with genuine integrity. 

 - Hermit Sr Laurel from notes from stillsong.

Developing a Rule of Life 13 Tips - from soulgardeners

 

and

Balancing Life by The Rule by Debra Farrington

I came across a wonderful piece of advice yesterday -  that  rule of life should not be a list of 'to do (s)' but of 'to be (s).'

Words, words, words...Over on the Franciscan Support Thread on Shipoffools posters are asking - Is it possible to make a rule of life without using them ? It's been suggested for the TSSF Principles in the past. Could you sign it? Paint, sing or dance it? Any other medium? Suggestions please...

For Franciscans I"d have thought creative ways like these would be spot on, given their sprituality and the famous "Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words," saying popularly attributed to our founder.

Granted we might have problems at annual renewal presenting them all at the altar - still I'm sure there are ways and means of getting over that one!

'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 

Forever Autumn - Blog of The Week

 

Pom- pom- pom, pompom, pompompompom pom-pom-pooommm...

Never repeat yourself, did I say? Oh dear.  Oops, rules are made to be broken and all that... Guaranteed to make  even the most po-faced personage  smile (I'd love to see what they'd make of Franciscan liturgy),  thought-provoking  and possessed of  an unerring timing that helps me put all my angst-provoking spiritual lingerie-entangling into perspective.  Yes, Blog of The Week goes yet again to those cyber-coenobites and liturgical virtuosos  - The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley. 

 

'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!

 

 

 

Blog of The Week - Opinionated Vicar

They're lining up!  Four blogs vied for my attention yesterday morning, hence the delay in posting here.  I just couldn't make up my mind. So, in the interests of fairness, I've plumped for the  first one I discovered, David Keen's reflections on imaginative prayer in Opinionated Vicar. (Opinionated? Surely not...?)

 

"I found all of this very fruitful, whilst being aware that I rarely have the leisure in prayer to simply use my imagination. It's much more controllable to pray set prayers, work through a list of things to pray for, and formulate my own prayers, rather than let my (rather more chaotic) imagination run the show. 

As an evangelical, I'm trained to base prayers on reason. God is found in the Word, in the left brain, prayer is based on who God is (revealed in words) and what God has said (ditto), and is verbal. Ignatian prayer is more 'right brain', and uses the imagination. Both reason and imagination can be flaky, and I came back from the walks wondering whether I'd been for a walk with Jesus, or just imagined I'd been for a walk with Jesus. Then I wondered whether perhaps both had happened, and it didn't have to be an either/or."

His account of his experiences on retreat resonated with me, not only because I'm booked into the same place later this year, but also because it touches on some of the changes I've been experiencing in my prayer  lately, especially since I moved churches.   It  offers a few clues as to why I  often struggle with particular types of churchmanship. I'm currently trying to put together  some reflections on spiritual growth and faith journeys for TSSF; reading about the changes in OV's* prayer is helping me clarify some parts of my own travels. Thank you. 

 

The other 'contenders' were:

Catholic Zen, and, for their reflections on issues relevant to last week's rioting in the UK, Good Goat and Tractorgirl.

 

* Re-discovered via The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley. No, I'm not being paid commission to give them blogspace, really!

Last week's Blog of The Week : Yn meddwl yn groch

Blog of The Week - Spiritually Directed

I fear this blog is losing the plot.  I place the blame fairly and squarely at the door of Archdruid Eileen and her wretched Beaker Folk.   Yes, I know I'm  metablogging .  The navel fluff is piling up to such an extent that before long I'll have enough  there to knit myself my own Fluffy Bunnie prayer shawl.  And no, this does not mean that Beaker Folk have made it as BOTW for the second week running, even if they've made me laugh so much I nearly baptised my keyboard with the best Fairtrade coffee Sainsburys can provide. 

Though keeping to the coffee theme, BOTW goes to another long-term resident in the Greenpatch feedreader: Roberta at Spiritually Directed. From the looks of it, she has a caffeine problem as well. I feel your pain; this last week's been a definite 'just one cup' time for me, too! Though seriously (about time too - given we're three quarters of the way through this post), Spiritually Directed makes me laugh - a lot of the time; it also makes me think - all of the time. Which is no bad thing for a blog to do, I reckon.

Last week's Blog of The Week:  Yes, you've guessed it: The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley - where no bunnie goes unhugged.

 

 

 

 

My Top Four July Posts (1): Get Knotted

From yesteryear. Seeing as we're nearly in the summer silly season, I thought I'd have a trawl through the Greenpatch archives and rake out some favourites from The Month of July. (Shades of Sesame Street; no , that's not Kermit in the photo - Ms GP won't thank you for thinking that!).  So, our first Greenpatch is:

 

From this time last year - Get Knotted. The whole month fell into the 'vocational angst' category, a theme that runs and runs as far as I'm concerned. I was finishing a year long spirituality course and wondering about the next step.   Get Knotted still makes me smile (Who says The Almighty doesn't have a sense of humour?!). I've more knots than a Girl Guide, and a year on, the both of us are still busily engaged on the untangling process; a process which, like the angst, is set to run and run.  

More thankfully - 2009-10 was also The Year of The Medical Test for me - much waiting and worrying about the state of the Greenpatch internal plumbing. These all came clear, thankfully, but the process has been an incentive for me to keep going with the vocational wanderings whenever my confidence has faltered.  There's nothing like gaining a perspective on one's own mortality to make you make the most of the time you have.

 

Next up: Graduation.