Let my soul be at rest again...

Let my soul be at rest again,
for the Lord has been good to me.
He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
as I live here on earth!

Psalm 116 7-9



Photo credit: KarenR-TB

Multitudes on Monday. How Hope Can Grow from the Debris of Dreams

I am walking home, weighed down with plastic bags that cut through my fingers like cheese slicers. Somehow they're filled to the brim with a weeks worth of shopping for £10.

On this heat worn and frayed, summer day, I'm sixteen years old and thinking, "however did country girl me ever come to be living in the middle of this strange city?"

Home is a two storey terrace shared with 5 unconnected, disconnected souls displaced in one place for a transitory period. Almost feels like a sentence we've been given, to share this one cell for and allotted time before one leaves and another inmate arrives to replace. I have discovered that one face becomes another too easily in a city.

Sometimes it seems I could be in Turkey, North Africa or even Jamaica depending upon which side of the street I'm on. Yardy boys at plantain stalls, women draped in black, serene, guarded, silent, men smoking roll ups in pool rooms and the ever lingering smell of kebabs and hot oil.

Disorrientation fills the air with a thousand unnamed voices giving different directions to the right bus I need to take home.

The heavy air of traffic clogged streets in summer time and the swirling synthetic rainbows of rain laced with petrol turns my thoughts to fog...

Two years later and I'm on the brink of leaving for another country all together.

During the intermission of this "time between", too many lines have been written, scenes been played out, lines spoken and hurts, rehashed, re-played and re-enacted on this stage.

Now all I want to desperatly do is hide in the wings for one night. Curl up into the nothingness of annonimity.

So I travel toward the heart of the city. Following the clogged ateries, mainlines and thread veins of skinny streets, pumping, faster and faster, harder and harder as I get closer to the center.
Convulsing like the strobe lights that seep from darkened doorways as stars begin to dissolve into the orange glow of street lamps.

I'm pregnant, but I don't know it yet.

Exsausted, I find myself sitting on the steps of west end musical stage show on the cusp of an evening's performance.

I hear the clink of shoes on cobble, I smell the static of excitement in foreign voices. French vowels bubble up from the dank and drenched tarmac like champagne.

It is raining heavily and I have no place to go.

I close my eyes and try to find a small corner of quiet.
My ears have throbbed with the noise of this city for so long I hear the conversations between taxi cabs and Double Decker buses in my dreams.

Slowly it comes into view....

The outline of a tree in the distance, branches tanned golden in the sun, bark gilded and shivering, leaves trembling.

It seems too far away to be real. I begin to squint, as I dare to look up a little.

Clouds part mutly. Beneath them the sky is powder blue, it seems to roll out forever.

Somewhere in the far away, I hear a child laughing and some long grass brushes against my legs as I walk.

Then, without warning, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I turn abruptly, defensive, instinctivly.

No, no one is moving me on this time, this hand simply rests, and waits...

I don't know who it is who gently rests their hand and speaks my name.

One day years from now I will understand. Recognise the voice who called me away that day.

In the white noise of dislocated memories and fears, manifested by what I thought would numb them. A cold sea of concrete, a pavement fractured and scarred, covered with a liquid neon ointment.
Somehow I heard.
Somehow I stumbled
to my feet that day
and followed.

And somehow, now, I find myself sitting beneath tree, that was once nothing but the small seed of His hope, the echo of His voice, in my heart.

Branches tanned golden in the slender sunlight of late summer.

The storm clouds dissolved a long time ago in the blue transparency of this sky of hope. Endless, limitless, boundless, eternal...

I hear a child laughing, now two, now, three, now four.

And the sound heals the wounds that tears once furrowed. Eroding saltwater, carved out a hollow for freshwater to pool.

And I drink long drafts of thankfulness.

All the while as the long grass brushes against my legs while I walk.

I still feel that hand on my shoulder.


Thank you Lord for Summer memories ,

Each cherished moment in which to linger with my children,

The words of friends who encourage with their courage. And give me the courage to share too.

Thank you Lord, for taking my hand towards future life that heals the wounds of the past.

And the wonder of now,

Thank you for the miracle within the small seed of your own hope which you plant in hearts.

It can even grow a "forever home" where trees and blue skies and sunlight emerge from the debris of dreams of a once lost and homeless girl.

The sum of Humilty...

" If you have five gifts and you think you have six, that’s not humility;
if you have five gifts and you say you have only four, that's not humility;
if you have five gifts and you say you have five and you thank only yourself for them, that’s not humility.
But if you have five gifts and you say you have five and you thank God for them, that's humility.

The point of it is that humility is just the truth."




Photo credit: Theresa Elvin

JOY (a post revisted from the archives)

Happiness.

There are definitely two kinds.

The first kind is conditional.

The second kind is unconditional.

What does this mean?

Well the first kind is dependant upon my external circumstances. It is integral to what I have and what I am able to do.

It's about my own expectations and how I live up to them. It's about making my own rules and sticking to them (however suffocating they may be). It's about setting my own standards and trying to live up to them however different they mey be from God's standards and priorities for my life.

It's all about satiating that which I am unsatisfied with instead of finding contentment with what I have been given.

In real terms, it comes down to having a long hot soak in a bubble bath as opposed to the typical mummy's military shower at the first light of dawn!

It comes down to being able to read through a novel uninterrupted on a Sunday afternoon as opposed to the same dog-eared half chewed ABC storybook, for the tenth time before lunchtime.

It comes down to doing as I want, when I want and having what I want how I want it.

Parenthood challenges this definition of happiness. It shakes the foundations of this building and knocks it clean to the ground.

Once the dust has cleared what is left in the debris is the second kind of happiness.

The unconditional kind of happiness.

This kind of happiness looks a little different from what we have come to suspect. It can take a while before we recognise it:0)

This kind of happiness lends itself more to the word joy.

God Blesses this kind of happiness :0)

Joy finds miracles in the ordinary.

Joy finds the sacred in the everyday.

Joy sees the beautiful painting before the mess on the kitchen table.

Joy sees the rainbow instead of the rain

A few little words on Joy

It is the consciousness of the threefold joy of the Lord, His joy in ransoming us, His joy in dwelling within us as our Saviour and Power for fruit bearing and His joy in possessing us, as His Bride and His delight; it is the consciousness of this joy which is our real strength. Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change. James Hudson Taylor

Any one can sing in the sunshine. You and I should sing on when the sun has gone down, or when clouds pour out their rain, for Christ is with us. Anonymous

Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God. Robert Schuller

Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Christ risen. Mother Teresa

Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be light-hearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride. Our work is jubilant, carefree, merry. Utter abandonment to God is done freely and with celebration. And so I urge you to enjoy this ministry of self-surrender. Don't push too hard. Hold this work lightly, joyfully. The saints throughout the ages have witnessed to this reality.... You know, of course, that they are not speaking of a silly, superficial, bubbly kind of joy like that flaunted in modern society. No, this is a deep, resonant joy that has been shaped and tempered by the fires of suffering and sorrow; joy through the cross, joy because of the cross. Richard J. Foster

Happiness depends on happenings; joy depends on Christ. Anonymous

Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy. William Blake

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:22)”

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. (John 15:11)"

JOY

Jesus Others Yourself

(Jesus: first, others: second, yourself: last)

Mother Teresa No Greater Love (A Meditation on Prayer)

I am reading a truly wonderful book at the moment called "No Greater Love" by Mother Teresa or as she is known now... Blessed Teresa of Calcutta :)
There are twelve chapters in all and I hope to share a little on each one over the next couple of weeks.
The first chapter in on Prayer.

"Prayer is in all gestures."
Mother Teresa


Often we think of prayer as being a few words we gather together at the beginning and end of the day, or to the table before we eat. Prayer is given an allotted time in our busy schedule.
Mother Teresa had a very different view than this. She saw that the prayer of our life is itself present in the eating, the living, the giving, the waking and even the times of rest and sleep. Prayer for her was integral to life, "being" and "doing" were two sides of the same coin.
A kind of prayer that becomes the shaping of life, the chisel in the carvers hand, the water in the potter's palm; a tool of formation bringing both body and soul to the heart of God.

I love this way of seeing prayer as a busy homeschooling mother of four. Sometimes it can be hard to find the Mary in the Martha yet by finding Mary we can bring prayer, and in doing so, God's hand, to Martha's work. I find that my own prayer has become, very much, a simple "drawing near to" and "reaching out to" my God in a very ordinary but sincere way throughout day to day life with it's ups and downs and routines. Rather than meditate or try to find many words I have found I seek to simply rest in Him more and more, to gaze upon Him. I find He brings me beside "the quiet waters that restore my soul" when I let Him do the leading and speaking.

"After a night of prayer, He changed my life when He sang, "Enjoy Me."
Saint Theresa of Avila

I believe that God wants very much for us to "enjoy Him". He wants to make our everyday "burden light".

Mother Teresa's prayer life seemed to have been something that was integral to all she did. Her prayer was in her movement and her movement was in her prayer.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

John 15

Prayer is remaining in Jesus in what we do just as much as in what we say or think. It is more than the annunciation of words, it is the Holy Spirit's stirring in the heart and movement in the body. Prayer prunes and cleans the debris away leaving only what is needed, the fruitful living branches that take their life from the roots of the vine.

"Just once, let the love of God take entire and absolute possession of your heart; let it become to your heart like a second nature; let your heart suffer nothing contrary to enter; let it apply itself continually to increase this love of God by seeking to please Him in all things and refusing Him nothing."
Mother Teresa

I admit I stumbled a little after reading the last words in this quote, the "refusing Him nothing"part.
Truthfully I know that every day I refuse God much of what He asks of me. The things that I refuse Him seem small and mundane yet they are "the small things done in great Love" Mother Teresa often spoke of. From the most mundane detail to the most difficult of work, cleaning, caring for and loving the most desperate in their time of dying, Mother Theresa kept giving, she was a well spring of God's love, that seemed could give only more with the giving.
Prayer, as she said was her foundation. And her close communion with God through prayer infused her actions with the fruits of prayer, compassion, patience, endurance.... Love.

So how we can best invite prayer into our own lives?
The most important thing, she says, is silence.

"Listen in silence, because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God."

"Jesus Himself spent forty days in the desert and the mountains, communing for long hours with the Father in the silence of the night. We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally. To be alone with Him, not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything, to dwell lovingly in His presence - silent, empty, expectant, and motionless. We cannot find God in noise or agitation. Nature: trees, flowers, and grass grow in the silence. The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence. What is essential is not what we say but what God tells us and what He tells others through us."

It may seems impossible to reach this kind of silence in a life which is abundantly full, but I think of Mother Teresa, her life was about as full as it gets. She worked tirelessly, yet she found a deep inner silence which gave a space within her for God to be present.
She kept her life simple. I think this is key. She kept things to what was essential and necessary.
She did not over complicate, or worry but left things in God's hands.
In life worry acts as a distraction, fear needs to be numbed and anger needs to be satiated. God asks us to turn from these things and leave all in His hands.
Mother's form of prayer forsakes all that is not necessary to focus on what is needed.
Prayer brings soul supplies for the journey.

As she says... "This is not complicated, and yet we complicate our lives with so many additions."
God promises to give all that we need so long as we let go of our own control and focus on Him with trust like a child.

Mother Teresa points many times throughout the book to the physical poverty that her community embraces. Having little or only what is necessary gave her community the time and attention to accept God's own grace and strength without barriers. Things, "stuff" possessions can act as barriers between our hearts and God. They can divide our hearts and distract them, use them up till they have no space left for what truly matters in this world and to God, Love, compassion, forgiveness, joy, and peace.

"Why are you sleeping? Wake up, and pray ..."

_ Jesus to the disciples asleep in the garden, Luke 22:46


Next chapter of the book focuses on Love ~

A Living Prayer... "Walk with Him Wednesday "

There have been times when no matter how much I prayed or read the bible the only thing I felt was a longing, an ache, an aridity to the words I spoke.

So often it is easy to forget that the bible is a living word it is not simply a set of syllables to be learnt by rote and kept within ones own heart under lock and key.

So many times just the words, themselves, mysterious, rhythmical, poetic, simple and true as they are breath soft as a summer breeze through my body, a shiver of light and a tremble of truth. Sometimes just a simple phrase or paragraph glints like sunlight through the branches of trees defining with clarity the world around me and all that is within me at the same time.

These moments are beautiful and wondrous but the word cannot remain within the stillness of a page. The ink of the living word seeps into lives, spills over the edges and runs a river of baptism across the dividing lines between body and spirit. It is a stream of freshwater that moves within our hearts.

The word is fluid and omnipotent. It is a moving current that flows towards the ocean, not a stagnant pool that evaporates to nothing under the sun.

The key to releasing the word is the faith to live the word in Love. ”If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10 Putting the word into practice, step by step, moment by moment.

Allowing it to work through our body, transforming us into an instrument of Gods love until our actions may become a living prayer.

A living prayer follows all that is beautiful and good. Allowing the word to envelope and contain a heart, flow within and around it, mould and fashion it, break it and fix it. A prayer that takes our feet and hands to be the feet and hands of Jesus in the world.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:3-6 A prayer that is more than just a spoken word permeates all actions with the blood of Christ and the love of God.

"lIVING THE wORD" "wALK WITH hIM wEDNESDAY OVER @ hOLY eXPERIENCE Image courtesy of Jupiter im ages

I will choose to linger...

I will choose to linger
on that little face just a little more tonight.
These moments add up.
They are the brush strokes of a bigger picture.
If I choose to rush along, getting things done and forget to linger on those features. They will change and I will have missed them. The way they are, just for today. Tomorrow, somehow
they will be different.
I will deliberately, stroke your cheek and tell you what you mean to me. Look in your eyes for longer than I normally would
as I lay you in your cot tonight.
Your sweet pixie grin and sparkling eyes. The feet that run about all day, so fast
I can't keep up with them.
I will choose to linger
Elongate the time we have on the evening of the 781st day since my eyes first gazed into yours. That difficult birth. You came out blue and barely breathing, your little hand numb from a damaged nerve.
And now, you have so much joy and spirit and energy.
You dance in the sun, and splash in the puddles. You know how to really live!
So now as I sing you a lullaby, I will choose to wait one minute more, take it to another verse.
Because each and every time I let that moment linger.
Time slows down.
And I get the chance to really know who you are just a little bit more.

Remembering what truly matters... "Post it " notes to myself...

Being right with Jesus before I try to be right with anyone else.

Taking off the shackles of the mind. Sinking down into the still waters dwelling in the heart.

Remembering that peace increases with trust, whatever the outside circumstances

Taking life without the frills. Eating simple. Mind, body and soul.

Reaching out to touch the truth in the kind of beauty which comes unadorned.

Not forgeting that it's the the inside of the cup that needs the most attention.

Welcoming the outsider into my heart. The one who opposes me. The one who threatens me. The one who other's reject. See how the reflection in another's eyes is deep within a part of my own self.

Embrace. Love.

pHOTO : My hand after spending a morning planting, painting and play doughing with the girls.
Real, true, unpretty, but touched with the fabric of the everyday life I love and embrace.
Better than a french manicure.

Counting Blessing,...

With inspiration from the 1ooo gifts list over at Holy Experience...

I'm counting mine everyday...
in faces of joy,
giggles,
sisters becoming best ever friends,
kicking up grass in the garden playing tag,
the laughter (and tears) that come with growing, learning and forgiving one another on a daily basis.
Seraphina's funny faces,
Matilda's funny expressions,
Bujana's sincere heart,
Emmy becoming a beautiful young lady before my eyes, strong, certain of her beliefs yet full of gentleness and compassion for everyone.
Listening to Emmy read chapters of "Little Women" or "Hinds Feet on High Places" or her favourite parts of the Gospels while I sew in the evenings.
Cuddling up in on blankets and cusions in the garden in the afternoon with Bujana reading stories and picture books.
Listening to shrieks of joy as 3 littlest girls splash in the cool of the paddling pool.
Hearing my husband read fairy stories to my youngest girls behind me right now, with gentleness and fun and silliness, giving each character a funny voice, stopping now and again to chat about the pictures... "look Tilda this princess must be you, she's all in pink"
The soft breath of a summer breeze against the curtains.
Lavender oil foot rubs for the girls after a bath time.
The girl's summery, patterned printed dresses blowing on the line in the afternoon.
The prayers and love of true friends who accept me just as I am, flaws and all.
My mother bringing sweet peas from her garden for us today on a surprise visit, as she does, , and when she does never forgetting to bring little treats for the girls in brown paper bags ( jelly babies, raisins, trail mix, white sugar mice or berries)
Emmy's maple and lemon sponge pudding with custard after Sunday dinner.
Chatting with my "little big" girl about this that and everything else, listening to her thoughts.
Sitting out in the garden in the evening with my husband, sharing the day, laughing about silly things and amazing at the blessings God has brought us.

here. now

• Take one moment at a time.
• Dwell in the heart of each moment.
• Still the waters of your mind
• Do not fall beneath their surge.
• Sit with me upon the banks
• do not be absorbed by the currents and swells.
• Take the route I've mapped especially for you
• I will navigate the course.
  

With love for a friend. "The Passion is in the letting go"

The passion is in this letting go.
You will find
yourself again, beautiful, shining
full of life.

A soul grows in the dark
of the earth, giving itself away
piece by piece,

stem, sepal, seed,
Becoming smaller time and time
again, becoming
pollen drifting,

and the gentleness of rain, the warmth
of sunlight in the morning
after a bitter night of frost.

The melting snow, white
petals unfolding,

Opening

Becoming.

True.

Beautiful.

Shining.

Full of life.

Memories of my Father in the garden...

My Father has had a hard life. He’s getting old now and age is bearing down.
These days he enjoys simply sitting in our garden watching the children swing and slide and dig and run making the happy sounds that children do. Somehow children always seem to bring a gift of carefree joy to the deep rooted seat of age.


As shadows lengthen and daylight dilutes into sepia, he can still find a quiet spot in a garden to think, murmur on politics, philosophy or random ideas. Occasionally giving advice on which plants would suit the soil conditions best. Last year it was peas and runner beans, they add a lot of nitrogen to the ground apparently.


My father has always been the kind of person you would remember. He is one of life's eccentrics.
But now old age and a weary body take his footsteps along a quieter route, slower, simpler, treading a pace that can't be forced.


And it is a change of season for my Dad, who like a sailor has had a life of extreme weather conditions. He is used to the challenge of the sea!
In his day, he could claim a mountain in a morning, but now the slow, aching, walk upstairs overwhelms.


He lived for some years in the deserts of North Africa learning how to understand the extremes of both the sun and the storm.
Here, beside the window and the potted plants and the dried flowers threaded with spiderwebs on the sill, life seems to have reached a plateau and it is the hardest yet to acclimatise to.


Still a little abandoned corner of life soil, often left neglected and unnoticed. A place to pile uprooted weeds and fallen leaves.... Now sprouts green. And where tear sodden earth was trod underfoot.... Flowers now grow at his feet.
Four small girls blossoming abundant. An unlikely adventure, but maybe the best yet.
Straining tendril from dehydrated earth to quenching light.


My Dad was a horticulturalist, (maybe that explains all these garden metaphors:)
He had a very messy greenhouse, pots everywhere, and a very messy garden too, full of over zealous jungle like plants.
It was not much of an advert for his business , but it’s the way he liked it.


The greatest peace I’ve seen him have is in nature. Times when we walked the dogs and stumbled upon some secret, undiscovered woodland, and he would just look around and pick out the names of the wildflowers in Latin. Or in the garden with a fork digging out potatoes, staring up at the sky for long stretches in-between, hands resting on the wooden handle, boots deep in trenched earth.
Or watching sea birds catch fish along the coast with an ancient pair of binoculars in hand and silence as a companion.
In my mind the muddy boots of hard times stay at the door. Only flowers will grow in the soil of my memories of him.


One of the greatest gifts my Dad has passed on to me is the connection between God and nature. It is something that has made a deep impression on me, like a footprint in the clay of my heart.
Whenever anyone asked him what he did for a living, he would reply, "I paint with a spade"
We used to make fun of "his art" by saying that it must be of the abstract variety.
But growing tender plants in the greenhouse, exploring nature's heights and depths or uttering a quiet prayer in the silence of a church, were all an embracing of God for him.

When I think of my father I see stormy, grey skies falling head over heels across ragged fields of grass. Potatoes cooking in the embers and tasting wonderfully of like mud and charcoal. The chink of a September sun glinting on the sharp edge of blue tide in the distance. Pheasants and hares hanging in the garage door, homemade scrumpy and apple cores in the compost.
Scraping lichen and moss from grey granite....

"These rocks have been here for a million and more years and they'll be around for a million more after we're all long gone."

A well worn expression (one of my Dad's many) 'oft' used in times of reflection.
Always made me feel infinitely small and grounded and afraid and secure all at the same time.

Truly, we can't build anything physically eternal, in this life. Time will fray and unravel the loose strands of our creations one day. But in nature we can always sense the eternal essence of our creator.


He holds the fabric of our lives in his hands. However torn or frayed or mismatched the pieces are He weaves them in to a new garment.

Bodies age and deteriorate, but my Dad's soul somehow stands as an oak set against the setting sun.
Or a sea bird hovering over the granite tides.

Regardless of the toll time takes on tired bones and the memory dug-well of a life lived to the brim... yet somehow only just truly savoured.
It will stand a little quieter, a little softer a little truer. Weathered maybe, but accepting of the seasons. Both the winter frost and the sunlight of summer.


Reaching only further and higher as the days pass.

Tuesdays Unwrapped at "Chatting at the Sky"

Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel an deep ache. It hits me suddenly and without warning. In the middle of washing up, or the moments of quiet, the shade of blue of the sky.
My heart hangs heavy, pangs silently, a sudden outburst of rain fills my eyes.
I feel like mercury pushing the clouds out of the corner of the picture in the Spring time Primavera But I can only chalk blue skies with my mind. My thoughts are a clear meadow, but my heart is a sunken valley where the rain pools.
Yet there is sunlight all around me and flowers in small hands, so many gifts.
It's only the undrawn picture, the unfashioned memory which falters my smile. It is the one small hand I will never touch. The little body I will never hold, the smile I will never see,
and I mourn it.
I grieve for a little child I never knew, yet know more intimatly than any in some ways. Because now she enfolds my soul in the wings of prayer as I once held her little body beneath my heart.

A few rambling ponderings on Sin and Forgiveness,

One thing I love so much about the Bible is that God uses the most unlikely people to reveal himself to, to use, to draw close to and to work through. It could have been such an easier book to read with Perfect Disney like heroes and villains a God of perfect authority and predictability and a nice neat, comfortable ending. If it had been anything less than divine revelation it just might have been more like that.

King David was an adulterer and murderer. Moses too was a murderer and "slow of speech", Jacob (a name which actually means cheat in Hebrew) lived up to it by cheating his brother out of his father's promise, Saint Paul was a persecutor of Christians, Samson was prideful, Solomon was led astray and the disciples of Jesus ( before the resurrection) give the impression of very ordinary humanness.

Yet King David was a man after God's own heart, the law of the old covenant was revealed to Moses, Jacob's name was changed to Israel the nation through which that covenant would be made, Saint Paul was redeemed on the road to Damascus without any initial repentance on his behalf, God did not let Samson face humiliation, he "listened to Samson's prayer and granted his wish," King Solomon's words of wisdom make up two books of the old testament and Jesus's disciples were the mottled, slightly roughened ordinary looking rocks on which the church was founded.

When asked the question "Why did God Blind Saint Paul? " at Sunday school the other week Bujana put her hand up with the innocent, simple yet wonderful answer " So he could listen"
That's how God works in his Mercy and compassion for us. He blinds us temporarily so that we may listen. So that we may more acutely sense His ways and His words.

Yet sin also acts as a blinder to God.

As fallible and frail human beings we are agents of both perfection and imperfection, as Saint Paul says we are "Clay jars concealing a treasure"
Yet our imperfection is also used by God who's ways are not our ways. Imperfection draws God's mercy and love into the depths. Like the stake of the cross. Our sin drags down into the decay of the earth, the dust from which our "Clay jars" were formed.

Yet there is a purpose. We can reach down so that we may (through Jesus) raise up what is lost and low to the heavenly heights.
That it may be redeemed.

As in Jacob's vision of the angels ascending and descending ladders from earth and heaven. We also make ascents and descents on our journey in faith.

Often we find ourselves wrestling with God on the ground though. We fight against our natures, we spend time dwelling on our sin, we try to hide our nakedness. Instead of basking in God's love and compassion for us and trusting in his working no matter whether we are at the bottom or the top of that ladder or simply somewhere in between.

To be at the top is wonderful, we can see clearly a wide perspective, there is not such a great need for faith as we can see the results of it. Then we begin to feel strong and confident in the steps we have trod and pride begins to take hold. The Lord seems to cut the ropes beneath our feet as we descend once more. Yet he knows these ways better than us. This is how he works through us.

And right at the bottom of the ladder as it becomes harder to just trust, we can feel like we have failed, but this is where the work really begins. As Jonah prayed...
'I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.'

We are humbled by our sin so that we can never look down on another who sins. This is a blessing from God and should be treasured.

There is a lyric in a Smashing Pumpkins song called "Disarm"which goes....
"The killer in me is the killer in you, my love"
The sin in another whether a seed, a small shoot or a full fledged strangling weed is the same sin in us but at maybe a different stage of development.
With enough nurturing in darkness, the same seed in us could easily sprout into the fully grown weed that we hate in another.

Sometimes the Lord wants us to be shining like stars, a light on a hill, a reflection of His glory. Sometimes he wants us, I believe, to be fools for his sake. Vulnerable, not perfect Hollywood heroes with shining white smiles, but a little broken, confused, shamed, a reflection of His passion. Hung upon a cross of seeming contradictions.

Yet as with King David, what seems to matter most to God is not the "perfect sheen of superficial appearances, but a humble, trusting, gentle and loving heart. To trust in His goodness no matter where we are even if we are in the depths of sin. Which we all are at all times to some degree or another.

King David trusted in His God's mercy at all times. And more than anyone else of his time he gave God his heart, imperfect and troubled though it sometimes was.
And that is all is asked from us, I truly believe. Not a dwelling upon our sins. Dwelling upon sin has more to do with us than God. Penance without love has more to do with us than God too.
To enter the kingdom our hearts must be like a child's. What child doesn't rejoice when forgiven by a parent? Most children simply take forgiveness and unconditional love from their parents as a given. What child ever second guesses it's loving parent's forgiveness? What child ever continues to ask for more punishments for it's past behaviour? No a child skips away in carefree knowledge that all is blotted out. For the parent always knows the child's heart no matter what the outward behaviour may seem to be from one moment to the next. And it is this child's heart which the loving parent holds in view at all times. That is how our heavenly father sees us I believe. He sees the innocent heart that he first created in us.

"for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

Reflections on caring for a sick child....

I have just laid Matilda down for a rest. We have had a bad night, well it is now a couple of bad nights.
She has, over the last three weeks gone through two courses of antibiotics for recurring ear infections, from last night she is now on her third and strongest dose for a chest infection. I have been watching her most of the night as the medication is not bringing her temperature down properly and much of what medicine and fluid she does take she vomits. I fear that she has become somewhat resistant to the antibiotics as well. We took her to the hospital under advice of the GP, last night. They said she should come back in 48 hours if she isn't any better and that until the antibiotics have a chance to work the best place for her is at home. Part of me is relieved, part scared, am I doing everything right? A question that keeps rebounding round my mind.
So it has been a constant stream of tepid baths, mild camomile teas served in her beaker, cool flannels wiped over her body, stories, lullabies, medicine, vitamin pills and lastly an old remedy of egg whites in her socks which we used last night as a last ditch attmept to bring her temperature down from 40 after she had had all the doses of medicine we could give her. Remarkably, and I say this sincerly as I could not understand how such a strange remedy might possibly work it did actually bringt it down to 38.8 within 15 minutes!
I can only thank my husband's mother who, according to my husband is a " one woman natural pharmacuticul company" There have been many old remedies reccomended from her that I have been pursuaded to try ( such as applying salt on minor burns, underlining minor here, serious burns would need more conventional treatments of course) have you ever tried that though? I tell you it works!!! This is just one example of many may I add!

Looking at my Tilly's sweet face, peacfully sleeping here beside me my heart hurts.
There is a strange feeling of emotions stirring within me. One is fear, cold and clear. That primal, instinct that burns like a fever in itself, gnawing deep down. Shuddering both hot and cold. Yet there is also, strangly, a constant and peripheral sense of peace. Hovering over the heaving waters, that stream and break over me as I tend her. Somehow I 'm being shown in ways I don't truly understand that He is watching, He knows, He hears, He is near. I am so grateful for my faith at times like this, it is the most precious gift. It is times like this that it is really brought into clear relief for me to see. That by imersing myself in His Words, His Love, His Counsel even when I have not felt any immediate consolation is all a preperation for the parched times when I really need to drink deep. Somehow all these things store up in a well within, I think. Somehow I have always felt a profound sense of His presence as a comforter whenever there is illness in the children. I find illness in the children very hard to cope with at times, yet it is at these places, I find Him reaching out to me, His hand upon my shoulder, gentle, still, quietening my mind and my heart. I can't explain it other than there is an almost tangible sense of His presence in the room. This was especially true last night, when I lay next to Tilly, my hand stroking her hair, listening to her breath against me. Her lips scarlet, her face pale, her body like a little hot water bottle simmering under the single cotton sheet.
She was asleep, but her eyes opened once in a while, almost as if she were checking that I was still there. "I'm still here sweetie. Mummy's got you" words almost prayed, in the tepid light.
And she smiled. In her sleep she caught me with her and she smiled. And then another emotion swelled up and rolled over me. One of complete gratitude. I was so thankful that I could be priveliged enough to care for her when she needed me most. That I could be there for her, even as she slept. These moments in a way were a gift to me that brought out everything that matters most into the light, even in the darkness of this bedroom surrounded by sticky medicine syringes, tissue paper, wet flannels and beakers of water and chamomile tea.
And then still something more began to sink into the ebb and flow of my thoughts. Something that made me see with a sudden chill of perspective.
I began to think of all the little ones in this world right now who have no one to wipe their brow or lie down beside them as they sleep, or read them stories to distract them from their discomfort, or rock them gently with a lullaby, over and over and over again till their eyelids droop and their shivering bodies surrender into a healing bath of sleep.
Little ones that have no medicine at all to bring them through endless feverish nights.
And then I prayed, not just for my sweet Tilly but for all the children who are sick in the world right now. Tilly will recover from this bought of sickness, yet for some children in other lands, far from the shores of medical centres, hospitals, new treatments and loving arms, there is no recovery, even for the simplest of illnesses.
And that is an ache I cannot heal within me, because it shouldn't be there. I think He puts the ache there to help me remember this. So I pray, because it is the only medicine I have for this ache.

Dear Lord,

Please be the rocking arms,
The gentle hand,
The cool towel, The soft song,
Be the,
Comforter,
For all who suffer,
Both within and without.
The child with the fever,
The mother with the fire of fear in her heart,
The little one whom no one
watches over,
May Yours be the face
That they see
When they open their eyes
in the empty darkness
Of soft sleep
May Yours be the face,
That they see.
The hands that will touch,
That will heal and
restore,
and renew.
In the morning light.

In Jesus's name
Amen.

Creating a Manger

"Be Still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10),

Stillness, a word that evokes so many wonderful things for me.
Quietness, peace, acceptance, a listening ear, a raising of the eyes, the planting of the feet.

When I become still, really still, I realise that I am in fact simply waiting. But waiting with a sense of peace, instead of a longing. Advent is the time for waiting isn't it.

But sometimes it's not easy to yield to my heart when my mind is racing with so many things...
So I must try to remember that when I feel myself begin to get caught up in the whir of the wheels of wrapping, organising, making, baking. Crushed under the cogs of last minute preparations, the arrival of sudden guests, the unexpected, unplanned happening that can turn my plans head over heels...
When I find my heart hardened by the length of my lists, falling headfirst into the lie that, Christmas has to look, or be, or sound, or smell, or taste a certain way. Lord,
Please remind me to be still. To sit for a while with you. Take moment by moment. Receive your simplicity and peace so that Christmas can become what it should be. Something far from my own plans and ideals. Something far more simple. Let me let You bring Christmas to me. The way it should be. Cast from your mould, Your form.

It is so easy for me to place more importance upon my actions, (What I do) Instead of on my heart, my prayer, (What I am)

It can be hard to still.

With our doing their is a visible measuring stick. Goals can be set and accomplished for all to see. Results are tangible. The tree, the cookies, the mince pies, the shopping, the nativity, the carol service, the helping here, the volunteering there, the wrapping, the cards, the......
Prayer, (being still) is planting a seed in dark earth.
Results are slow at times, sometimes they remain unknown by the one who prays.
But for all the doing we do, the Child cannot be born in a carved manger or shop front stable, or a perfectly prepared dinner and a beautifully laid table, he does not come wrapped up or signed at the bottom of a card.
He is born through the heart. The heart of each person. In some way in some form.
Our heart is the manger.

And at the busiest times. Advent in particular, isn't prayer (stillness) the prerequisite I must remember. To do all I do prayerfully. Prayer is surely the hinge upon which all my doings should turn.

When it is hard to slow and still as demands press down I must remember that it is at these times I need to still the most.

The stillness that comes from waiting prayerfully changes things from the inside out, from within, preparing our work, preparing the grounds, giving strength and wisdom and grace so we may do our work well.

I was thinking as I wrote this that work without prayer is a little like sacrifice without love as Saint Paul puts it: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, enough to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and hand over my body to be burnt but do not have love, I gain nothing."

In sculpture their is a term often used called "negative spaces" which describes the area around and within the sculpture as a form in it's own right. The form created by the artist is held in tension with the negative spaces of emptiness surrounding it and within it. It is these spaces of emptiness that create the very definition of the solid form.

"A Vessel is useful only through it's emptiness. "
Leo Tse

Sometimes I think that prayer works as a these negative spaces do. Almost unnoticed, yet opening windows of space and light along life's paths.

So... I pray that I will find the still places, the negative spaces, dwell for a while, So that the form of my own sculpture begins to fit His mould, His form, a little more.

Carve out a space, a warm place, within my own heart for the Christ's Child to be born.

Beneath the Surface

It’s amazing how even the smallest stones in the depths of the river effect the way the water moves at the surface.

The softly spoken reflections of the artist Andy Goldsworthy surveying the “Rivers and Tides” that are the living canvas of his own work.

Art always seeks to reveal the hidden. Find the cause behind the effect.
And although seemingly obscure, even the smallest particle of dust contains within it, the memory of a supernova. In the hidden depths of our heart, we also contain a memory. A memory that its stirred during advent in the way a seed stirs in the frozen, clay soil of winter.

Awoken slowly by a breath of warmth.

A breath of Hope amidst the barren effects of a cold season.

Along the embankments muddy reddened iron pebbles sunken into the riverbeds like red blood cells. Releasing unseen energy and nutrients that feed the life of the water. The small grey slates, plain and ordinary shifting placidly like miniture platlets in the cold depths.
All, in their way, choreographing the dance of currents and ripples that collide and tangle like silk ribbons along the river’s surface.

These unseen things effecting the seen.

• A prayer for the one we love.
• An unnoticed, sacrifice offered once again without hesitation.
• A father’s blessing for his grown child.
• A friendly welcome for a stranger
• The hope to keep forgiving.
• A place of communion carved out of chaos, Before the storms calm with words of faith that whisper “Peace be still”
• A heart that can yeild and remain still to hear that same whisper amongst the clatter of pots and pans and streaming tears.
• As well as in the singing of childish songs never forgotten.
• Sincerity offered, to a jaded ear.
• A joyful reminder returned gratefully to a weary heart.
• The bringing of hope’s candle in the dark corners of the world.
• A gift freely given,


• A Bread broken apart.
  And shared out.
  

Under the surface, unseen, hidden, waiting.
Preparing a course for the rising waters.
Digging deep in the times of drought.
Channelling, streams back to their source.
Each prayer, each sacrifice, each kind word, a gift.

Recieved and given back with in an open palm.

In Advent there is much happening beneath the surface of tinsel and trinkets and gift wrap and holly wreaths of commerciality.

A child is soon to be born in a poor stable in an out of the way town. A place hidden from obvious view.
His birth announced first to the poor, the lowly, the humble and childlike. The ones who are hidden, obscure, unknown, unassuming, unremembered.

Bearing “Beneath the surface” gifts for the babe in the manger. Gifts of the heart.

Each one a small shell that carries the song of the sea as a memory within, till once again the waves reclaim it as their own.
Rising and falling, rising and falling beneath hope's breath.

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Blaise Pascal:
"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble."

Thanking study in brown for the reccomendation of Rivers and Tides

Collecting Scraps

John Muir:

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

Blaise Pascal

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

J. Lubbuck:

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time.
-

We have been collecting Scraps....
Simple words of thanks, for simple joys. This is a child's way of communion. Pieced together into a Sunday afternoon scrapbook. Pages filled with the wonderment of details. Stiched together, little by little. From the details in nature, to the familiar ways of those dear and close, or the well worn pages of a well loved book sitting cheerily uptop a pile of even more upon the table. Scraps woven together by strong, stitches. Stitches, hand sown with love and care. By His hand.
For this is a gift He gives. A gift that transcends circumstance. A simple gift for all who Hope in Him. A binding of thankfulness. A prayer that weaves in and out of the din and the clatter and the noise just in the same way as it does the peace, of silence and the glinting of icy sunlight between the branches of winter trees.

Scraps of fabric woven together to make a life. Piece by piece. A life for Him, with Him and through Him.
Fragments of beauty, love, joy, memories, voices, dreams, green grass, laughter, songs, sunlight, quiet rain, falling leaves and budding blossoms.
With a thankful heart ready to embrace a love that can turn all things to grace.

And Why not visit lovely Ann's lovely peaceful place for gentle encouragment and inspiration. And many others who are walking in the way of thankfulness over at the GratitudeCommunity...

Tilling Over

“Jesus assumed our flesh; let us give him our own. In this way he can come into the world and transform it.” -Pope Benedict XVI

In a way I take Him everywhere with me.
He is my hands when I hold and comfort a crying child, stroking the hair, wiping the tear dampened cheeks. He is my feet when I walk along the peaceful mountain places and also when I tread the bustling city streets.
Sometimes He takes me to places of quiet, sometimes places of mess and noise and dischord. Other times I am lead to a place of joy, and at other times a place of suffering.

Maybe this is what, a life lived for Him, with Him and through Him becomes. A transformation that begins with me and ends with Him.

Just as a seed holds the blossoming tree so we, each one of us, hold the kingdom in our hearts. And it is from the heart that we are led.

It seems that Jesus often sought out the difficult ways and the narrow ways, the deep valleys and the back streets of the lost and broken before the high, transendant peaks of this world.

He went to the depths of life so He might illuminate them, redeem them, raise them up to the heights in his own resurrected body.

Still, must I, at times follow even here? Beyond my comfort zone. Beyond myself.

Must I step out into a bright light and open space I don't recognise? Become vulnerable?

Like the winter trees striped of their leaves. Simple, naked silhoettes embracing the stark, frozen sunlight of late November.

I like symmetry, order, comfort. I like to design a situation I can plan, regulate and control.
Sometimes it is hard for me to take His hand in mine.
When He comes in the form of a stranger who may upset my routine, or a sick and sleepless child, a messy chore I‘d prefer to leave for tomorrow, or a lonely neighbour, I would rather visit some other time. I begin to loosen my grasp. I busy my empty hands with my own tasks instead of His.

I try to make Him live through me, through my limited, awkward, unyielding body.

Instead of simply letting myself live through Him. Through His limitless, given and graceful form.

I find myself too busy and troubled to simply sit at His feet as Mary did. And seek His still voice in the whisper.
The whisper that can lead me so very gently to the places I really need to be and to the things I really need to do.
To hear a whisper takes a quiet and yielded heart.

Yet oftentimes I clatter around with my dust pan and brush, my dish cloth and scourer looking to clean up the corners, make things look tidy. Even if only in my mind.
Though maybe it’s the messy parts are what I have to get my hands dirty with at times. Embrace in fact.
The difficult places, the narrow roads.
To dig deep into the earth of life where the rot and decay can be over turned, to give life to new shoots. There is growth in the mess of it all, glory in fact, in the opportunity to turn goodness out of a little dirt.

Hard work, tiredness, the monotony of chores, sickness, the crying child, the untidy rooms, the needy and lonely ones I neglect to call on, the unkind comment someone made the other day that still lingers, are all opportunities to dig deep and plant a seed.

A seed that can be planted in my own heart first.

A place where the noonday sunlight of hope and the gentle watering of faith upon that seed may, in time, pollenate a whole garden of budding blossoms.
It is a strange yet beautiful fact of nature that it is only when the flowers have past their bloom and are about to fade and wither that they become most fruitful. For it is not in the beauty of the unfurled petals that they hold their life. It is from their very heart that they release their seed. Their hope of new life.

The soil of my own expectations is constantly being tilled over.
His order and beauty is grown from the earth up; from the depths of the soil to the heights of the heavenly kingdom.

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;" Ephesians 3:18

And during the times when the hard clay of all my pride and selfishness is softened to a fine rich soil, my own limitations are over come by His limitless.

You drench its furrows and level its ridges;you soften it with showersand bless its crops.
Psalm 65:

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Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed? Does he continually turn and harrow the ground? Does he not level its surface And sow dill and scatter cummin And plant wheat in rows, Barley in its place and rye within its area? For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
Isaiah 28

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... For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown ...
Eziekiel 36

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For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God
Hebrews 6 >>

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the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sowe the seed: and the mountains shall drop sweetness, and every hill shall be tilled ... Amos 9:13