Love is like a butterfly ~ Dolly’s symbol

“I just loved them because they were colourful and gentle,
and I just kind of related to them with my own personality.
I don’t want to hurt anybody. Didn’t want to bite. Didn’t want to sting, and I still don’t.
I just kind of claimed them as my little symbol.” ~Dolly Parton~

Love is like a butterfly,
as soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicoloured moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside, it flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing (Dolly)

Peacock butterfly … Breathtaking

A beautiful sunny afternoon in heaven.
God rested, stretched, relaxed;
but the creator of everything cannot be still.
An idea formed;
a longing to make something beautiful.
When you are full of love it is no chore to create.

He would paint,
brushing into life something stunning,
Breathtaking!

His canvas invitingly empty.
God dipped the brush of his imagination,
stretched out his hand.
Intricate sparkling colours
flowed from his fingers.
What figment of his palette
did He conjure up?
Slow formation of something crazy.

He fashioned me, a butterfly
adorned with Peacock colours.
I am painted with the eye of God,
a reflection of His love for making.
Crafted by God,
every act of creativity births new loveliness
into the world

God blew on my wings.

Breath giving
Breathtaking
I fly.

[Mr G. ammended August 30th 2026]

In Praise of Hogweed

*Hogweed in Grizedale, English Lake District; photographed by Gill Henwood*

Colours, textures, patterns: the slow but steady miracle of flowers unfurling on the forest verge, Grizedale. Even the young leaves bright green are delicate unfolding in the light.

Hogweed is the common name for this native plant in the carrot family, not toxic like the non-native giant hogweed. The Wildlife Trust tells us: “The hollow stems of hogweed were traditionally used in many children’s games as water guns, pea-shooters and swords.” Clearly, it’s been around since the days of foraging hogs (possibly for its root as it’s related to the carrot family), and sword play.

Attracting many insects, hogweed spreads its many seeds but can be welcomed into wild gardens by cutting off the seedheads before they scatter. However, on a winter frosty morning, any standing dried seedheads are glorious, sparkling architectural wonders.

When is a wild plant and flower a weed? Beauty, scent, nectar, and hollow stems for hibernation, all offer a different perspective. Hogs knew better, for they tasted delicious.

“Praise Him, all creatures here below”

[Gill Henwood]

From a doxology on the Holy Trinity, by Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1710)
It is sometimes linked with St Francis of Assisi and his canticle of the Creatures.
This is the full doxology

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

P.S. There will be a short break before the next Blog entry, after a short holiday. {Mr G}

Transfiguring Love

The Transfiguration of Christ, Icon written by Sr Irène-Marie of la communaute
des soeurs du Bec-Hellouin. There are two Icons, one at the Parish Church of
St John the Baptist, Epping and a similar Icon in the personal care of Mr G.

Transfiguring Love, reflections on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2026 by Mr G.

In the Transfiguration (see Luke 9: 28-36) God gives us a snapshot of human glory – Christ transformed and it is as if God is telling us that this is what we can become if we follow his way of doing things.

What follows the Transfiguration is the journey to Jerusalem by Jesus and his companions leading to the death of our Lord Jesus on the Cross. There, Jesus absorbed all human pain, conflict and hurt as he became the instrument of our transfiguration. He absorbed human sin and nailed it to the Cross and he did so out of sheer love for humanity. What transforms the Cross is love because the Crucifixion is God’s ultimate statement of His love for us. “You can do this to me,” his actions say, “and yet I will go on loving and you cannot stop me for it is only love that transforms humanity and changes our destiny.”

I once heard a story of a young Russian priest who was arrested when communism took over his country. For years he was held in a prison camp and there he was beaten and tortured. When he was eventually released his friends asked him what was left of him.
‘Nothing’ he said, ‘they have taken everything away. Only Love remains.”

That priest had discovered the one thing that changes every human situation and disarms every human conflict – sacrificial self-giving love. The Cross which Jesus took upon himself is the action by which all of us can be changed – and when we are changed, the world is changed. Only Love remains – only love will conquer the human heart. Only love will Transfigure the world. Perhaps we are unable to see that as a possibility in conflicts throughout our world – in Ukraine and Russia, in the Sudan, In the Middle East, in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, in Gaza where the people are living without hope. So many conflicts, so much hatred; all we can hope is that the world will come to its senses before it is too late.

But there is one area where we can see this glory of Transfiguration and that is in our own lives and in our own dealings with others. Wars do not begin on foreign battlefields far from home. They begin in our hearts – when we refuse to allow others dignity or understanding. When we want what we want, come what may and when we believe our own views to be the only right views – a sure way to begin oppression of others.

That is not God’s Way. As Mother Mary Clare of the Sisters of the Love of God once put it so clearly, God’s way is to call us to stand at the place of the Cross – at that intersection where human pain, hurt and conflict meet and are held by the transforming love of God. This is where Love will always remain and we are invited to become it with Jesus.

It is only when we stand in this place where God in Jesus Christ always is – the place of transforming love – that we will begin to see the glory in each other. That is a wonderful message of the Transfiguration. If we do not grasp it then not only will we ill treat others, we will also diminish ourselves – and, more importantly, we will be in danger of denying God.

[Mr G]

**Sister Irène-Marie, Icon writer,**
transformed by heavenly love.

A Faithful Priest

*Simple statue of St John Vianney. Photo Mr G*.

One of my most treasured possessions is a plain plaster statue of a French parish priest known universally as the Curé d’Ars—so named because for over 40 years he served the parish of Ars-en-Dombes.

John-Marie Baptiste Vianney (whose feast day we keep on August 4th) was brought up in a peasant farming family near Lyons. He was born in 1786 and as a child of farmers he was given very little formal education. Yet, by the time he was 20 he had heard God’s call to ordination and had begun to study for the priesthood.
He found study very hard and on more than one occasion his superiors thought to end his time in the seminary. However, they noted his devotion to God and a quality of holiness which far outweighed academic ability. They saw a young man whose heart God had touched.

He was ordained and after a curacy he was appointed the Parish Priest of a backwater village—Ars. He went there in 1818 and remained until his death in 1859 on August 4th. Very quickly he gained a reputation for being a preacher and people began to flock to hear him. At the same time he became known as a priest who could give wise and gentle counsel to souls in distress.
Very soon people began to consult him and to bare their souls to him.

The trickle of people became a stream and then a torrent. Many came to him to receive both God’s forgiveness and wise counsel.
All was rooted in personal prayer and devotion. He would preach a sermon daily at 11am and then spend many hours in hearing confessions and giving spiritual direction. He was often moved to tears by the things people told him and he brought to them the comfort born out of someone who understood human weakness and the power of God’s love.

He was offered more important jobs in the Church and he also struggled with a call to the monastic life but he stayed where God had put him and in so doing put the little village of Ars on the map—not only in his own day but for all time.

Not surprisingly, after his death, he was declared a Saint and he became known as the Patron Saint of Parish Priests. As an example of the devotion and service priests are called to emulate, this is hardly surprising.
The simple statue I have, unadorned by paint, is a reminder of what priesthood means.
Here’s one of my favourite sayings of his:

Speaking of the difference between private and public prayer, he said:

“Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there : if you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky. Public prayer is like that.”

[Mr G. August 4th 2026]