Holy ground

Autumn at Auld Bridge, North Ayrshire photograph by my friend Heather Upfield.

Holy Ground

Sometimes it feels like our world is simply falling apart, or to be truthful, humanity is proving to be a big threat to the earth God made and of which we are supposedly stewards.
Ukraine, for example, is where the demonic, in the shape of Mr Putin, is threatening to destroy a land which doesn’t belong to him and a people who, for the most part are innocent. There is little that most of us can do about that. Some of us feel powerless to change things for the better.
Meanwhile, we in England are spectators to a different kind of power struggle which is, nevertheless, upsetting.
Our ruling party in Parliament is engaged in what can be described as in-fighting, warfare, and a pitiful attacking of each other. What they are not doing, it seems, is actually governing. It has been going on for months and there is no clear end in sight. Meanwhile many of us feel powerless at the futility of it all.

So, I was pleased that my friend Heather sent me the above photo of an autumn scene in North Ayrshire.
It gave me a different perspective. I was reminded that there is a different view of the world, and creation provides it. Whilst there is much to do and hearts and minds to change about the care of creation, the world continues to move through the seasons showing us beauty and freshness and hopefully joy.
Autumn is such a definite season of both dying and rebirth. As the autumn coloured leaves drop silently to the ground, they leave behind a space for new buds to form and new life to burst forth in due season.
Some in the animal kingdom hibernate or slow their pace at this time of year. Would that humanity might imitate! We might do less damage!

All of us are looking expectantly towards the movement of Autumn into the Christmas light of the Christ-Child, once again illuminating darkness – Diwali for the Hindu people on Monday, Hanukkah for the Jewish people in December, (Eid – Al-Hada for Muslims at a variable time). Light penetrates darkness and reminds us of our dependence on the Sun. Also, perhaps, we may re-discover the importance of the delicate balance of the Cosmos as well as of our own Planet.

Seasons are good moments to repent – to turn away from all the things we are doing wrong to Creation, the world of Nature and to ourselves. A time to turn back to God and look forward to better things; to do better; to be better people.
A time to try to be more Godly and to remind ourselves that all life is gift and that we are given, also, a planet to care for, including each other, and therefore we are on God’s Holy Ground.

I came across this prayer recently and I share it with you. It deserves to be prayed with joyful repentance.

Loving God,
We praise you for the miracle of life and growth: for the smell of flowers, fresh vegetables
and an autumn morning,
for the taste of crunchy apples and warm porridge,
for the sound of running streams, Mozart and a school playground,
for the feel of warm soup, smooth velvet and loving arms.

Particularly, today, we thank you for trees:
for the beauty of their shape and form,
for the freshness and life they bring to our streets,
for their essential contribution to the cycle of nature.

Loving God, forgive us:
when we don’t notice this wonderful world in which we live,
when we don’t think about the impact of some of the things we do,
when we deliberately contribute to the destruction of your world.
Let us remember;
that the ground we stand upon is holy ground
let us keep it, guard it, care for it,
for it keeps us, guards us, cares for us.

Amen.

A task of hope

A Task of hope.
My friend Gill Henwood has offered us a meditation from the Lake District:

Acer palmatum dissectum
Century old trees that have grown through the pergola, turning vermilion scarlet and glowing with fire across the fields.

Thomas Mawson, garden designer, and his team completed the garden (near Hawkshead in the Lake District) in 1922, after the First World War. When we replaced the pergola we left off the cross pieces in the centre having pruned back rampant rambling and climbing roses that were entangled in the trees. A task for two of us, kitted out with leather gauntlets, thorn proof jackets with hoods up! I seem to recall it was pouring with rain too…

Pruning and cutting back in the autumn is a task of hope, that there will be new growth and new flourishing in the Spring. This autumn, our Japanese maples are singing a Gloria in Excelsis for their light and airy home, facing east in the chilly, wet Lake District but absolutely thriving, 100 years on.

When I feel I’m being ‘pruned’ by life’s ups and downs, challenges and opportunities, I’ll look at the photo and remember the maples’ absolute triumph, giving such joy to those who hike the footpath below – and maybe even to the sheep, safely grazing in the field!

Gill.

A Gardener’s Prayer

Heavenly Father, creator of all things,
help us to realize that we are custodians of the wonderful heritage
with which you have so generously endowed us.
Give us the minds and the hearts to rejoice in your creation,
and to walk through your beautiful world with seeing eyes.
Help us to save the good earth, the stately trees, the dainty wildflowers,
the birds and all things that have no voice to protest against destruction.
We thank you for your bounty and pray we may be worthy of it.
Amen

God walks among the pots and pans

God walks among the Pots and Pans – a reflection on St Teresa’s day October 15th

Teresa of Avila believed that God could be found in everyday and rather ordinary activities as well as in the silence of prayer in church or some special place.
Though she herself had experienced deep mystical experiences she was down-to-earth and practical.
When it was reported to her that a sister was having an extreme religious experience which threatened to overwhelm her, Teresa advised that she should eat marmalade. (she knew the importance of sugar balance!) Another sister in a similar state was told, quite sharply, that she was there to do the dishes!
Though she was granted a particularly great spiritual experience of God, known as the Ecstasy of St. Teresa, which she described as a “complete transformation of the soul in God,” she firmly believed that God was to be found and experienced in everyday ways.

Most of the time, our journey of faith is really quite ordinary. Yet it is in the midst of ordinariness that God opens Himself to us and warms our hearts. I’ve always liked what St. Teresa of Avila said—God walks among the pots and pans. He’s can be found in the ordinary things that we do and the tasks we perform, like cooking and cleaning the dishes. Whilst experiencing Jesus in church worship and in the sacramental life, God is always near us. If our hearts are tuned to him we shall recognize him in the mundane, the unexciting, the ordinariness where Jesus is constantly waiting to meet us.

Teresa was born in the 16th century and her feast day is on Tuesday. At an early age she was fired up by the lives of the saints and she was particularly taken by the martyrs and their complete self-offering to God.
When she was about 12 she decided that she would leave home and travel to where there were enemies of Christ who would, she confidently believed, behead her! Then she would immediately enter heaven. She took her younger brother Rodrigo with her but fortunately for them, they were apprehended by an uncle before they had reached the outskirts of the town. He noted that the ever-practical Teresa had remembered to pack sandwiches.

Though she failed to receive the martyrs crown she responded to the call from God which was to be total and life-long. Entering a Carmelite convent at the age of 21, she was to be dogged by ill health for many years, even to the point of death. It was when she experienced a mystical visitation from God which left her heart trembling that she was “left completely afire with a great love for God.” She knew then that her soul would “never be content with anything less than God.”

At this time in Spain, the convent life was one of luxury. Nuns even had their own personal maids! Teresa received a call from God to restore a sense of sacrifice and simplicity to the Carmelite order. With thirteen other nuns, she left the security of her convent and for the rest of her life she founded a different sort of convent. Throughout Spain she introduced reforms, some of which she had to argue for in front of prelates and even a Pope but she was not afraid of anything that she saw as standing in the way of God. Simple convents for a simple God-centered way of life. The nuns went barefoot as they trod gently but purposefully towards God and His Kingdom.

Teresa rushed all over Spain founding such convents, and earning the nickname as ‘God’s Gadabout’. But in the midst of all this activity was a soul stilled into prayer. She remained close to God in the silence of true prayer. She never ceased to find him in the ordinariness of her daily life.

Sometimes she met Jesus in ways she would have preferred not to! On a particularly rainy day, the ox-cart in which she was travelling got stuck in the mud. Seeking to help in some way, she jumped from the cart into mud almost up to her knees, whereupon she shook her fist towards heaven and is supposed to have said, It is no wonder that your Majesty has such few friends, the way you treat us!’
She was to write many fine words about prayer but surely none would come straight from her heart as that did!

Her spiritual guides insisted that she wrote down her thoughts about prayer and they are, to this day, among the great spiritual classics. They reflect her holiness, wisdom and sense of humour. Through them she has become a favourite teacher of prayer to many, many people.
Her teaching was recognized by the Church, when shortly after her death she was made a saint who was truly a ‘teacher of the faith’

Her words, her teaching, her example, have given us a rich treasury from which to discover how to both accept and give the love of God; a love through which we grow faithfully and in the knowledge that God is always close to us. In everyday ways and everyday words Teresa helps us to open our hearts more fully in peace and trust to the one she always called Your Majesty, and lived close to in deep friendship and love. So might we.

[Mr G]