Tag: Creation

God creates a little flower.

One Sunday afternoon in heaven, a wing of Guardian Angels met God and he noticed their glum faces.
“Why are you looking so miserable”, God asked.
“We’re bored” they replied.
“How can you be bored! You have so many humans to look after, and animals too.”
“That’s the trouble,” Angel Anthropos said. “Many of the humans aren’t much fun and right now so many of them are anxious and sad.”
“Some are downright wicked” said Angel Pax.
Angel Vocalis, ever one to put in its opinion, added that, “many are just dull.
“and,” said Angel Gloriana, “so many of them keeping asking for things for themselves. Some of them think they are so important that they want bigger and better homes, cars, boats, holidays. They are possessed by their possessions. They don’t care about anybody else. Angel Anthropos concluded, “There is no joy or colour in their lives.”

God smiled at his little group of angels whom he loved so dearly. Then he shook his head and sighed, “I know just what you mean. So many dark things are going on at the moment, causing many of the little ones to suffer. The vulnerable ones have so many things to deal with. That’s why they need their Guardian Angels now more than ever.
The Angels twitched their wings and began to feel guilty, though God reminded them that there in no room for guilt in heaven. You must brush away your guilt with love. Go and love those in your care more than ever.
They knew God was right, of course, but it was hard to do that right now.

Then God smiled. “I know a way to cheer you up, and maybe some of the humans too.”
He beckoned them into his studio where he kept his art material. It was the Creative heart of heaven where God made things.
The Angels noticed the design of a tiny flower. Angel Vocalis said that, though it was pretty, the flower didn’t look that much. It was hardly worth making. Then he flung a wing over his mouth, “Sorry, Father God, I shouldn’t have said that.” “Don’t worry,” God replied, “who gave you your mind to think, to have opinions, to speak. But let me tell you about this flower.
As you say, it’s tiny and most people won’t notice it. It could so easily be ignored. That’s why I’ve painted it pinky-purple with dark foliage – and there’s something I want to show you but I need all your help.”
The angels looked at God expectantly.
“I’ve made lots of copies and I need you to colour them in for me. Now get on with that whilst I go to Evensong and listen to all the voices singing throughout the world, and listen to their prayers.

After God had gone, the Angels got busy and carefully and quietly painted the flowers and the foliage. A hush descended as it often did when they were doing creative things.
It also helped that they were absorbed doing part of God’s work. As they worked skillfully, they remembered how much of Himself God poured into the things he made – including themselves. The secret was that everything was made by Love as love.

When God returned he brought the Holy Spirit with Him and together they examined what the angels had done. “Tove!, Tove!” said the Spirit, which was a Hebrew word meaning Good, Beautiful.
The angels were pleased because God was pleased.
They all looked at their paintings and loved them. The tiny flowers were bursting with life.
God agreed that they were little and would be dwarfed by bigger, brighter, more showy flowers. Some would be hidden by the grass and would be mown when the grass was cut but God had a plan, as always!

First, he explained something very important. He told the angels, “It’s not always the big flowers, or the big things or big people who show people what I am like, nor is it always by big gestures that people serve me. My dear daughter, St Teresa of Calcutta , once reminded people that we don’t necessarily do big things in our life but rather little things with a big love. These little flowers are signs that we can bring beauty and peace and love to others by the little things we do – smiles, thoughtfulness, acts of kindness, just ordinary things which make others feel better and wanted and loved.”
“Now put your paintings next to each other”.

When they did, there was a carpet of colour and the table, the floor, everywhere was covered in beauty. Then God, the Holy Spirit blew on them and the little flowers came alive and danced, and danced. And as they swirled to the music the Holy Spirit made, tiny seeds flew from the flowers. “Catch them!” said God, and they did.
“Go now” said God as he smiled on them and they were filled with joy. “Be off with you to the earth especially to dark and sad and lonely people who need brightening up, but go everywhere – cast the seeds all over the place. It’s the tiny seeds of love which bring joy to life, even in the difficult and broken places. Place some of your seeds gently in the cracks and reclaim people’s hearts with beauty and love. May these little flowers bring hope and joy and remind people that little things make a big difference, especially when those little things are joined to each other in a big carpet of love and care.

“Tove! Tove!” said the Holy Spirit, blowing God’s love over them… and they went gladly and willingly.

It is in little things that we show people what God is like. Simple things like caring, smiling, showing people that they matter and are valued, holding a hand, giving a hug, acts of practical kindness, praying for people, breathing God’s love over them. It is such things that really change the world and make it a better place.
Every time you see a little flower, give thanks to God for making it and breathing the same love into it as He does into us …. And remember the words from the Book of Genesis: “and God saw all that He had made, and it was very good”.

[Mr G]

Blue in Spring

***Bluebells in Latton Churchyard. Photo: Mr G***

This poem was written in the 1930’s by a dear friend of mine, Nan Northam
It seems good to celebrate Rogationtide as a way of a rite of passage in Spring
and a thanksgiving for creation.

O GOD,
we thank you for this earth, our home; for the wide sky and the blessed sun,
for the ocean and streams, for the towering hills and the whispering wind,
for the trees and green grass.
We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds,
and see the splendour of fields of golden wheat, and taste autumn’s fruit,
and rejoice in the feel of snow, and smell the breath of spring flowers.

GRANT US a heart opened wide to all this beauty;
and save us from being so blind that we pass unseeing
when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory.

[Mr G]

Love Poem

The Daily Reflections on Scripture Readings by the Church of England over the past 2 days have been based on
the Book of Genesis, Chapter One. This inspired me to think of it as a Love Poem from God.

Father God,

Your poem spoke creation into being
telling us of our origins,
our companions,
the light and darkness of our existence,
the moments of our being;
your gift, which is the earth.

You appoint us custodians
of all that you have made
and go on making,
stamping your image on us and
all that we receive;
showing us how good it is.

Help us to hear your poem
and fulfill its meaning
of who and where and what we are,
of all that you have given us to cherish
~ a poem spoken out of pure love.

[GC . 8^th January 2024]

Daughter of the Wind

*Wood Anemone photographed by Gill Henwood in the Lake District.*

Wood Anemone…. A little story.

According to the poem at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, God completed the creative action on Planet earth after six days of total activity.
Genesis informs us that on the 7^th day, God rested.
But rest rarely means inaction, especially for God. There is no way that The Maker of everything can either unmake nor stop the inbuilt process of evolving, developing, deepening, the love which God had poured into all that was made.
You see, in order to ‘make’, God had to use the very essence of being to do this and that same essence, being God, is never absent.
That’s a quick way of saying that God is always God and always making things in his and her own image!
God broods over creation like a father and a mother, holding it in being, trying to save it from harm, and guiding with all encompassing ‘love’. That’s the work chosen by God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But none of that needed to be explained on that first Sunday morning. Later, God would invent and make some very clever people called ‘theologians’ who could mull over everything that God has made and decide whether it is good or not so good. They will helpfully disagree on this which makes it very simple for us to ignore them, or become one of them. (tongue in cheek remark!)
On that first Sunday morning, God wasn’t prepared to get too involved in all that. He was resting. I suppose, being, God it wasn’t the forty-winks kind of rest that we know it to be now. It was a creative rather than restorative rest.

As God the Father rested, God the Son pointed up at the lovely stars and noticed that, appropriately, one of the stars had six points, one for each day of creation. In fact, many people would give it the name of The Creator’s Star.
These 6 ‘pinpricks’ touched the darkness and so it wasn’t as dark as it would be without them. In fact, the light had a bright and luminous beauty which simply shone amazingly.

As God the Father, watched this, God the Holy Spirit allowed inspiration to flow.
Earlier, a joint effort had created things like paper, pens and pencils, paint and ink and paint brushes. So God the Spirit set to work.
Gently, the pencil floated over the paper as God thought what to make of the stars with six points drawn on the paper.
What had emerged was a flower, robust but also vulnerable. It would live amongst the trees and in the Spring, it would shine with a brilliant light.
Ah!, thought God. This little flower will become part of something very special.

God knew that one day it would be necessary for some extremely Good News to be announced and the Son of God would make it.
The plan, still to be unfolded, would involve the Son in a supreme act of love though as with all acts of self-giving, it would come at a price.
So, in using the little flower to be part of the message of hope and joy to lighten a dark world, God knew that it would perhaps not live very long because as we all know, when we light a candle, as it burns to give us light, it dies.
But in the case of the little white flower, there would be no permanent death because death merely continues a journey of life but in another place. Well, almost, because what the flower leaves behind is a root system which means it will come alive on earth again.

God loved the little flower and as the Son held it up, the Spirit breathed on it and it danced. It moved as if in the wind, so God said that it would be known as ‘wind flower’.
The Spirit then pronounced the Name which would be ‘Anemone’ – Daughter of the wind.

Jesus loved the white colour because it would be the Easter colour of Resurrection and the anemone would live in forests and woodlands because that would remind people of the wood of the Cross. It would therefore suggest to the people who saw it that through the love of God poured out from the Crucifixion, the world would be a brighter, lighter, more joyful place. It would be a world able to celebrate hope and beauty and love again. The little white flower would remind people of this

… and the little Wood Anemone? Having done her job she would rest a little until next year.

[Mr G]

with thanks to Gill for the inspiring photograph.