Tag: Creation

A Valentine’s Day Card

Valentine’s Day dawn over Hawkshead Church. Photograph by Gill Henwood.

Today we celebrate St Valentine who was martyred in Rome about the year 269AD. At that time there was a persecution of Christians under the reign of the Emperor Claudius. Valentine’s association with expressions of love to those special to you isn’t really known. In Medieval times it was thought that on this day birds began to mate but there are other ideas.

Today it is associated with the sending of cards to someone you would like to express your love to. However, as there is a custom that this is sent anonymously, it rather defeats the object! It is also one of those festivals when purveyors of love signs – flowers, chocolates, cards etc – encourage us to express our love in some tangible way. Obligingly those who supply these needs increase the cost of purchase, just to prove that you really mean it!

The One who truly expresses His deep love for us is God, though as ever, he pays the price Himself.
God is busily renewing our world at this time and all around us are signs of His love in the joy of creation beginning to show itself in the bursting forth of new life. Valentine’s day can therefore be a day when we give thanks to God for creating us, loving us and sustaining us.

There is much that is dark in our world right now so it is good to be able to pause from our anxiety, pain and despair to look also at what is hopeful and what sustains us in the depth of our souls.
The Valentine’s day message from God is that we are to love one another as He loves us. That is what Jesus tells us and it is when we put that into practice we have already turned the world into a lighter and brighter and more loving place.

Meanwhile, thanks to my friend Gill Henwood, God has sent us a Valentine’s card full of beauty and vision. Look around you. God really does want you to be filled with His joy and love. Give Him thanks.

Here’s another reminder of the beauty of Creation, and below it, a suggested text for your Valentine’s Card to God. (Don’t forget to sign it – Amen!)

[Mr G]

Creator God,
We acknowledge that as your handiwork,
we stand alongside all that you have made.
Trees and rivers, mountains and valleys,
soaring birds and scuttling creatures,
all are held within your care.
May we grow in our love and appreciation
for the fabulous variety around us;
and may our awe and wonder draw us closer
to the natural world, and through it to you,
the God of all things.
We pray in Jesus name,
Amen

Prayer by Revd Cate Williams, Mission and Evangelism Officer
Diocese of Gloucester

Photos by The Revd Gill Henwood

Those we find it difficult to love

Magpies in the garden. Photo by Lynn Hurry

At the end of the Eucharist at our church, our Vicar, Lynn (a.k.a photographer Lynn as above!) prays a blessing which includes the wish that God’s blessing may “be upon you, those you love and on those you find difficult to love.”

When I received her photo of two magpies, a mother and her young, I remembered that not everyone loves magpies. Many members of the farming community are amongst those who not only find it difficult to love them, they actually wage war on them. Others, less violently, dislike the way Magpies treat other birds; how they steal food and how they generally act as bullies.

So the photo from Lynn, showing a mother magpie and her young (clearly demanding food) seems at odds with the views many hold.
Yet there is a tenderness which is endearing.
Maybe it’s the vulnerability which appeals to the mothering instinct in some of us. Or maybe we are reminded of the way Creation is being destroyed and we are moved by the increasing importance of protecting all of God’s created things. Even aggressive magpies!

Before we get carried away with thinking that Magpies are aggressive creatures who don’t deserve our protection, we might turn the spotlight round.
After all, whatever aggression we see in the Animal world, we humans can beat them. Arguably, we are the most aggressive, exploitative and self-centred species on God’s earth – yet many claim that we reflect God’s image!
I don’t suppose that it’s a view you find easy to keep if you happen to be a Ukrainian facing the force of Putin’s army – those we find not, those we find difficult to love, but rather, absolutely impossible’

Yet there is a way in which we can move on from the hatred which destroys into a better, if difficult , place.
Today, I read about the trial of the men convicted of killing 130 people, in a terrorist attack in Paris nearly 7 years ago.
As the trial ends, it brings a difficult future for the family of Nick Alexander, the only British victim.

His sister Zoe, says that she refuses to hate the terrorists.
Each day for 10 months she has been listening to the evidence of what happened in Paris on the night of November 13^th, 2015 – the night that her brother Nick was shot dead.
Zoe knew that it was important to be in the same room as her younger brother’s killers (14 of the 20 of them).
She was struck by how similar in age they were to Nick, who was 35 when he died.
She feels the futility and enormity of the tragedy.

Giving evidence, Zoe was determined they would learn they had not won. She would never subscribe to the legacy the terrorists wanted to leave, of hate and intolerance.
“We are not at war with you” she told them, “you’re at war with yourselves. I hope you can honestly look inside your heart and say it was worth it.”

The trial didn’t give her closure, “We will never close the door on what happened to Nick because it’s part of our family story.”
Speaking of the terrorists, Zoe said: “I can’t forgive them yet; that would be to condone what they had done, but we have to moved forwards without hate.”
Zoe believes that the only way we can learn from the attackers is to make sure we never join them. You can’t neutralize poison with more poison. If we don’t learn anything from this, it has been a huge and tragic waste.
The family, are now setting up a Nick Alexander Music Trust – to help disadvantaged community groups to come together through music. Zoe says, “Nick’s killers wanted to leave us with fear and hatred and darkness, and we have turned it round.”

Maybe Zoe’s amazing testimony will teach us that, difficult and impossible it can sometimes be, we might find it in our heart to ask for God’s blessing on those we find it difficult to love and in making that a prayer we might find we can take halting steps in the right direction.

Meanwhile may our outreach in love stretch towards little magpies! Vulnerable creation needs that love very much.

[Mr G]

Rogation – a big vision

Langdale Pikes – snow in May | Gill Henwood

Rogation (meaning ’to ask’) has traditionally been a time when we ask for God’s blessing on the land and the crops growing in the fields. This was combined with a tradition known as ‘beating the bounds’. A Church procession would walk the boundary of the parish, pausing to pray for God’s bountiful goodness for the farming community as well as ensuring the parish boundary was observed and marked. I know of an ancient custom in the Northern town of Oldham of erecting seven crosses around the boundary of the parish thus claiming – or re-claiming – the land for God (and, less spiritually, ensuring that tithes were paid to the Church!)

When I lived deep in the countryside, we fought shy of actually beating the bounds because a part of the boundary was up a fell which peaked at 1059 ft. Whilst it would have been easy for a fit person like myself, (I may be telling an untruth here) we had to consider more delicate flowers in the congregation. So we contented ourselves with a gentle ramble through bluebell woods and an open air service at the local Scout camp. I think Gill Henwood, who took this photo of Langdale Pikes draped with snow last week, may well remember the bluebell wood walk.

The priest/poet George Herbert, writing in 1630 commended the custom for 4 reasons:

As a blessing of God on the fruits of the field.
As justice in the preservation of the boundaries.
As an act of charity in loving, walking and neighbourly accompanying one another, reconciling differences and forgiving wrongs.
As an act of mercy: as the blessing of God was invoked, the people were to be mindful of the needs of the poor and give them what was needed for their well-being.

This blessing of God’s earth was sometimes given a wide interpretation! Once, when I told a clergy friend about our bluebell walk, he responded rather sniffily that he had done something much more spectacular – he had blessed the Atlantic Ocean. So there!

As he was Vicar of a landlocked parish up on the North Lancashire moors I expressed my disbelief. So he told me:

“We had a service at one of our local farms and running through it was a little stream. I blessed that. The stream flows into a local river which then joins the River Ribble. The Ribble flows into Morecambe Bay and from there to the Irish Sea which eventually becomes the Atlantic Ocean. So I blessed the Atlantic Ocean.“

I had to give it to him – he either had a fanciful imagination or a big, big vision!

God has a big vision for his world and for all he has created. We tarnish that vision with our selfishness and our failure to bless, care for and feed a world in great need. Our desire for the well-being of others and a healing for our earth are needs that we have to respond to as well. It is no accident that Christian Aid Week, when money is raised to help countries and peoples less fortunate than ourselves, is linked to Rogationtide. At a time of blessing, we should become people of blessing to others. I write this just days after we have been told that Her Majesty’s Government has considerably reduced aid given to developing countries. This is, in my view, a lack of vision and also a failure to see that Global means Global (to recoin a phrase!). As the Psalmist reminds us:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it. (Psalm 24. 1)

Never more than today is that vision needed for India, Brazil and so many other places on our planet. It isn’t enough to look after ourselves – the vaccines God has given us the knowledge to find are not our property but for sharing.

As St. Ambrose says:

“It is not from your own possessions that you are bestowing alms on the poor, you are but restoring to them what is theirs by right. For what was given to everyone for the use of all, you have taken for your exclusive use. The earth belongs not to the rich, but to everyone. Thus, far from giving lavishly, you are but paying part of your debt.”

It is hard to argue with St Ambrose, but why should you want to?

In Britain, Christian Aid Week this year is 10th—16th May. Because of Covid, door to door collections are risky for collectors.

If you wish to help the poor, the hungry, the sick and needy, please visit Christian Aid’s Website or support through the Roman Catholic CAFOD website.

Reverence for all creation

This prayer is the Church of England’s alternative Collect for last Sunday.

It moved me by the beauty of its words and the desire for a love of our world. Creation and our planet as well as us as God’s people and Stewards, need all of that very much at the moment.

I’ve had the photo in my library for some time and as an expression of the prayer it feels just right.

Please pray the prayer and live it as gently and meaningfully as those lovely collared doves.

[Mr G]