Tag: Gill Henwood

Spring Equinox

My friend Julia has sent me the following article reflecting on yesterday’s Spring Equinox. It was written by her friend Jane Upchurch, one of a monthly series she sends out on the eve of every new moon. I am pleased to pass it on, with Jane’s permission. For more information and further writings by her, Google her on http://janeupchurch.co.uk/category/praying-for-the-planet/

Dear friends,

Tuesday March 21st was the new moon, the time we particularly remember our beautiful planet in prayer, meditation, awareness or involvement, with love, hope and gratitude.

This is the time of the Spring equinox. We are moving from winter to spring, from dark to light, from cold to warmth, from bareness to the vibrant flush of spring flowers and new-born leaves. Let us also move from anxiety and dismay at world events and the state of our planet to love and hope. Let us sow these seeds into the thirsty soil.

Equinox

This is it, the official beginning of spring. Oh, the long awaited date and season and sun. The sun is white, sitting over the tops of the houses to the East, diffused through the thin cloud that heralds the start of a glorious day. It is still cold from early evening to early morning marking the hours of the sun’s absence, but it builds to a warmth you can live in during the day.

I love this day, the changeover from winter to the early train of summer. I love that everywhere today is the same, we all have twelve hours of day and night, equal night, equinox. And as we sail smoothly into our opening light and new season of warmth, so the south tilts into its fall, into darkness and the call of winter. Today is a magic day, yet most people won’t notice it save perhaps a smile at the new-found warmth of the sun. We live on our planet like strangers, not recognising its journeys or its moods, sheltered from the weather and with a ready light to hide the dark.

Celebrating an equinox or solstice acknowledges the birthdays of our home, enjoying the relationship we have with the earth on which we live all our days. It is also enjoying our relationship with the Divine, whatever that means for us, seeing God in all things – the new sun rising, the hazy air sharpening, the primroses covering the lawn in gentle yellow welcome, the quickening of spring awakening the buds, calling the call to life that echoes in our blood.

I desire to be out here today but I cannot, so can I take these elements of earth, air, fire and water and hold them in a burning cauldron safe in my heart? Can I trust as trees do, or will I always bother and fuss before I find the path? Is it part of the human condition, part of my makeup, a jigsaw dance between the bother and the bliss, learning to carry all the bits equally well, living in memory and faith at the same time, trusting as trees dig roots into deep soil, trying to enjoy all parts of the journey and not just the destination. Today I have things to do that will call me away. Today I hang my needs on the wheel of the sun and let it turn me.

Jane Upchurch

Daffodils of Spring. Photo: Gill Henwood

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 thorn bush is aflame with your glory.

Amen

And all is one Love.

*Madonna Pazzi by Donatello. Photographed by Gill Henwood **.*

My friend, Gill Henwood visited the major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum recently, featuring the work by sculptor, Donatello. It is entitled, Donatello, Sculpting the Renaissance. It’s the first major UK Exhibition to explore the exceptional talents of this great artist, his vision and his influence.

The Exhibition in at the V & A until Sunday June 11^th. (Entry £20)

Gill has sent me some of her photographs including the one above, of Mother & Child, (Madonna Pazzi). Fitting illustration I thought, for Mothering Sunday. There is a beauty and a bond which translates into the closest intimacy.

Motherhood was not easy for Mary. She was young and inexperienced. Her pregnancy was viewed with suspicion. Her baby was born far from home in difficult and dangerous surroundings. When she took her son to the temple, only days old, Simeon’s prophecy for his future was ominous. Jesus’ childhood gave her cause for concern and in adulthood, it was clear that his life would become increasingly dangerous and he would be marginalised. Mary had to learn to put her own feelings to one side to support him in his mission. Finally, she suffered the worst thing that can happen to a mother. She had to watch her Son die a tortured death.

God the Father’s part in that suffering was to suffer too. Like Mary he beheld Jesus as a mother her child and to understand that a bit better, we might find help in the writings of the mystic, Julian of Norwich.

In the fourteenth century Julian of Norwich experienced and understood the motherhood of God in her visions. Mothering Sunday is a good day to share this vision and recognise that although we are distinguished by our gender, God is not. Instead God is both mother and father to us . ‘As truly as God is Father, so just as truly is he our mother.’ Said Julian of Norwich. In both his motherhood and fatherhood, God faces up to his pain

The Theologian, Matthew Fox, muses on what Julian is saying. He says, “God is the true Father and Mother of Nature, and all natures that are made to flow out of God to work the divine will shall be restored and brought again into God.

Julian assures us that “The motherhood of God is a welcome thing on God’s part. Divinity does not consider motherhood a burden to bear for “God feels great delight to be our Mother.”

To recover the motherhood of God is to recover compassion:
Compassion is a kind and gentle property that belongs to a Motherhood in tender love. Compassion protects, increases our sensitivity, gives life, and heals.
Thus we see that the recovery of the theme of the motherhood of God flows naturally from other themes of cosmos, earthiness, blessing or goodness…A motherhood-of-God theology confronts the basic issue of letting go of the one-sided God of patriarchy and learning more about the God whose image we are.
Therefore it is also about learning more about ourselves and about our power for birthing and creativity. Today it is especially urgent that men learn deeply how all persons, men included, are motherly as well as fatherly.” (Matthew Fox)

In the Donatello sculpture is, as I mentioned, an intimacy which is held by the bond of love, the love which creates a sense of mother and child relating as one. Increasingly, today, that same bond is being celebrated between fathers and their children, and hopefully this is leading to a broadening of the love which is reflective of God’s Trinitarian Love.

In her Revelations, Julian of Norwich said a most powerful thing:

I understood three manners of beholding of Motherhood in God: the first is grounded in our Nature’s making; the second is taking of our nature,—and there beginneth the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of working,—and therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth and height and of deepness without end. And all is one Love.

(Julian of Norwich)

Donatello’s statue opens the door to much thought. Julian of Norwich gently takes our hand and invites us to step through it.

[Mr G and others]

**The Madonna Pazzi, housed today in Berlin’s Staatliche Museen, is rectangular marble relief that dates from c. 1425. It was carved for private devotion during the beginning of the productive collaboration that Donatello formed with Michelozzo (1396-1472), an Italian architect and sculptor.

The Lord is my Shepherd

Herdwick Sheep in the Lake District enjoying the sun before more snow fell in the last few days.
The blue skies will be back soon! Photos by my friend Gill.plus the photo below.

A Reflection from the Lake District by Gill Henwood.

When you witness the care a shepherd has for his or her flock, the 23rd Psalm comes to mind:

The Lord’s my shepherd and The King of Love my shepherd is.

The young farmer below our window is only 24, and has been building up his own flock for two years.
He’s here by dawn and returns in the evenings at dusk to check his expectant ewes who wait in the long sheep shed that belongs to his retired grandfather. They baa when they hear his 4×4 coming up the track, knowing he will bring hay.
He’s working his way to a farm tenancy of his own – there is no farmhouse on this small acreage of land.

Upland fell farmers are part of the countryside and community here, and this area was cherished by Beatrix Potter a century ago, who, with the National Trust, bought and saved farms for the nation.
She too was a breeder of Herdwick sheep and a show judge.
Her shepherds, and the shepherds of today, care for their flocks and seeing them brings to mind, Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

Gill Henwood

Here is a version of Psalm 23 written by my friend,Joyce Smith in her Reflections for Lent in 2021.

Bible Reading: Psalm 23 “I will dwell in the house of the Lord, my whole life long.“

The Lord is my Shepherd;
who guides,
nourishes,
and protects me.

My Shepherd,
who looks for me
when I lose my way.
and carries me
safely home.

My Shepherd,
who longs for me,
and for
‘sheep from many different flocks’,
to dwell in his house,
both now
and for all eternity.

Jesus, my Shepherd,
help me to
fix my eyes on you
and follow
where you lead.

(Joyce Smith)

World Wildlife Day

*The foxes of Latton visit their Patron, St Francis. Photo by Lynn Hurry*

World Wildlife day

World Wildlife day was held on March 3^rd.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, wrote this:

On World Wildlife Day, we reflect on our responsibility to protect the magnificent diversity of life on our planet. And we recognize our abject failure.
Human activities are laying waste to once-thriving forests, jungles, farmland, oceans, rivers, seas, and lakes. One million species teeter on the brink of extinction, due to habitat destruction, fossil fuel pollution and the worsening climate crisis. We must end this war on nature.

The good news is that we have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which has helped protect thousands of plants and animals. And last year’s agreement on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework marked an important step towards putting our planet on a path to healing.

As this year’s theme – ‘Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation’ – highlights, we need to work across governments, civil society, and the private sector to turn commitment into action. And we need much bolder actions now to cut emissions, accelerate renewables, and build climate resilience.
Throughout, we need to place the voices of local communities and indigenous people – our world’s most effective guardians of biodiversity – front and centre.

Today and every day, let us all do our part to preserve natural habitats and build a thriving future for all living beings.

António Guterres Secretary-General, United Nations

As we know, there are huge issues affecting Planet Earth right now and much of what we face feels overwhelming. However many feel a sense of responsibility and a desire to work for a real change. Some of us recognise that we are stewards under God for the well-being of creation. For too long the understanding from the Book of Genesis that humankind have dominion over all the earth, has been interpreted has given us a God-given right to dominate all creatures on the earth and to exploit creation for our own ends. ‘Dominion’ means, rather, Stewardship and Responsibility. Ultimately it involves Accountability to God even if there are many who don’t accept that duty.
Some of us may think that whilst we accept that responsibility, there is very little we can do. How can each of us make any difference?

I am always heartened by this little story:

A little sparrow laid on its back with its legs in the air. Another sparrow walked past and asked the sparrow on his back what it was doing. The little one replied that it had heard that the sky was going to fall in and thought that it should try and help hold it up.
The other sparrow laughed and said, “You’re only a little sparrow with little legs. How can you hold up the whole sky?
The sparrow laid on the floor with its legs in the air, said:
“I know, but one does what one can.”

Whenever we feed the birds in our garden, nurture our plants, take care of our domestic pets, feed and water wild animals and little but significant things such as that, then we are ‘doing what we can’ and it makes a big difference.

Sqirrel helping herself to Vicarage not quite ripe strawberries! Photo: Lynn Hurry

Heavenly Father,
You have taught us, through your servant St Francis,
That all creation is your handiwork.
Grant us your grace that we may
Exercise wise stewardship of this Earth;
Tread lightly upon it;
And cherish its resources;
That our children may enjoy its riches, throughout all generations,
And your name be glorified through all that you have made.
Amen.

Rt Revd David Walker
Bishop of Manchester