Tag: Gill Henwood

Lindisfarne Lapwing

My friend Gill has just sent me this photo of an amazing willow sculpture on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. It’s too splendid not to share! Especially as Gill has sent an accompanying reflection:

Holy Island weather cleared by late morning to a beautiful autumn afternoon. From the Heugh and the castle, the lighthouses on the Farne Islands were clearly visible and Bamburgh Castle towered over the sea.

The willow woven lapwing surveys the wildlife lough near the viewing centre. Calling birds were all around: overhead hanging on the breeze, feeding in the soft ground and shores, flocking together by the trees.
Seals bobbed up in the channel below the Heugh as the tide swept in, marooning island dwellers and visitors for the day (unless they had a boat, or could fly!)
Bladder wrack floated as the sea lifted its prostrate carpet from the wave cut platforms of rock, the lush seaweed dancing in the swirling currents with airy buoyancy – alive with joy.

In the church, the (renovated) hewn monks still carry St Cuthbert in his coffin, seeking safety and sanctuary, journey’s hasty start fleeing Holy Island, wandering to his final resting place in lofty Durham.
“Who are they?’ My five year old grandson asked, astonished as he looked up by their life-sized embodied presence. Now at the back of the church, as if to process out of the south door.

The story of Cuthbert lives on, of Aidan before him and Oswald too. Of the Lindisfarne Gospels written in the scriptorium somewhere here, back in the north this autumn to visit again.
It is also our story, as we too seek sanctuary from the dark troubles of our fragile world.

May the lapwing who migrated speak to us of the turning of times, tides and the seasons on Holy Island, a place of fragile peace and sanctuary. May s/he speak to us of the need to fly, to flee, when adversity comes. May s/he reassure us that, in God’s loving economy, there are places of safety when we seek together – even when that resting place is our ‘place of resurrection’, our own graves.

Gill Henwood

Note:

The Lapwing was part of a Nature Trail created by Anna and volunteers under the guidance of Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve.

The Lapwing, also known as the peewit in imitation of its display calls, its proper name describes its wavering flight. Its black and white appearance and round-winged shape in flight make it distinctive, even without its splendid crest. This familiar farmland bird has suffered significant declines recently and is now a Red List species.

The Heugh (pronounced Hee-uff) is an elevated rocky ridgeoverlooking the village and providing some protection from the wild weather which assails the island village. It was here that St. Aidan set up his monastery in the 7th Century when Lindisfarne became the cradle of Christianity for a vast area of England and Southern Scotland.

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

A Red Admiral calls

*Photo of Red Admiral Butterfly resting on Cedum. (by Gill Henwood)*

My friend Gill has sent me the lovely photo of a Red Admiral Butterfly basking on a pink sedum plant.
The Cedum is noted for the bountiful provision of nectar, hence the attraction. Or is it just that?

A few years ago, a very dear friend died and within a very short period, a Peacock Butterfly had made its way into the home. It wasn’t the most seasonal time of year for such a butterfly but it stayed around.

There is a view in folklore that when someone special dies, a butterfly will come quietly to the home. It is as if the butterfly touches you with some kind of assurance that your Loved one are OK. It is usually someone who has brought passion or deep love into your life. I’ve read that such a person is often someone who knew how to live life deeply.

This fits in with the colour red. Both the Peacock butterfly and the Red Admiral have touches of Red, though to be accurate, most of the Red Admiral is black and some of the colour splashes are orange.

Because, quite often, the Read Admiral and the Peacock fly close to and even on you, people sometimes talk about being blessed. You are certainly unlikely to miss them with their striking colours! It might be also that thinking about how the Butterfly flight is linked with someone who has died, then there may well be a message to contemplate.

There is a Christian interpretation about the colour red which links life here with life in heaven. Red is the colour the Church uses to convey the dynamism of the Holy Spirit. The tongues of flames at Pentecost are, like flame itself, tinged deeply with red. This is also the colour of love and God pours His love abundantly and freely upon us. This is particularly special when we are hurting and bereft. Red also is the colour of ‘martyrdom’ , witness. That the kind of ‘witness’ that draws its strength from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Two of the things many have been doing over the past week since Our Gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth died is to ‘reflect’ on her guiding principles, faith and character as we ‘give gratitude’ for her life.
It is partly those two things which encourage us to pray for King Charles and all who will share with him in the true leadership of our United Kingdom and Commonwealth.

As we form our hopes for the future so we now entrust Queen Elizabeth into God’s hands,
in the certain hope that she will receive the gift of Eternal Life. That’s the kind of assurance God likes to give so maybe the Butterfly has a calling card to leave!

[Mr.G.]

Special places, Special people

*St Aidan window on Holy Island Church (St Mary the Virgin) detail.*

In many journeys of faith there are special places that have spoken to us vividly about God.
The Celtic Christians called these the ‘thin places’ where the membrane which separates our world
from the world of heaven is so thin that it is easy for heaven’s spirit to burst through,
catching us up in a breathtaking experience of God’s nearness.
For me one very special ‘thin’ place will always be the Holy Island of Lindisfarne,
off the Northumbrian coast between Bamburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It was to this island that St. Aidan came in 635AD.

He nearly didn’t come at all!
When King Oswald won back his Kingdom from the pagan king of Mercia,

he immediately sent to Iona for a monk to teach his people Christianity.
Oswald had spent many years in exile on Iona and there embraced the Christian faith.

His desire was that his people would also find a love for Christ.

The Abbot of Iona sent a monk who soon fell foul of the local people whom he branded as barbarians
and un-teachable. Returning to Iona he told his brethren what he thought and a gentle monk admonished him.
“I think, brother, that you gave them the meat of the gospel when what they needed first was milk.”

Wise words but as so often happens, those who criticise (however gently) must be prepared to serve!
Aidan was sent to Northumbria! There he set up his base in the place which, twice a day became an island—Lindisfarne.

Here he built a monastery and founded a school in which he taught 12 boys amongst whom
was the future St Chad, and his brother, St. Cedd as well as their two other brothers.

From this island a great mission began which was to take the Christian Gospel throughout the North and the Midlands and to Essex.

Because, initially, Aidan couldn’t speak the language, King Oswald went with him on his missionary journeys
to act as interpreter. One of the earliest examples of the co-operation between Church and State.

Lindisfarne remained a Christian centre until Viking raids led to the withdrawal of the monks.
Today it is once again a centre both of pilgrimage and prayer.

The local Church set up a Christian house for pilgrims known as Marygate House and it was here, in 1974 that I first came across Aidan and the spirit of the Celtic saints.
I have returned many times since and more than once I have experienced the sense of God’s nearness and presence. It truly is a ‘thin’ place.

Some, reading this will know exactly what I mean and will have their own ‘thin’ or special places (associated often with special holy Christians).
They are places where faith comes alive in a unique and special way. Such experiences carry us through the more mundane parts of our Christian journey.

What marks such places is that they are, in the words of the poet T.S.Eliot, places ‘where prayer has been valid’ – where prayer has consecrated them to God.

It strikes me that we should not have to travel far to find such places.

It is often the sincere prayer of ordinary Christians which makes a place holy.

One of my personal criteria when I visit, or worship in, a church is whether I can find God easily there.

A place where God can be found is a holy place, a thin place. It certainly needn’t be a church nor a place of special pilgrimage.

One of the holy and thin places I discovered is a slight bend in the rough hewn road which leads down from the Parish Church on Holy Island
to the shore which is opposite the crossing to Cuddy’s isles.

One day, when the island was clothed in a mist, I walked down this road and quite suddenly and totally unexpected, I found I had a companion.
I knew that it was St. Aidan whose simple presence touched me.

I knew at that moment I was on holy ground. I was at the thin place which is extraordinarily the meeting point between earth and heaven.
I can’t (and don’t want to) explain it in any other way.

Yet, whilst people like St. Aidan seem to be extra-holy, he would probably argue that he did nothing that all Christians can do,
which is to allow God to love them until they are on fire with God’s love.
That can be true for all of us and where it is then we become the ‘thin’ place where others can find God.

Photo: Gill Henwood

Aidan

You came on the flow tide
blown in, full of hope and zeal.
You carried the milk of the Gospel
but in your satchel, the firm, solid Good News waited to be heard.

The waves revealed the pilgrim way to Lindisfarne,
for its first journeying companion of Christ.
Those waves, a sign of what your Lord achieved through you:
first, lapping the hearts of those aspiring to know God,
then rushing in, hurrying to swamp the land with love:
a sea boiling with joy and hope and message.

Milk, then meat.
Quiet ripples, then mighty waters of God’s love and grace.

You were sent, Apostle to the North.
You came: a gentle breeze inspiring others,
awakening in them the wind of the Spirit.
Because of you, they stormed the Gospel message,
opening others to grace and truth,
to joy and love.

Mr G. | St Aidan’s Day, 2020