Tag: God

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]

God’s calling card

*Dewdrops on spider’s web. photograph by Gill Henwood*

My friend Gill has recently sent me this photograph of dewdrops on a cobweb near her home in the Lake District.
My thoughts centred on the fragility and ephemeral nature of the scene. A word often associated with spiders’ webs is ‘gossamer’ – a fine filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by spiders; light, thin, delicate, almost insubstantial. Certainly short-lived. But another way of seeing it is that of a thin place, a tissue paper kind of boundary between two worlds.

‘Thin Place’ is an idea many of us use to describe places where God seems spiritually and, in a way, physically present to us.
Obvious thin places are religious shrines, like that at Santiago de Compostella where pilgrims walk from many places in Europe to the Northern area of Spain, to a journey end at the Shrine of St. James the Great there. When I made the pilgrimage there a few years ago, I was deeply moved by the experience of God I had and I knew then what a thin place truly is.
There are many such places, such as Iona, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and legions of other places. Every religion has such holy places which have been sanctified by God and by prayers of the pilgrims.
Not all are huge centres like Lisieux in Northern France or Lourdes where many go to pray for healing. Some are almost backwaters like Little Gidding near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. It is a quiet oasis and not that easy to find. However, those who visit, certainly can say of it, words which the great poet T.S.Eliot coined in the Quartet Poem to which he gave it’s name. It is a place where Prayer has been valid. It is valid still. It is truly a thin place where it feels very easy to meet God.

Though all that is true, Gill’s photo reminds me that not all thin places are permanent nor beyond the immediate moment, spectacular. God sanctifies all our meetings with him, it’s just that we don’t often recognize it. (at least, I don’t !) I have to keep remind myself of something St. Teresa of Avila said – God walks among the pots and pans. Her soul friend, St John of the Cross, puts that rather more beautifully, when he says, “God passes through the thicket of the world, and wherever His glance falls He turns all things to beauty.”

In the spider’s web decorated with dewdrops we can be aware of that.
It becomes a way in which God reveals his presence and it is a personal revelation so everything could be experienced as a thin place. Whether it be cleaning the dishes in the kitchen or catching our breath at some lovely sight in the world. Being touched by God, becoming aware of the spiritual in the midst of the ordinariness of life, can be a breath-giving moment. Such an experience can be seen as an act of love on God’s part. In such ways, he presents his ‘calling card’ to us
In the war torn areas of our world it may not seem like that but even there,maybe especially there, in kindnesses and moments when people are touched by love, care and by prayer, almost unawares, certainly not always invited, God comes to call.

[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]

God paints a picture with snow

Dark trees magical with snow. Beeches, and old hawthorns by the gate. High Cross, above Coniston, photographed by Gill Henwood

It’s sometimes said to children that when there is thunder in the sky, God is applauding us for something good we’ve done. The alternative, too often said, is that God is angry with us and is stamping his feet.
It all depends if you want God to control or free us. No contest in my opinion. I always respond best to applause!.

I find that linking God and the weather is a kind of reminder that we have little control over how the weather behaves on our planet, except in an all too negative way. I say this as one who, for a brief time, was the Clerk of the Weather, in a highly acclaimed thespian production when I was a junior school. For an all too brief time I had total control over the weather and wore a Top Hat to prove it! So thereI was, throwing around thunderbolts, lightning flashes, howling winds, raindrops and sunshine, as all obeyed my orders. (To be honest, Tom Culshaw was fairly negative in his response so there wasn’t much hail around that day!)
Of course, all too quickly, I had to hand the authority back to God but I like to think that for a short while after he treated me kindly for doing my best, even though this coincided with a lot of weather!

We’ve been having quite a bit of it lately too, and it came as a shock recently when Spring’s steady progress was rudely interrupted by a sudden return to ice and snow, cold and frost.
Even so, though it could be both inconvenient and treacherous, the dusting of ice and the covering of nature with snow, has a very special effect on our landscape.

I was reminded of this when my friend Gill sent me photos of the Lake District just after God had painted a picture with the snow. God has such a delicate touch and an eye for detail. Just for a short while we were taken into a glimpse of beauty which if transient is nonetheless breathtaking. Soon we shall move on to look at Nature’s Gallery, where God will hang the Springscapes.
For now, we can pause and take in God’s picture painted in snow.

We can say, again, with St. John of the Cross that
God passes through the thicket of this world, and wherever His glance falls, he turns all things to beauty.
I like that truth!

Meanwhile, here’s a reminder of that in the photos Gill has taken.