Tag: Mr G

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.

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.

*Meadowsweet. .As never seen before! Seed heads left for the winter on a verge. Photo: Gill Henwood*

*On the edge of the white wood. Photo by Gill*

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

February Carpet

*Snowdrop carpet photographed by my friend, Gill Henwood*

Lakeland carpet thoughts :

Seven years on… the old snowdrops have drifted for a hundred years or more. Now cleared of overgrowth (though brambles will keep growing due to the seeds in the ground), they are a dancing carpet – here in the gentle February rain.

The sticks mark an edge so we don’t tread on the shoots…

In the dell meadow beyond, we’ve planted a black walnut tree and a hornbeam, both native. The grass is full of old wood anemones running through it (creeping a little further each year, now they have some light).

Joy in wet mid February!

Gill.

February
tiptoes across a winter landscape,
dressed in white array,
luring us away from cold depression
of dark, dank January,
with dazzling brightness;
promising the hope of
Spring beyond.

Ah! What trembling beauty
lays a carpet of expectant joy!

[Mr G. February 22nd 2023]