Tag: Mr G

Shekinah ~ Glory

A View from the Lakes

One of the joys of having friends in the Lake District is that I am sent wonderful, scenic photographs from time to time.

Over many years I have visited, camped, trecked over hills and down a few ‘mountains, visited bookshops in Ambleside and Grasmere, where I have also partaken of the famous and delicious ginger bread. I could go on and on. More recently I have come to know something of Josephina de Vasconcellos, an amazing sculptor and her husband, the watercolourist Delmar Banner. They lived near Hill Top. Through them I have found a connection with Beatrix Potter.

But my ‘living’ connection is with my friend, Gill and Stephen and, further North, Lesley and John, and in Carlisle, my friend Michael who ministers at the Cathedral.
It is through Gill’s camera eye that I am able to share the photos with you. The recent mixture of wild, snowy, frost dressed weather has provided contrasts. We are now in the thick of winter and just over halfway through January. Yet there are signs leading to expectation of new growth and new life.

Gill supplies me with reflections, notes and thoughts.

The photo above looks towards Fairfield Horseshoe on the Helvellyn range, over mist rising from Windermere and the River Rothay. In the foreground, the frosted roof of the sheep shed shelters 250 expectant ewes. Another 95 are due to join them as they prepare for lambing from 12th March.
The local fell breed ewes beloved of Beatrix Potter, Herdwicks, are up on the thin grazing sheltering at night by dry stone walls, foraging in the sunlit uplands by day. Here she suggests, sheep may safely graze, the ‘Herdies’ are sheltering and nibbling their way down the slope.

There has been a recent storm. So much of nature around Tarn Hows has been battered but there is also resilience. We dare to be confident whilst woefully aware that the real damage to Nature is being done by human beings.
Up in the Lakeland Hills it is easier, perhaps, to see that beauty and sustainability come at a cost, not so much to us but the struggling animal kingdom. I often hear it referred to as the ‘natural world’ (of Nature), which ironically suggests that we are the ‘unnatural’ world. I think that the way our humanity is behaving right now, that could be very true!

Storms in Nature are often followed by silence; a time of re-collection and respite.
Gill talks of a ‘still small voice’, as that which surrounded Elijah on the mountain. (1 Kings 11;9-13)
She calls it The Shekinah – the Glory – of the Lord – as cloud over Hellvellyn ridge.

Frost and snow,
wind and cloud,
rain and sunshine,
air and life.
New growth
bringing new hope.
Gratitude, Thankfulness .
Dependence on God.
Love assured.
Kindness lived out
in hearts warmed by grace.

Creation is stewarded
by us for Creator.

Lord have mercy.

[Gill Henwood & Mr G]

{remembering Ronald Blyth RIP}

Nativity Greeting

Nativity Greeting, art design by Kay Gibbons

Christmas greetings through the usual card sent by post has been disrupted this year because of the industrial dispute between the Royal Mail managers and their hard-working and mostly dedicated staff, so most of my greetings have been sent by email.
I wanted, therefore, to have a special design.

Who better to approach than my dear friend Kay Gibbons? She and I have known each other for a long time but more recently, over the past year or so, I have come to know her art too. She is described as a multidisciplinary artist and she works in a variety of media. These include glass, paint and stone.
She lives near Oxford and has taken part in Oxfordshire Art Weeks.Next year she will be mounting an exhibition in the Oxford area,
Her designs are amazing and she uses bright colours, swirling conceptions, geometric presentation, and a sense of movement which delight and inspire the senses.
For me, just pausing to ponder her work gives sheer joy and uplifts me.
I can’t fully put my finger on it but it is expressive visual poetry. She uses colour and shape to open a window to the numinous.
You can judge for yourself by looking her up on Instagram.

Above is the commissioned ‘Nativity’ that I asked her to design for me.
I would like to offer it to the followers of Mr G’s Ponderings as a greeting to you all in this Christian Festive Season when we give thanks in a special way for the birth of the Christ-Child. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who look at my blog and take the time to reflect on what we post. I am very encouraged and grateful.

Not all of you are Christians but every faith has an experience of light triumphing over darkness; of goodness overcoming evil and of hope overlaying despair.
Every faith speaks to individual hearts as well as to faith communities. There is the aspect of personal belief leading to how we are to live our life under God.

In our present human darkness and struggle which stretches from Ukraine to Iran; Afghanistan to Syria and as we struggle with the global migration of refugees; the consequences of natural disaster, poverty and hunger, and the lasting effects of Covid, we can, and many do, feel overwhelmed. For some, faced with all this, there is a test of faith, for others a quiet desperation.
This year’s midwinter festival comes at one of our planet’s weakest moments. We are fragile, vulnerable and afraid.
So Jesus, coming into our world as a vulnerable babe in very unpromising circumstances can be, for us, a reminder that God has us held in the palm of his loving hand. He knows our fears and our needs. The Incarnation of Jesus is about Loving us from within.
Love comes to seek us out and it is the God who is pure Love who will lead us through.

None of us know, at this moment, what 2023 holds for us. However, working together across all sorts of divisions, boundaries and misunderstandings, we can make a huge difference to our future direction and security – and that of the earth itself. We have a stewardship of our planet and therefore a duty to all of Creation to do t

In the face of just 10 or so despots who think they have some right to impose their will over the billions of others, we need to return the earth and the care of all to God. The best way we can do that is through sharing God’s love for us with all inhabitants of the earth from human beings to blades of grass.

In whatever form you see God’s light, the birth of Jesus is, for Christians, the incarnation of that light and that love.
Love flourishing in all hearts is my Greeting to you this Christmas.

Words of a poem by Christina Rossetti Love came down at Christmas.(slightly adapted)

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine,
Worship we our Jesus,
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all creation,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

Christina Rossetti

Kay Gibbons : Mary & Jesus

All is beauty

The photograph of Hawkshead is by my friend, Gill Henwood.
The quotation is by St John of the Cross whose feast day is December 14th.

John of the Cross was regarded as one of the greatest Spanish mystics of the sixteenth century.
His writings still nourish modern Christians in their hunger for a true experience in the spiritual life.
He was born in 1542 and became a Carmelite friar at the age of twenty-one. Four years later he met Teresa of Avila in one of those God-moment meetings were two souls are fused together by the love of God, for the greater good of Christianity.
Teresa was occupied in reforming the Carmelite Order, instilling renewed vision and discipline and founding many new Convents of Prayer throughout Spain. John of the Cross joined her in this work. He served as a spiritual guide to the nuns and to Teresa herself. He was one who encouraged her to write her teaching on Prayer. His prominence in the reform movement made him a target for those who preferred the more comfortable old ways and twice he was abducted and imprisoned. After Teresa died, he was again targeted, this time by his own superiors in the Reformed Carmelites. Their harshness contributed to his death in 1591.
Nothing, however, took him away from his love of God and he gladly accepted the hardships because he saw them as sharing in the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. Hence his name.

Like Teresa, he experienced the presence of Christ in “intellectual visions.” His reflection upon these experiences issued, first of all, in poetry of extraordinary power and beauty. At the urging of his disciples, he selected a number of his poems and produced prose commentaries on them, which have become classics of mystical theology. This includes one of his most famous writings on The Dark Night of the Soul.

John united the vocation of a theologian with the experience of a mystic, and his writings are the good example of theology as the fruit of prayer.

The most lovely thing that was ever said about him was by St Teresa. “I cannot be in the presence of John without being lifted up into the presence of God.”

John said, himself, about God:

How gently and lovingly
You wake in my heart,
where in secret You dwell alone;
and in your sweet breathing,
filled with good and glory
how tenderly You dwell in my heart
with love.

from, The Living Flame of Love by St. John of the Cross

and here is something for us to ponder over and pray about, applying it to ourself.

God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known,
than a thousand done with the desire that people know of them.
Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing about whether others see their works,
but do not even seek that God himself know of them.
Such persons would not cease to render God the same services, with the same joy and purity of love,
even if God were never to know of these.”

― John of the Cross, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross

[Mr G]

Buds and Dewdrops

One of the joys of the Lake District is the spectacular landscape and, of course, the changing reflections of the seasons.
My friend Gill lives in the heart of it all which is a privilege she recognises.
Her photography provides me with a lot of inspiration for Blog items.
The theme of these two photographs is dewdrops and buds
They also capture something of the change from Autumn to Winter.
There is also a hint of the Advent theme of Light.

Here’s what Gill has to say:

On birch in Grizedale Forest, misty sunlight shines through the dew.
Nature’s Advent with sparkling jewels.
Light dazzling on bare branches above the russet bracken.
Looking closely, each dewdrop hangs from a bud …
There is more…
There is hope, promise, presence, glory – Advent longing ..
The trees and shiny dewdrops call to mind Christmas tree candles, St Lucy’s crown lights and Advent Carol tea lights,
The Advent ring.

The darkness is pinpricked with moments of light as we move through this season towards the glorious light of the Incarnation – the birth of the Christ-child.
The birth which comes with the renewal of our lives through new hope, joy and expectancy….
In the gloom of our present world we long for the bright presence of God to spring us into a deeper meaning of our humanity.
A meaning of which Nature shows us signs of being almost here in bud and dewdrop and in Advent waiting.

Photographs by Gill Henwood – Autumn in the Lake District

[Mr G and Gill Henwood]