Rosemary’s Quiet Garden at Dunmow, Essex. photo by Mr G.
Quiet Garden
In the Quiet Garden birds sing antiphonally in the monastery of the air.
Ducks murmur gossip across the pond informing prayer[!], as a bee hovers lazily over new mown grass.
Carefully manicured borders teem with joyful colour as plants flower, gratefully supping May-time air fuelling their thirst for new life.
Nearby, a church bell, a single, insistent chime, repeating, marking the moment; calling to prayer. Insects of varying kind respond, their plainchant lifting our souls.
Nature speaks to nature nurturing all Creation within, where God waits to draw us into the Divine heart.
Roses in the Garden at Dunmow. Photo by Mr G.
Mr G. 24th May 2025. [inspired by Rosemary’ Drew’s Garden at Dunmow, Essex, offered as part of the Quiet Garden movement, as a place of spiritual refreshment and re-creation]
[photo from Gill Henwood – of the area near the Black Mountains, Bhutan]
Jesus prays in Gethsemane
On the night of his betrayal, Jesus took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, near the Mount of Olives. He asked them to pray for themselves and then went to a place by himself. He prayed to his Father that he might be released from the trial and crucifixion ahead of him. But he also prayed that his Father’s will should prevail. The humanity of Jesus cried out and his anguish caused his sweat to fall like drops of blood. An angel from heaven came to strengthen him. His disciples were fast asleep. Then the Roman soldiers came to the garden to arrest him…. (St Luke’s Gospel Chapter 22: 39-53)
Gethsemane
This is his Passion. Darkness wraps around his very being, not a warming cloak but a shroud. Silence, punctured by friends snoring off the wellbeing of food, minds sloshed with wine. Alone with the shivers of the night, everything in him protests.
Sometimes, when we know our destiny, our minds close. Not this! No! Never! But our hearts are our undoing: our resolve begins; ends there. So he battles with his need to say ‘Yes’, for himself, for others, for us. How else can the world know what it is to be loved?
Kneeling on the damp ground, tense, numb, scared, uncertain, he waits. And the Father waits too as demons and angels whirl, stirring up the black air, a vortex of cosmic battle. Below them, sweat drops as blood. And still the Father waits, listening expectantly, daring to hope…
God wrestling desperately with God with everything – just everything – at stake. This really is the Passion. He sighs, deeply, calm descends. “Yes, let it be.”
The Father wraps his love around him – and so too around us.
Snowdrops photographed by Gill Henwood in her Lake District garden.
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's Ponderings 