Sunday Magic…

  

Love this picture of Ailsa Craig by Brian Johnstone, beautiful light effects.

“In the midst of life we must find the magic that makes our souls soar” (Kelcey Jones)

Resurrection

Beautiful picture, looking towards Arran from West Kilbride, by Peter Watkins (from Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald on Facebook).

 

See the land, her Easter keeping, 

   Rises as her Maker rose; 

 Seeds so long in darkness sleeping 

   Burst at last from winter snows. 

 Earth with heaven above rejoices; 

   Fields and garlands hail the spring; 

 Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices 

   While the wild birds build and sing. 

 

Charles Kingsley.    

Finding the heart of the matter…

Was catching up with some blogs I follow, and this image by Dave Perry caught my eye  (from Visual Theology). He has posted some images under a series title of “Seeing the Unseen” – the kind of  things we might miss when we spend our days rushing around with our eyes on focussed on the screens of our smartphones!

Here Dave sees “a heart …revealed by the pattern of peeling paint on the side of a prefabricated building used as an outdoor store. The shape is unmistakeable and the moment of recognition truly delightful”.

  

Be kind

Today’s picture is from The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation on Facebook. Their posts help to balance all the other awfulness. 

It’s simple stuff – aim to do something kind and selfless every day.

  

Every little wonder…

Amid the January gloom (well maybe it’s just me with the cough and the virus that just won’t go away) I thought I would post something uplifting.

A friend and colleague became a father last week, so here are words written by Cheryl at [hold this space] to celebrate the birth of a baby.

Even if we have not witnessed (or participated in) that particularly awesome miracle, life is peppered with these sort of wow moments – moments when we catch our breath in awe; moments when God confounds us and we stand amazed, at a loss for words.

Life is fragile, and never more so than at the point of birth or death, but we humans are extraordinary, remarkable. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  And sometimes we need to stop and confront that, to embrace our fragility and to put our hand into the outstretched hand of God – the God who gives us strength for the journey.

…………………………………………………………………….

Welcome to the world

there are some moments
at which we should only look sideways
because to face them head on will blind us

moments where words like wonder
and awe
are completely inadequate;

where we search in vain for new words
as yet uninvented
to tell of the truth

moments where it seems impossible
that we will ever forget
how extraordinary,
how remarkable
this life is.

until we do

so in this moment,
when we stand blinded by fragility
and wonder
we pause

and for all those moments we forget,
we take a breath
and say

thank you.

(Photo: Gunnersbury by Jonny Baker)

The Musician

A memory of Kreisler once:
At some recital in this same city,
The seats all taken, I found myself pushed
On to the stage with a few others,
So near that I could see the toil
Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth
Fluttering under the fine skin,
And the indelible veins of his smooth brow.

I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers,
Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis,
As we sat there or warmly applauded
This player who so beautifully suffered
For each of us upon his instrument.

So it must have been on Calvary
In the fiercer light of the thorns’ halo:
The men standing by and that one figure,
The hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,
Making such music as lives still.
And no one daring to interrupt
Because it was himself that he played
And closer than all of them the God listened.

~ R.S. Thomas

A wonderful poem for Good Friday with thanks to Robin

Photo is ‘thin place’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr

New life…

God of spring time

as the frost melts

and the trees bud

may I cross over

from darkness to light

from grumbling to appreciation

from hesitating to striding

from boredom to creativity

from looking down to gazing up

from indifference to your Passion

from chill to warmth and love

in this world and the next.

(found here on beautyfromchaos)

Picture is ‘new life’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr

budding glory

The weather is unseasonably warm and the welcome sunshine is bringing the garden back to life after winter. Bushes and trees are bursting with buds and the daffodils are opening at last.

So for a sunny March Monday a poem called ‘Trees’ by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Eternal perspective…

My previous blog was called “Rumours of Angels”  and it carried the strap line “all is in flux turn, but a stone and an angel moves” taken from this prayer (Man is made to rise) written by the Very Rev Dr George Fielden MacLeod, Baron MacLeod of Fuinary (founder of the Iona Community).

It is about seeing the world through the eyes of faith, seeing beyond the earthly to the eternal:

 Invisible we see You, Christ above us.
With earthy eyes we see above us, clouds or sunshine, grey or bright.
But with the eye of faith we know you reign:
instinct in the sun ray
speaking in the storm,
warming and moving all creation, Christ above us.

We do not see all things subject unto You.
But we know that man is made to rise.
Already exalted, already honoured, even now our
citizenship is in heaven
Christ above us, invisible we see You.

Invisible we see You, Christ beneath us.
With earthly eyes we see beneath us stones and dust and dross,
fit subjects for the analyst’s table.
But with the eye of faith, we know You uphold.
In You all things consist and hang together:
the very atom is light energy
the grass is vibrant,
the rock pulsate.

All is in flux, turn but a stone and an angel moves.
Underneath are the everlasting arms.
Unknowable we know you, Christ beneath us.

If you have never read any of George MacLeod’s prayers then I commend them to you – a great place to start is this book Daily Readings with George MacLeod.

(Photo is of pebbles on Chesil Beach from davesdistrictblog)

Stripped down

A reflection as Sunday approaches…  from Roddy at Listening to the stones.

It seemed appropriate for a week which saw the resignation of an Archbishop and in which some personal priorities are being examined and reassessed.

What pads your faith?

What will draw you to worship?

What needs laid aside?

………………………………………………………

Lord Jesus

when you strip our faith down to the wood and nails
that’s all we have
wood and nails

all the glamour of robes
all the wealth of the church
all the comfort of cathedrals
is worth nothing

when you strip it all down to the wood and nails
that’s all we have
wood and nails
and a story of love

all the great ministers of the church
the cascade of church history
and mighty holy empires
and reformations

when you strip it all down to the wood and nails
that’s all we have
wood and nails
and a story of love

and the many theology books written
and the great universities of divinity
and the councils that fashioned creeds
and the world wide web of religion

when you strip it all down to the wood and nails
that’s all we have
wood and nails
and a story of love

Here is our corrective
our moment to lay aside
that which pads our faith
and affirm that which draws us here

for when you strip it all down to the wood and nails
that’s all we have
wood and nails
and a story of love

May we let go
and be held instead.

Image is ‘wood and nails’ found here at deviantart.com