You made the blocks in the sky and you know them by name

Well, I'm beginning to settle in at Pembroke House, the church-cum-community-centre off the Old Kent Road in South London.  Yes, I'm on the first of the browns (#sicktodeathofthemonopolyreference)!

One thing I expected on moving from a beauty spot in rural Dorset to London's urban sprawl was a sense that God was not here.  One of the most common comments from guests at Hilfield was, "This is such a beautiful place.  I can really feel God here."  Walworth is not quite the same.

Churches spend a lot of time designing their altars.  I've put up a few pictures of the beautiful wooden altar at Hilfield, and I'm always struck by how natural and organic it feels - it is almost as if it is still alive.  Well, our altar at St Christopher's is made of concrete.

But it's not dead.  It is very much alive.  And it's not alive because the concrete has been moulded into some intricate and natural shape.  It really hasn't, though it is elegant in its own sort of way.  It is alive because it reflects the life of this place, a life that isn't woody, and certainly isn't sweeping landscapes and rolling pastures.

No.  One of the things I am really confronted with on moving here is how much the life of God sustains this place.  God has to give it life.  The natural landscape is gone, almost completely removed.  Rather, the place sings with the vibrancy of the people who live here.  It sings with their food, their openness, the colours of their clothing, and - a lot of the time - their laughter and their praise.

The Aylesbury Arts Event to launch the first phase of the redevelopment of the estate

Perhaps here even more than at Hilfield (and I say this with the disclaimer that I am certainly in my London honeymoon period) you get the sense that God is really working His purpose out through those that live here.  Without the fields and hills to give me a sense of God's presence, I'm forced to look even more closely for him in those around me.

'God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.' 1 John 4:16

Lord, thankyou for my brothers and sisters,

for those I live alongside,

and for all those who welcome me every day into their lives.

Give me grace to see you in them,

and just perhaps,

let them see you in me.

Peace and goodwill from London

http://pembrokehouse.org.uk/

Contemplation: A Beginner's Guide

So, I've left Hilfield.  I was quite tempted to leave this blog at that.  I have spent a year in a very strange place - and it has really changed me.  What more is there to say?

But I think this year has been too important to allow me to simply draw a line under it and walk away.

Taking time out to immerse yourself in God is a terrifying thing.  It is a life changing thing.  I always felt that when I went to church on a Sunday... so I suppose it shouldn't shock me that the effects of attempting a year-long immersion (admittedly with some struggling and holding of breath on my part) could have a proportionately massive effect.  But it has.

There is a painting, which my grandmother has sent me (in postcard and bookmark form) a few times in the past few years, which I love.  Although the bookmark is busy acquiring a healthy spotting of mould from a book it is living in, it always captures me when I open it for a daily reading.

When I first saw it, I was tempted to say that Holman Hunt's Light of the World was just another beardy Jesus that should be permanently consigned to the cheeseboard of sentimental Victorian art.  But there was something profoundly shocking about the image of Jesus (the all powerful, Son of God etc. etc.) patiently knocking on a door, overgrown with weeds from being shut too long, that has no doorknob on his side, waiting for someone on the other side to open it.

Today, with that image in mind, I wrote this poem.  It is only a first draft, so bear with me (and possibly have a stiff drink to hand).

Contemplation: A Beginner's Guide

Exegesis - the drawing out - can seem

A little tenuous at first, but then

That's it for things that start with where you've been.

You think you'll find your mind at war and when

You've won the fight you'll be at peace.  Creation's

Not quite as you would like.  The explanations

Illude you still.  And so may that remain.

If you would seek a reason from the same

I AM who said 'My thoughts and ways are Mine'

Prepare for disappointment.  Fight no more.

Let darkness drench the space and even time.

Your Christ, love's fire, is beating on the door.

You'll only hear Him in the silence of the night.

And how, without the darkness, will you see His light?

Peace and goodwill, not from Hilfield, but from Winchester.

You are what you eat, souls as well

Facebook is sometimes absolutely fantastic.  Some mornings you end up flicking through your news feed and something really significant leaps out at you.  And that certainly happened today.


It was a video about food.


One of the things I have learnt over the course of the last year is that what we eat matters.  Our food purchases are the cornerstone of our consumer footprint.  And so, at Hilfield, we try to eat according to the LOAF principle.  Local, organic, animal friendly and fairtrade.


But more than that, we believe that our eating should be an expression of love.  When we eat, we should be loving the people we are eating with, the people who cooked the food, the people who transported the food, the people who grew, harvested and slaughtered the food, and yes, the people who aren't eating the food.


But also, we should be loving God himself in our eating.  We should be expressing the beauty of His creation when we eat, the intricacy of a vegetable, the beauty and personality of an animal.


If we eat God's creation without appreciating the wonder of the things we are eating, we are turning our backs on the miracle of creation.  I only slightly hesitate to say that we are turning our backs on God.

 Veal calves at a farm just down the road from us

Jesus said, "They will say, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then the King will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did not do it to me.'  Matthew 25:44-45

One of our community members, who isn't a christian by the way, only eats meat which he knows has been reared in a particular way.  At the moment, this means he pretty much only eats meat reared here at Hilfield.  For him, knowing how the animal lived and died is just as important as knowing how much it costs and how it tastes, even to the extent of having to go veggy a lot of the time.


Watch the film below, and see if you think you ever turn your back on God when you eat.


without-saying-a-word-this-6-minute-short-film-will-make-you-speechless/


Life-giving God,
Creator of wonders,
forgive me when I turn my back on those wonders,
and forgive me when I turn my back on your wonder.
Help me to see your glory in what I eat,
and help me to give thanks for it,
and rejoice in it,
every day.
Amen.

Happy St Clare's Day!

A Happy Feast of St Clare to everyone!  Just a short post today as we have restricted internet at the friary and I am signal chasing with a laptop!  Holy poverty for the 21st Century, indeed.

 

Clare was a young woman who felt called to follow Francis' life of poverty, but was prevented from doing so because the Church felt such a life was too strenuous for a woman to lead.  She lived a cloistered life of contemplation and prayer with her sisters, whose numbers continued to grow, and resisted attempts by the Church to force possessions and hierarchical power structures on her community.

Even though she was not able to go out to preach, her fame spread and it is largely due to her and her sisters that the Franciscan message survived the death of Francis and the first generation of friars.

 

St Clare was received by St Francis into a life of humility, poverty and simplicity only after she escaped her family through a back door of her house.  Shortly after, they came to get her back.  Having beaten her and one of her sisters, they tried to drag her forcibly from the church.  They failed

.

"Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!  Your soul in the brilliance of glory! ... Transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead itself! ... May you totally love God whose self-giving was totally for your love, at whose beauty the sun and the moon marvel, whose rewards and their uniqueness and grandeur have no limits."  St Clare of Asissi

 

Father, thankyou for the witness of the many women who have carried the gospel in their lives far better than I ever could... and bless all women who feel constrained by the fact they live in a church run by men.  Bless us all with the strength and love of our sister Clare.  Amen.

A follow up

Sorry, I wouldn't usually dare to sully a blog with memes, but this was just too perfect not to follow my previous post:

Every blessing from Hilfield.

Brodo: Three Knots to Rule Them All - Young People Wanted to Save the World

One of the odd things about growing up is that at every stage in your development you meet people who don't think you are ready to contribute to the world because you just aren't old enough yet.  This, I guess, keeps happening pretty much until the age at which they say you are too old to contribute.

I was lucky enough to go to a meeting of the tertiary franciscans (lay people who take vows to live a franciscan life and be a franciscan presence in their families and communities) from our local area, and... yes... I was the youngest person in the room.  But, unlike lots of events at church/school/uni/work/wherever, people actually seemed quite enthusiastic that I was there.  And actually, I had to work quite hard to get people to share their own experiences, so interested were they in learning about mine at Hilfield.

The prophet Joel wrote: 'I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.'

The most venerable and complex role (interpreting dreams - think of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dreams about skinny and fat cows!) is left to the elderly, the most experienced in society.  But the most vibrant gift of the Holy Spirit, that of prophecy, the act of MAKING GOD'S MESSAGE SPEAK TO ORDINARY PEOPLE, is left to the young.

 The first Christian martyr, St Stephen (cf. Acts 7), stoned to death for preaching that 

Jesus was the Son of God, probably in his late twenties.

St Luke puts Joel's words into St Peter's mouth in Acts 2:17 when Peter is trying to convince a crowd of Jerusalemites (hardy city-folk who are convinced the disciples must be pissed when they start preaching the Gospel!) of just how exciting the Church can be when it is open to God.

How exciting life can be, when we are ALL open to the Spirit acting through ALL of us.

Brother Douglas (or Brodo for short) was a co-founder of the Anglican Franciscans.  Here's what he had to say on the subject in 1942:

Some of our wisest thinkers are wondering today how democracy will work in the post-war world - unless a new spirit of unselfishness is born in every individual and every class, unless in our economic life the motive of private profit is somehow transformed into the motive of public service... and we ask is there any hope of eradicating the selfishness ingrained in the very structure of our social order?  Can we exorcize this acquisitive instinct that is so rampant, and awaken that higher instinct of joy in loving service which we might have seen predominant if only Christ had been accepted as the Lord of our life?

It may be that the fate of our civilization will depend on whether there are enough Christian leaders among the younger generation who will give up at least part of their life to win people for Our Lord in this way.

When I first started talking to people about my vocation to be a priest, the first response was usually along the lines of, "Yes, that's all well and good, but you're far too young to be able to offer any real help to anyone."

Bollocks to that.

My prayer tonight is for more young people to have the courage to come forward, to answer God's call, whatever people around them say.  We need them more than we realise.

Father,

pour out your Spirit on all your children,

young and old.

Give us the courage to listen to you

and not to those who try to put us down;

so that we may do what you want

and not what they want.

Tis bloody good, Lord, to be here

If I had a penny for every person who said to me, 'Gosh, you're so lucky to be at the friary at this time of year.'   Perhaps I had better share some summer moments with you!

Wildflowers in the top field

A spectacular common spotted orchid near the barn

The Wysteria survived Sam's 'pruning' of last year

The Swallow chicks are out of the nest

Chantal's amazing flowers in front of Francis House

Phil's carving has made the move from the shed to the Canticle Garden

 Olive still being haughty

Wild Crane-bill Geranium outside my front door

Home with a few wild orchids for decoration

 

 

Yes, I think I am lucky to be here at the moment.


Peace and goodwill from Hilfield!

FINALLY! - A Cup of Rice a Day for CA's India Floods Appeal: Day Five

Well, what can I say?  It is over!  People have been so very generous, and we've raised over £360 for Christian Aid.  That translates into a month's food for more than FIFTY families!  So thankyou.

The justgiving link will be active for a few more weeks.

 

https://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

My final day was pretty weird.  To be honest, I was feeling rather ill, and finding it pretty hard to think about anything positively, apart from the impending breaking of the fast!

And so it has taken me quite a while to digest that final day.

One of the things that struck me was just how lucky I am that this...

... as if by magic, three times a day turns itself into this:

It is something so many of us take completely for granted, the idea that at regular intervals we will have somewhere safe where we will eat food and be satisfied.

And yet, the Church of England has this year opened a record number of food banks... IN THE UK!  Stories are emerging of parents going without food for days so that their children can eat.

Over the past days this is how I have been praying: for those I brush shoulders with in the street, who may even come and share at my table here at the friary, who don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Father,

Thankyou for the riches of our society.

Open our eyes to the poverty that exists within it.

To the people who subsist within it,

And show me how I can share my riches with them.

I don't even know where to start.

 

 

Yeah, it has taken a while to work out how to say that.

Very Bored Now - A Cup of Rice for CA's India Floods Appeal: Day Four

It's day four of my attempt to live on the diet of some of the world's poorest people and I am STILL very, very hungry.  On the plus side, people have now donated OVER TWO HUNDRED POUNDS to go towards Christian Aid's India Floods Appeal.

 

https://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp 

 

Day four's attempt at a positive prayer focus has completely failed.  I'm very very hungry now, and quite frankly bored of feeling hungry.

Perhaps my prayer tonight should be for people who are completely deflated, dehumanised and dejected becaused of their situation.

 

 

Still hanging in though!

 

 

Father,

Thankyou for the fact that every human life

is so full of possibility.

Help me throughout my life to bring out the possibilities

that really are there

in other people's lives,

even if no one else can see it.

 

 

 

 

 

The Joy of Serving Up a Meal... and Then Not Eating It - A Cup of Rice for India Floods Appeal: Day Three

It's day three of my attempt to live on the diet of some of the world's poorest people and I am very, very hungry.  On the plus side, people have now donated almost £180 to go towards Christian Aid's India Floods Appeal.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

It is just a short post today... as I've been in the kitchen yet again.

Sunday is kept as a feast at the friary, and by feast I mean FEAST!

For Lunch, Kerri and I turned out

• Roast Beef (from our own cow) with Herb Sausage Dressing
• New potatoes (grown in our garden)
• Carrots and beetroot roasted with Garlic and Rosemary
• Cabbage cooked with paprika in a Floridian recipe (Kerri is Floridian...ish)
• A veggy mushroom bake
• A 'Roly-Poly-Dick' - an amalgamation of Roly Poly Pudding and Spotted Dick with lots of sultanas, lemon peel and raspberry jam
• Custard

And dinner was a light option:

• Tomato and Basil Soup (with our own Basil and homemade yoghurt)
• Vegetable Bake with cheesy herb breadcrumb topping (lots of leftovers)
• Potato Salad (more leftovers)
• Green Salad
• Cheese
• A butterscotch tart that was meant for afternoon tea but took an eternity to set

I suppose that's a rather odd way to start a post relating to an emergency appeal, but as I cooked and helped cook all this fabulous food, watched 50-odd people eat it and washed up the dishes, a really funny thing happened.

I realised I was enjoying being in the kitchen a lot more than when I was trying to enjoy the food I had painstakingly produced as well.  I was actually getting joy from serving others the food in a way I didn't usually.

And then another thing happened.  I realised that I felt exactly the same in myself (bent over the sink, elbow deep in grease and suds) as I was when I had had a full meal.

Perhaps, then, maybe it wasn't having a massive Sunday lunch that made me so happy every week?  Evidently there was something else around that was the source of my joy.

I suppose this follows on from my last post about consuming only what we need.  But for Franciscans, consuming only what we need isn't meant to make us miserable.  It is meant to set us free from the worry that we might not have enough. We are free to find what truly makes us happy.

So the post today is a little more self-centred, in a way.  Living off what we need isn't actually only about everyone else's good.  It is about ours as well.

Lord,
You asked the people you met 
to give up everything to follow you.
You wanted them to have a happiness that 'stuff' couldn't give.
Help me to give up my desire for 'MORE',
And help me to discover the joy in what I have.
 

A Cup of Rice for India Floods Appeal: Day Two - Consider the Birds

I'm two days into my challenge to live of the diet of some of the world's poorest people.  And wonderful people have donated £92 thus far on http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp to go towards Christian Aid's India Floods Appeal.

I've been in the office today folding some leaflets... and actually worrying a lot.  I'm beginning to get that light-headed, slightly woozy, feeling, that means that everything is just a little bit of an effort.  And I was beginning to think that I might have signed up for a really silly thing... Would a cup of rice and a bowl of meusli really be enough to sustain me?

And then I walked out of our community choir practice and saw this:

The baby swallows from the eaves of the sacrament chapel have flown the nest!  They're still being fed by their mother, but not quite so comfortably as they were.

And that famous saying of Jesus (no, not Monty Python) came back to me: 'Consider the birds...'

It is from a great passage (Matthew 6) in which Jesus asks people, 'Why are you worrying?'  God has provided enough for the birds to survive, and God loves you much more than the birds... so God must have provided enough for you to survive.

It is a really sobering thought.  And it is what Christian Aid's IF campaign and this month's rally in London was about.

Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked is really complicated... and yet it is also laughably simple.  God has provided enough resources in this world for us all.  But if we consume 100 times more than others then, of course, many will go without.

So my prayer today is that we will all (starting with me) learn a bit more about what it means to need... rather than want.  And that we will learn to give up some of the things that we only want, so that others can have what they need.

In the words of the Franciscan grace:

Thankyou for these wonderful gifts.

Teach us to live simply,

So that others may simply live;

In Jesus' name.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

Cup of Rice: Day One - Consuming what others produce

So, today I am in the kitchen, which makes starting the one-cup-of-rice-a-day regime all the more challenging.  I have had 2/3 cup for lunch... and I am still bloody hungry.  1/3 at dinner is not going to cut the mustard, methinks.

For everyone else's lunch I turned out a venison soup, a swede soup and a carrot and coriander soup, and Mike produced ciabatta and white loaves made with a home-made elderflower yeast.

And just as I was adding some left-over rice to the venison soup, a massive glob of rice fell into the pan and splashed hot soup all over my face.  And I was instantly very cranky, thinking that I wasn't even going to be eating it.

So this afternoon I will be praying for all those people who prepare things for us, people who grow food, who prepare food, who mine minerals, who make products, who sew fabrics and shoes...

... and who never get to enjoy as much of what they produce as we do.

Father, 

thankyou for the richness of the material gifts

and the richness of brothers and sisters

you have given us.

Give us the grace to appreciate them fully

and to share those gifts with each other.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Support the Christian Aid India Floods Appeal on http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

Hunger for Justice

So, for the next five days I will be eating a bowl of meusli for breakfast, and then nothing else for the rest of the day.

Wtf?

I am raising money for the Christian Aid India Floods Appeal (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/india-floods/index.aspx), by trying to live off the diet that some of the poorest people in the world survive on - a cup of rice a day.

But since I am a woosy westerner, I am adding a bowl of meusli to that - and giving up my week's wages (already donated) as a forfeit.

You can support me by following my progress on this blog, with your prayers and also with your donations, on the JustGiving link.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

From the Christian Aid website:

India Floods Appeal

At least 20,000 people remain missing following landslides and flooding in northern India. The state of Uttarakhand has been affected most.
Latest reports indicate that over 600 people have lost their lives, with the death toll likely to rise to 5,000 according to government officials.

Stranded

Heavy and incessant rains in the upper Himalayas - that began Friday 14 June – damaged roads, collapsed bridges and left stranded over 60,000 pilgrims headed for various shrines in the region.
The number now stranded is 10,000 however further rescue operations are being hindered due to fresh rains and further landslides. 
Over 100 villages have borne the brunt of the floods in the worst affected districts of Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi with up to a 1,000 homes damaged if not completely washed away.

 

Our response

In response, Christian Aid has launched the India Floods Appeal. Our partners are already responding with immediate relief; providing emergency items such as food and shelter, blankets and medicines.
Christian Aid partner CASA intends to help 5,000 of the most affected households – 25,000 people –with food rations such as rice, lentils, tea and sugar.
They are also providing cooking utensils and portable stoves. Plastic sheeting, blankets, torches and vital medical kits will also be provided.
Anand Kumar, Christian Aid’s India country manager said: ‘When a disaster strikes, poor families have few assets to fall back on and face extreme difficulty in meeting basic needs.

£21 could provide a month's emergency food for three families.

£40 could buy essentials for a family whose home has been washed away, including a tarpaulin and blankets, medicine, cooking equipment, buckets, candles and a torch.

£100 could help towards the cost of repairing a damaged house.  

Pray for Opium

Well, I only have about ten more weeks left at Hilfield.  This has gone scarily quickly... though at times it has felt scarily slow.

Whilst I'm still here, I am going to blog once a week on something that has captivated me, and on Fridays I am going to do an additional blog on something I have felt particularly called to pray about because I have been here.

WEEK ONE: OPIUM POPPIES

Pretty little things aren't they.  They grow as a weed in many English gardens.  When they are small they are just a tuft of little silvery-white leaves.  But when they get bigger they are absolutely beautiful.

I was digging up a series of poppies yesterday, and a tonne of other weeds as well, when it suddenly struck me: yes, it was a wonderful thing that the poppies were beginning to bloom, that they looked so pretty.  

But as our poppies are coming into season, billions of opium poppies are coming into bloom on commercial plantations around the world.  Most of these will be used to produce medical opiates and other by-products.  Some of this year's crop will however be turned into drugs that will harm and kill tens of thousands.

And that wasn't all.  I was perhaps a little tired and achey digging up the vegetable beds, but thousands of people harvesting poppies live in terrifying poverty, trapped in cycles of debt and addiction themselves and ruled by corrupt governments who aid the drug-lords that enslave them.

Perhaps it isn't so pretty.

So this afternoon I will be praying:

• For those whose task it is to secure a good opium crop for legitimate purposes
• For those who will grow, harvest and consume illegal opiates
• And for the governments that assist the cycles of slavery that are required to grow illegal opiates.

Father, 
give us the grace to treasure the gifts you have given us,
to use those gifts for good,
and to love and care for those who deliver them to us;
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Common poppies in the vegetable garden

Gushing Through Nirvana to Meh - The Short History of an Arrival

Breakfast is a particularly special time at the friary.  I have always loved breakfast, probably because I am a glutton and the thought of not eating for ten hours straight is painful even now (sitting at my desk with a cup of tea).  But breakfast at Hilfield is one of the few times in the day when it is really practical to simply zone out and just be.  

You don't have to talk to anyone (we eat in silence at breakfast), you don't have to acknowledge anyone (everything is within reaching distance) and there is no reading or purpose to the thing to make us think together, except to get snouts in the trough.

This makes breakfast a perfect time for a spot of people-watching.  I love people-watching, and I often have that awkward moment in cafes or train stations when you've been staring at a complete stranger for a matter of minutes, utterly without realising it, just thinking about what their life might be like.

***

Well, my people-watching at breakfast has turned up some pretty interesting stuff.  When you come to visit a religious community, your behaviour changes.  You may come with no expectations at all, or you may come with enough emotional and theological baggage to last you till the end of time, but everyone changes... pretty quickly as a matter of fact.

There seem to be three stages.  On the first day, guests arrive and experience a phenomenon called 'gushing.'  Common gushing involves, "Oh, isn't this place wonderful" and "Gosh, isn't there a sense of presence here."  If they've been before it might be, "Oh, this is even better than I remembered it."  And at breakfast the intial gush takes on a subtler form.  Never 'on the outside' could people derive so much pleasure, such sheer delight, from watery porridge, or sip over-brewed tea with such gusto.  The Gusher fully believes that here he or she has found the apogee of happiness.

A benedictine friend of mine ominously refers to this as 'the honeymoon period.'

On to stage two.  A day or two into their stay, the Gusher reaches Nirvana.  They start walking incredibly slowly.  Objects which hitherto had been completely uninteresting now captivate their attention for an inordinate length of time.  Sighing can be heard.  Porridge is no longer enjoyed, so much as absorbed, sometimes over a period of twenty minutes.  The tea is not gulped, but sipped through barely open lips.  The Nirvana Retreatant often spends most of breakfast with his or her eyes closed, or looking out of the window, fingers teasing the spoon or mug.

Bloody annoying if you are waiting to wash up.

No, you will get my dishes when I am done... sunning myself

In stage three, the illusion of Nirvana is brutally torn from the Nirvana Retreatant, as he or she re-enters reality.  After a while taking an eternity to eat and drink really does get boring, and closing one's eyes too much can cause one to drop off (I've not yet seen anyone faceplant porridge... but I'm waiting).  This realisation that it was all a dream can cause the Nirvana Retreatant to become irritated, but soon they settle in.  They enter the Meh phase.  Yes, it is just tea, and it is just porridge, and the brother at the end of the table did just fart, and someone did just spill their breakfast down their front, and that person is chewing really loudly...

... and they realise that life in its common day-to-day there-ness is just wonderful.

All of us, when we live in a community of any kind, or really live in any place, go through these stages, whether it is a new job, a new flat, or whatever.  I really do give thanks that some days (like this one where my trifle didn't set) I do just think, 'meh.'  Not, 'AAARGH'  or even 'YAAAAY' but good old steady 'meh.'

It is the best sign that where you are... you have arrived.

About bloody time.

Phalluses, Mead and Streaking - I love this place sometimes

Ok, so this was just such a fabulous day I need to write about it.

Camera begins to roll at 4:45am - getting up to go to the Cerne Giant for May Day celebrations.  Lots of Morris dancers, and free beer as the sun rose.  And the giant, well, he's the nearest thing we've got to racy entertainment in Dorset.  Then sitting on the giant's nose (apparently a tradition) and following the dancers into the village for a Christian beltane service (welcoming of Summer).  So, it turns out the local vicar makes AMAZING mead.  We shall be going again.

Then got back and baked twelve loaves of bread - immensely satisfying - and did some potting in the greenhouse with Lyndon.  I actually had to get out the sun cream it was so hot with the sun shining through the glass - according to the thermometer in there (dubious at best) it had reached 35 degrees at some point.  Hmmm.

Wise chicken sheltering from the sun unlike stupid gardeners

In the afternoon I ended up watering in the polytunnel - boy was that hot.  Pretty soon the t-shirt came off.  Pretty soon after that I was watering myself almost as much as the peas.   Finally, the bell rung for afternoon tea - yes, a chance to get some squash!  I, thinking it would be nice to cool off before getting changed, thought nothing of walking down to my room without putting my dry shirt on my distinctly not dry torso.

We currently have a group of novices from various religious communities staying on a conference (they get together three times a year and this week is Hilfield).  They of course, having heard the bell, were coming up the path towards the refectory when they met me.  Well, either I was serious temptation or, more likely, I have confirmed for them that chastity is the way forward.

Flowers in the courtyard that are undisputably beautiful, unlike the form that descended upon the unsuspecting novices

Well, at that point, I didn't think the day could get any better, but then... BUT THEN... a lady came into the refectory at tea and apparently said that the bread I had burnt earlier in the day was the best bread she had ever had.  SUCCESS!!!  It turns out that putting way too much oil in bread and then overbaking it after it has overrisen is the key to a great taste.

I am now going to listen to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas before contemplating watering the greenhouse and going to bed.  It's a hard life.

Peace and goodwill from Hilfield.

Spring is REALLY finally here... I hope

Last week we sung a Franciscan hymn that starts off:

(1)

Francis has made us see

How music fills the skies;

A glorious psalmody

Which cannot fail to rise

As God is praised by all mankind,

By water, sun, moon, stars and wind.

When I woke up this morning and saw the tree blossoming outside my window I just had to go and take some pictures.

(2)

Most High, Almighty Lord, 

Blessing and praise are thine.

All honour we afford

To thee, whose great design

Has given us, unworthy, claim

To sing the glory of thy name.

(3)

'Go sell all that thou hast'

Did not the Master say?

The rich young man at last

Learns not to turn away,

But giving all, finds in its place

The wealth of poverty's embrace.

 

(4)

'My church is falling - Look!'

The crucified had said;

Yet more than stones it took

To raise her from the dead.

In him her ransom's signs appear,

Those saving wounds of nail and spear.

 

(5)

O God thou Father art,

And Son and Holy Ghost:

Imprint upon our heart

Those wounds through which thou dost

Afford us here, for life above,

Humility and joy and love.  

The Dark Night: Clinging to the Cross

Well, I ended the last post on the theme of trusting.  And I think that's always a topic on which more can be said.

One of my favourite paintings is Liberatore's Christ on the Cross.  It hung for a while at the National Gallery.  It now hangs above my bed, or rather a cheap reproduction poster does (sad face).  It shows scenes of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and in the centre is a breathtaking Crucifixion scene.  One character is rather out of place. See if you can spot who!

St Francis (who was quite definitely not there at the time) is hanging on to the bottom of the cross.  There's a wonderful hymn that has the chorus, "So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, Till my trophies at last I lay down; I will cling to the old rugged cross, And exchange it some day for a crown."  Liberatore included St Francis, not only because the painting had been commissioned by patrons with a particular devotion, but also because we are all called to cling to the cross in our daily lives, but especially at times when trusting God seems hard.

It sounds a ridiculous thing but I sometimes hold onto the cross in our cemetery.   It is just too large to hug, but perfect for hanging off and praying.  Sometimes I pray that I could take that cross with me, so that I could always remember why it is that I am trusting in God.  He loves me as He loves each one of us.  And that is the end of the matter.

Part of learning to trust is learning to return that love, not just loving God when He seems to be 'all over me.'  Here's a short poem I wrote after praying in the cemetery.

Old Rugged Cross

His weight holds my being

As we stand side by side,

My arm around His trunk.

As I look beyond

The tips of my fingers work

To hold Him closer, to prevent

His flight, rejoicing

To know that part of Him.

I touch, and to touch

Resolves the view

That was beyond my apprehension.

I turn my neck, and to turn

I leave the view as it is.

The last of my lips seeks Him out

Beyond the touch.

19^th February 2013

Sitting in the kitchen in Douglas instead of Compline

after an evening watching the sun set listening to music

 and praying in the cemetery