Sunday 18th February - Wait

Maybe I should take the word 'wait' as my word for the year? Perhaps I just need a word for a season.

I've been trying to remember to take 5 minutes every (most!) days to just sit. To just be still. When I do remember I feel refreshed and ready to carry on with the rest of the day. 

'You don't always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that's enough' is an Alice Wheeler quotation from the book 'Still Alice' by Lisa Genova. 

'I discovered I must keep still and I would be found. God was not the object of my search, I was.'  from Sr Angelica Gutierrez.

Various events this past week (which I have not blogged as they are not all my story to tell) have left Himself and me really, really tired at the end of this week. The important things have all been accomplished, and the rest will keep until tomorrow.

At the times of greatest need, I was grateful for this prayer, written by a member of the Poor Clares, which I learned only a few days ago, easily remembered, and if you can't remember it you can easily make it up;

Dear Lord,

Hear me

Heed me,

Help me,

Hold me,

Hide me,

Hearten me,

Hush me,

And be Heaven to me.

As St Julian of Norwich famously said 'All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.' 

I shall be holding on to these words!

 

Lent Reflection 5 - A Lent Reflection!

 I follow a number of blogs They form a kind of 'made-to-measure' magazine with the kind of content that I am interested in, and very few advertisements to clutter up the pages. I have joined feedly.com, which lets me manage the blogs, save posts, sort them under headings and so on.   

So, most mornings, over coffee, I bring up my 'feedly magazine' and have a read. 

A few days ago, a knitting blogger I follow wrote that she came across a Lent reflection, which I thought I would share with you today;

if a stranger were to take charge of your life, what is the first thing they would do?

We are assuming a 'benevolent' stranger, one with wisdom, insight, and your well-being at heart.

In her case, she came to the conclusion that they would take steps to do something about a problem that has been causing discomfort for some time. by seeing the relevant professional.  So that's what she is planning to do.

So, if a stranger were to come and take charge of my life, what is the first thing they would do? 

I'm good at handing out advice, and knowing the right course of action for others. So now, what will the stranger advise me to do?

For a start, I shall stir my stumps and plant those anenome corms that have been sitting around for months, and soaking ready for planting since yesterday afternoon. That will be one thing cleared, done, dusted, off the list, leaving head space for other things.

More Lent reflections over at Tracing Rainbows

Lent Reflection 4 - Noah's Ark

 Today's church sermon started with the story of 'Moses in the bulrushes' as a text. (Exodus Chapter 2.)

This must be one of several 'suitable for Mothering Sunday' texts, in this case starting with the idea that women, overlooked by the patriarchal authorities, can subvert cruel and evil laws. 

In the story, the Hebrew midwives, Shiprah and Puah, refused obey Pharoah's decree that new bord male Hebrew babies should be killed at birth, making the excuse that the Hebrew women gave birth too quickly for them to get there in time. So Pharoah decreed that male Hebrew babies at birth. Jochabed, mother of Moses, hid her son for three months, before placing him in a basket covered with pitch, and putting the basket into the bulrushes at the edge of the Nile. Miriam, sister of Moses, fixed it so that when the baby was rescued by Pharoah's daughter, he was given back Jochabed to be nursed.

The men in this story, apart from Moses, are not named, only the oppressed Hebrew women, although Pharoah's daughter showed some courage in defying the decree to adopt Moses.

So where does Noah's Ark come into this?

I learned that the Hebrew word used 'basket' is the same word used for 'ark'. 

And the Hebrew word for the covering of bitumen and pitch used for both the basket and the ark is also the same. 

But, amazingly, the Hebrew word for 'atonement' is also from the same word as the one for bitumen and pitch. (see last week's reflection, where I learned that words in Biblical Hebrew carry several meanings)

Atonement, what happens when Jesus dies on Good Friday, that word, contains the meaning 'cover with a protective covering' and also 'make right a wrong'.

And that is what I am reflecting upon this week.

 

Lent Reflection 2 - Sunday 13th March

Last night I was reflecting on the trials and tribulations that I was having with embroidery. Satin stitch in particular, and all things embroidery in general.

Version 1

All I had to go on for satin stitch were some angry and frustrated memories from making a total hash of it when I was about eight years old, and some instructions and pictures in a leaflet.

It's not too surprising, then, that my first attempt was unsatisfactory.

After intently studying several video, and listening carefully to the instructions, guidance, details, given by Sarah Homfray on her youtube videos, I was able to cut out the first attempt (yes, I did make a small hole in the fabric) and by sewing slowly, with more concentration, was able to produce this;

Version 2

  

Yes! It's not 'good', but is it 'better', and that's enough to be going on with!

Sarah Homfray sews her leaves and flowers with consummate ease. She can even talk while the needle goes in and out, apparently seeking the perfect placement of the point every time all by iteself, the thread following neatly and forming the beautiful shapes.

How?

Well, like me playing the piano. I'm not a great pianist; I was never going to be able to play more than the easiest Chopin, most accessible Brahms, but I have been saturated in the world of piano playing since I was about three years old. When I look at the music, I know what to do, I know how to learn it, I understand it like a fish understands swimming.

I guess it is the same for experts in embroidery. They been saturated in the techniques and history and knowledge of their art and craft, using all their intellect to develop and improve.

Today, I was reminded about this process of saturation with respect to our life as Christians.

If I hadn't been listening to  daily 'Bible in one Year' audio book, and also following Andrew Dotchin's Lent Course, today's sermon (Ezekiel and the bones) would have been good, but with the extra links and knowledge that past six months regular listening and reading and paring have developed, it was awesome. 

So, on reflection, it seems to me that Tertullian in saying 

But we, little fishes, after the example of our ΙΧΘΥΣ Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor have we safety in any other way than by permanently abiding in water 

was givng us good advice. Here, he is talking about Baptism, and the Water being the Holy Spirit, and of course the play on words with the Greek word for fish being used to represent Jesus Christ:

The word ΙΧΘΥΣ (ikhthus) in Greek means “a fish;” and it was used as a name for our Lord Jesus, because the initials of the words ᾽Ιησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἰὸς Σωτήρ (i.e. Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior), make up that word.

(And no, I haven't read Tertullian! But I came across that phrase a long while ago and it stuck with me)

 More Lent reflections at Tracing Rainbows

Sunday March 6 - Lent Reflections 1

 

Like 'Pause in Advent', Ang Almond is hosting 'Look again at Lent'

Here's my two-pence worth;

I'm listening to David Suchet's audiobook 'The Bible in One Year'. At the moment we are ploughing through Leviticus... yup, the one with all the rules. And all the sacrifices. And every paragraph seems to end with the reminder that these instructions have to be followed 'lest you die'. Two of Aaron's sons have already died so far because they didn't follow the rules, but took it into their heads to offer incense when they were not allowed to, and without proper preparation and respect.

And my point is - back then, in the olden days BC, or BCE if you prefer, approaching God was a terrifying business. The proper rituals had to be followed, and only by certain people, with detailed and complex preparations, 'lest you die'. 

Now, in modern times AD, (or CE!), since the very first Good Friday and Easter Day, we are all able to enter the presence of God, any time, any where, any how, with no preparation, sacrifice, ritual. God welcomes us, as in the opening words of the Lord's Prayer, as a loving parent welcomes their children into a perfect family relationship with no fear of death or retribution or punishment.

(I've added the words 'loving' and 'perfect'  to the previous sentence, as I am well aware that here, on earth, family relationships can be far from loving and perfect, for all sorts of reasons.)

I suppose we'd like all relationships - between people and between nations to be like the new relationship between us and God. That's called Heaven. As in 'Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven'.