Sunday and Monday 19th and 20th May - Apples, and Peace and war

Monday 20th May

Apples

Zoom in! Suddenly it becomes clear that the apple tree, just bare sticks in March, is now, just three months later, laden with little apples. How miraculous is that?

Here are the first fruits of my veg patch. I am congratulating myself for not pulling them up before today, and there are still plenty left still growing in the pot. 'Bless these radishes to my use and myself to thy service', the grace at school sort of went. I pondered about lighting a fire and offering them up as a sacrifice, but then, what if the smoke went down instead of up? So I ate some instead and put the rest in the fridge for later. Besides, these days, we are told not to waste food.

I didn't post yesterday because... all sorts of reasons, but the main one was I was sitting comfortably...

 

Watching 'Antiques Roadshow' on television. Besides, I hadn't found any music yet and I still hadn't worked out what I wanted to write. 

Warning; I'm about to get spiritual and philosophical, all from my personal and rigorously un-academic point of view. Skip on to Music if you can't bear the idea...

Sunday 19th May - God and Peace and War

 I've been thinking about that comment on my blog last Thursday 

'Centuries of war and discord, and all our prayers seem to go unanswered'

I reckon God is in the middle of it all; experiencing it all alongside us. I think he really is all-out for peace, and every so often, for some years, decades, maybe even centuries, peace does break out - just until the next megalomaniac, greedy, power-hungry, big-time bully, somehow lines up enough fellow-thinkers with enough vested interests, gullibility, cold calculating greed, total immorality, capacity for self-deception and complete indifference to the feelings and needs and humanity of their fellows on this planet. 

I can't believe their actions are guided by the God of truth and love and shalom. Maybe they are following a different understanding of god.

I suppose hey may be driven by all kinds of ideologies, including creating the ideal and racially pure nation or espousing their understanding of  the one true religion or some political idea. Whatever, they have chosen a path of violence, of the equivalent of the playground excuse

'but I was right', 

'I wanted it and they wouldn't let me have it', 

'I was here first', 

'they hit me first', or even, 

'I hit them back first'. 

I've heard all of those when I was on playground duty or working in a playgroup.    

And such people choose the path of violence, destruction and war, and try and clothe it in some kind of justification which does not take much examination to show it up for the evil it really is. 

Well, I'm the first to agree that this is a pretty simplistic view. But if we have God in our lives, we can call upon him, ask him to direct our efforts into doing what we can to overcome this. We can talk about our views, rather than being shy, so that we become more visible. We can donate time, money, prayer, and effort to worthy causes which work towards the well-being of our fellow humanity.

I've found that for me, prayer is a massive help in working through my thoughts, and finding hope in despair, and giving me ideas on how I can do something slightly useful from my comfortable home in a relatively peaceful and stable country. I do believe, as I said, God is active in the middle of this chaos, encouraging people in the direction of peace and reconciliation.  

We can do what we can.

Music

I have at last worked out that the modern composer John Tavener doesn't have an 'r' in middle of his name, and the early composer John Taverner does have an 'r'.  

This is The Lamb by William Blake, music by John Tavener, sung by Voces8

Words below

William Blake Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Does thou know who made thee? Little lamb, I’ll tell thee; Little lamb, I’ll tell thee: He is callèd by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild, He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are callèd by His name. Little lamb, God bless thee! Little lamb, God bless thee!