Dripping from the honeycomb

I adore the psalms. They form the foundation of my prayer life. I enjoy seeing the regular words of each as I cycle through the weeks. Week 4 in my breviary is a particular favourite week of mine.

When I saw the words in the lectionary this morning of psalm 19 the image of dripping honey caught my attention.

There is something moreish and satisfying about seeing something sweet drip, like golden syrup when you make brownies, or honey on your cereal. You just want to stick your finger under it, put it your mouth, and taste it. (Or this could be just me!)

I feel that the psalms are like this, they drip words about God that make us want to come back again and again. Even when the words are challenging, they glisten and we want to be fed more and more.

Another of my favourite lines in the psalms is “O taste and see that the Lord is good” – another image of the dripping honeycomb, and the scrolls that taste sweet in the mouth.

The word and promise of the Lord is sweet and good, it is moreish and irresistible, it glistens in the sun, it drips and moves slowly, calling us to have patience as we receive it – let it move across the tongue awakening the tastebuds and the spreading of joy around the body.

This is the sweetness of lent. In the stripped back nature of this season, and if you like I have given up sweet foods, remember to feed on His word and promise, dripping from the honeycomb, O taste and see that the Lord is good.

Set my bow in the clouds

I have been reminded this week of the promise of love and how powerful that is. I have spoken the words “you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased” so many times this week. In my sermon today, in the lovely care home service through the week. I feel it is something that we all need to hear.

One of the best pieces of advice I gained from theological college was that we might hear something and take it into our mind, but it is a long journey for it to get to the heart.

I’ve realised how true this can be. How hard it can be sometimes to just sit in love and realise that it is for us.

The reading for today’s Eucharist are beautifully linked by the power of water and God’s love. It reminded me of one night where I saw a rainbow around the moon, a moonbow so to say. A brilliant multicoloured halo of light shining brightly like nothing I had seen before.

This made me think that if we treated each proclamation of love as something we had never seen before, perhaps we would realise how special and beautiful it is – and that our hearts would start to listen!

I often wonder if there was a rainbow seen in the spray of water that came off Jesus when He was Baptised. And that same possibility which happened to us on our Baptism, a new life in Jesus sealed by the bow of promise, of love wrapped around us.

Whatever we think, it is a good day to think about that promise of love set over us, you are my son, my daughter, with you I am well pleased.

Follow me

During the last spell of cold weather I noticed an appearance of our resident female pheasant group. They always seem to come out just before the cold weather. When I used to live in Rochdale a sighting of the deer next to my house was always a warning of a cold snap to come.

On this particular morning I looked outside of my bedroom window and there before my eyes were the female pheasants on top of one of my neighbour’s roof. I was astonished about how they got up there I didn’t know they could flap up to such a high place.

Anyway, they were up there and the leader of the group felt it was time to leave the roof and go. She looked around and with an almighty flap she went down. One and by one the others followed her until there was one left.

She looked worried about what the others had just done, yet she could see the rest of the group safe and well and getting ready to move on. I watched her for a while, moving backwards and forwards, looking at the distance, measuring it up, then just as I thought she might not do it, she flapped and landed gracefully on the grass.

Watching the birds made me think of the sudden words of Jesus saying “follow me” to his disciples. We hear of them literally dropping the nets in their hands and walking away, and standing up and leaving the tax collector’s booth, leaving everything behind.

Sometimes we are like the last pheasant, weighing up the risks, whether it is safe, what could happen etc. Yet here in this short sentence “follow me” are the words of life, words that changed the disciples lives and our lives too when we decide to follow.

Perhaps this lent is a chance to remember our promise to follow Jesus, to put down the fear of what may make us hesitate to go, to address the fears within us that keep us at arms length, and to remember we are never too far gone to hear the words “follow me.”

He will say, here I am

Over the past few days I’ve been reminded that it is actually ok to know that God loves me. My Spiritual Director who I adore reminded me of this fact this week. I realised how easy it is to slip into thoughts which tell us that we cannot possibly loved.

In the second lockdown I had this wild idea to put a pond in the garden. I had never done such a thing before but somehow knew that I could do it. So I bought a liner, and set to digging a hole. Anyway in that afternoon the pond was put in – it is only a small thing.

I realised that if I had the confidence to dig up my lawn, to make this hard to disguise hole, why on earth did I not allow myself to dig deep within myself daily and fill inside of me with God’s love?

I had got stuck in a trap thinking that I had to do so many things to make sure that God would love me. If worked more and more, if I continued to take on the lockdowns with a smile, if I didn’t complain…. etc etc

However, to just stop, and call out to Him, to ask for help to see clearly His love, and there just waiting, in the stillness and silence there He was – “Here I am.”

Today, just stop and remind yourself of the most simple truth, that God loves you and that is that. Suddenly all is possible – even putting in a pond.

Choose life

When I moved into my new house the garden needed a little attention. It had overgrown and there seemed to be a forest of weeds at the back.

During the second lockdown I decided to spend an hour a day trying to clear some of them. I remembered that when I put in my statue of Our Blessed Mother Mary she has gestured something about the ground in my prayers.

So I got to it. A combined effort of hacking down the wilderness and digging. There were brambles entwined in bushes and long weeds up to my thighs but slowly and surely I began to see the earth and the edge of my lawn.

I had a wonderful surprise as I walked the garden and found new shoots of flowers that I had not planted all in the places that I had cleared. Secret flowers that I would not have seen. They are so beautiful and freshly green, reflecting a newness of life, so radiant and joyful.

I do not know what flowers they will grow into but I was so glad that I chose to clear the ground, to choose to see what life was beneath.

Moving into lent remind us to choose a life with God, to choose to see His gifts of newness He gives us, and we choose to love everyday. Many things tempt us to respond in bitter ways, to show we are angry, to show we are aggrieved, but if we choose to love, we choose to live a life in its fullness, a life of abundance with God.

His love is like the secret flowers of our hearts, part of the garden of the kingdom that is to come, new shoots of hope and the promise of the fragrance of His presence.

Let us choose life with Him everyday, and choose to love in every way.

Choose life

When I moved into my new house the garden needed a little attention. It has overgrown and there seemed to be a forest of weeds at the back.

During the second lockdown I decided to spend an hour a day trying to clear some of them. I remembered that when I put in my statue of Our Blessed Mother Mary she has gestured something about the ground in my prayers.

So I got to it. A combined effort of hacking down the wilderness and digging. There were brambles entwined in bushes and long weeds up to my thighs but slowly and surely I began to see the earth and the edge of my lawn.

I had a wonderful surprise as I walked the garden and found new shoots of flowers that I had not planted all in the places that I had cleared. Secret flowers that I would not have seen. They are so beautiful and freshly green, reflecting a newness of life, so radiant and joyful.

I do not know what flowers they will grow into but I was so glad that I chose to clear the ground, to choose to see what life was beneath.

Moving into lent remind us to choose a life with God, to choose to see His gifts of newness He gives us, and we choose to love everyday. Many things tempt us to respond in bitter ways, to show we are angry, to show we are aggrieved, but if we choose to love, we choose to live a life in its fullness, a life of abundance with God.

His love is like the secret flowers of our hearts, part of the garden of the kingdom that is to come, new shoots of hope and the promise of the fragrance of His presence.

Let us choose life with Him everyday, and choose to love in every way.

Return to me with all your heart

I go walking with my children at around 4pm every day. This way we can watch the sun start to set and see the landscape start to move under the changing light.

Yesterday it was hazy but the sky did it’s usual dance. We found a new bit of stream to discover and on our way back up from a particularly fun stream-bank jumping session, my youngest daughter spotted a bird swooping over the grass.

We are big nature fans and soon she announced that it was in fact a barn owl. She was correct and there it was with its creamy wide soft wings swooping up and down through the long grass.

It was such a beautiful thing to watch. Especially on the eve of the season of Lent that we step into today.

I’ve always seen Ash Wednesday as the start of an unknown journey where have to turn to the Lord, to know where we are going. The cross on the forehead, or the sprinkling of ashes is the road map for the heart, the direction of where we are now heading. But what we encounter on that journey is for God to will for us.

Like the barn owl that we were blessed to see yesterday, we will be amazed at what He can show us over these Lenten days as long as we can open our hearts up to receive. The hollowing out of our hearts through self denial makes room for His love to dwell.

I pray that the Holy Spirit may swoop in like the barn owl and fill us with the Father’s will for us, that we can imitate the journey that Jesus took for us and by doing so know Him deeper and fuller.