Category Archives: creation

Holy Island Retreat

This is my first retreat in Bambi. I’ve come back to Holy Island where I took retreats earlier in my time as Chaplain.

Some say it is a thin place
Where heaven and earth come close to meeting.
For me, that can be any place at all
If you tune into the sense of it.
Flat salt marshes, wavy dunes,
The detritus of the tide and
The light falling as the sun sinks westward.
Above the sound of the east coast main line rushing on
A linnet sings.
Then the Greylag geese fly in,
Calling to each other companionably.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

Psalm at Deal

I am in the heart of God
And God is in my heart.
There is no place, no organisation
No institution, that holds me
To this earth, rather I am connected
To every family under heaven
By the heart dwelling One.
As the tide rises and falls,
As the waves crash and the shingle rattles,
I am in awe of the order of creation,
The patterns of time and chaos,
Of light and colour, dark and shadow.
My breath goes out on the breeze
And returns to refresh me again.
My muscles move, my brain imagines:
The world rotates and the sun breaks through.
With each movement I know you
As Companion and side walking one.
When the stones scatter as we step together
Or you catch me as my feet stumble,
I know you have been this way before.
I hear the sounds of the shore,
Gulls and people start their morning shriek,
Yet they do not disturb my focus.
I am in the heart of God
And God is in my heart.

29.10. 2017 Deal

Post menopause spirituality

When I was pregnant in 1993 I reflected and wrote a lot about that time, how it changed me and how I celebrated the whole experience. However, as I was walking today, I realised I’d not done that since before my menopause, which I went through a few years ago now. I decided to rectify that today.

I am very aware of the way in which body, mind and spirit co-operate to do this walk along the Hadrian’s Wall path. Of course this is not the first time I’ve realised that but it fits here because it is foundational.
Going through the menopause coincided with me doing the job of Chaplain, and of course I wasn’t the only woman at school doing so during this time. It reminded me, in RB, of the gospel story of the two women, one just entering puberty, one a mature woman who Jesus meets. In fact he’s on his way to me the younger one when he meets the older one. She interrupts the story with her touch. She reaches out to Jesus and he recognising her, reaches out to her. They meet in that moment.
There have been many meetings and many interruptions during these last 7 years and here are some of those things from my post menopause spirituality that contributed to my survival and are part of this walk.
1. the natural world is a wonder and something I enjoy and learn from all of the time. Today I loved the walk through wild flowers, I loved the blackberries and some small plums in the hedges. There were many insects: common darter, speckled wood, peacock, small tortoiseshell, red admiral are some I remember. I keep a mental note of what I see and sometimes record them. I speak to the things as I pass them: a snail at my feet, a Jay flying across my path. I have always done this.
2. technology is helpful as it means I can photograph the things I see in an instant and that helps recall as well as journalling and scrapbooking later. It also means I can look stuff up easily if I don’t recognise it. Making stuff out of small things is essential to my creativity.
3. walking is simple enough but I have a huge sense of achievement even over just two days. Tired but happy is a good description of how it feels. Alone but connected, both to other walkers and those I meet but also to others. Bob and Hannah aren’t here but they have done other walks with which I have been involved and in itself those experiences have got me here. Bob is also on the other end of the phone if problems arise. They do. He tells me of a short cut. I am grateful.
4. prayer happens, it is so much a part of me. Grace texts me from Kenya to ask for prayer for the election process. There is fear and peace is fragile. I turn other things over in prayer as I walk along, things that have happened earlier in the year, concern for friends and family, the world and what happens in it.
5. I stopped going to church regularly a while ago now, in common with many other people I know. But I still visit churches as I go along, when they are not busy. The quiet is valuable. But I have not yet left the church. It extends all around me. I am surprised at every turn. As the woman extends her hand to touch him, he reaches out to touch her. It’s like that.

In our touch and in our encounters
The affirmation of God

Glimpses of Goyt Valley

I saw a wind hover, where the winds gather,
Where the clouds whisked away
And the grass waltzed across the wild land,
While my hair whipped across my eyes
And the sun burst out brightly.

There was Pym Chair, not so good for relaxing.
Was he preacher or highway man?
Your money or my sermon, his sinister request.
I saw a wind hover and in its stillness
I saw the valley through God’s eye

Down the steep road the door to Jenkin chapel was open. Its simple interior a place my ancestors would have known. Set at the junction of the Salters roads its simple lines and homely interior looks out on a well kept graveyard. The local dead are still well regarded and recorded on aged stones.

The paths we followed along the valley were lined with trees old and young. Someone had counted the massive beeches and there were many contenders for ‘tree of the day ‘. There was a beautiful rich greenness in every fern and moss, every leaf and plant and the riverside meadows.
The butterflies seemed to particularly like the thistles. They danced around them in ones, twos, three and even fours. The other gifts of the day were the frequent stands of wild raspberries bringing a welcome fruity tang to the walk.

The sky changed from pale to dark grey. A strong shower swept through, followed by the widening blue window and higher whiskers of white feathery clouds. A summer day of contrasts and companionship.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Sea, sky and stones

We finally found the ogham stone a little way behind the church yard. It was coveted in whiskery lichen and the ogham marks very well eroded, but then it has been waiting there for sometime, in this bee loud meadow. There was a female common darter (dragonfly) chasing round the ragged rocks and red campion.
Gigha is a longer, flatter more arable island than Iona. The ruined church remembers St Cathan who brought the Gospel to Kintyre and the Western Isles in the 6th century from Ireland.
Fringed by green woodland the road south from the ferry also boasted two ‘honesty tables’, one selling shortbread and woolly hats the other eggs and candles.
Hannah had a cycle up and down and then we had some lovely lunch at the Gigha Hotel followed by ice cream from the little shop. This is a diversification in the Gigha economy and is made on the island with milk from the very cows she had cycled past on the north end.
The shallow bay by the south pier was a draw to almost everyone. Reached through another lovely wild flower meadow, with a wonderful crop of common orchids, it stretched on and on and was shallow enough to wade across which was pleasant and a cooling way to pass the afternoon.

From the warm sun and the cool sea
The green woodland and the colourful meadow,
The welcome and the care
Of this small island,
There is much to celebrate,
And remember gratefully.

Open door

The door was open. The interior calm and cool. Lined with wood it was carved from the forest itself. A yellow chrysanthemum in a plastic pot the only sign that reasonably recently someone had been here.

God is my strength and refuge,
A present help in trouble,
The One in whom I put my trust.
God sets a bright flower before me
And surrounds me with calm and peace.
In the valley the sheep let me know
They are at home here too.
As the light filters through the trees
And the dappled path stretches ahead of me
I lean into the silence and drink
From the quiet pools.
The sheep take an uphill path through the trees
To new pastures, excited and eager:
It is worthwhile to follow them
Knowing you are with us.

This was written at Saddell and Carradale church. And this Inscription on a grave stone was seem a little further on at Dippen:
Life is short
Death is sure
Sin the wound
Christ the cure

Waited for a bus at Torrisdale Castle, where the coat of arms says Forward and the Gunera very large. Bob speculated that if rhubarb was that size you could feed a lot of people with one stalk. Maybe a plant breeding programme is in order.

Another clear day gave lovely views of Arran from this coast. I can see back to Carradale from where we came. It was a good walk except for the bit along the shore. We had not expected it to be quite as difficult as it was over the rocks and salt Marsh. Samphire and sea pink were growing among the rocks and we saw two common blue Butterflies.

A glorious day
In our life and our believing
The love of God

And on the third day

If yesterday was marked by different shades of grey (no, not like that, in the landscape I mean), then today’s hue was blue.
It began fairly early, as the clouds thinned out from day break, to be replaced by clear blue by mid day.
We visited the ruins of Saddell Abbey. Reclaimed by the green of the valley and the forest, it was first named by the Vikings, and as their descendants we admired the lushness. No wonder it was later settled by Monks as it must have also been productive.
Loch Lussa lies in the middle of the southern section of the Kintyre peninsula. We reached it from the south and walked along the western shore. It was astonishingly blue. The shore was dotted with Marsh orchids in diverse shades of purple, one of my favourite British wild flowers. Each little floret on the spike is a perfect tiny masterpiece.
We found a Croft selling freshly picked kale so Hannah was well pleased. Leaving Bob to walk around the North end of the Loch and back to Saddell, Hannah and I went back by road stopping at Peninver to explore Ardnacross Bay. The sea was very calm and there were clear views of Arran across Kilbrannan Sound. The blue sea and sky were a wonder, and a complete contrast to yesterday’s low clouds. The water looked inviting and some local children were running about in the shallows. An oyster catcher rose from a rock giving its shrill alarm cry.
We called in at the tea shop near Carradale and were the last customers of the day, rewarded with chocolate brownies, flapjack and the last of the lemon drizzle.
It was the only drizzle we had seen all day. The evening sun bathed us generously as we turned for home. The sky was still and blue.

From the sky and from the sea
The joy of God

Prayer in a meadow

Here’s a meadow, here’s a may tree
Here’s the roots, twisted, brown.
Here I sit by the may tree
Here’s the meadow, all around.
Hear the birds singing skywards,
Walking forwards in the sun,
See the blue sky stretched above us,
See the Creator’s love abound.
There’s not much signal in this meadow,
Of the sort on which we rely,
But everywhere there is a signal
Of how the love of God comes near
Touches us in dark and night.
Keep on walking across the meadow,
Keep on walking into light.

When I heard about the bomb attack in Manchester I was on Retreat at Stanbrook Abbey, Wass, North Yorkshire, where there’s not much signal. In some ways it is a world away those events. Shock and disbelief are understandable emotions: not having words to express how we feel.
Wherever we are now, keep walking in the light.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

By the rivers of Babylon

By the rivers of Babylon
We sat down and remembered
Zion,
How can we sing God’s song in a strange land?

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By a small stream trickling off the Derbyshire moors, I sat down, and remembered.
I remembered the story of the One who lived and loved and lost and lived again.
I remembered the route, or some of it, that I had taken to follow that Way.
I remembered my companions, the living and the dead.
I remembered the communities with which I had retold the story and tried to follow the Way, the living and the dead.
I heard the water moving over the rocks, singing its own song, to an age old tune.
I heard the birds singing their song in the trees and I heard the breeze moving through the branches.
I remembered that if Christ’s disciples are silent then these rocks, this water, this air will all sing aloud and praise God;
And the fire will be lit again in my heart, and I too will praise God.
I will continue on the living Way, whether the land is strange or well known.
I will remembered the songs and stories that have sustained us.
I will listen and give voice to new songs and stories as they come to me in the air.

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In our life and our believing
The love of God

Etherow Park Lodge

Also know as Bill Sowerbutts garden…

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If Swallows Wood is a bluebell cathedral then this is more a quiet monastery with its many rooms and cloisters. Here you find both natives and newcomers quietly standing sentinel or rocking slightly in their tops in the gentle breeze.
Yes, there are bluebells here, but fewer and in small groups, still and silent, not so stirred up. They are found both in shade and full sun today. As are primrose and ransome also side by side. Rhododendron that flashy incomer is also coming into flower.
Trees too are native like the massive beech, horse chestnut in spike, and new additions like the swamp cypress. They grow here in monastic companionship and in their turn drip bits and pieces that make the floor springy to step on.
There’s evidence of husbandry, an old coppice beech hedge now out growing its earlier training and some felled trees, I am assuming diseased in some way or even dead.
The pond is quiet and ‘peace comes dropping slow’ as it reflects back the trees and the sky and quietly praises the Creator.

In our coming and our going
The peace of God