Tag Archives: rest

Dancing With The Daffodils

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Short Talk for the National Day of Reflection, 23rd March 2022 based on Psalm 23 and Matthew 11: 28-30

I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee: a poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company: I gazed–and gazed–but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth 1802

I have no idea what heaven looks like, but if I were to stand in the very spot that William Wordsworth did some 200 years ago I would have thought that here is a place where heaven meets earth.

Today, the daffodil has become the symbol of reflection, remembering those we knew and loved, but who are no longer with us because of the pandemic. Many of them left us at a time when it was difficult to say our goodbyes, others taken before their time despite the valiant efforts of our health professionals and personal carers. Deaths that have left us lonely and disorientated. Perhaps like the cloud, wandering and wondering, at times our tears falling like rain.

It’s hard, isn’t it, to see beyond the endings and look for hope in the future, yet it surely is there. A glance, a glimpse of brightness, an unexpected movement that catches our attention.

As I said I have no idea what heaven looks like, but to imagine our loved ones, beyond the pain and suffering, to see them once more in their prime, the happy times and memories, dancing gleefully, like the ten thousand or so daffodils that outshone the sparkling waves, must surely be of comfort to us.

Wordsworth describes it as a jocund company meaning cheerful and light-hearted. Here they are at rest, the lightness of God’s yoke no burden at all, and for that we can be grateful

Of course, we could try and stay there in that moment, but eventually we need to return to our ordinary everyday lives. However, that vision is now part of our memory, a wealth of memories to recall in moments of quietness and thoughtfulness, which Wordsworth describes a ‘the bliss of solitude’

Through our experiences we know that solitude can be hard at times, but true solitude can bring great peace as we rest in God’s presence. For many of us these last two years have also been a time of weariness, as both our mental health and reserves of strength have been battered and bruised. Yet today our readings promise us a time of rest and restoration; in Matthew, ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ and the beautiful psalm, ‘He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. He shall refresh my soul.’

We have to allow ourselves to hand over to God our cares and worries, our frustrations and our anger. He will take it all and release us to remember those we have loved and see no longer with love and gratitude.

Then in their company our hearts we will once more dance with pleasure not in pain.

Amen

Stillness

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Stillness in the Garden

As part of our offerings during the Coronavirus Pandemic the Ministry Team at St James’ Church, West End are each offering a Thought for the Week. Here is mine taking the theme of stillness and the need for a ‘me’ space

You can either watch the video or a transcript is below:

I wonder if you’ve managed to find your ‘me’ space yet?

At this time when we are all practising social distancing; being separated from our wider families and having to stay at home, it can be difficult to find a space in our homes in which we can just simply be still. A space in which you need do nothing but sit, not to feel the need to pray or to read or to do anything that involves taxing your brain. Perhaps you’ve found your ‘me’ space in a spare room, or a comfy corner or in a shed at the bottom of the garden. For me, it is a bench in front of my fishpond. It is a sunny spot, but also a peaceful one, with the sound of running water as background music and the graceful goldfish to watch gliding through the water. For me it is a perfect spot in which to be still.

For many of us that very element of stillness is one which has been conspicuously lacking in our lives up until now. We have been taught that we should be busy and productive, and we have all but lost the art of being still. Now it’s about listening; about compassion, and about faith; but mainly about stillness, because, so many of us have been forced to be still because of the Coronavirus Pandemic. The places where we worship are closed, the places where we work are shut and we are being asked to socially distance ourselves, to stay away from people and places other than our homes.

As we face this epidemic, the most important thing required of us is stillness. We have needed to stop going places–to church, to school, to work, to anywhere. We have needed to stop congregating. And that means that we have all had to slow down; because if we don’t, people will die. The logic of compassion and human connections demands that we do this one thing, and that one thing is nothing. And it is really hard.

What we can find though is that in this stillness comes faith and in faith comes stillness. Psalm 46 (v10) has that well-known verse calling us to do just that, ‘Be still, and know that I am God!‘ These lines connect stillness to faith, and this is what gives stillness its power. The Psalmist does not simply mean belief in God, or even a sure knowledge of God’s existence…faith in this context means trust – the knowledge that God is competent. Of course, it is very easy to be glib when giving advice like this – ‘Just let go and trust God’.

Nobody is telling us not to worry about Coronavirus. We should all worry about it because it threatens some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We should worry about it, and that worry should lead us to… stillness. Because being still is the best way to protect our loved ones–and to protect millions of people we do not know. So, we do the only thing we are required to do and that is to be still and listen.

The author Annie Dillard, has a wonderful quote from her book, ‘Teaching A Stone To Talk’ – ‘Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God’s speaking from the whirlwind, nature’s old song, and dance…’ and it is these voices that we never hear except when everything is silent, they only reach us as a moment of revelation in the stillness. They are the voice of the Holy Spirit, who is never far away from any one of us, their voice as Psalm 19 tells us about the heavens, is that ‘they have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’ These ‘words’ that will come and go unnoticed unless we learn the grace of being still.

‘Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice,
God’s speaking from the whirlwind, nature’s old song, and dance…’

And we shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about taking this time out. It’s so easy to be made to feel guilty that everyone else seems to be constantly involved in ‘good’ works. There is undoubtedly a great need for us all to look for ways of helping our friends and neighbours at every opportunity, but we can’t let that altruism overwhelm us. We only have to look to Jesus as an example of someone who gave all that he could to others, and yet frequently took time out to recharge his batteries – from Luke (5:16), ‘the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their illnesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’

Of course your ‘me’ space will get interrupted from time to time, the telephone rings, someone suddenly needs you to do something or the children start arguing, but those few precious moments of stillness should be enough to set you up with the strength to face whatever comes.

So, I hope you manage to find your ‘me’ space, whether indoors or outdoors. And if it rains… well there’s still the opportunity to stand looking out of the window and watch the rain fall, refreshing the earth.

So let us pray a prayer of St Benedict:

O Gracious and Holy Father,
Give us wisdom to perceive you,
Diligence to seek you,
Patience to wait for you,
Eyes to behold you,
A heart to mediate upon you,
And a life to proclaim you;
Through the power of the Holy Spirit Of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

So go well and God bless

Pooh’s Thotful Spot is interrupted

 

 

Sabbath Rest

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Sabbath Rest

It’s really hard when you want to write about something that you know is a good thing to do but you are not so good at actually doing it yourself. A someone commented yesterday when I delivered this sermon, ‘Physician, heal thyself’! Still, as I said, it acts as a good reminder to me as well as everyone else

Bible Reference: Luke 10:38-42

May I speak and may you hear through the Grace of our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit

I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to say this morning, because I am sure that some people could so obviously accuse me of hypocrisy, quite possibly a case of ‘do as I say and not as I do!’ But I believe there is an important message that needs to be explored and undoubtedly, I need to hear it as much as others might.

But first let me ask a question for you to ponder… when was the last time that you actually spent time doing nothing? Not doing something that you wouldn’t consider work, nor doing something that involves you organising your leisure time, not even setting time aside for prayer or to read a book… but just simply doing nothing but resting.

I guess that this simple kind of resting could go one of two ways. You either fall asleep or you allow yourself to simply bring yourself for those few precious moments into God’s presence. I call them precious moments because so many people nowadays have lives that do not involve seeking any time of rest or relaxation. We are conditioned to wake up and immediately our brains are focussed on what we must achieve that day or over the coming week. We have to plan and organise every single minute of our time, whether that is doing work, or filling our leisure time with activities or for parents of young children making sure that they are involved in stimulating pursuits, because, heaven help us, that they should be bored or have nothing to do!

But what’s wrong with a bit of boredom every now and again? Yes, it can be a state of mind caused by a lack of stimulation that leaves us craving relief, but it’s also acknowledged that without boredom we couldn’t achieve our creative feats. It often gives us time to think, to explore and to rest awhile.

It’s the difference between being a Martha or a Mary… not that I’m suggesting that Mary was bored, having nothing to do… but the two women in our gospel are demonstrating the need to set aside time to simply be with God. It’s also not the case that we need to choose between being a Mary or a Martha, whether we should only be one or the other. Rather that it’s essential to be both. Like Martha we think that the important thing is doing, but Jesus teaches us through Mary’s example that we need to sit, to listen, to learn, to love.

For Mary and Martha, their friendship with Jesus meant that they would have been proud to have this popular man as a guest in their house, together with all of his entourage and followers, and Martha, as the principal hostess would have wanted to make sure that he was comfortable and that his needs were catered for. So she welcomed him into her home and went into the kitchen to prepare a meal for him.

However, her sister Mary did NOT go into the kitchen but instead ‘sat at Jesus feet’, and fair enough when you have guests you do not generally abandon them straight away and all disappear to do other things. But for Martha, it wasn’t okay that her presumably younger sister got to do nothing, while she had to organise and cater for so many.

Luke tells us that Martha ‘was distracted by her many tasks’ and I’m sure we all know how that feels, don’t we! The times when we’ve experience being ‘in over our heads’, when we’ve needed help, but didn’t know where to turn. The times perhaps when we’ve pitched up to help with something and end up doing everything, while others sit around chatting. So Martha’s anger at being abandoned in the kitchen was understandable, and the stress and anxiety spills over into calling out Mary in front of everyone. There was no subtle sidling up to Mary and saying, ‘Mary, I need some help’. instead she rebukes Jesus, her principle guest, whom she had acknowledged as ‘Lord’ and basically orders him to ‘Tell my lazy sister to get into the kitchen to give me a hand’ or words to that effect and meaning.

‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?
Tell her then to help me.’
Luke 10:40

Now everyone is aware of the tension in the room, but we can still feel sympathy for Martha, and in some ways we want Jesus to appreciate and commend Martha for her hard work and suggest that they both go in there and give her a hand. However, Mary’s focus on her relationship with Jesus was also right and whereas Martha’s anger was disruptive, and Jesus acknowledges that she is ‘anxious and troubled about many things, he points out that Mary has chosen to the one thing that is needed

She had set aside time, in the busiest of situations to spend time with God. What we might call Sabbath rest, when we very deliberately take time to do nothing but make ourselves more aware of God with us. And don’t get confused, this is not just setting aside one day a week to abstain from work, because even that is no longer a day when we rest our minds and our bodies, instead filling it up with alternative tasks; but times, whether it’s a few hours or minutes that we switch off from the everyday normal.

This idea of taking time to step aside, is nothing new. From the very beginning we are given this example of Sabbath rest. After creating the heavens and earth, in whatever way or timescale you believe, God rested. It didn’t mean that God was tired and needed a rest, unlike most of us, because being omnipotent he never tires, but he simply stopped what he was doing, he ceased from his work. It was a message and example that he called the Israelites to follow when he handed down his commandments. They were to remember the Sabbath day and ‘keep it holy’. They were to lay down their work in order to spend time in worship and prayer.

For Jesus himself, there were times that he must have experienced the stress and anxiety caused by overwork. As more and more people came to seek him and listen to his teachings, so the time that he had to take that rest became more and more elusive. Still he recognised the importance of stepping aside if only for a short time. In Mark’s gospel we hear that ‘because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’

Who hasn’t skipped a meal because of the workload we’re experiencing, but after resting, it’s so much easier to exit that secret place, go back into the world, and feel re-energized, focused, encouraged and strengthened to continue doing what we’re called to do.

So many mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression can be caused as the saying goes, by ‘too much work and not enough play. And not taking time out may make any existing mental health issues worse. And what’s even more alarming is that even primary school children are showing signs of mental health problems – including anxiety, panic attacks and depression –caused mainly by family problems, pressures of exams and social media, which lead to problems such as self-harming, eating disorders and OCD.

So, when we find ourselves in stressful situations such as a difficult phone call, a crowded train journey home or a looming deadline, we need to give ourselves time to pause and calm down. Imagine what Martha could have done. Instead of stomping into the living room and having a go at Jesus and Mary, she could have gone into her bedroom and closed the door. Martha could have prayed ‘God, I’m so angry. It would be so tempting to take out this anger on Jesus and Mary – but I know that would be wrong. Please drain this anger out of my heart. Help me to feel love for Jesus, my guest, and Mary, my sister.

 Better still, Martha could have gone and joined her sister Mary at Jesus’ feet and listened to him speak and be in his presence for a while. Who would have worried that the meal was late when was it was Jesus that was with them

We are such busy people, and we live in such a busy world. It’s easy to miss the important things. The story of Martha and Mary tells us that there is value in sitting – in listening – in learning – in loving. Whether at home or work or school, take a moment to look around and find the blessings in your life. Take a moment to thank God for giving you another day to discover more. Sit at God’s feet for just a moment. Be quiet. Listen. Treasure the moment.

We all live in a Martha world, but take time to be Mary for just a bit. Jesus says that that’s the one thing that’s needed. He says that’s the good part that won’t be taken from us. Give it a try. You will find a blessing! You will find that Jesus was right.

Amen

‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’
Luke 10:41-42

Mary and Martha - Vermeer

Mary and Martha by Vermeer

 

Come to Me, All Who Are Weary

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Come to me all who are weary

Come to me all who are weary

Last week as I started to draft out this blog, I was sitting in a small cafe in the middle of the busy market town of Bradford on Avon. Its patrons were a mixture of tourists and locals, all taking the opportunity to grab a bite to eat; a quick coffee. Outside the roads hummed with cars and lorries performing an intricate and continuous dance punctuated by roundabouts and traffic lights. Tucked away in a window bay,  it gave me the chance to spend precious moments just ‘musing’ amidst all the hustle and bustle

Nowadays,  in this all too brief earthly world, it can often appear that everything needs to be planned to the nth degree. People rush headlong into the next thing they think needed doing yesterday, so that the present moment is never savoured and burnout is experienced not only in the gym but equally in everyday living.

So often we take on too much, trying to knit together all our tasks into a beautiful complex pattern only to despair when it all starts to unravel. We long for a breathing space – sometimes we just simply want a chance to breathe. When was  it that it became necessary  to live life at such a breakneck speed that each day blurs into the next?

No doubt we would all end up in chaos if we all decided tomorrow to lay aside our ‘work’ and rush to the nearest beach/mountaintop/woodland to escape it all…. rules and regulations both written and unspoken keep us on track most of the time; still it makes sense that creating regular moments aside is not only sensible and healthy, but essential for our spiritual well-being – so why not make a rule to create a recreation space for ourselves

St Benedict in the sixth century introduced his rules for the monks in his community. Not only were there set times for prayer, work and private study but time was set aside each day for recreation and fellowship. However, if you’re still thinking you’d find it difficult to do something like this daily even taking a few minutes each day to re-centre yourself can be helpful – for me the time spent in morning prayer seems to set me up each day. Take five minutes to start with a moment of quietness and then gradually extend that time a little bit each day. I was also recently reminded that the Jewish faith uses the evening before their Sabbath (Shabbat) to say their prayers so that their minds and bodies can be prepared whilst resting overnight – why not take those five minutes then, to quietly review the the day, giving thanks for all the good things and gaining strength for the day ahead.

Jesus himself knew the benefits of taking time away from his work in prayer and solitude. Whether he ever fully achieved this is uncertain during his ministry years, but at least he attempted to and undoubtedly did cherish that time. Ultimately though his concern was for others ….

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30

…… A welcome invitation. Nevertheless,  for the majority of people the closest thing we get to finding a real space for rest is during an annual holiday – which is exactly what I’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks. This is when we can and should allow ourselves to relax and rediscover our inner self – the self that as children just woke up and made of the day whatever adventure  presented itself to us.

Now where did I put that bucket and spade?