25 May: Keeping on, keeping on.

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  Eddie walks in the same woods as the family Turnstone!

Eddie Gilmore of the Irish Chaplaincy describes how he has been coping with the discipline of working from home. (1 May 2020)

My life in lockdown has become a bit monastic, and there’s a lot I like about that. There’s quite a nice, simple balance of work, prayer, meals, reading, recreation (much of that in the form of walking or cycling). I’m a bit more tuned in than usual to the subtle but magical changes in the natural world: the colours and the smells, the times of the day when the birds sing more loudly, the wonderful sight in the sky a few nights ago of a crescent moon underneath a brightly shining Venus.

Read the whole article here.

Thank you Eddie for allowing us to use your writings! There will be a barbecue to end all this enforced confinement, but even now, let your heart be unconfined!

Going Viral XXII: Litter picker rage.

After a couple of weeks off, i took the litter picker for a walk. There has been less litter about because there are fewer litter louts about. There are even fewer cigarette ends – maybe people are living more healthy lives. I suppose wearing masks to avoid infection is another manifestation of that. So, if you are so tuned into the need to be safe from germs, why throw your used mask down in the street?

Going Viral XXI: Fellow residents.

Working from home, our daughter and son looked out of their windows. One spotted a sparrow, nesting in a hole in our brickwork ; the other a red admiral butterfly who, as a caterpillar must have found a safe place to sleep through the winter but woke to a strange new world one warm May morning. Lovely to look up from the screen to see such sights!

Laudato Si!

For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Psalm 83.4

Going viral XX: Passion flowers of hope.

around during lockdown, we came to Saint Stephen’s church. Many years ago we came here regularly for Roman Catholic Mass. Today the church, like all churches, is closed, but not the churchyard. We found one stone with a passionflower, bottom centre of the disc, amid roses, a morning glory (?) and others that must have meant something to the bereaved husband. There are oak leaves and acorns in the triangular panels below the disc.

This verse is my best reading of the damaged inscription. It speaks of hope.

A happy world, a glorious place
Where all who are forgiven
Shall find their loved and best beloved
And hearts like meeting streams that flow
For everyone in heaven.

That speaks of hope.

Going Viral XIX: Consider the flowers of the field margin

Lockdown has sent us out to the footpath across the fields or more usually along the edges where, provided the spray has not penetrated, the wild flowers can thrive. Consider those flowers – or the ones that grow beside your path. (Luke 12:27)

Going viral XVIII: an unprecedented opportunity to create some new ‘normals’.

Gwen Riley Jones is a computer imaging member of the John Rylands library staff. Since the team cannot get into the library, they are working from home, imagining rather than just imaging. William Blake would approve.

Enjoy the walk!

Going viral XVII: come on in.

This was the sight that greeted me when I got to work at the Glebe this morning. My corona virus sanctioned exercise for the day: three hours of gardening, in sunshine or those cool shadows. And the first radishes awaiting attention.

The red flowers are campion, sown from a pack of wild flowers a few years ago. They will need sorting out at some stage, as they have become a haven for aphids. Let’s hope some aphid-eating bugs occupy the wooden bug house this year!

Going Viral XVI: planting hope.

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If I do not use these pictures soon, the moment will have completely passed. On one of our Sunday walks we passed these two Kentish orchards, one old, one new. How many years will the old one keep fruiting? And how long will the new one be productive? It represents a massive act of hope in the future, something we all need with the virus restricting our lives!

The tombstone of Harry and Winifred Cuthbert proclaims that they were ‘dedicated’ to farming and fruit growing, witness the strawberry plant seen here. Every seed, every plant is an act of hope. So is a smile, a wave, a word of encouragement.