Monthly Musings: January

It’s a little late to be wishing you a Happy New Year, and yet this is my first post for 2016 so I’ll say it anyway. Happy New Year. I hope it’s been a good start for you, and that you’ve had opportunity to rest and relax over the summer break. I confess it feels a little odd to be reflecting when the year has only just begun and it seems that things are only just beginning to unfold and yet to fully emerge. Still, here are a few things to share from January. I hope to be posting more regularly over the coming months.

• Christmas holidays were a wonderful time to catch up on sleep and a pile of books, but I also needed to get outside. I took a walk in one of my favourite places, the Mount Lofty Gardens, and reminded myself of the wonders of spending time in out in nature.

• Thanks to a couple of handy YouTube tutorials I learnt how to crochet hearts, and spent an evening making a small pile of them. Once I got the hang of it they were quite simple and enjoyable to make.

• I came across a wonderful quote on prayer from Richard Foster in his book Prayer: finding the heart’s true home. This is something I want to sit with and ponder for a while until it really sinks into my heart and not just my head.

Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.

• One of my favourite genres of fiction is historical mystery, and this month I finally read the first book in C. J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series. Dissolution is set in the context of the dissolution of Catholic monasteries in England during the reign of King Henry VIII. The history was every bit as fascinating (and frightening) as the mystery.

 

Monthly Musings: November

Where has the year gone? No really, where has it gone? November seems to have passed by at the speed of light. What to say about it?

My nephew started walking and celebrated his first birthday – in that order. Woohoo! There’ll be no stopping him now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer. About what it means and what it looks like. What it means for me. What it means for the church. Recently I came across this wonderful description of prayer by Michael Hollings and Etta Gullick*:

The important thing about prayer is that it is almost indefinable. You see, it is: hard and sharp, soft and loving, deep and inexpressible, shallow and repetitious, a groaning and a sighing.

A silence and a shouting, a burst of praise digging deep down into loneliness, into me. Loving. Abandonment to despair, a soaring to heights which can be only ecstasy, dull plodding in the greyness of mediocre being – laziness, boredom, resentment.

Questing and questioning, calm reflection, meditation, cogitation. A surprise at sudden joy, a shaft of light, a laser beam. Irritation at not understanding, impatience, pain of mind and body hardly uttered or deeply anguished.

Being together, the stirring of love shallow, then deeper, then deepest. A breathless involvement, a meeting, a longing, a loving, an inpouring.

Watch this space, because I still have a lot to learn about prayer and I’d like to invite you along on the journey with me.

This month I also discovered the rose garden and the labyrinth at the Waite Aboretum. The first time it was filled with people and children. This last Sunday I returned and was able to walk the labyrinth on my own, the birds singing in the trees my musical accompaniment.

And I was reminded of the joy of thanksgiving, especially in the company and community of others.

*quoted in A silence and a shouting: meditations and prayers by Eddie Askew.

What has November looked like for you?

Early on a summer morning

Early in the morning, while it was still cool, I took a walk in a local park. Here are my favourite photos. Click on an image to view the full size gallery.

Walking uplifts the spirit. Breathe out the poisons of tension, stress, and worry; breathe in the power of God. Send forth little silent prayers of goodwill toward those you meet. Walk with a sense of being a part of a vast universe. Consider the thousands of miles of earth beneath your feet; think of the limitless expanse of space above your head. Walk in awe, wonder, and humility. Walk at all times of day. In the early morning when the world is just waking up. Late at night under the stars. Along a busy city street at noontime.

~ Wilferd A Peterson

The Colour Purple …

Waiting...

Who knows what you’ll find when you go out for a walk? What interesting or unusual things have you seen while walking?