a question and a promise

journeying, hoping, loving, being, celebrating,
laughing, praying, knowing, believing,
dreaming, wanting, releasing, carrying,
hoping, trusting, walking, crying, waiting,

and being asked, 

and saying

 "I will"
keep journeying with you

a space between moments

So much has been happening. Good things. Precious things. But sometimes I crave the time to slow down, stop and savour them, journey with them, let them linger in my soul.

 I treasured this empty sky space moment between the trees.

 A time to just look upwards at the sky and stop for a moment. How easy it is to try and fill space when we do find it. Moments of space are such a gift in themselves, and dont need to be always filled, even if it is to be with something beautiful.

I made a promise to myself to do more gazing upwards to the sky this summer, lying on my back, still, even if its just for a moment, between moments.

the persistence of goodness

Just yesterday it seemed that spring had arrived in London, so I went down to the 'urban Battersea beach' to enjoy a little coffee, sun, birds and a Saturday afternoon moment. I was feeling overwhelmed by all that had been happening around our world in the last week or so. The devastation and destruction in Japan. The immense loss and grief.

For some reason I then got thinking about how nature in these places carries on with it's being, despite the chaos that surrounds it. I am not sure why, but I was thinking about how plants and flowers and trees carry on being, carry on finding a way to grow, oblivious maybe to the grief screaming out around them. They will still find a path to push on through, against all odds, and flower, produce leaves, fruit, whatever they are made to do. Beautiful things will persist in being beautiful.

Then, as if to agree with my ponderings, this little daisy caught my eye amongst the pebbles. I have no idea how it came to be here. It's a beach full of pebbles, wood, glass, and a high tide. How on earth did this little daisy come to be here, and then to survive? I have no idea, but I enjoyed the moment, imagining its persistence at pushing through, at asserting life and being beautiful in the hardest of places. 

content with silence

urban evening beauty

We were nearing the end of our long journey back from the most beautiful Pembrokeshire coast. It was a Sunday night, when the vehicles and the people begin to meander back into the city, with Monday morning and the week ahead on their minds. We were almost there; crossing the last bridge between Wales and home. And there they were; the huge flock of playful birds over Wandsworth Bridge. We stopped in our tracks. In fact, we pulled right over, on the middle of the bridge, in the evening traffic, hazard lights on, while we watched in amazement at the beauty of the dancing birds. And they were dancing, so playfully. It was a display of such intricate choreography in the evening sky. 

They seemed so full of joy and play and a slight mischief, as they swooned high and low, fast and slow, almost laughing. Like the seriousness and responsibilty of the Monday morning was almost upon them and this was their last moment of pure abandonment. We were captivated. Completely. Then I watched, as people walked past, focussed on what lay ahead, forgetting to look sideways, or up to the sky, and so completely oblivious to the secret spectacular show happening all around them. They just didn't see it. I was amazed at the 'not noticing'. How could this show not stop you in your tracks and demand a moment of undivided attention, and awe to The Creator?

 But that seemed to make the moment more special, like we were somehow looking in on something secret; something sacred.

  

echoes of love

Every so often, as the day begins, this is what I see at my window. Written in the window dew of a cold room, nearly a year ago, in a playful moment, thinking of a special love. Now it echoes back to me, again and again, when I least expect it, when the light and the dew and the coolness are all falling just right. It makes me smile every time, as it bursts through unannounced. I wonder who will get to notice it, in the years to come, as it continues to make its unexpected appearance.  

Maybe someone who just needs to know that they are loved, will be blessed by this whisper of a love echo, when I have long moved on to finger painting on another window in the dew? That makes me smile.

the joy of the possibility of dreaming

I was supposed to be studying, but it was a dreamy kind of an evening. The lighting was beautiful in my room, and I was pondering a lot more than I was studying. It does seem that I am just so much better at dreaming than I am at putting a whole load more new and complicated facts into my head - it seems more fun to go on journeys of creating instead! we talked a bit about dreaming this weekend, and I was struck by what a priviledge it is to dream. To be able to hope. We have permission to dream, as children of the King... thats what we were talking about.... and that we can dream with hope. A slave cannot dream, or if he does dream, there will be no hope in his dreams, yet we can dream and ponder with a very real and deep hope.

I have known times where hope seemed to have been completely stolen, and its an almost impossible place to be.  Dreams cant be. So I am even more grateful now, for the possibility of dreams that have hope. 

cookies, kindness and grace

This week has seemed such a contrast between gentle grace that flows into your life without great announcement and makes you smile deeply as you ponder it again and again, enjoying the moments as they catch you once more, and severe ungrace that rudely slaps you in the face when you are least expecting it and leaves you shaken and speechless.

 So I thought I would capture the grace and kindness moments, that I was reflecting on last night while I was making a tower of cookies! Its a simple story really, but it reminded me that life can be simple and full of exchanges of grace and kindness. I have been given a sofa, that was for sale, but Becca decided to give to me. She said they were happy it was going to someone who would cherish it. I certainly will cherish it... so many sofa momemts to be had. But I had to find a way of getting it from hers to mine, so I asked Jamie. He refused the offered money for the use of his van. He is such a very kind man of integrity and didnt feel he could 'hire out' his van. So I said I would make him a big yummy lasagne, which I did last night. I had so much fun - lashings of cheese and spinach and lentils and tomatoes layered into a feast, imagining him enjoying it! And for Becca and Martha, Sam and Zac I have made towers of cookies, which I put into jars with ribbons. 


Its a simple story, but it has blessed my week. Simply, but beautifully. It felt like little exchanges of  time, kindness and grace, in a week where there maybe wasnt lots of that elsewhere. I treasured those thoughts as I made the cookies.... and remembered a verse from Romans that says "hold tightly to what is good..." It really is ok to cherish the good. And sometimes we have to cling to it.

new coats, old buttons

I was walking along in some drizzly london January rain. My hands were warm and snug in my new coat pocket, and inside there, in that cosy place, I was playing with one of the shiny buttons that had already fallen off. It was round and smooth as I turned it over in my fingers, and as I was getting to know it, I got thinking about buttons. How I love to collect them, how each one tells a story of where it has come from, what it was made for, and what it will become a part of. How I love seeing them all together in a heap. Different shapes and sizes and textures. I began to think of fabrics, and cottons and thread, and the piles of old buttons I have, waiting to become something.

 I went home, and dug them out, popped them in a jar, and dressed them up with a stripey ribbon. For some moments the scene really pleased me. It made me think of how I want to restore old things this year with new buttons, ribbons, flowers, fabrics. But also, use old things to recreate new things. Like big old wooden buttons on new coats. How life can be an interwoven tapestry of old with the new, the new with the old. How each one can bring something to the other. Old memories, new dreams, old ways of doing things, new habits. So I want this year to be better at incorporating the two. Redeeming and restoring the old with the new, and the new with the old.