Dear All,
Here we are – nearly at the end of January. Spring is on the far horizon!
So today it seems that nature/creation/environment etc might be fitting. We hope you will enjoy the reflections & that you will be reminded of beauty – beauty in every season of the year – but also that the issues COP26 struggled with will not be lost on us. The reflections link up a bit to last week’s on Prayer.
Our blessing is from In Tune with Heaven, ‘May the Mind of Jesus’. We could ask for that blessing to touch not just ourselves & those we love, but also all those whose work focuses on environmental issues.
May the mind of Jesus renew my mind. May the wisdom of
Jesus enlighten my thoughts. May the words of Jesus be in my
ears & on my lips. May the cross of Jesus be my strength. May
the forgiveness of Jesus free me from sin. May the healing of
Jesus bring me to wholeness. May the peace of Jesus still all
my fears. May the love of Jesus fill my whole being. May the
Risen Jesus enrich me with joy, hope & new life.
With our love & prayer for you
Contemplation and Nature
The contemplative sees everywhere the One from whose life all life comes. All of life, the contemplative knows, reflects the face of God. To live with nature as an enemy is to fail life. To walk through nature as its dictator is to wrench the balance of life. To fail to see the voice of God in the balance of nature, the beauty of nature, the struggle of nature is to go through life blind of heart and deaf of soul.
To be a contemplative it is necessary
to walk through nature softly,
to be in tune with the rhythm of life,
to learn from the cycles of time,
to listen to the heartbeat of the universe,
to love nature,
to protect nature,
and to discover in nature
the presence and the power of God.
To be a contemplative it is necessary to grow a plant, love an animal, walk in the rain, and profess our consciousness of God into a lifetime of pulsating seasons.
Joan Chittister
Listen to the water, air & earth:
creation’s treasure store.
They’re wounded for the want
of being listened to:
They cry
And too few hear:
they slowly die
and too few mourn.
And yet
through those who give attention,
who stretch both hands
to touch, embrace and tend;
through those who marvel, reverence and kneel
and cup the water,
feel the breath of heaven,
and hear the humming earth,
a healing comes
and there are seeds of hope:
there is tomorrow
germinating in today.
Listen to the stories, dreams and thoughts
of those who have no voice.
They’re wounded for the want
of being listened to:
They cry
and too few hear:
they slowly die
and too few mourn.
And yet
through these who give attention,
who stretch both hands
to touch, embrace, receive;
through these who labour, claim their dignity
and drink the cup of suffering,
breathe winds of change,
and earth their dreams in struggle,
a healing comes
and there are seeds of hope:
there is tomorrow
germinating in today.
Be still.
Be just –
sharing in their truth.
in finding them,
you find yourself.
Kate Compston
Love Every Leaf
In times like these, our prayer may need to be expressive and embodied, visceral and vocal. How else can we pray with our immense anger and grief? How else can we pray about ecocide, about the death that humanity is unleashing upon Mother Earth and upon ourselves? How else can we break through our inertia and despair, so that we don’t shut down and go numb? . . . .
I’ve taken to praying outdoors. I go outside, feel the good earth beneath my feet and the wind on my face, and I sing to the trees—to oak and beech, hemlock and pines. Making up the words and music as I go along, I sing my grief to the trees that are going down, and my grief for so much more—for what we have lost and are losing, and for what we are likely to lose. I sing my outrage about these beautiful old trees being cut to the roots, their bodies chipped to bits and hauled away to sell. I sing my fury about the predicament we’re in as a species. I sing my protest of the political and corporate powers-that-be that drive forward relentlessly with business as usual, razing forests, drilling for more oil and fracked gas, digging for more coal, expanding pipeline construction, and opening up public lands and waters to endless exploitation, as if Earth were their private business and they were conducting a liquidation sale. I sing out my shame to the trees, my repentance and apology for the part I have played in Earth’s destruction and for the part my ancestors played when they stole land and chopped down the original forests of the Native peoples who lived here. I sing my praise for the beauty of trees and my resolve not to let a day go by that I don’t celebrate the precious living world of which we are so blessedly a part. I’m not finished until I sing my determination to renew action for trees and for all of God’s Creation. . . .
So our prayer may be noisy and expressive, or it may be very quiet. It may be the kind of prayer that depends on listening in stillness and silence with complete attention: listening to the crickets as they pulse at night, listening to the rain as it falls, listening to our breath as we breathe God in and breathe God out, listening to the inner voice of love that is always sounding in our heart. A discipline of contemplative prayer or meditation can set us free from the frantic churn of thoughts and feelings and enable our spirit to rest and roam in a vaster, wilder space.
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas