It's been a while since i wrote a blog and in the interim I've been busy altering my life. I decided some time back to take a break from all my usual activities and spend more time getting to know myself again.
If that sounds an odd thing to put out here, it sounded odd to me when the words flowed out of my fingers as I typed them. But the truth is that like many people, I have been so busy in the past few years that I've lost sight of some things and Spirit, knowing better than I do what I actually need, has urged me to slow down again.
I can't say that I started to close down my activities with any particular intentions or ways to go to replace what I had been doing. There has been over the last six months a yearning to let things take their course more and for the next stage of my life to reveal itself without me pushing. Yesterday I came up with an analogy that I was placing bricks down on a path that would lead to something.
What or where I have no idea for the present. Of course I have some structure in place, some classes I attend, some groups I'm part of and I still very much enjoy joining in the services at the local cathedral. Beyond that there is a point in some days now where I think, 'I should be doing' when the answer comes, 'no you shouldn't'.
So when I decided to go recently to book some tickets for a music festival in a local town, it was no real surprise to me that on the day I'd chosen to go I found there was a meditation/silence/prayer session available. The town I visited called Southwell has an ancient Minster with a choir school attached and has been the centre of worship for many hundreds of years.
We gathered for this mostly silent session; twelve women and one man. The woman leading us began by handing round a design for a new stained glass window to be added to the Minster in commemoration of the First World War. Southwell has been the centre of farming but also nearby were industrial places and a coalfield; all these were celebrated in the design as well as more homely activities as women hanging out washing.
She requested us that when we went into the silence, we consider what our window design might contain. And also consider that stained glass however beautiful, doesn't come to life until light shines through it.
Of course for myself I thought of books, and teaching and communication but what came to me also is that while light might illuminate much of my window, still there were areas which I at this moment could not see clearly.
And this theme was continued at the end when she read a poem about stained glass and our lives both the brilliant and dark areas, the painful and the joyful.
Wherever Spirit leads me in this next period, I pray that I have the grace to face it and the trust that I will have what I need to meet the challenges.
And when you think of your life, what would you like in your window?
All blessings.
If that sounds an odd thing to put out here, it sounded odd to me when the words flowed out of my fingers as I typed them. But the truth is that like many people, I have been so busy in the past few years that I've lost sight of some things and Spirit, knowing better than I do what I actually need, has urged me to slow down again.
I can't say that I started to close down my activities with any particular intentions or ways to go to replace what I had been doing. There has been over the last six months a yearning to let things take their course more and for the next stage of my life to reveal itself without me pushing. Yesterday I came up with an analogy that I was placing bricks down on a path that would lead to something.
What or where I have no idea for the present. Of course I have some structure in place, some classes I attend, some groups I'm part of and I still very much enjoy joining in the services at the local cathedral. Beyond that there is a point in some days now where I think, 'I should be doing' when the answer comes, 'no you shouldn't'.
So when I decided to go recently to book some tickets for a music festival in a local town, it was no real surprise to me that on the day I'd chosen to go I found there was a meditation/silence/prayer session available. The town I visited called Southwell has an ancient Minster with a choir school attached and has been the centre of worship for many hundreds of years.
We gathered for this mostly silent session; twelve women and one man. The woman leading us began by handing round a design for a new stained glass window to be added to the Minster in commemoration of the First World War. Southwell has been the centre of farming but also nearby were industrial places and a coalfield; all these were celebrated in the design as well as more homely activities as women hanging out washing.
She requested us that when we went into the silence, we consider what our window design might contain. And also consider that stained glass however beautiful, doesn't come to life until light shines through it.
Of course for myself I thought of books, and teaching and communication but what came to me also is that while light might illuminate much of my window, still there were areas which I at this moment could not see clearly.
And this theme was continued at the end when she read a poem about stained glass and our lives both the brilliant and dark areas, the painful and the joyful.
Wherever Spirit leads me in this next period, I pray that I have the grace to face it and the trust that I will have what I need to meet the challenges.
And when you think of your life, what would you like in your window?
All blessings.
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