i-Llan: 4th February 2024 – taking delight in Creation

02/05/24 • 5 min

i-Llan: connecting faith, life and scripture

Transcript
From the window of my new study, I look out over the neighbours’ gardens to a hill. Yesterday afternoon, I sat watching the sky change as the sun set, streaks of light gradually shrinking earthwards giving way to dark blue, with the hill and bare trees as black silhouettes against it. Whatever chaos has happened in my day, sunrise and sunset mark the reliable rhythm of the earth turning on its axis. And, as I explore my new garden to discover what is growing there, I notice the changes as winter gives way to spring in the longer cycle of earth’s circling around the sun. Rhythm, structure, order, are built in to creation.

This week’s reading from the Book of Proverbs celebrates that order, perceiving Wisdom as an intrinsic constituent of the created world. As God shapes earth, sea and sky, setting their limits, Wisdom is constantly by God’s side delighting in it all.

The second reading, from a letter to the early church in Colossae, speaks of Christ as ‘the image of the invisible God’, through whom creation happens and in whom ‘all things hold together’.

Those words remind me of W B Yeats’s much-quoted poem, The Second Coming, in which he says, ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ Written in 1919, it’s a poem which portrays an anarchic world, where
‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.’
That’s as good a description of the world today, as it was then—and is in every age.

The last lines of the poem are equally gloomy, even threatening:
‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’

The Bible does not flinch from the evil that works against the wisdom of divine order, especially the human part in that. But it insists that God, in his wisdom, is not only in ultimate control but is in the mess with us. Through the baby who was born in Bethlehem, ‘God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’ (Colossians 1. 20)

We can trust God will hold us together when life spins out of control, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. As Dorian Lynskey wrote in an article in the Guardian: ‘Things fall apart, over and over again, yet the beast never quite reaches Bethlehem.’

This morning, I read a definition of trust as ‘an invitation to delight in things’. It’s easy to get bogged down in the seriousness of life and faith. Yet Jesus said that, if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to change and become like children (Matthew 18.3). Creation Sunday is a good opportunity to pause and see the wonder of the world with the eyes of a delighted child.
This week’s prayer, read slowly line by line, becomes a meditation on creation and our part in it:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever. Amen.

May you delight in the world
as the Creator delights in you.
~~~~
This Sunday’s readings are here.

You can read the Yeats poem here.

The Guardian article, from 30 May 2020, is here.

The definition of trust came from Mending: witnessing the miracle of my body, by Josie George, which you can read here.

i-Llan is part of alisteningspace.uk

The second reading, from a letter to the early church in Colossae, speaks of Christ as ‘the image of the invisible God’, through whom creation happens and in whom ‘all things hold together’.

The last lines of the poem are equally gloomy, even threatening:
‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’

May you delight in the world
as the Creator delights in you.
~~~~
This Sunday’s readings are here.

You can read the Yeats poem here.

The Guardian article, from 30 May 2020, is here.

The definition of trust came from Mending: witnessing the miracle of my body, by Josie George, which you can read here.

i-Llan is part of alisteningspace.uk

Previous Episode

i-Llan: 28th January 2024 –snowdrops and candle flames – seeing beauty in the ordinary

Transcript:
This week, two of my favourite feast days happen: St Brigid on 1 February and Candlemas on 2 February.

I used to find February the most difficult month to get through; even though it is the shortest it can seem as though winter will never end. And then I was introduced to St Brigid (or, in Wales, St Ffraed). One of the major Celtic saints, she is a harbinger of spring as this extract from a poem by Ruth Bidgood tells:

Brigid of Ireland, Ffraed of Wales,
the saint, the golden one
who breaks the ice,
dipping first one hand, then two hands,
freeing the river to flow into time of seed,
time of ripening, time of harvest.

Her flower is the snowdrop, those small white bells that brighten dark winter days and promise warmer times to come. She was a king’s daughter by a bondswoman, sold into slavery and later freed. She managed the palace kitchen and was renowned for her hospitality – a hungry beggar turning up at the kitchen door might be given cake intended for the king’s tea. She knew about the everyday doings of milking, churning butter, brewing beer. One of the marks of Celtic spirituality is that there is a prayer for every job, which invites Jesus and the saints to be part of the ordinary doings of everyday life, making them both bearable and beautiful.

Brigid has her own form of cross. According to the legend, she wove it from reeds as she explained the Christian faith to a pagan chieftain on his death bed, whereupon he asked to be baptised – another example of imparting beauty to something ordinary.

In a ‘holy time-slip’, one legend tells that she was Mary’s midwife, which leads me to Candlemas. The official date is 2 February but many churches will celebrate it this Sunday. As was the custom, when Jesus was 40 days old, Joseph and Mary took him to the Temple in Jerusalem to ‘present him to the Lord’. There must have been many people in the Temple that day and nothing to make this ordinary couple with their baby stand out. Yet Simeon and Anna both recognised in Jesus the presence of God’s Messiah and rejoiced. Simeon gives us the beautiful words of the Nunc Dimittis:

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace: your word has been fulfilled.
My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people;
A light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2. 29-32)

We call this celebration Candlemas because it was traditionally marked by candlelit processions, probably echoing earlier traditions that marked the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is the point at which Christian thought turns from Christmas to Easter, from the cradle to the cross.

Lighting a candle is a simple ritual which can carry a lot of meaning. One candle prayer that I came across goes:
Lord,
this light which I light, be it:
LIGHT with which you illumine my difficulties,
FIRE that burns all my selfishness,
A CALL that teaches me to love and serve.

Lord, today I do not have time for more,
But I leave you something of myself in this symbol.
Help me to extend my prayer the length of my life.

So, this week I invite you to look out for beauty in ordinary things. Perhaps you might also offer a candle flame of prayer (physical or metaphorical) for yourself and others.

And I offer a question to ponder: Just as Celtic Christians would carry a St Brigid cross into places which had been shut up for the winter, what are the dusty corners of your life (physical or metaphorical) which could be re-opened and given a ‘spring clean’?
My prayer this week:
May your days be bright with Christ's presence.
May your bright moments be shared with others.
May you know the beauty of 'heaven in o

i-Llan is part of alisteningspace.uk

Next Episode

i-Llan: 11th February 2024 – Love and ashes

Transcript
In a challenging juxtaposition, this Wednesday is both St Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. The first calls for roses and chocolate, the second for ashes and repentance. Yet both are about love.

It occurs to me that, in these days of central heating, many people will be unfamiliar with ashes. But, through the ages, these cold remains of fire and warmth, these grey remains of bright flame, have symbolised death and repentance. On Ash Wednesday in the Church, the priest marks the sign of the cross in ashes on the foreheads of the faithful, intoning the words:
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.
Words which are a reminder of mortality and an invitation to ongoing repentance.

And so Lent begins, forty days of fasting, penitence, and spiritual discipline in solidarity with Jesus’s forty days being tempted in the wilderness and in preparation for the joy of the Easter celebration.

But does the church get so fixated on sin that it loses something important? Few of us deliberately do what we know to be wrong, but most of us know our flaws and failings and, though it’s tempting to excuse ourselves, we also long to be lovable. Being constantly reminded of our shortcomings is not an effective way to help us improve.

Sin is serious—we know how serious when we look at the suffering in the world caused by human pride, greed, aggression. Personally, I understand sin to be anything which acts against, or blocks, the flow of divine love. Even minor peccadillos are smears upon a human soul. However, as a friend of mine wrote recently, sin has its consequences, but one of those consequences is not that God withdraws his love from us.

Instead, God steadfastly longs for our healing and well-being so that our true potential as his children is revealed. Christ is, as it were, our Valentine from God. The Good Friday cross shows that God is willing to suffer the consequences of our sin with us. The Easter resurrection proclaims He is able to transform death into new life. God shares in human life so that humans can share in divine life. In our deep-felt response of gratitude, we discover that ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’. (Romans 5.5)

So, however we observe Lent, let’s be positive and regard it as a time for spiritual spring-cleaning and growth in order to experience God’s love more deeply, so that our loving response to God and each other also deepens. May you have a holy Lent.
And may you grow in grace, self-knowledge and discipline
so your soul shines more brightly with the love God has for you. Amen

i-Llan is part of alisteningspace.uk