Bright Fields

Bright_field_loch_lomond

The Bright Field

 

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

 

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

 

~ R. S. Thomas ~

 

Turning Aside


"Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you."

R.S. Thomas, "The Bright Field"

(download)

Prayers

Prayers_2

A couple of prayers, and an image of silent prayers.


My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. Thomas Merton


From silly devotions
and from sour-faced saints,
good Lord, deliver us.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Wings of the morning

Wings

As I said morning prayer I heard so many birds awakening the morning with their song, and smiled as I said the second line of this prayer. The sun is rising later now too, so it was the light of dawn that was awakening we 'earth creatures'
I love the strong sense of being in touch with the natural world that the Celtic tradition has - it gives prayer an immediacy for me.

As the light of dawn awakens earth's creatures
and stirs into song the birds of the morning
so may I be brought to life this day.
Rising to see the light
to hear the wind
to smell the fragrance of what grows from the ground
to taste its fruit
and touch its textures
so may my inner senses
be awakened to you
so may my senses be awakened to you, O God.
J. Philip Newell - Celtic Benediction

Trinity

Trinity

This is the image I tried to attach to my first post. On a recent Sunday morning, Cyclone Carlo was poised off the coast of Western Australia. We are desperate for rain, and hoped Carlo would bring us some - not destructive winds or floods the eastern states have had, just a day of soft, soaking rain, the kind we used to have. The morning was quite dark, the clouds rather menacing. But such a magnificent display, that I had to break out the new camera that was sitting beside me asking to be used.  I took a number of shots from slightly different angles and was pleased I had captured the shapes and shades and angles of the clouds.  It was not until I got home and uploaded the photos onto the computer that I noticed that one of them had caught the three birds heading east into the rising sun!

A Thousand Words

 

A Thousand Words 

It’s not the technology or negotiating the instructions: anyone who starts a blog must know that the hardest part is deciding what to call it. What element of my identity do I want to highlight? Do I want to be wildly original so that readers will be intrigued to visit?  Or is it just a place for me to dwell in cyberspace, and for the few who may stumble across it?

My first thought for a title was ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made’, a fragment of the beautiful and evocative Psalm 139. It seems such an affirmation of the human person, an awed sense of wonder at ourselves and whatever made us, for everything is fearfully and wonderfully made, with an intricacy that astounds and takes my breath away. And to be so thoroughly known by whatever I conceive that to be – whether I call it God or the Ultimate Mystery, or whatever - being known means being utterly accepted and loved.

My second idea was a favourite line from a poem, but which poem, how to choose? e.e. cummings‘ ‘leaping greenly spirit’ seemed apt for how I view the world:

"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."

Then there’s my passion for photography, which is a major reason for setting myself up on Posterous, and I thought of some of the titles I have given my photos. The one I have tried to attach I called on one occasion ‘Trinity’, for the three water birds heading into the eastern risen sun; another time I called it ‘Clouds of Glory’* to draw attention to the spectacular cloud formation that looks like great balloons of water waiting to burst upon the parched Perth summer soil.  But that does sound a bit pretentious to be the name for my space, and one wouldn’t want to sound pretentious, would one?

Naming a blog is a glimpse at I see myself, and a chance to name some quality that I feel reflects me. It’s probably lucky then, that many of my postings will be photos – each one will save me a thousand words. Now there’s a good name…….

 

Gabrielle, March 2011

 

*From a verse of Wordsworth’s ‘Intimations of Immortality’:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:  

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,   

Hath had elsewhere its setting,    

And cometh from afar:    

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come   

From God, who is our home.

 

 

 

Trinity.jpg

 

‘Trinity’ or ‘Clouds of Glory’