Category: Fruit of the Spirit

  • Oppression, Occupation and The Prayer of the Butterfly

    Decided earlier this week to quietly change the colour and format of my blog.

    Chose a cool blue-green with minimal ornamentation.

    Wasn't sure if I liked it.  Seemed too, well,… cool, in a cold kind of way.

    Nobody else said anything – didn't notice? Didn't like it? Too polite to say?

    I didn't like it much – so back to my Art Nouveau design with the red butterfly.

    Butterfly One of my favourite thin books (cost me £1.80 I see) is Prayers from the Ark, by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold (translated by the novelist Rumer Godden). Mademoiselle de Gasztold started writing poetry during the German occupation of France. When confronting tyranny words matter – and in times of oppression poetry is the art of making words matter.

    After the war she was helped to recover from serious illness in a Benedictine Abbey just outside Paris. This became her long term home as librarian and fitter of stained glass in the windows. Her poem prayers were first circulated privately then published in 1953 in French and in 1962 in English.

    In this slim volume the prayers express the joyful response of each creature to God, the words capturing the unique character and beauty of the creature, expressing the mind of the Creator. One of them is the Prayer of the Butterfly. It reads well in English, but at times the subtleties of humour and allusion that convey precision of feeling and meaning are muted but not lost, in translation. A prayer expressing the fluttering delicacy of the fritillary captures exactly the restless inattentiveness of those of us who, seeing so many possibilities to experience, are frustrated by the finitude of time and the brevity of life. A kind of Ecclesiastes moment, this prayer.

    The Prayer of the Butterfly

    Lord!

    Where was I?

    Oh yes! This flower, this sun,

    thank You! Your world is beautiful!

    This scent of roses…

    Where was I?

    A drop of dew

    rolls to sparkle in a lily's heart.

    I have to go…

    Where? I do not know!

    The wind has painted fancies

    on my wings.

    Fancies…

    Where was I?

    Of yes! Lord,

    I had something to tell you;

                                                                       Amen

  • Kenosis in Laura’s Tea Room at Carmunnock

    Kenosis – a theological term that means self-emptying. Used as a description of how love does not seek its own interests but gives itself in the service of others.

    Laura's Tea Room yesterday morning. (Read more about it here. And see the notice below – but note it is now Sunday it is closed, not Tuesday). An oasis of peace and refreshment in a busy life – best coffee for miles, home baking consistently excellent (cherry and coconut scones…mmmmmmm!!!), and customer service always pleasant, attentive, and efficient…and then much more.

    IMAG002 Consider. A couple come in and make for the corner table. Both are hearing impaired and neither can speak. Communication is by sign and touch. The young woman who has just served us, goes over and begins a conversation with them, using only her hands – with considerable skill, laughter and patience, and in no time orders are taken. Sheila and I were well impressed, and deeply moved.

    Later when leaving we mentioned all this to the young woman (whose name we know), asking if she had trained in sign language. No she said. She learned it for that customer who has now been coming for a year or two. They taught her a few letters of the alphabet, she borrowed their training booklet, and she learned enough from it to be able to greet them and serve them.

    See the young folk nowadays…..wonderful!  Customer service – never seen anything like it. Kenosis isn't only a theological term people write books about. It's a disposition towards others that can entirely transform their life experience. It involves putting our selves out – in order to welcome the other in.