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Those first two lines are breathed out like a long sigh of longing, the first verse a prayer for a different way of seeing the world and being in the world.

In a world of earthquake, wind and fire, both natural and contrived by foolish human ways, this is a prayer for simple trust, love interpreted, noiseless blessing, and ordered lives confessing the beauty of peace.

Replacing suspicion with trust, hate with love, loud cursing with noiseless blessing, and life ordered, reconfigured to peace; if you sing this hymn, that's what you're asking for, longing for, wanting for our world.

 

 

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

Children's Song

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.

And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

R S Thomas, (Collected Poems, 1945-1990, page 56.)

In around 80 words Thomas deconstructs adulthood as a different planet, a different discourse, a lost capacity for imaginative immediacy, a diminshed sense of life's vivid colours and wondering mindset. When Jesus said unless you become as children you cannot see the Kingdom of God, perhaps amongst other things he meant that unless you retain the power to see, somehow or other prevent an occlusion of vision, resist the seductive power of the analytic in order to see the reality of what just is, unless you can do that, you will never see the miracle of mustard seed, the marvel of yeast, the outrageous humanity of the Samaritan para-medic.

No wonder Jesus told the adult disciples whose description and behaviour match some of the above paragraph, to "let the children come and don't chase them away – they are the true heirs of the Kingdom". And likewise little wonder he took a child and placed her in the midst of them and delivered the first children's address – to a group of obtuse adults, far too serious for their own good, and addicted to conclusions too quickly jumped to!

And R S Thomas was too good a priest not to know that though hands and knees are an adult trick to make children think we are just like them, the children aren't fooled. Neither is God. Amongst the things we put away when we grow up is that innocent take it for grantedness, that looks on the world and wonders, and never even realises that wonder is a gift you use or lose.

Oh Lord of mystery and miracle,

redeem our so grown up view of the world,

and renew our old minds to think new thoughts.

Help us

   to notice the extraordinary ordinariess of our lives,

      to pay attention to the wonder of things,

         to recover the fun and freedom of play,

            and to take what is given us for granted,

               but also with gratitude.

Holy Spirit

   renew our imagination,

      refresh our emotions,

         reset our ambitions,

            revive our hopes,

               restore our energy,

                  release our laughter,

                     recreate our world,

                        resurrect our lives,

                           in the power of the Risen Lord, 

                                                                          Amen. ( J Gordon)

 

During lock down I took photographs of paths. The ones I like are the well worn ones, the ground shaped and the landscape etched by thousands of footsteps over who knows how many years. With so many people walking for their hour's exercise it becomes clear that they discover short cuts, and so new paths are made.

I read somewhere that an architect designing new housing developments suggested putting grass down and only designing one or two obvious paths. After six months it becomes obvious the walking routes people use to the shops, the bus stop and navigating between streets. The paths were then laid where people were already used to walking. Something like that happened on some of the common ground where we live – people's walking had created new paths.

Two of the most familiar texts in the Bible are about paths. "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Sung at weddings and funerals, in Psalm 23 there are deep resonant images of life as a journey and the importance of taking the right path. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." The book of Proverbs is about wisdom, good choices, moral integrity, ethical relationships, honesty with money, care and truthfulness in speech – these are the paths of life, that lead to life. This verse distils all that into one maxim, "Trust in the Lord…he will direct your paths." (Prov. 3.6 KJV)

So I like paths, I'm comfortable and content walking a known way; known at least by those who have gone before me, countless times. But one of the realities of lock down and living with the ambiguities and disruption of a pandemic is that many of the known paths seem to have disappeared; there is disorientation, a sense of displacement, a strangely unsettling loss of confidence that we know where we are, and where we are going.

Sheila and I walk a lot, have done all our time together. Often as she walks ahead, I'm aware of the journey we share, the companionship of a lifetime, the sense of moving forward together. The sunlit path, but with shadows and light, and life experiences that are likewise variable, changeable, unpredictable and in the end contingent, these are the given material out of which we make of life what we can. But we do so in concert, in step, on the same path which, though at times has been harder than we could know, is the path we have chosen to walk as both intentional journey and shared adventure.  

An old hymn has remained a constant source of inner longing and spiritual sustenance ever since I first sang it as a new Christian convert, still trying to work out what in heaven's name had happened to me! I chose it as my ordination hymn, and at each induction service since.

Christ of the upward way, my Guide divine,
Where Thou hast set Thy feet, may I place mine;
And move and march wherever Thou hast trod,
Keeping face forward up the hill of God.

When I try to define what it means to be a Christian, like the Anabaptist tradition, I use the image of "following faithfully after Christ." Following with faith in Christ, following the faithful Christ, knowing Christ goes ahead of me, on the path I'm called to walk, faithfully. Those first followers of Jesus were called followers of the Way, people who walked a recognised path, the way of the cross. 

During these past weeks of pandemic lock down there has been time to think. Reviewing the photographs I've taken has been an exercise in self-examination. Not the guilt hunting type, nor the introspective worrying about how I feel and why, nor that inner audit to check if I measure up to my own self-expectations.

A gentler questioning of why certain things interest me enough to want to stop and take a photograph in the first place; a more reflective and non-judgemental exploration of such a world as this, its beauty and significance, its capacity to perplex and fascinate, its evocation of wonder and endless possibility; a deliberate act of pausing, to look and to see, to be present to and to pay attention, to move from such slowed-down taking an interest to the gradual recognition that all of this that we call our lives, takes place in the presence of the God who is before us and behind us. The dynamic movement of the journey, this life of mine that is inextricably linked in love to another, and beyond her to countless others, these moments of encounter and attentive expectation before a flower, a path, a clouded sky, a blue tit, golden gorse, far horizons, these are also moments of praise and prayer, of contentment and longing, of self-discovery and self-forgetting.

To recall the interrogative technique of the wonderful David Frost; It is, is it not, a wonderful world.    

  

The death of George Floyd shocked the world. We all have our views, opinions, and responses. I have been troubled and saddened by the polarisation of adopted positions, the special pleading from various sides of what is now a dangerous divide.

What to say, if anything? Silence allows time to think, right enough. But moral imperatives are rarely fulfilled by silence. A time comes to speak. I trust that I speak humbly, hesitantly, and hopefully.

Regular readers here will know this is a place where I explore what it means to follow Christ faithfully in out times and places. My starting point is how to live well as a Christian in a beautiful, broken, complex and God-loved world. That is expressed in the words of Thomas More, in Bolton's 'A Man for all Seasons', words from which this blog took its name,

"God made the angels to show His splendour – as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But men and women He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of their minds."

I take "living wittily" to mean faithfully, intelligently, self-critically, with integrity, hopefully, or to use another of my favourite phrases, "to look humanely forth on human life."

What I am offering in this post is three things. A set of suppositions, some "what ifs" that imagine changes in mindset on all sides – by changes of mindset I mean the theological and spiritual reality of repentance. Secondly a text out of context, but capable of standing alone as a call to repentance and change. Thirdly a prayer which acknowledges the intransigence and complexity of racism as a vast multiplex problem, and seeks to be specific in confession and trusting in its prayer for change.

For my part, I see racism as a problem that starts in the human heart, but it never just stops there. It is then inevitably released as a toxin into social structures, causing a festering wound in institutions and systems, and becoming a pervasive offence to the purposes of God for human flourishing in justice, mercy and humility before God. Theologically, racism is sin, and sin is personal, social, structural and systemic. 

All of this set me thinking of what might be possible

if in acknowledging the raw grief caused by racists and racism;

if in witnessing seemingly endless suffering inflicted by racists and racism;

if in hearing voices of righteous anger and protest against racists and racism;

if being alert to the dangers of creeping despair at the seeming intransigence of the racist mindset;

if refusing to give credence to voices of denial that say there is no racism where it is clearly to be seen;

what then might be possible, if our minds were finally and fundamentally changed about racism, and our own part in it?

Supposing all that.        

Supposing, instead of pontificating and daring to instruct others about what racism is, we shut up and for once listen to the voices of those whose experience contradicts our certainties about how right we are and how truthfully we see the world?

Racism is complex, deep, destructive and real.

 

Supposing we took off the earphones that pump into our minds only the playlist we have chosen, playing only the music we like, reflecting only the view of the world we agree with, drowning out other voices we do not want to hear, or think we do not need to hear?

Racism thrives on excluding the noise of other people's pain.

 

Supposing instead of defending our own certainties with our prejudiced arguments, we made enough time and space for truth to be spoken that may question those certainties and prejudices?

Racism is deep untruth about the worth and rights of others.

 

Supposing instead of shooting off about what we think, and telling others where they are wrong we first, possibly breaking the habit of a lifetime, consider we may ourselves be wrong, and in desperate moral need to stand corrected?

Racism is a form of moral, because wilful blindness.

 

Supposing we were more intellectually humble, more righteous in our thinking, more merciful in our judgements, more careful with our words, more reticent about our opinions, and more open to that revision of thought which is repentance, a willingness to be taught to think and act differently?

Racism is an offence against Who God is and what God requires of us.

 

Supposing then, we repent of our own complicity in the institutional systems, national histories, ingrained attitudes, intentional social structures, embedded language, and personal involvement in the continuation of cultures which enable and sustain the complex wiring of the racist mindset?

Racism can be at one and the same time, personal, social, institutional, cultural, structural and systemic.

 

Supposing then, we were to begin to show proper humility of heart, an enacted righteousness in how we live, seeking embodied justice in our systems, promoting mercy by our words and actions, creating a culture of genuine justice for all people, in obedience to God in whose image every human being is created?

Supposing? 

Supposing this text, and that huge conditional starting, and startling "If"? 

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7.14)

The prayer below is from Chris Hall, President of Renovare, a Christian renewal group founded by the Quaker, Richard Foster. The context of the prayer is the United States; its relevance reaches beyond national boundaries to the human family wherever we happen to live. 

“Lord, have mercy.”

• We have refused to lis­ten atten­tive­ly to our black and brown broth­ers’ and sis­ters’ cry for jus­tice. Lord, have mercy.

• We have been deaf to the prophet’s call: ​“And he looked for jus­tice, but saw blood­shed; for right­eous­ness, but heard cries of dis­tress.” (Isa­iah 5:7b). Lord, have mer­cy.

• We have been intel­lec­tu­al­ly lazy and moral­ly obtuse.  Our minds and hearts lis­ten only to voic­es that rein­force opin­ions we already hold. Lord, have mercy.

• We have been blind to our com­pla­cen­cy and com­plic­i­ty. Lord, have mercy.

• We have car­i­ca­tured or ignored books, poems, art, and films that chal­lenge our prej­u­dice and rebuke our igno­rance. Lord, have mercy.

• We have been com­plic­it in a cul­ture that delights in false­hood and dis­re­gards the truth. Lord, have mercy.

• We have expect­ed applause for our fee­ble thoughts and tot­ter­ing steps toward your pre­cious image bear­ers who dai­ly expe­ri­ence the hatred and vio­lence of racism. Lord, have mercy.

• We have been self-absorbed and self-deceived. Lord, have mercy.

• We have pre­ferred teach­ing rather than being taught. Lord, have mercy.

• We have manip­u­lat­ed and exploit­ed. Lord, have mercy.

• We have feared los­ing our ​“rights,” while with­hold­ing rights from the gen­uine­ly oppressed and des­per­ate. Lord, have mercy.

• We have lacked steady com­pas­sion and stur­dy courage. Our response to the evil of racism has been short-lived and shal­low. Lord, have mercy.

• We have loved the big deal and shunned hid­den ser­vice. Lord, have mer­cy.

• We have hat­ed our ene­mies and loved those who love us. Lord, have mer­cy.

• We have equat­ed the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca with the king­dom of God. Lord, have mercy.

• We have embraced pow­er and ignored the demands of love. Lord, have mercy.

• We have delight­ed in cul­tur­al con­flict and dis­dained the pur­suit of peace and  under­stand­ing. Lord, have mercy.

• We have walled out the alien and the for­eign­er. Lord, have mercy.

• We have enact­ed unjust and oppres­sive laws. Lord, have mercy.

• We have incar­cer­at­ed the poor and released the rich and pow­er­ful. Lord, have mercy.

• We have glad­ly trav­elled the wide and easy road that leads to destruc­tion and avoid­ed the nar­row road that leads to life. Lord, have mercy.

Oh, Lord, we have sinned,
against you and against our neigh­bor,
in the things we have done, and the things we have left undone.
We acknowl­edge our igno­rance and will­ful neglect. 

For­give us. Cleanse us. Renew us.
Reset our moral com­pass.
Fill the wind of our sails with the breath of your Spir­it.
Pro­pel us to the places and peo­ple who can teach us to love in new and unex­pect­ed ways. 

We plead for deep­er courage and com­pas­sion.
We ask for a qui­et, teach­able spirit. 

Give us love and humil­i­ty to erase the bound­ary lines we drew in fear.
Expand our vision to life and flour­ish­ing for all – from the unborn to those liv­ing on death row. We invite you, we wel­come you, to plant new seeds in the gar­den of our minds and hearts.  Amen

Supposing all this?

During the 10 weeks of lock down Aberdeenshire Council has cut no grass. Not only that. They expressly prohibited residents from cutting council grass when some conscientious souls decided to do their civic duty keeping their own area tidy. The result has been an explosion of dandelions, turning central reservations, grass verges and larger areas of grass and woodland into symphonies of yellow. 

Then for weeks the dandelions have been doing what they do; making dandelion clocks, producing millions of seeds equipped with the latest models of parachutes. I've always been fascinated by the sheer ubiquity of seeds on a dandelion plant, which can have half a dozen heads, with more where they came from, continuously sprouting for weeks. One of the first butterflies I spotted proved the wisdom of the advice given by conservation groups like Scottish Wildlife and RSPB and the National Trust for Scotland; leave the dandelions, they are early food for bees and butterflies when not much else is available yet. That by the way is also the rationale for Aberdeenshire Council stopping vigilante flymo raids on their grass – over the years they have reduced the number of cuts in a season. I'm OK with that.

Over the weeks of watching these plants, I began to think about the phenomenon of dandelions producing seeds in such abundance. These flowers, not weeds, ('weed' as a word is a social construction designed to discriminate against!) weren't always designated gardener's enemy number one. Dandelion tea, wine and herbal remedies go back to ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures. Apparently a beautiful pale yellow dye can be made from the petals, and a purple colour from the ribs of the leaves. 

All that said, from the study window we look out on an area of communal Council grass which this year has been festooned in yellow followed by thousands of dandelion clocks each with up to 200 seeds. A breeze is enough to create a summer seed blizzard, and every one of those parachutes a potential plant for next year. A dandelion clock is a wonderful thing, such a concentration of potential, of life ready to disperse and renew the cycle of flower and seed, year on year – apparently they've been around for 30 million years, give or take a week or two. 

In a world scared of the capacity of the Coronavirus to bridge, infect and reproduce, there was something strangely comforting about seeing seeds anchored on the flower, then letting go and floating in the air, and who knows where or whether they will find soil, and water, and the chance of life. The world goes on, and for now, so do we. Throughout this whole pandemic crisis I've been aware of a new and stronger sense of the importance of hope as the foundation for the kind of trust that will keep us  living towards the future 

Sometimes I try to reduce a thought to the disciplined form of Haiku. This is one of them, arising from looking closely at a dandelion clock: 

Acknowledge beauty,
and pay attention to seeds
which hold the future.

All those seeds, ubiquitous, fragile, formed for flight, so well equipped to relocate elsewhere given a good breeze in the right direction, each seed arranged on the flower head with geometric precision; close up it's a glory of creative genius.

Every single seed fecund with possibility, durably delicate, awaiting the right combination of environment, circumstances and whatever else it is that determines if it will be bird food, humus or next year's dandelion.

But each of them is a seed, and I've learned all over again these past weeks to pay attention to seeds; they hold the future.

Jesus said something really sad about seeds: "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

There is an inbuilt law of life that good futures don't just happen. They have to be built, and there is cost, sacrifice, and even the death of what is, so that what may be can emerge from the scaffolding of the present. Jesus was talking about his own death, and the life that would erupt from the dark hopelessness of a crucified and buried Messiah. "But if it die…….it bears much fruit."

The principle of self-giving love is the beating heart of the Christian gospel. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…" The seed must die or it will forever be safe, solitary, unfulfilled. Watching those gossamer light seeds caught up in currents of air they can never control, imagination reaches beyond the physical possibilities of germination and propagation of this or that seed. The life principle, the hope potential, the promise inherent in seeds blown into the future, is not about death, full stop. They are, every one of them, a reminder that the living God is the God of the living. The seed must die….it bears much fruit.

We are a resurrectional people, us Christians. We live in a world where death is not an irrevocable cosmic No to all that life is. Resurrection has happened, and the principle of life through death, demonstrated in Palestine, in a garden doubling as a cemetery, two thousand years ago, is now the pivot point of history, an event of eternally transformative power. And every believer who trusts to the immensity of that resurrectional power, who is drawn into the embrace of cruciform love, becomes one of millions of seeds, fertile with possibility to reproduce in kind, believing, loving trusting followers of Christ, the original and originating seed that died, and bears much fruit.    

I posted this yesterday on my Facebook page. For those here who might be interested: Here's the problem:

An elderly man in M&S, looking a bit confused and uncertain, hovering around the end of the food aisle. He isn't wearing a mask, and absorbed in making up his mind has moved closer to another customer, though still a few feet away.
This customer begins to speak forcefully to him to get back two metres, which puzzles him and I think makes him uncertain what he's doing wrong. She continues to lay down the rule, 'TWO METRES' as if saying it louder makes it clearer, a bit like English speakers abroad thinking their meaning is somehow translated by turning up the volume and speaking slowly.

The life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer persists as an essential and critical voice even seventy five years after his death. There are so many reasons to pay attention to the occasional writings and speakings of Bonhoeffer; but in our time of fractious politics, slow and sometimes blatant power grabs, growing support for right wing populism and uncritical adulation of the strong leader, it is the radically uncompromising call and cost of discipleship in following Jesus that challenges Christian communities to decide where ultimate allegiance lies. This is Bonhoeffer the pastor, preaching a Confirmation sermon in 1938. The date is essential context, and the words are explosive in their political as well as theological and spiritual reverberations:   

"You have only one master now…But with this 'yes' to God belongs just as clear a 'no.' Your 'yes' to God requires your 'no' to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor, to all ungodliness, and to all mockery of what is holy. Your 'yes' to God requires a 'no' to everything that tries to interfere with your serving God alone, even if that is your job, your possessions, your home, or your honour in the world. Belief means decision."

Preached to young Christians facing what we now know as life in one of the most violent, lethal and merciless regimes in European history. The use of the word "master" is likewise laden with intentional contrast, and implies an either-or from which there can be no compromising third choice. One master. Who is it to be? Yes to God means 'no' to all other powers demanding final loyalty of mind, heart, soul and body. Belief means decision, not only one single decision after which it is business as usual; but a confirming decision that means all other decisions take their direction from that living and central commitment to Jesus Christ.

What makes Bonhoeffer such a necessary discomfort to those who are at ease in Zion is his reiteration of the radical, risk-laden demands of the Gospel of Christ. Earlier translations of his book on discipleship were titled, The Cost of Discipleship.The critical edition is more accurate in the technical sense of the one word title: Discipleship. However commendable that title, it remains the case that Bonhoeffer's relentless emphasis on the nature of Christian following of Jesus focused on the cost of discipleship. That cost was inevitable and the sine qua non of faithfulness to God, and the authenticating hallmark of a life following the way of Jesus Christ, bearing a cross and headed for Calvary.

The words from the confirmation sermon were not intended as comfortable invitation to convenient respectability, but as warning and call to a lifestyle and inner orientation at odds with all that is at odds with the way of Jesus. In other words this ongoing 'yes' compels a recurring 'no' to all that demands a different loyalty to alternative values and competing life goals. The life goal of the disciple is to be faithful to Christ, the values are rooted in the commitment of God in Christ to a reconciled world, and that 'Yes' carries within it a lifelong capacity for saying no; and Bonhoeffer is explicit in what is to be contradicted.

"God requires your 'no' to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor, to all ungodliness, and to all mockery of what is holy."

Those words are freighted with responsibility for the way we live our lives in the 2020 world of political and social divisions. One of the more easily overlooked features of contemporary life is the mockery of what is holy. That isn't new either, it was a social toxin flowing through the veins of National Socialism and its effect was the weakening of the immune system, making minds and wills less receptive and increasingly resistant to moral values of human worth, dignity and fundamental rights. 

The mockery of what is holy is a theological version of the cliche 'nothing is sacred anymore'. But when that which one group in society reveres and holds as of essential value to their lives is mocked, ignored, or treated as trivial, the result is a dangerous diminishing of human capital and ethical safeguards. Bonhoeffer saw that happening over the years before the 1938 sermon. The mockery of what a society has deemed to be holy, pushes back boundaries and rewrites in coarser and less humane language what is acceptable, decent and for the common good. Eventually people themselves, those who hold on to what is holy and to be respected by consensus, are themselves mocked, diminished, and devalued.

At that point Bonhoeffer could see with prophetic clarity, the fundamental Yes to God which orients the whole of life, demanded a faithful No to all in life that contradicts justice, goodness, truth, freedom, care for the weak and poor, and reverence for the holy. Yes implies No. You cannot serve God wholeheartedly and something else at the same time. The criterion for the Christian is the cross of Christ, a dying to all other claims on our will, conscience, heart, mind and body.

I find these words of Bonhoeffer so uncomfortably apt in 2020 Britain and beyond. But I know of no other way to be faithful to the fundamental Yes I've said to God as a Christian, than to say with continuing conviction, and with relentless faithfulness, No. No to words that are lies; No to policies which humiliate and threaten the poor; No to policies of injustice and callous disregard for refugees and immigrants; No to hostile environments, to racism and antisemitism; No to the abuses of power when it is used to remove the very levers put in place to hold power accountable; No to the rhetoric of division; No to the deifying of capital, money, wealth, stuff and its consequent global inequity; and No to the laying waste of the only planet we have, in pursuit of all the above.

And in all those sayings of No, those who follow Jesus faithfully in the 21st Century do so fully  recognising that the cost of discipleship is stated very plainly. Say Yes to God, and you say No to much else that is taken for granted as the way the world works. 

(The sermon 'The Gift of Faith', was preached on April 9, 1938. See The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (ed) Isabel Best, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012, pp. 201-206)   

Smudge has been a source of solace, fun, fascination and sheer pleasure ever since she arrived in our family. They say you're either a dog or cat person, but I'm entirely at home with each or either. Both Sheila and I have had cats around us all our lives, and so no surprise that cats, Smudge included, is her own person, and entirely different in character from Tinker, Bonnet and Gizmo. 

She of course has paid no heed whatsoever to the First Minister's insistence that lock down means lock down. She has come and gone, slept and eaten, sunbathed and hunted, adhered to social distancing and invaded our space, and has been less than impressed by the face masks.

But she has been a source of comfort and distraction through these long and often lonely weeks. There she is bemused by millions of floating dandelion seeds while prowling her marches, and showing us easily bored humans the health benefits of staying curious.

More seriously, the therapeutic effects of pets are well enough known. That story in Genesis when Adam names all the animals is one of those great humanising moments captured in the imagination, and deeply embedded in the human consciousness of our responsibilities towards those creatures who share our planet.

Over these weeks of lock down when it has not been possible to be with family and friends, and social interaction has been minimal and distanced, Smudge has been there. Now cats don't really do the selfless altruistic thing; they tend to know how to push the right buttons for food, doors opened, and the softest warmest seat. Amongst the blessings that enrich our lives are those bonds with animals that grow into a mutual dependency of long established trust, and a sense of home shared. Smudge is all of that. Her capacity for finding soft places in the house and sunny places in the garden is both instinctive and strategic. I swear Smudge is a post-graduate problem solver when it comes to her own personal comfort.

As an example of such innovative selfishness the way she hijacked the foam kneeling pad when I turned my back to go into the garage for pruners, or shears or some other human implement – who cares, he left the mat without a towel on it, it's sunny, so I'm having it. All of this is clearly discernible from the unmistakable body language of indifferent proprietorship, and uncontested ownership adopted by my cat Smudge. 

Like all cats, Smudge is predictable much of the time, but it's those occasional try-ons that make life with a cat a chronic low-key battle of wits. To finish the story, I needed the foam kneeler, which she gave up with that superior nonchalance of the cat whose point has been made with minimal fuss – this time. 

Over nine weeks I only took a few pictures of her, though if I trawl through the years she has been with us an entire album could be compiled. The ones I have taken are reminders that we share our home with a remarkable animal. I don't say that only of Smudge; think about it, the creation of a safe place for an animal that costs money to keep, that claws the stair carpet mercilessly, that has an unerring sense of what can annoy you, and that has woven bonds of affection and loyalty such that you actually care for the blessed thing. And its presence soothes, amuses, gives the day a shape, and its look confers acknowledgement that you exist and that's OK.

There are countless poems about cats. Kit Smart's "For I will consider my cat Jeoffrey" is the all time platinum bestselling poem about a man and his cat. I recently came across 'Magnificat' by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

The title is very clever. Magnificat. The poet is in a deep place of questioning about his own existence, what he is for, where he is going and why any of this matters anyway?

The cat embodies the enigma of each life drama played out against a cosmic vastness that is by turns threatening and welcoming. The poet's double self-assuring command to smile with which his poem ends, pushes the reader towards the hopeful thought with which we go to sleep, trusting the darkness and hoping for tomorrow – "it will be day."

In the days of a pandemic lock down, that kind of hopefulness is an essential corrective in the face of much that disturbs our peace and disrupts our plans. Sometimes it isn't the cosy and comfortable poems we need, but the more astringent words that face the mysteries without explaining them away, while yet insisting with equal force, "It will be day."     

Magnificat   

When will this inner night – the universe – end
And I – my soul – have my day?
When will I wake up from being awake?
I don't know. The sun shines on high
And cannot be looked at.
The stars coldly blink
And cannot be counted.
The heart beats aloofly
And cannot be heard.
When will this drama without theater
– Or this theater without drama – end
So that I can go home?
Where? How? When?
O cat staring at me with eyes of life, Who lurks in your depths?
It's Him! It's him!
Like Joshua he'll order the sun to stop, and I'll wake up,
And it will be day.
Smile, my soul, in your slumber!
Smile, my soul: it will be day!

 

There are always those whose default inclination is to negative a good thing. The snide, superior and in their own opinion more worldly wise, use their wit to unpick the delicate stitching of other people's wonder, admiration and way of looking at the world. A good example is the much maligned sunrise and sunset photos posted on various social media. They have been called the Marmite of the photography world, they are spread across countless screens as if no one had ever seen one before; and you love them or hate them.

The nay-sayers have a point, though it is a small one, and it is still in danger of finding pleasure whining at other peoples pleasure. Once photo-shopping, image editing and enhancement have done their work what is left is usually spectacularly improbable as a recognisable image of a natural phenomenon. That is a valid critique.

But the photo straight from the camera, minimally touched and innocent of insertions, spot fix and filters, whatever its merits as a photo in the eyes of others, has for the photographer at least, the joy of remembering. And then, to take time later for contemplation of what was seen, and why it seemed important to allow that memory and that image to linger in the mind, and even touch the deep places of longings left too long unacknowledged. 

Which brings me once more to photographs in a time of pandemic. I take very few photos of sunrise, I'm doing other things early morning. I take some photos of sunsets, though not all that many. But the sky, clouds, horizons, now these I photograph with the same enthusiasm as others go out to bag another sunrise or sunset. The one above was taken in semi-darkness, after a long hot day by North East Scotland standards, the street lights unable to compete, but willing to compensate for the disappearing sun, at least for a while, until sunrise. This second one is a photograph of clouds, which may seem obvious. But in the driest period for decades for this time of the year, the parched foreground, the distant clouds framed in blue sky, and the newly green trees in the middle ground, coalesce in an image of both uplift and yearning. We are still waiting for decent rainfall! 

Lock down by definition limits horizons, and makes the familiar a slow-growing exercise in tedium. New horizons, the sense of our place in the landscape, and our freedom to change and adjust our environment, have become our way of life in what we too uncritically call the developed world. The abrupt loss of freedom and closing down of travel was a necessary public health imposition, but it has come at considerable cost to our emotional, relational and economic health.

Reflecting on that cost, and what is is we lost when movement out of our own homes was so limited for nine weeks, I was in no doubt the primary loss was the freedom to see the special people in our lives; family, friends, and those whose presence nourishes our sense of self and worth. But a close second was the loss of liberty to go where we wanted, to move from here to there, to yield to those impulses to be elsewhere and see what was there that was of interest.

The sky is one of the constantly changing features of our landscape, and for me a significantly influential governor of my inner mood. This view is from our daughter Aileen's resting place, half an hour's walk from our door. I have found the long weeks of lock down, social distancing, reduced horizons and limited life choices, have opened up new experiences of grief, as all these cumulative daily losses of freedoms and ways of living, have reinforced some of the deep longing and loss that is now part of who I am as a man and a husband and a father clinging to love, gratitude and memories. The photo, with neatly trimmed foreground and receding hazy horizons, splashes of ostentatious yellow, Loch Skene in the centre reflecting blue on blue, and a summer sky over landscape Aileen loved; the whole scene captured a moment of emotional clarity when joy and sorrow in that instant were not opposites, but an inner duet playing the music of the heart in three movements, pensive gratitude, patient hope and sustained love.

That's what a photo does. It captures a moment. The coincidence of outer image and inward imagination in the mind of the person who looks, and doesn't always know what they see, but sees it is important. All the photos here were moments of insight that became later reflection, the fusion of eye and imagination, when the sky lifted the view beyond the earthbound and mundane realities of walking during lock down. The result is a new way of seeing things, this time through our inner viewfinder.

Such photographs are often moments when thought merges into prayer. Not the carefully articulated kind that can be offered in public worship; more the prayers that are longing personified, sorrow accepted, gratitude felt in the deep places, and hope persisted in from a heart hanging on to trust in God as default setting for life:

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Flourish is a rich and reassuring word. From the Latin stem florere it relates to flowers. To flourish is to "develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment." Who wouldn't want to flourish? 

The word has recently become a buzz word in self-help and pop psychology circles. Book titles love it: Flourishing. How to Achieve Happiness and a Deeper Sense of Well-being and Purpose in a Crisis. Yes, I'll have some of that.

Flourish. A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being – and How to Achieve Them. Yes. Always up for new ways of understanding, especially my self.

The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing. Yes indeed. My kind of book, exploring my kind of textual territory, and in fairness, the only one of the three I have read. But it's clear flourishing is a good thing, and there's a market for it, though I doubt you can buy it

Describing my sense of self during these lock down weeks, flourishing is not the word that comes to mind on first thought. On second thoughts, it still seems a bit of a stretch. No. I have to be honest. I haven't felt that lock down and all its constraints helped me "develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment." 

However. If I look at the photographs I have taken, it becomes obvious I paid close attention to flowers, you know, these botanical specimens from which we get the semantic seeds of "flourish", florere. No surprise that I took so many. Flowers are fascinating, beautiful and have always been mood shifters for me.

What becomes clear as I review a lot of them is the necessary transience of beauty, and the more poignant thought that the flower has to fade before the seeds form, drop, and keep the cycle of flourishing going for another year.

There is a profound hopefulness hidden in our expectation of next year's beauty from this year's seeds. Isaiah thought so too. "The desert and the parched land will be glad, the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus it will burst into bloom…" (35.1) Deserts will flourish, wilderness will bloom, parched land will blossom. That's a promise, says Isaiah. And he said it to people who had been in exile, a 70 year lock down.

The Hebrew word for 'blossom' is itself like a seed; "it suggests an image of breaking forth, budding, sprouting, even bursting." Latent energy conserved and coiled in readiness; stored up vitality waiting its chance to make its play in a dazzling performance of grace, beauty and life celebration. I'm not sure I know a better image of hopefulness in the dry land of these past weeks. "The desert shall blossom…" Or literally, and with an intensive emphasis, "blossoming it will blossom!"

There are different kinds of desert; or, at least, I have found that there are different parts of our humanity where we experience the desert. Wilderness can be multi-layered in our experience. The drying up of emotional nourishment when we are separated from those we love, who love us, with whom much of our identity is entangled; the wilting of relationships that have had to get by on limited contact, mediated presence through online platforms, and the cancellation of all those informal meetings for coffee, a blether, at the shops.

And church, or rather the absence of church as embodied presence through physical proximity and shared space, that too feels like a receding reservoir. At its best, the church to which we belong is a place of friendship, fellowship, community, communion and shared presence, and all of that providing the compost of our faith and needed nourishment for our roots. But without the water of life shared person to person, each other's presence encountered, and praise and prayer and worship made corporate by the Body of Christ gathering together, I have sensed the slow encroachment on my soul of what Isaiah calls the dry places, the wilderness, the desert.

Such a spiritual, emotional and relational recession is inevitable when sources of nurture are shut off. That is what these past weeks of lock down can mean for human beings made in the image of the Triune God for community, reciprocity, love, conversation, relationship, communion and all the other social interchanges that confer and sustain our identity. And we are not through it yet. 

That's why Isaiah's fascination with flora and flourishing is such a powerful stimulus to new growth. The desert shall blossom and life will flourish again. The dry places will have streams in the desert. The parched land will burst into bloom. Wilderness will again become fertile. Seeds are sown and the energy of life awaits the spring rains and the coming of God.

Let Isaiah have the last word, or the last three words. Lebanon. Carmel. Sharon. "The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon." (Isaiah 35.2)

The three arid lifeless places of desert, parched land, and wilderness will become like the three most familiar fertile areas known to the exiles. Lebanon. Carmel. Sharon.These were places of hope and promise that the people would flourish again, the land would be fruitful again, God was on the move again.

To repeat myself; There is a profound hopefulness hidden in our expectation of next year's beauty from this year's seeds.