Readings 26 April 2024 St Mary's Church
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Opening Prayer
Creator God, we thank you for today, for our time of stillness together, and for the opportunity to ponder your world. A world which is so beautifully and wonderfully created, and which we so often take for granted. We ask that each of us will find beauty, hope, love and comfort in the words we hear – and in the stillness which follows, however we might spend that time. Lord in your mercy – hear our prayer Readings I still quite often think of, what now seem like distant days, at the beginning of the Pandemic of Covid 19 – it was early in spring 2020 when we were suddenly told we had to stay put where we were and, if we wanted to go for a walk, we could only do that locally. I can remember the absolute joy which I found in those walk - a feeling, I believe, shared by many - when walking, spending time in the garden, or on a balcony, or perhaps by just watching and listening from a window. |
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It was a feeling which seemed to give us freedom of spirit, in a world which suddenly felt very restricted. There was a wonderful connection with nature, an experience which, to many, felt like a distant memory from childhood. The sound of birdsong - space and stillness to hear the wind in the trees, the birds buzzing … and (on a personal note), not far from where I live, I could watch the buzzards floating on the thermals – sometimes joined by other birds, which, in itself seemed amazing!!
Many of those ‘lockdown’ memories came flooding back to me as I read a beautiful, meditative passage from Margaret Silf, which we will now read to you.
It's from her book, ‘Roots and Wings’ -a human journey from a speck of stardust to a spark of God – from a chapter entitled ‘Riding the Thermals’
Margaret writes:
“Imagine a hillside on a warm sunny afternoon; the air is calm, and overhead the ravens (buzzards or seagulls) are in flight. At least, their wings are spread and they are in gentle motion, but actually they're doing nothing at all, and expending very little energy. They are letting themselves be carried on the thermal currents.
Or, imagine the same hillside on a stormy November morning - the winds are high, and those same Ravens are surfing the skies, using the now overwhelmingly powerful currents to carry them along, still conserving their energy as best they can, and trusting that in the end they will arrive where they need to be.
The air isn't always calm around us, either in the natural world, or on our spiritual journey. We have seen something of the turbulence that, for example, fear can cause. But the invisible currents that will raise us up are always there for us, whatever the weather, if we know how to find them.
The Guide left us a parting gift; ‘Peace I leave you’ he said,
‘my peace I give you.’ Where might we find such peace?
Margaret also wrote:
“The peace of which the guide speaks, isn't a haven where there is no conflict. It is a dimension of reality, that draws us to a level of our being that lies deeper or higher than the conflict, and where our savage differences can begin to be transcended. It is the kind of deep peace and surrender to the wholeness of things that perhaps we see in the birds who ride the thermals.”
We often speak of God's Shalom, the Hebrew word which we might be quite familiar with. It expresses the peace of wholeness – it seems to be only that word, along with the Arabic ‘Salaam’, which is able to do that … and it can carry us beyond ourselves and towards each other - as the thermals carry the birds.
It’s a place where peace and power work together and bring us closer to the heart of life. If you have watched the birds riding the thermals – anywhere in the world, you will be aware that they know instinctively where to find the currents that carry them upwards without any effort of their own. We humans are rather far removed from these original instincts but, even so, there are many ways in which we can ride the thermals for ourselves, allowing the peace-power of Shalom to carry us. [JG]
Introduction to Silence
Blessing
“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”
― John O'Donohue - To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
Many of those ‘lockdown’ memories came flooding back to me as I read a beautiful, meditative passage from Margaret Silf, which we will now read to you.
It's from her book, ‘Roots and Wings’ -a human journey from a speck of stardust to a spark of God – from a chapter entitled ‘Riding the Thermals’
Margaret writes:
“Imagine a hillside on a warm sunny afternoon; the air is calm, and overhead the ravens (buzzards or seagulls) are in flight. At least, their wings are spread and they are in gentle motion, but actually they're doing nothing at all, and expending very little energy. They are letting themselves be carried on the thermal currents.
Or, imagine the same hillside on a stormy November morning - the winds are high, and those same Ravens are surfing the skies, using the now overwhelmingly powerful currents to carry them along, still conserving their energy as best they can, and trusting that in the end they will arrive where they need to be.
The air isn't always calm around us, either in the natural world, or on our spiritual journey. We have seen something of the turbulence that, for example, fear can cause. But the invisible currents that will raise us up are always there for us, whatever the weather, if we know how to find them.
The Guide left us a parting gift; ‘Peace I leave you’ he said,
‘my peace I give you.’ Where might we find such peace?
Margaret also wrote:
“The peace of which the guide speaks, isn't a haven where there is no conflict. It is a dimension of reality, that draws us to a level of our being that lies deeper or higher than the conflict, and where our savage differences can begin to be transcended. It is the kind of deep peace and surrender to the wholeness of things that perhaps we see in the birds who ride the thermals.”
We often speak of God's Shalom, the Hebrew word which we might be quite familiar with. It expresses the peace of wholeness – it seems to be only that word, along with the Arabic ‘Salaam’, which is able to do that … and it can carry us beyond ourselves and towards each other - as the thermals carry the birds.
It’s a place where peace and power work together and bring us closer to the heart of life. If you have watched the birds riding the thermals – anywhere in the world, you will be aware that they know instinctively where to find the currents that carry them upwards without any effort of their own. We humans are rather far removed from these original instincts but, even so, there are many ways in which we can ride the thermals for ourselves, allowing the peace-power of Shalom to carry us. [JG]
Introduction to Silence
Blessing
“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”
― John O'Donohue - To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
