Seeker

You may have seen recent reports of hospital workers overwhelmed by relentless work, physical and emotional exhaustion.  Maybe you are one of them, or know someone receiving their care. Running on empty is such a hard situation to find yourself in. Human resources do run out. And the joy can go out of life for all sorts of reasons, especially when burnt out, ill, or bereaved, or simply because we are weary of staying at home in lockdown.  One of the things keeping me going is the odd moment of joy in ordinary life: a blackbird singing; the snowdrops in our garden about to flower; in heavy rain, several woodpigeons using our flat garage roof as a spa facility. Even this morning, when it was snowing while we were out on a walk, the fallen snow made the ordinary and family seem more beautiful. When we notice such things, they can become what the poet George Herbert described as “heaven in ordinarie”. Herbert was talking about prayer, which is one of the ways God’s heaven breaks through in

Here is a prayer I love. I should pray it more often. It is appropriate to pray at any stage of life, in any circumstances. The first 2 lines seem particularly appropriate just now with all the fear and anxiety around due to the current rapid spread in the UK of Covid-19. I do not know the author. If you do, please tell me. Free me   from all fear of the future,  from all anxiety about tomorrow,  from all bitterness towards anyone,  from all cowardice in the face of danger,  from all laziness in the face of work,  from all weakness when your power is at hand.  Fill me   with love that knows no barrier,  with sympathy that reaches to all,  with courage that cannot be shaken,  with faith strong enough for the darkness,  with strength sufficient for my tasks,  with loyalty to your kingdom's goals,  with wisdom to meet life's complexities,  with power to lift my eyes up to You! Image Credit: John Hain on Pixabay, Public Domain

  I wonder how you feel at the start of the UK's 3rd Lockdown in an effort to stop the spread of Covid? Thinking about what to write, conscious of people who are tired, anxious, ill or grieving, the word that came to mind was ‘perseverance’. I write this on a gloomy Wednesday. It is 6th January and so the Feast of the Epiphany, a day to remember the 'wise men' from the east. You can read about them in Matthew 2: 1 - 12 . They followed a star, expecting to find a special king. To make that journey they must have needed much perseverance. Was it fuelled by hope? At the end of their journey, they found a young child with his parents, in an ordinary house in Bethlehem, on what was presumably for Mary, Joseph and their son Jesus, an ordinary day. Were the wise men disappointed? No, they were overwhelmed with joy. It was as if God opened a window in heaven to enable them to see what others could not. It was an ‘Epiphany’ moment. Did the memory of that revelation encourage them on