Category: blog

bloggy blessings

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I am quite good at being a recluse.  I enjoy it.  And I have never indulged in it as thoroughly as I have over the last few months.

When I get enough time to be a recluse, then eventually I have enough energy to make time for my friends.  I know:  some of the people I care most about have still been dreadfully ignored, and oh-so-patient-and-understanding while I’ve gone quiet.  But others have re-emerged.  Friends from the States.  Friends from other parts of my life, who long endured the silence borne of an over-full diary and silly stress levels.  We have begun writing again.  And speaking.  And I have been amazed at how quickly friendship resumes, how deeply is it imprinted despite long neglect.

And finally, it seems, I have the energy to re-engage with some of what I left behind this summer.  Once upon a time, if I had disappeared from the SEC to watch kingfishers and bake cakes in Durham, that might have been the end of it.  No way back.  In Exile in Englandshire.  But the blogs change all that — even when my own blog is largely dormant.

For five years now, I’ve been nudging seasonal blogs into being:  Love Blooms Bright in Advent, and Beauty from Chaos in Lent.  Some of our readers didn’t know my life had changed, and asked if the blog was going on.  So, the blog that began in hopes of reaching people on the margins finally came back to catch me.

Dusting off a seasonal blog takes long than you might think.  It takes longer than I think, though I’ve done it so many times.  But still one needs to gather the team, encourage new bloggers, stir ideas with those who have written so often that all the obvious things have been done. The site needs updating, the Creative Cmomon’s license needs renewing, and of course the blog needs a twitter account of its own (@LvBloomsBright).  Indeed, I need a twitter account of my own (@wonderfulexchng) since my old one was tied to my previous location.   So, all afternoon there has been the familiar twooo of the tweet deck.  A few weeks ago it would have felt invasive and annoying, but today it has been fun.

I guess that means I’m re-emerging — though I suspect there’s a bit of the hokey-pokey about it.

And then, in a perfectly timed moment of encouragement, Mother ruth called me by name.

I’m looking forward to Advent, and so glad for the healing, redeeming round of the church year.

 

a day at the palace

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‘Just stand up there,’ she said. ‘It won’t break. See, the cushion comes off.  Oh, there’s nothing underneath?  Well, I said it wouldn’t break.  That’s it.  Now if you could just climb up the other side…’

Instead of watching the royal wedding, I spent the morning taking pictures of Falkland Palace for a friend’s book.  She was rather more used to making herself at home in palaces than I was.  But we got a good few photos in the end, despite my reservations.

(no, Rosemary, No, don’t take it down.  Yes, I wanted a picture of the cross.  But I’m not sure we should.  No.  Don’t worry.  It’s fine. Really.  No, please don’t take it off the wall.  Or move the Chinese Lamp.  Really…)

It was a good and eccentric end to a good  (and eccentric) week.

But now it really is time to watch the wedding.   Surely it can’t be that the weathervane at Falkland has a better crown than the new duchess?

Banburgh Blessing

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It was a sheer act of faith driving to Banburgh in the horrid, fuzzy rain.   The only thing that kept me going was the fact that just there, just over that hill, around that corner, it looked like it would clear.

That, and the fact that I was due to see someone in Berwick first, so I was committed.

The drive proved worth it for the conversation alone –an unlikely blessing from an unlikely source.  A reminder not to assume you know what someone is like just because of a few short meetings, and strongly differing views.  And proof once again that Fr Kevin speaks with the wisdom of God. ( ‘now, don’t dismiss this out of hand.  I think  you should go talk with…’)

But then, the sun came out.  Truly and gloriously Spring.

Banburgh is never tame.  It was warm and bright and bursting with joy.  But the wind was fierce, and the sand blew like glass.  All the better really:  it meant that everyone, absolutely everyone, who stayed on the  beach was utterly mad.  Like a flock of terns, we spun seaward in a continual flow as the sand rose, and flew in our face, and settled like thorns in our hair.

Wind enough to sing safely, and my old totem, Rutter’s Requiem, came welling up:

my soul fleeth unto the Lord; before the morning watch I say; before the morning watch.
O Israel trust in the Lord.
In the Lord there is plenteous redemption.
For he shall redeem Israel from all her sins.  all her sins.

I played in the water and took pictures and kept trying to get my hair to stay back.  But mostly, I just drew in the joy of it.

Then, the sandstorms began.  Oh, it had been blowing before — but suddenly, the dunes wanted to dance like the waves, and rose up on the wind.   I was in the water, walking towards a couple of equally mad waders.  And they were radiant.  And I realised that I was smiling as much as they were.  That, and that we were all being lacerated with sand, and it was utterly ridiculous to be so very happy.

But there we were.

And then, the laughter began.

Make of it what you will, dear reader, but I laughed and laughed and laughed, and it was blessed.

And then, I found a sheltered spot in the dunes and lay down and stared at an utterly still sky, far above the swirling sands.  A gull looped over me, and another.  And I lay there a good long while.

By then, Rutter had yielded to a song I love more for he memory it stirs that for it’s intrinsic value — memories of Blessed Melville of St Andrews, still singing the tenor line in his 80′s…

… which, according to his abundant mercy,
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Later, I drove home to

Sing (sing we).  Sing we merrily.
Unto Go -o -o   -o    -o  -o   -o  … d our strenght.
Make a cheerful noi -o -o -o -o -o… ise.

and I didn’t even worry about the bad language.

A glorious, life giving day.