Advent photo-a-day Week 3

This week's photos for the Advent photo project.
(Find more on both Instagram and Twitter using the hashtags #rethinkchurch #rethinkchristmas)

Day 15 :: rejoice
The praise window at Dornoch Cathedral. I have a tiny, tiny percentage of Scottish ancestry and the Barclay family were born and lived in Dornoch at the turn of the 19th century. I love the way the sun shone straight through the windows when I took this photo. It enhances and illuminates the beautiful glasswork even more.

Day 16 :: strong
The family will verify that I do not function well without a good strong cup of this first thing in the morning. The strength recently went up to 6 from 5..

Day 17 :: free
Still on a bit of a learning curve with the new camera, finally caught a co-operative butterfly and made it look just a little bit stunning (well I like it)

Day 18 :: mercy
Mercy is written in and between every word in this hymn. I love the recent Phatfish version which sadly I can't persuade my church to sing but it gets good airplay at home

Day 19 :: patience
Some days inspiration for these photos as well as time has been short. I was thinking on this day's word as I was travelling home and walked towards the waiting room on Platform 13. I catch two trains to and from work and spend alot of time waiting on this particular platform, with time to think, catch up on twitter or read, depending on connection times. And on these cold winter evenings I am particularly grateful for somewhere warm to wait.

Day 20 :: good news
This little fella was waiting in the Christmas Card pile when I got home. I may have made a sarcastic side-swipe on instagram about round robin letters, because such missives can be over long and a little tedious, even though it is lovely to hear from people. We have an 80-something friend who could teach many people the art of writing engaging Christmas letters.. So this birdy made my day on many levels.

Day 21 :: prophet
My favourite carol is 'It came upon the midnight clear'. So a few key words from this are gathered around our much loved Christmas tree angel. Inspired by the words 'For lo the days are hastening on, by PROPHET bards foretold'

Advent photo-a-day Week 2

This week's photos for the Advent photo project.
(Find more on both Instagram and Twitter using the hashtags #rethinkchurch #rethinkchristmas)

Day 8 :: widsom
Often when I see still water where the mirror image is almost perfect it's not always possible or convenient to photograph. But I briefly struck lucky here at Douglas Water, Lanarkshire, Scotland, before the wind picked up. Goes perfectly with the verse from Proverbs 20

Day 9 :: delight
We spent a weekend in Liverpool in the summer and during an evening walk we found ourselves in a prime position to watch the Liverpool Fiesta pass by. Joy of the performers and musicians was highly infectious.

Day 10 :: holy
I was trying to be ultra clever with this one and looking (in vain) for a clear starry sky to photograph. But all too often I forget that the most holy transactions take place in the most ordinary places. 
So my work space. 
Which is actually moveable because we hot-desk frequently (mug and pens move with me.)
Still, it is essence of where God does the every day holy.

Day 11 :: steadfast
Deep, ancient, strong roots on the Tatton Park Estate, Cheshire

Day 12 :: hope
Again on the Tatton Park Estate and we visited on an early spring day. I still have not quite got into the habit of remembering that flowering in the north happens a few weeks later than in the south and often requires the help of a little warm sun. So I was disappointed that we were too early for the majority of daffodil and narcissus carpets. But the beauty of these odd emerging colourful buds contrasted effortlessly with the dull greys and browns.

Day 13 :: justice
Again under my nose, in the kitchen..

Day 14 :: gather
On 14 December 1985 we were married the Scotsman and I. A day when our family and friends gathered to celebrate with us.

Advent photo-a-day week 1

I'm a sucker for a photo project and was delighted when a twitter friend posted a link to this one for Advent via @umrethinkchurch  

There is a word prompt each day leading up to December 25. I am posting the photos daily on Instagram and Twitter and will post weekly here on the blog with short thoughts/explanations.

Find more on both Instagram and Twitter using the hashtags #rethinkchurch #rethinkchristmas

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Day 1 :: go
The boys bought their dad a race track experience for his 50th birthday and here is the Scotsman accelerating off round the track in an Aston Martin Vanquish (in slightly a more tentative manner than some of the other drivers and much to do with what you have to pay if the car gets damaged in any way.) But yes, those cars certainly did go.

Day 2 :: bound
A carol that appears in carol books is Adam lay ybounden. When looking for and preparing music for Christmas I often flick past it. Fifteenth century words and set to music here by the twentieth century English composer Peter Warlock, I'm not entirely sure what all the words mean since it is in macaronic English and full of arcane medieval theology -  that Adam was supposed to have remained in bonds with the other patriarchs in the limbus patrum from the time of his death until the crucifixion of Christ (the "4000 winters").

Day 3 :: peace
At this time I had just acquired a new camera and was shooting anything and everything at random. This has an 'it is well with my soul' feel which to me is the very essence of peace.

Day 4 :: time
This is the curfew bell in the lead mining village of Leadhills, Lanarkshire, Scotland (home of a large number of the Scotsman's ancestors.) It was built in 1770 and was used to ring shift changes for the lead miners, children to school, warnings of accidents in the mines and also when people were lost in the hills. Today it is used to ring in the New Year. 

Day 5 :: flood
Last autumn we were fortunate to have an unexpected holiday in Southern Spain. A few days before we flew out the area experienced torrential rain and once-in-a-generation flooding. Flood waters had washed away this road across the river in the village where we stayed.

Ironically at the same time as I was posting this photo to Instagram, I was reading tweets reporting on the damage caused by once-in-a-lifetime tidal surges in coastal parts of the UK. And the damage repair continues following catastrophic floods in the Philippines. Let's not forget.

Day 6 :: awake
Awake and alert to see everything that is going on. Be awake to what is going on in your heart, what God is doing. It might be in the least obvious place or in the least obvious way. Sometimes we are aware of things in hindsight and know that we have caught a glimpse of 'the backside of God'.

Day 7 :: ready
Ready, ripe, expectant. I struggled with this photo because it is a many faceted word and particularly so at this time of year. A state of mind and not an obvious picture.
In the west we have an abundant array of ripe fruits available in the shops, ready to eat, where the work of ripening has already been overseen by the farmer or producer. It's all to easy to forget where our food comes from and take it for granted.

a letter to fill you in

Hello

I’ve not written on the blog in a while, save for a few short offerings in the last couple of months. Posting has dwindled gradually since I went back to work full time in May this year. There are plenty of half-written snippets littering folders in MS Word, considerably more thoughts than that have been chewed over in my mind and not committed to being thrashed out via qwerty keyboard. 

Some appear here..

a reflection on a reflection

Objects are reflected beautifully on water when it is calm and still. As soon as there is any wind the reflection becomes distorted and the reflection less recognisable. Like those rounds on game-shows, Guess the Object, how much spinning or clarity do you need before your brain tells you it is identifiable? 

(Or to flip it on its head “do not adjust your horizontal” was the Scotsman’s comment on a friend’s impressively busy patterned tights).

I took this photo during a walk at Douglas Water, Lanarkshire and for a short time the water reflected beautifully. On the return trip the wind had picked up a little so all the images on the lake were impressionistic and indistinct.

I was puzzling on the words of a hymn I used to sing in childhood ‘It is a thing most wonderful’. These lines specifically:

It is most wonderful to know
His love for me so free and sure;
But ’tis more wonderful to see
My love for Him so faint and poor

Not many conclusions, more indicative of my recent state of mind than anything.

And a blog is always incomplete without a pretty picture.

****

deck the halls

It is December now and we have decked the halls with... boxes. Actually during the last month the hall has decked itself with filled boxes, the lounge with empty boxes waiting to be filled and things in boxes waiting to be labelled.

The sign outside the house says ‘let’. We are still waiting to move and a number of things beyond control have slowed down the buying of a place completely of our own, for the very first time.

There have been plenty of prayers of the ‘God are You deaf?’ variety. Doesn’t He know that if this one will just get answered snappish we can move ON? That we have been in limbo for nearly three years and that hanging on isn’t much fun any more.

Even defective senses can sometimes lead to an unexpected opening.

This week we were at a training session for something at church and there was one of those ‘crowdbreaker’ moments to make us talk to someone we didn’t know (cue introvert awkwardness.) 

We had to think of a number that was important to us to share and explain to the unknown person. As usual in these circumstances due to an early morning weekend start (decreased brain function) and a lack of thinking time, at the ‘go’ instruction I was still fumbling for a number and an intelligent reason. I quickly decided on 20 the date of my mother’s birthday.

I didn’t know the lady I spoke to but I recognised her as the person who had prayed for me in a healing service a few weeks before. She had picked up on a physical manifestation of something that has been stirred up emotionally again of late. We got chatting and it turns out that 20 was a gateway for us both to open up about bereavement.

Even clutching at straws can open up meaningful dialogue.

And I’m continually thankful that God delights in surprising us when we least expect it.

Linking up with Ruth & Sabrina at #LettersTo (at Sabrina's place this week)

#3goodthings [15 September 2013]

In honesty I find some aspects of the summer months on social media difficult, especially seeing those who only appear at these times because they have exotic holiday photos to share (and really how do they have the budget to take adult children with them too?)

Needless to say this now launches straight into pot-kettle-black because a bumper week for #3goodthings is based mainly round a few days holiday in Scotland, including landscape, the Scotsman's family history, local social history and some cake.. #grateful


9 Sep

afternoon tea at cloud 23 (a very late birthdays celebration)
watching the panoramic views while eating
seeing another rainbow


++++


10 Sep (in Scotland)

colourful architecture in Kirkudbright (a town of artist studios and a Scottish St Ives)
Wigtown, place of fifteen second hand book shops (and not much else), home to the Wigtown Book Festival and dwelling of the Scotsman's shoemaking ancestors

stones at Cairn Holy


++++


11 Sep (in Scotland)

driving past loads of fields of cattle and sheep and finally finding a whole family of 'belties' in a field by themselves (a breed local to Dumfries and Galloway only)

rain on the roof of the Leadhills Miners Library making the roof shine (it is the oldest subscription library in Britain, established in 1741 by a group of local Lead Miners)

Rab, the genial hotel owner and friend you never knew you had


++++


12 Sep (Leadhills, in Scotland)
being able to look inside the beautifully renovated cottage that used to belong to the Scotsman's grandfather (we happened to follow the new owner down the street)

sitting in the peaceful and beautiful cemetery at Leadhills, in untypical weather

exploring the site of an abandoned Lead Mine outside the Leadhills where many of The Scotsman’s ancestors once worked

++++

13 Sep (in Scotland)

a walk to another abandoned Lead Mine at Woodhead where more of The Scotsman’s ancestors once worked

totally unspoiled landscape on the walk with beautiful natural colours 

seeing an artisan stone mason at work restoring headstones in a churchyard

++++

14 Sep (in Scotland)

chance to take reflective water photos in Douglas

meeting ‘Jean’ who was at school with The Scotsman's father, her body is full of stents but her mind is sharp as a tack

and leaving Leadhills knowing we will return soon

270 gifts

stranger at the stones

When on holiday if we are driving with no time constraints and something looks interesting on the map we like to pull off the road and investigate. Cairn Holy caught our eye last week whilst in Dumfries and Galloway (Scotland.) Cairn Holy is the site of two Neolithic burial chambers situated on a hillside overlooking Wigtown Bay, a short drive up an unmade single track road.

I spent time lining up artistic shots with the camera, to frame the view with the bay in the background, lying on the grass, trying to avoid the plentifully scattered sheep poo, the wee timorous beasties (midges) and other flying insects. 

While we read the information on the display board, taking in the details on age and purpose of the stones, another man had noiselessly parked up and joined us in the enclosure. As we were about to continue up the hill to investigate the second cairn he approached us and asked a question ‘What do you perceive?’  

All those lessons about how much do you engage with strangers flooded in at once. But we quickly realised he was an earnest sort of facially hirsute fellow, armed with nothing more threatening than a notebook and pencil, so we stuck with him. Although his delivery was a little irritating and pendantic and he used those types of closed questions designed to make the answerer look a bit dim if they get it wrong (a teacher that likes to show off his knowledge), he actually had really interesting perceptions to share. This is the short-winded version.

If you stand directly in front of and facing the tomb on a particularly spot of grass that is well worn, you will see the sun set as follows on these days:

winter solstice – sun sets at the point of the stone on the far left

summer solstice – sun sets at the point of the stone on the far right

on the days of the equinox and those days only - sun sets exactly in the centre of the middle two stones

None of this information was available on the tourist display board nor does it seem to be readily available on websites. The tangible sense of history with the landscape was quite moving. That people could have stood on the spot we did for thousands of years and watched the same sun setting had brought an extra dimension to the place, because of an encounter with bearded bloke unknown.

Once we had returned from investigating the second cairn the stranger had disappeared down the road, gone as quickly as he had suddenly materialised.

more here on cairn holy

damselfly, dragonfly, damselfly, dragonfly (a letter to tuck in your pocket)

One of the best things about being out and about in the British countryside in sunshine in the late summer is the dragonflies. They flit and dart, and mostly their sheer, luminescent wings glint a thousand times more beautifully in the sunlight. As for some of those species that don’t possess the natural irridescent beauty the wonder is seen in their size, like miniature bi-planes dancing in their solo aeronautical displays. 

And are most are too fidgety to be photographed or identified.

Yesterday I was watching a blue-hued specimen and trying vainly to capture an image with the camera. For one shot the lens and insect were aligned but because of the creature’s speed its definition still merged with the blurred background. With the help of filters this was the best I could muster:

Many of us know relationships where the other person wants to rescue us, fix us and stealthily impose their opinion on us. For want of a better expression (and for all its potential sexist connotations) to them we are a damsel in distress. And for the most part if the circumstances or atmosphere becomes too difficult we can set boundaries and keep our distance. But if that person is a close relation for whom you care desperately if something were to happen to them, boundary setting is not quite so straight forward. Just difficult, messy and painful.

I don’t know what the technical difference is between a dragonfly and a damselfly and the ones I have seen have never kept still enough to co-operate with species identification. The cryptic twitter quote I made was something of a way to try and align these insects with thinking about people in our lives who are rescuers and do this because they know no other way and are driven by a strong need to avoid fixing themselves.

Whether or not the tweet made sense to anyone else is beside the point, because that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. The One who created us and the dragon/damselflies knows and understands. 

As if to emphasise it all I have seen a number of dragonflies elsewhere since yesterday, on the button tin as I was doing some clothes repairs last night

and again this morning on a cover photo on someone’s facebook profile.

If that is God’s way of saying ‘I get you’ that is enough for me.

And it is what I want to keep on the letter in my pocket, next to my heart.

Linking up with Ruth & Sabrina at #LettersTo (at Ruth's place this week)