#adventapertures2025: day 23

Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and let your angels protect those who sleep. Tend the sick. Refresh the weary. Sustain the dying. Calm the suffering. Pity the distressed. We ask this for the sake of your love. St. Augustine So the Wise-Ones were directed from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Continue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 23”

#adventapertures2025: day 20

Sometimes, when we’re on a long drive, and we’ve talked enough and listened to enough music and stopped twice, once to eat, once to see the view, we fall into this rhythm of silence. It swings back and forth between us like a rope over a lake. Maybe it’s what we don’t say that savesContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 20”

#adventapertures2025: Sunday 3

‘It was said of Rabbi Simcha Bunim that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha’olam – “For my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote: V’anokhi afar v’aefer – “I am but dust and ashes.”  He would take out each slip ofContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: Sunday 3”

#adventapertures2025: day 6

Seeing is not the work of the eyes alone… Deprived of the privilege of the eyes [the blind person] measures at the same time his loss and his gain. Most of all, he continues to live and to experience with an irresistible force the wonderful mutual exchange that takes place between the inner and theContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 6”

day 18: for planet

Earth teach me stillnessas the grasses are stilled with light.Earth teach me sufferingas old stones suffer with memory.Earth teach me humilityas blossoms are humble with beginning.Earth Teach me caringas the mother who secures her young.Earth teach me courageas the tree which stands alone.Earth teach me limitationas the ant which crawls on the ground.Earth teach meContinue reading “day 18: for planet”

k’s big bday gratitude: one year (and a bit) on

Last week I finished writing all my thank you cards, notes and letters to those who donated to the fundraising campaign I launched as part of my ‘Big Birthday’ celebrations.  To my utter amazement, we managed to raise over £950.00 for the charity Creative Response which has been such a crucial lifeline for me sinceContinue reading “k’s big bday gratitude: one year (and a bit) on”

whole: day 20

Then is it true that you also need us?… … Look: I am  giving it to you, this fragment; but how, In your completeness, could you need it? from ‘then is it true’, Helen Tookey Spirit may not always bring my seeingdarkly into the light; sometimes Spirit encourages me to see even more darkly intoContinue reading “whole: day 20”

whole: day 19

There is an elemental love in the universe by which name we know each other and encourage ourselves to live. There is a silver river that connects everything from which some part of us never leaves. There is a mercy making its way up through the ocean of the earth to the shores of ourContinue reading “whole: day 19”

Whole: day 18

Every breath is a resurrection. Gregory Orr (from “Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved”) I am known by God.   I am being known by God.   I am knowing me with God.   I am knowing God with God. Seeingdarkly and knowingdarkly is not a one way street.  It isContinue reading “Whole: day 18”

whole: day 17

God loves flesh and blood, no matter what kind of shape it is in.  Whether you are sick or well, lovely or irregular, there comes a time when it is vitally important to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, “Here I am.  This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped.  IContinue reading “whole: day 17”