by Christine Sine
Welcome to St Brendan’s Day. He is one of my favourite Celtic saints. Perhaps it is because I spent 12 years of my life living on a ship. Or maybe I just love adventurers. Whatever the reason, I find him inspiring and it is not just his incredible journey. His beautiful prayer, which seems to express his philosophy of life also contributes to that. Here are the first few lines:
Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.
This last week has been another intense garden week for me, motivated by the record breaking temperatures we needed to plan for this weekend. It is a tremendous joy to watch the flowers bloom and the seedlings sprout and grow. Getting my hands in the dirt rejuvenates my soul. Photography is another creative art that inspires and refreshes me. I particularly love using the photos I take as a focus for reflection and this last week I contributed two posts with such reflections. My Meditation Monday: When the Wires Get in the Way, Learn From Them is a reflection on the distracting and sometimes ugly cables and wires that sometimes destroy the beauty of a photo. On Thursday I contributed Still Waters: Reflections in the Lake a short reflection and prayer that it gave birth to.
Lilly Lewin’s Freerange Friday: Poems from a Thinplace comes to us from the island of Iona where she is at present. This is a place of refreshment, inspiration and sacredness for her as it is also for myself. I love her poem and the invitation to “Cross the threshold into a thin place.” We all need thin places in our lives. Place of quiet and renewal that refresh our souls.
One thing I love about our Godspace authors is that they constantly teach me new things. This week David Pott and Catherine Knights wrote about Rogation Sunday. Their post Reviving Rogationtide is a fascinating read not only of information but also of interesting practices to combine with the celebration.
This week we celebrate Ascension Day. This is not a celebration I grew up with but every year I enjoy learning more and adding to our resource list. This year I learned that in Sweden people go into the woods very early in the morning to hear the birds at sunrise. It is said to be good luck if a cuckoo is heard from the east or west. In Indonesia, in spite of the fact that 80% of the population are Muslim, Ascension Day is a public holiday, a day to go to church for Christians, a day to rest and enjoy life for Muslims. I love that this is a day not just to celebrate Jesus ascent into heaven but also celebrate the new creation that his ascent brought into being. I love to focus on this aspect which seems particularly important for those of us who are concerned about sustainability and preservation of God’s good creation.
This season between Easter and Pentecost is full of celebrations that we are encouraged to give attention to. Pentecost itself is not far away. It falls on May 28th this year and we have just updated our resource list. We work hard to provide resources from many different countries so if you have resources you would like to add please let us know.
Many blessings on you this week.
I sit,
Encircled by God’s love,
Embraced by God’s presence,
Filled with God’s light.
I sit,
Savouring the wonder,
We are made from the soil,
Your filled with divine life.
I sit,
Filled with awe.
God is everywhere
God is within me.
(c) Christine Sine 2023