By the bins at the back of the boiler is perhaps an area of the garden less often visited by our guests, and yet in this often-overlooked corner of the grounds, today I was greeted by a glorious sea of aconites, their delicate yellow flowers bathing in the winter sunshine. Regardless of whether anyone was there to see them and appreciate them, they bloom, providing a welcome touch of colour in what at this time of year appears to be a rather bleak and bare landscape. If they were not there they might not be missed, but their presence brightens the less ornamental parts of the garden.
Our readings in chapel last week have spoken of humility and service as the qualities most highly regarded in Gods world order. As I enjoyed these beautiful delicate flowers, flourishing in this back corner of the Bield, it led me to reflect on my life, and areas that I may have overlook, a painful memory, a friendship neglected, a lost prayer rhythm… Things which few would notice I had left unattended, and yet perhaps it is these hidden corners of my life, my own inner life, and those small often unnoticed things where my focus needs to be, for it is here that I find myself in direct communion with God.
What I am beginning to realise is that It's not that the big monumental designs and achievements are not important, but more that every small and hidden thing is significant, in becoming more fully ourselves as we seek to walk closer with God.
Small Things
It usually starts taking shape from one word reveals itself in one smile sometimes in the blue glint of eyeglasses in a trampled daisy in a splash of light on a path in quivering carrot leaves in a bunch of parsley It comes from laundry hung on a balcony from hands thrust into dough It seeps through closed eyelids as through the prison wall of things of objects of faces of landscapes It’s when you slice bread when you pour out some tea It comes from a broom from a shopping bag from peeling new potatoes from a drop of blood from the prick of a needle when making panties for a child or sewing a button on a husband’s burial shirt It comes out of toil out of care out of immense fatigue in the evening our of a tear wiped away out of a prayer broken off in mid-word by sleep
It’s not from the grand but from every tiny thing that it grows enormous as if Someone was building Eternity as a swallow its nest out of clumps of moments
by Anna Kamieńska
Liz
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