Ash Wednesday

26th February 2020

Ash Wednesday

One of the prayers for this morning - "let us turn to him with our whole heart."
What does it mean?
Our whole heart, no room for anything else, anyone else.
It's a hard call, not easy to attain, but therein lies the happiness of the Christian.
Ash Wednesday starts that time when we try to turn more to our God.
We are asked to think about three things in particular:
Prayer
Fasting
Almsgiving
My musings are just that. I hope they help or at least make you think:
Time is a precious gift to us.

Let us make time for prayer, to take some quiet moments just conversing with Our Lord.
Let us pray better, taking more care to prepare and maybe have a book with us or the Gospels, for when our imagination wants to capture us and distract us.
Let us remember during the day a particular person or intention to pray for.
In the Gospel ( Matt 6) Jesus says,
" But when you pray, go to your private room and when  you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you." Sometimes, I feel that the prayer, which gives so much peace, is the reward itself.

Let us take the time to think about our fasting.
Yes, it can be about food and some of it should be, especially today, but there are so many more ways in which we can fast ( deny ourselves).
What about fasting from tv so that we have time for others.
A dear friend who is dead now used to choose a person who he found it more difficult to get on with and spend his lent doing things for that person, giving his time and energy . At least two lents were devoted to his mother. She ended up feeling well blessed with a devoted son who loved her dearly.
What about a day for each member of the family when we pray more for that person and also contact them.
Remember our time is a precious gift to us, if we give it to others for God, it becomes even more so.
What about running a prayer group with some friends throughout lent.
There are lots of ways we can fast. But whatever way we choose, let us do it cheerfully and without show,   " and your Father who sees all that is done in secret..."
You probably have more ideas.
Please share them with us.

Let us take time to think of Almsgiving:
Let us look at where we can help. Who needs our assistance.It needn't be a big donation but it should be done with love.
It could be there is a family near who are struggling and could do with some extra food for the children.
Or maybe a friend needs a copy of the Gospels and you can buy it for them.
It could also be some money that you have collected from your fasting in other areas that you send now to those in need.

Pope Benedict:
" Dear friends , on this lenten journey let us be careful to accept Christ's invitation to follow him more decisively and consistently, renewing the grace and commitments of our own baptism, to cast off the former person within us and put on Christ, in order to arrive at Easter renewed and be able to say, with St Paul: I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."

Let us make a good Lenten journey  close to Jesus.

Mid Morning Walk With Uncle

This poem was inspired by a couple of hours spent with my Uncle going for a walk in North London.


Mid Morning Walk With Uncle

To the right or to the left,
New steps to take.
This way or that -go left.
A robin, friendly reminder, joins us,
Going before with joyous song.
We stop, admire the rich beauty -
A Japanese Red Dragon Plant,
Exotic,  glorious in Autumn sun .
But don't interrupt the story.

We walk on, uphill,  breathless
Slow our pace,
Enjoy sky - blue, clear
In still air,
words struggling to escape
And  reaching  the top, stop
Only for a moment,
To quiet the pulse,
But don't interrupt the story.

How far shall we go?
We'll see now, just keep going,
Maybe we'll reach the village.
All topics keep the
Conversation - the tale-  fresh:
The house with the huge gated driveway
Double fronted and double garage -
Double your money.
But don't interrupt the story.

The ruin of a Church left forlorn,
In the graveyard,
Seems right somehow.
Centuries of ordinary life
Witnessed by these stones-
We imagine ancestors.
The chap who bought four burial plots -
Just to make sure.
But don't interrupt the story.

At last we reach our goal-
The village high street.
Let's stop for a bit before we head back.
The pub or a cafe.
No, not Costa, not Costa...
Ahhh,  There, a sweet little place,
Hidden from view,
Cappucino £1,20.
Yes, that'll  do,
But Don't interrupt the story.

China 1

 I am going to try and blog about our ( my two sister's and my Mother's) journey to China.
I did write about it at the time but unfortunately a lot of the interesting personal stuff is lost. But here, I'll give it a go. This is for you guys, Mum, Kay and Di , oh and you Dad too, of course - as I promised:

 Part 1

19th March 2007.

Everything packed , much more than I need in fact and I arrive at Mum's at 9.30.p.m. on the Sunday evening, relieved to be there safely the night before flying off to China.  Di, Mum, Dad and myself ponder the great adventure in front of us. As it's a Sunday Elaine is also there drinking tea and enjoying the chat.  I am looking forward excitedly to this special holiday with my two sisters and mum.

Looking at our luggage, huge suitcases bursting at the seams you'd be forgiven for thinking that we were going for three months or more, but no, it's just a couple of weeks.

So the next evening we arrive at the airport, get confused about where we are supposed to be and wait around chattering on about the mighty sights we will see. What fun we will have. We giggle like school girls, mum being the biggest culprit.

The flight is long and I sleep for a good while but about  12.40 a.m. (English Time) I am wide awake and discover we're only a few hours away from Beijing. It's 8.30 in the morning  ( big time difference) and the sun is shining.

We are so excited and when we look out of the window we see that we are flying over the most glorious mountains.  We all go to the toilet .

Morning has come too early and they bring breakfast. We're not ready for breakfast. after all, to us it's the middle of the night (1.0 a.m !!!! for goodness sake and dinner was only 6.30.p.m.)
Di and Kay, still sleepy after travelling through time zones, but where food is concerned we are not known to say no. We make a good effort at eating breakfast - you never know when the next meal might be and it looks as if we'll be out of routine with dinner etc etc .
We haven't long finished breakfast when we start the descent into Beijing.





Just a very small section of the enormous city of Beijing







The view from above is amazing - a concrete planet of high rise buildings. Beijing City, we discover is at least the size of  the county of Kent and  makes London ( Greater London, that is ) seem so teeny.
The population of London being 8 million, Beijing has 11.5 million. Not all of areas of Beijing are as crowded as London but the centre seems much  more dense with people .

And when we travel long hours to the hotel on that first day we  wonder how big it is with it's many roads of six lanes of traffic and huge skyscrapers wherever you look.

We are given a tour guide, who, for the sake of us English folk calls himself Mike. His accent  is tinted with a collection of other languages but mainly American. He is helpful and enthusiastic and tells us a bit about the History of Beijing.   It is one of the four ancient cities of China along with Xian, Luoyang and Nanjing.. It is known as the cradle of humanity with Peking man living here 700,000 years ago.  

Tokaido Road

26th May 2020


Five Years Ago. 

26th May 2015

Hello all my lovely followers.
Just taking a rest from all the packing and cleaning and sorting and dumping and worrying that I've been manically steeped in this last week or so. Soon we are to move, days now.
In the meantime,  let me tell you about a wonderful evening we had last Saturday at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury.
We went along with friends to a modern day opera, yes, you read that right, an opera. Not normally my thing - all those soprano voices singing in a language I don't understand.
But this was nothing like that. We were prepared for it by having a presentation evening at Beach Creative to tell us about this unique performance. The inspiration for the production was The Tokaido Road in Japan, or rather a set of prints by Hiroshige, an artist who did fifty three wood block paintings of the stations on the road.
Nancy Gaffield, a poet became inspired by the prints she discovered when on a visit to Japan and wrote poems in response to the pictures. ( Tokaido Road by Nancy Gaffield, in case you're interested.)
Putting these two elements together and joining with musicians and other creative people an opera was written.
What a wonderful experience it was, especially as we knew some of the history.
Add to that the meeting of friends and a glass of wine .... well you get the idea...
This is my response to it:

 Tokaido Road

We step into the picture,
From Nihonbashi we accompany Hiro,
Along Tokaido Road.
A road from our dreams.
We cross the bridge.,
Slowly, serenely, absorbed in the scene.
Enchanted, enraptured, we listen to music,
as it  resonates, reverberates,
In our subconscious  recesses,
a reeling rhythm of life.
Music brings joy and pain
Freedom and confinement,
Throwing us onto the way of the road.
Images present themselves,
Without being asked,
A waterfall, windy roads,
Animals  scurrying, birds in flight.
Kites held by anonymous hands,
Escape.
Trees sway gently over the banks of,
The river.
The river that divides,
With fingers that spread across the plain,
That takes to itself,
That has it's story to tell.

We,  in monotonous pilgrimage,
Put one foot in front of another,
Encounter steep slopes,
And mountain pines.
At the summit,
cherry blossom fills aching lungs,
In the heat of the day.
As travelers we continue
On the way,
With Hiro,
But long for release.
The path , at times impossible,
Against us,
Wind , rain, umbrellas taking on new form.
We continue with Hiro,
To the end.
And in the end the mystery,
We are not the same,
We, like Hiro,
Are changed.