Advent Reflections

DSCF8721, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

For the second year, our church has produced a book of relections for Advent. Church members were given a Bible passage and asked to reflect and write their thoughts on it. You can read the complete booklet here.
I had the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24:43) and mine took the form of a meditation:

Weeds cover the churchyard
Moss and lichen blur the tidy sharp lines of old gravestones
Untidiness, a Hindrance? Protection? Comfort?
Green softening the old outlines.

Guy ropes snaking across the paving stones - a barrier or a support?
Bright tension and opportunity, challenging our moral tidiness
The tents of the ungodly are where? freedom? church? money?
Those with little, seeing riches on every side.

First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear;
And the fruitful ears to store -
But in the fire the tares to cast;

Thank God we are not the final judges
help us to live with untidyness,
but always growing into that fruitfulness.

Mutterings 27th November

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Program :: Computer
2. Business :: Card
3. Nerve :: Some
4. Pipes :: Water
5. Man :: Woman
6. System :: Model
7. Roses :: Picardy
8. Gong :: Cymbal
9. Heartfelt :: Emotion
10. Strolling :: Promenade

La Palma

DSCF8594, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

As you may have gathered ,we've spent a week in the Canaries - on La Palma - with InnTravel, this time self catering and one base rather than walking between hotels.We did some walking but mostly sightseeing - this picture is in the Caldera de Taburiente in the crater of one of the many volcanoes on the island. The set of pictures I took over the week is on flickr

Mutterings - 20th November

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Crushed :: Flat
2. Thanks :: for the memory
3. Steam :: Engine
4. Bulletin :: Parish
5. Budget :: Holiday
6. Value :: for Money
7. Aquarium :: Sea
8. Logo :: Attention
9. Information :: Age
10. Lend :: Library

Teaser Tuesday - 15 November

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

It was late and I thought he wasn't there. Then I saw a man come out and walk away.

From our book group book of the month - The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney.

View from the top

to the left, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

This morning we drove (well I did the driving!) over the top of La Palma and stopped at the top to take a few photos, this is from the Mirador de los Andenes at around 2000m the dome of the William herschel Observatory (well one of the domes) is just visible.

Mutterings - 13 November

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Help :: Panic
2. Close :: Glenn
3. Start over :: Begin
4. Dirt :: Track
5. Kilometer :: Millimeter
6. Speedy :: Gonzales
7. Shop :: Betray
8. Trumpet :: Major - a Thomas Hardy novel though I've never read it!
9. Dog :: Affection
10. Canoe :: Capsize

The binary moment

11-11-11-11-11-11, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

As suggested here - this is a photo I took today 11-11-11 at 11:11:11, as you can see I was airborne!

Teaser Tuesday - 8th November

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The garden featured groups of flowing, asymmetrical flower-beds, winding walks and an axial view leading to a Temple of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, all planted 'with a poet's feeling and a painter's eye'. Upon his return from France that autumn, the Earl was said to have been 'disgusted' by the garden's faded state, comparing it unfavourably with the year-round elegance of formal gardens (as live an issue today as it was then, with proponents still on both sides).

Probably a last teaser from Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours, a gentle placid book but still with lots of interest even for a non-gardener!

Mutterings 6th November

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Distress :: Anguish
2. White lie :: Evasion
3. Costume :: Ball
4. Stampede :: Wild Animal
5. Unappealing :: Distasteful
6. Idiot :: Fool
7. Correction :: Facility
8. Resignation :: Abandonment
9. Insipid :: Taste
10. Celebration :: Birthday

Teaser Tuesday - 1st November

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

What must it be like to sleep on the wing, so trusting in the cushion of air to hold you up; so perfectly in your element that you are everywhere at home, with no fear of getting lost, no dread of arrival or pang of departure? Not like Leland, compulsively, obsessvely, restlessly searching, but sublimely free, sipping from the rain clouds, dining on the plankton of the skies.

Another teaser from Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours - here she's talking about the swift - an interesting coincidence - and Leland was an early book colllector (and collector of ex-monasteries under Henry VIII). I'm afraid this is a little late for Tuesday....