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Advent- Living in the in-between times

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I’ve just been stopped still, drawn in by the picture in front of me.    It’s framed perfectly, though not on any wall.    In fact, I’m outside and the frame is purely of my own making.    In my mind’s eye, as I’m walking outside in the fresh air of a crisp, dry November day in Dublin.    I’m stopped still and savouring the beauty of three trees in transition.  Two are dressed for Autumn, and one has shed its leaves in readiness for winter. Their beauty arrests me, and I stop to allow my senses drink it in.  In fear of forgetting it in my mind, I capture it on my phone.   The picture before me speaks of change present, as well as of change yet to come.  There is more to this than just the beauty of the picture of the in-between time, as autumn moves to winter.  It’s personal.  Could it be a portent of what’s to come, or maybe just a picture of the present?    I’m walking in the grounds of a Dublin hospital.   In a season of waiting.   An in-between time.   I’m an inpatient, wai
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Christmas on the Backfoot

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On the backfoot I begin   Denying self and carrying cross  I find my feet upon the path again  Following  Lord lead on  . . . I have never been so unready for Christmas.   I have never been so calm about being on the backfoot.  Finding a different way  to work and different work at hand  due to sicknesses at home and the season's different opportunities.  Could it be that I might be able to lay down my favoured work  and find my Lord in the task at hand?  I’m just following  Lord lead on. 
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Lord of Summer Solstice

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Living in the full light of day The longest day is here.  The daylight drawn out to its fullest stretch.  The 21 June marks the Summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.  This year, in Ireland, it follows a few weeks of what has actually felt like summer.  Something we learn not to take for granted!  Sun drenched days and longer evenings bring us outdoors to soak it all in.  Such days are good… maybe even glorious.  When the smiling summer shines on the festival of love celebrated at a wedding, it may even at times feel other worldly.  If not too good to be true, then life as it should be, at its height.   At the summer solstice the sun is at its highest point in the sky.  The festivals in ancient Ireland marked this by lighting fires on high hills, which symbolised the sun.  Foods were cooked over hot flames and were often sun coloured and round, like lemons, corn or sweet potatoes.  There were also wheels of fire rolled down hills, just as the sun would begin its descent again from
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Lord of Summer Fires

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A blog on Bealtaine / May Day  to fire your faith  Seems a strange season to be starting fires.  The beginning of May, or Bealtaine in Irish, is greeted with the ancient Celtic festival of the same name. The rites and rituals to greet the start of summer include burning fires, symbolic of the return of the sun in the brighter half of the year.  People joined their cattle in walking through such fires to protect them from evils and bad luck for the season ahead.  Ashes from the fire were sprinkled on the crops to keep them from harm.   To me this feels somewhat strange on a number of levels.  Yes to the burning of fires in the darker end of the year, to brighten the darkening sense of doom and to protect from the evils and ills that would greet the winter ahead.  What need of these in summer’s brightness? More fitting the flowery displays that were crafted, with fiery yellow colours of primrose and gorse thought to be especially powerful, in protecting against any fairies with ill inten
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Patrick's Hope at World's End

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A steady faith in shape shifting times  It’s the end of the world as we know it (and it feels far from the fine that REM promised in their song). The world in which we live today seems to be a compound of complex crises, which are closing in around us. The cost of living crisis.  The housing crisis.  The climate crisis.  If we add to this the devastation of the war in Ukraine and the earthquake in Turkey and Syria it brings an apocalyptic feel.  The threatening world in which we live seems to be approaching the end. Culturally in recent years there have been a number of rapid changes which may make us feel like the ground is shifting under our feet.  Where once the Christian worldview offered the fabric and foundations by which we might understand ourselves, now there is a newfound freedom and fluidity which means we understand ourselves most fully by looking deep within our own hopes and desires. Meaning is to be found inside rather than from any outside source.  For at least some thi
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Lord of Spring

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A devotional blog for Bridget’s day on 1 February   It comes early. The first signs of spring greet us with surprise. The breakthrough of snowdrops, their heads bowed in quiet worship. The first sight and sound of young lambs in the fields, dancing for joy. The assurance that life breaks winter’s bleakness. The light half of the year has begun.  This is what the first days of February bring us. It marks the quarter day. Half way between winter solstice and spring equinox. A time when the Celts of old celebrated Imbolc, which is old Irish for, ‘in the belly’. A time when sheep were about to lamb, their bellies full of life. It welcomed the beginning of the light half of the year.  This year it brings a much welcomed early bank holiday in Ireland on the feast of St Brigid, which remembers Brigid of Kildare who lived around 450-523.  She is associated with protection and promise of life, health and well-being and even warding off evil. The timing is no accident, as it matches spring’
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Lord of the Solstice.

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The fireworks surprised us.  The noise drew us outside to see the explosion of light over our city, brightening this winter night.  I was disoriented.  My mind was searching through the times of year when fireworks are expected, whilst remembering it was nearly Christmas, and failing to reconcile the two.  Further research revealed this was the Winter Firedance festival, organised by the City Council to celebrate the Winter Solstice.  Of course, it was 21 December.  The shortest day of the year.  The longest night of the year.  No better time for fireworks to brighten the midwinter mood.   The darkness was to be resisted.   Or maybe there is some grace we might receive from this dark day? Over the past year I have become more conscious of how this day was celebrated long ago.  Over seven thousand years ago the first farmers here saw this day as a major turning point in their year. It marked the beginning of longer days and a new cycle of growth, and the hope of food and feasting.  Toda
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