25th. July 2020. Daily Devotion

22nd July 2020                                               A Candle in the Window                                   Peter Millar

Words to encourage us in tough times.                ionacottage@hotmail.com

Promise this world your love, for better or worse:

These words were written by Lynn Ungar in March of this year. In these weeks as some countries move out of a strict lockdown and as other countries move into further lockdowns, they remain encouraging words. Lynn entitled her poem, ‘Pandemic.’

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Centre down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love –
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live. Lynn Ungar. 11th March 2020.

*** Take heed, dear friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us new life.

(Words from the handbook ‘Advices and Queries’ from the Society of Friends (Quakers) Yearly meeting.) ***

The flowering that never ceases:

Perhaps in these last four months like me you’ve realised the importance of relationships of care and kindness more than ever before. I have a wonderful friend who is very unwell with cancer. I remember when she first told me. She knew the prognosis was not good. But then without evasion she went on, as is her way, with great concern to ask about me: “How are you getting on? How are the Refugees you are working with? When I came off the phone I was moved – moved most of all by how in the face of a diagnosis we all fear of a terminal illness, her goodness just seemed to be carrying on undiminished. As we cannot visit her, her friends put together a CD to celebrate her birthday. Her friends sang songs or played instruments and shared messages of encouragement. I chose to read a short poem by Kabir. My friend is a great gardener and she loves nothing more than to plant and watch flowers grow and bloom. But at the moment that is something she is not able to do, so this is the poem I read –

Dear friend, you don’t need to go outside your house to see flowers,
My friend, don’t worry about that excursion, for inside your body there are flowers,
And one flower has a thousand petals – that will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty Inside the body and out of it

Before gardens and after gardens.

That was it you see: The thousand petals, the flowering that never ceases. That was what I wanted to say to her on this CD. It was this: you have such a gift of friendship – every time you met with me you made me feel that I was the most special person in your life; And I am sure every one of your friends would say exactly the same. That is the gift of a generous heart. Not something turned on and then off but the gift of a generous heart, before the garden, in the garden and after gardens.
(from a broadcast reflection given on July 16th by the Revd Richard Carter.)

The soaring condors:
In the last few weeks, I have mentioned ravens and magpies and now we come to condors. If you are heavy and travel a long way to find dinner, it’s best not to get in a flap that just wastes energy. The Andean condor has perfected the art of soaring aloft. One bird has been recorded flying continuously for five hours, covering 107 miles without flapping. The 15kg birds, whose wingspan can be up to 10 feet, flapped for only 1.3 per cent of the time they spent aloft, mostly during take-off. Scientists have predicted that even in winter – when soaring conditions are poor, Andean condors may flap no more than three seconds per mile. And by the way, the fastest flappers are hummingbirds, at up to 80 flaps a second!

*** Enjoy the earth gently, enjoy the earth gently; for if the earth is spoiled it cannot be repaired. Enjoy the earth gently *** (Part of a Yoruba poem from West Africa)

Lord, you are the source of all life, and because of Your light, we see the light. Psalm 36:9