Reflection
No-one tells bees to make a bee-line for a thistle. They just ‘know’ where to go.
With most volunteers barred (why?) from working in the countryside, there are plenty of thistles around this summer. A few thistles in a nature reserve are a good thing: to attract pollinators. But they can take over a site. Normally, by this stage of the season, working-parties would have been removing excess thistles before they can seed.
Julian, like many of her contemporaries, takes it for granted that we humans naturally gravitate towards God: our Maker, and the big, round, bountiful thistle-head of our lives. When we make mistakes, as we all do, it is generally not by opting for evil, but because we go for second-best (something other than God) rather than The Best.
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God, my God, for You I long:
I thirst for You, I pine for You
like a dried-up weary land.
Psalm 63:1
It is easier for us to come to know God than to know ourselves: our being is set so deep in God, ever in safe-keeping, that we cannot understand ourselves until we know God … Nevertheless, I saw that we have an instinct to be whole, and that teaches us to look in the right place: in God.
(Julian of Norwich, ‘A Revelation of Love’ Chapter 56)
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Prayer
Teach me, Master,
to look beyond the beautiful things you make in this world,
and set my sights on You,
the Source, the Way, the End.
Amen
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Action
Rhythmic exercise, such as push-ups against the furniture mentioned in a previous blog, can be a good time to pray by simply repeating the name of Jesus – or ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ or ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner’. You may find that during a session the prayer changes to fewer or more words, as the Spirit moves you.
Share this reflection here.
A reflection from Jennifer Brooker ObJN, who has been a frequent visitor of Sarum College. She has a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford and master’s degree in theology awarded by Durham University.
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