Apologies for the many words used here – sift your way through for any you find useful. Steve and I were just back from a week in the Southern Lakes and this morning was a series of snapshots from our visit to Cartmel Priory, prayers from a new David Adam book from there – ‘Fire from the north’ – The life of St Cuthbert’, and visits to Blackwell – and Arts and Crafts house and John Ruskin’s house Brantwood.

We began with a prayer from David Adam:

Lord, let not the clouds hide your Glory.
Glory at the heart of Creation
Glory at the centre of the Universe
Glory in the deepest depths of matter
Glory in each of the elements
Glory in each strand of the web of life
Glory in each connection, though it be
As thin as gossamer thread
Or thick as a rope of iron.
Glory in the very depth of our being.
Lord, let not the clouds hide your Glory.
You are there waiting to be revealed.
Glory in each object and each creature
Glory in each life and every encounter
Glory in our past and waiting in our future.
Make us sensitive to your presence and your call.
Lord, let not the clouds hide your Glory.

This was followed by reflection on our lack of seeing and words from Ruskin:

Sculptor of landscapes
Soft wind shapes the hardest stone.
What need of iron tools?
Quietness and time prevail
As cold hearts to gentleness.

Steve wrote about the huge window in Cartmel Priory and read to us:

Light flooding in a traditionally dark place, light often obscured by thickly, dustily stained glass – released, light without the accretion of ages, light without the mediating interpretation of tradition, light transforming, light allowing fractured images of the outside in, pure light without colour, glassy, translucent, semi-transparent, diaphanous, gossamer thin strands of light, opaquely revealing. Light.

We then walked with the following words and the task to gaze on beauty that is necessary and to find God in it:

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and to tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.
To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion – all In one.

Unto this last.
As the art of life is learned
It will be found at last
that all lovely things are also necessary
the wild flowers by the wayside
as well as the tended corn
and the wild birds and creatures of the forest
as well as the tended cattle;
because man doth not live by bread only
but also by the desert manna;
by every wondrous word and unknowable work of God.
Happy in that he knew them not
nor did his fathers know
and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite
the amazement of his existence.                                                          John Ruskin.

Jesus says:
“I am the light that is over all. I am the All. The All came forth out of me. And to me the All has come.”
“Split a piece of wood — I am there.
Lift the stone, and you will find me there. The Gospel of Thomas

Back to the bandstand to pray for the nation and for those we knew who need Jesus now using more words from David Adam:

Lighten our darkness
We beseech you O Lord.

Lord, open our eyes
That we may see your Glory.

Lord, open our ears
That we may hear your call.

Lord, open our minds
That we may know your mysteries.

Lord, open our hearts
That they may vibrate with your love.

Lord, make us alert to you
That we may discover your presence.

Lord, make us sensitive to you
That we may learn your purpose.

Lighten our darkness
We beseech you, O Lord.

Using an image exhibited at Blackwell (sadly copyright) we reflected on the art work ‘The initial And of Mark XV 42 by Eric Gill and the words it was based on:

42 And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.

Then recollecting Jesus’ words we read the following from Ruskin and shared bread and wine:

Drink from this cup, it is warm and worn
Listen to these words, they honour you
What use a shrine if we do not remember?

Finally we commissioned ourselves with more words from David Adam:

In you I live and move
And have my well-being:
God in my thinking
God in my working
God in my sharing
God in my caring
God in my deepmost soul.

In you I live and move
And have my well-being:
God in each meeting
God in each greeting
God in each turning
God in each learning
God in my deepmost soul.

In you I live and move
And have my well-being.