Yesterday a friend and I visited a lavender farm about seven miles from where we grew up. Being outdoors meant this trip wasn't rendered too unfamiliar by Covid19: even with all the distancing measures and lavender-scented sanitiser at the gift shop, up in the fields one could almost imagine a carefree, pre-pandemic world. A strong wind - the legacy of Storm Francis - greeted us as we arrived, wafting that soothingly familiar scent around us. Although harvesting had already begun, and the fields were past their bluey-purple best, there were still enough flowers in the remaining pale lavender haze to keep the dozens of butterflies and bees well occupied - though rarely contentedly still enough for photos. The only time they ceased their flitting and wandering and incessant searching was whenever gusts of wind buffeted stems and bent them low: then, they clung on tenaciously, weathering each onrush with determined, well-practised stillness.
Somehow, unbelievably, I managed to take a couple of semi-decent photos amid all the windswept blurry ones! I noticed butterflies closing their delicate wings against the wind, and marvelled at how the bees clung, seemingly precariously, to stems swaying dizzyingly and bending to ninety degrees. Whatever precious pollen they had found, they were determined not to abandon, or allow themselves to be dragged away from. Would that I could ever hold as unshakably on to God... let alone hold on, in unwavering stillness, amid all the buffeting and disturbances of today's precarious world...
Back home, I checked my Twitter feed. A friend had tweeted a photo of flowers, accompanied by some words from the day's collect - words which instantly recalled and seemed completely at one with my morning's orison...
...Amid the uncertainties of this world
may our hearts be fixed on that place
where true gladness may be found.
Amen. May it be so: at any time but especially now, may my heart ever be fixed on the only everlasting source of true gladness, with all the tenacity and trusting quietude of a bee on windswept lavender...
Back home, I checked my Twitter feed. A friend had tweeted a photo of flowers, accompanied by some words from the day's collect - words which instantly recalled and seemed completely at one with my morning's orison...
...Amid the uncertainties of this world
may our hearts be fixed on that place
where true gladness may be found.
Amen. May it be so: at any time but especially now, may my heart ever be fixed on the only everlasting source of true gladness, with all the tenacity and trusting quietude of a bee on windswept lavender...
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