Month: September 2025

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Psalm 139

This was the gorgeous view I saw from the window during my retreat. With much gratitude to my hosts.

I recently spent a week away in silence, seeking to clear my head and find my way back to an awareness of God after a particularly intense period. I am grateful to have had the time to do this and the gift of somewhere beautiful to stay.

In prayer, I had a rare experience of deep peace; I felt safe, held and nurtured, I felt like my inner being was resting within the womb of God. I later reflected on Psalm 139:13-15 and saw my inner being in a process of still being formed:

God keeps forming my inward parts,
She knits me together in her womb.
My frame is not hidden from her
As I am being made in secret,
Intricately woven in the depths of my being.

I believe that this total intimacy with the divine is true for all of us, whether we feel it or not, God holds all things within herself – yes God lives in us, but it is also true that we live in God in whom we ‘live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). Not just human beings, but all the other beings, and even all matter, dwell within God and thus are sacred and deserving of our deepest respect and love.

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Prayers for the second Sunday in Creationtide

The slugs have enjoyed nibbling on these, but have not made it through the skin. The two in the middle were well camouflaged, hence their size, and have now been pickled.

I wrote these prayers for our service today (7th September), the readings were Philemon and Luke 14:25-33.

Generous God, we thank you for the gifts you shower upon us. For the late-summer fruitfulness of fields and gardens, for friendships, and for the life you breathe into us. Most of all, we thank you for filling and surrounding us with your love. As we share our lives in Christ, may we, as a community here and with all your people, live out the truth of that reality. Give us hearts full of love and hands ready to act for the good of the people we meet in our daily lives and of all of your creation. Give us grace to trust that there is enough, and to live accordingly.

Subversive God, we thank you for the example of Paul, who saw through the values and norms of his society to the deeper truths of your kingdom. Give us the vision to see through our society’s respectable veneer, to uncover those values and norms which are driving the destruction of this beautiful world you created. Give us courage to face up to our part in this and wisdom to know how to be and act differently.

Demanding God, in Christ you showed us that discipleship means carrying the cross and letting go of our lives. We offer up to you our one wild and precious life, trusting that you have planted our deepest desires within us. May we live our lives to the full and for your greater glory, whatever that might mean at this stage of our lives.

Confusing God, there is so much about this life that we struggle to understand and you refuse to give us easy answers. Even the light of the world, Jesus, spoke in riddles that still confound us. Help us to hold our explanations lightly and to trust you deeply. For all those situations where there seems to be no answer, and where we cannot see a way forward, we still pray in faith for your kingdom to come. We lift up before you the situations in Sudan, DRC, Gaza, Haiti, Ukraine and so many other troubled places in your world.

God of hope, we pray for societies where confidence in the status quo is being lost and where things are starting to unravel. May your people choose a courageous path of radical love that points to a deeper hope in you and to a future that can be built on the solid foundation of the self-giving love of a crucified God.

Redeeming God, we lift to you the bruised and broken parts of our personal lives, of our church, and of all of creation. Just as Christ rose from the dead, we trust that you will bring new life from the devastation of our mistakes. We cannot know how or even when, but we entrust that hope of new life into your wide embrace.

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On being forced to share

The greatest success of my garden this year: pattypan squash.

When I was planning my vegetable garden for 2025, I knew that it would be no ordinary year. My father had just died, and my mother was going to need my support, which would mean being away from my garden for extended periods of time, so I decided to do things a little differently. I chose a less ambitious range of seeds and included varieties I hadn’t grown before, like pattypan squash, feeling that I had less to lose than usual. Little did I know at that point that life held even more disruption in store, including a move back to the UK to plan, meaning that the garden got even less attention this year than normal.

My lack of time and attention has had direct consequences on the harvest. I got a fraction of the figs, because, due to my failure to keep them under surveillance, birds took all the fruit from the top of the tree. Many of my tomato plants are only half tied-up and are drooping down under the weight of unripe fruit, which the slugs have been demolishing while still green. I have decided to find a redemptive way of viewing this situation. The birds of the air, who neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, have been fed, and I have been inadvertently loving my slimy enemies (Matthew 6:26, Matthew 5:44).

The pattypan squash, however, have been an enormous success – but I don’t really know what to do with them…