Holding back in Somerset

Dear Monty,



How easy it is to forget what a privilege it is to see another day - especially a Spring day - to allow the feast for the eyes and soul to regenerate something deep within.

We walked through early Spring sunshine on the green around the moat of the Bishop's Palace and the Cathedral of Wells. A cold east wind cut through the warmth of hope within.




We were not hope-less but without comforting words.

Like a foreboding cliff - high, flat and imposing the West Front of the Cathedral with its faceless saints seemed to offer little comfort. Singing rang out of the visitors entrance each time the door opened, perhaps the warmth we needed was within ?




The gardens remained dormant but signs of Spring were evident in the buds breaking in the trees.
Seagulls created a dance above the moat.
Our coats were not adequate to prevent the chill from penetrating.




How does anyone face this ?
When faith is chilled by ritual and too many questions, criticisms, and versions.
How do we show rest in the face of turmoil ?
Is being challenged the way to stillness ?

How can delicate plants survive the chill of an untimely Winter ?

Souls break
Fracture
But love burns acutely

We could see it there in the sun-filled room above the Somerset Levels.

The gardener continued to plant.
Love is beyond our understanding.
It warms even the coldest cruel Winter.


Dormancy continues in the coal-tip garden - and nurses uniforms hang empty of nurses on the washing line - waiting to be filled again.




Paul.

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