Gardening for land and soul

Now that spring is here, and already hinting at summer to come, we're out in the garden most days, not, at yet producing anything worthy of next week's Chelsea, but getting lots of hard basic work done: cutting the grass, the hedges, the banks, clearing the ditches, setting up the sechoir parapluie (rotary clothes line) and the parasol, and, yes at last, getting my hands on plants (after a visit to Rostrenen market yesterday) and potting up some trailing geraniums, alyssum and campanula. The little front garden is looking almost pretty.

The hens continue to amuse us, although we don't like the pecking order Mrs Fluffybottom maintains, with poor Chickpea at the bottom - and they continue to provide us with an average of 2 eggs a day - so lots of baking, omelettes, and yummy poached eggs on toast for breakfast!

And, along with all that, and dog walking, and all the usual daily stuff, I'm also making time to write some study units for the interfaith seminary through which I got my doctorate at the end of last year. It's a challenging thing to do, and stretches me in ways I don't always expect, and I'm very glad to be doing it. I'm also making sure that I answer all my own questions, write the essays and do all the exercises, not only to make sure they all work and make sense, but to continue my own personal spiritual development and ministry (over 28 years since I was ordained. Wow.).

A propos of which, I wrote the following that last weekend, as an expression of my image of ministry - well, my sense of and call to ministry anyway, which is a quirky but enduring thing :-)

My Poem of 'Mini-yes-try'

Yes, I am small, small on my own, just mini-me,

not huge or tall or strong or brave,

but frail and faulty, faltering and doubting,

vulnerable and hurting, leaping without looking,

making it up as I go along;

but small is not frightening, not threatening,

to those who feel even smaller,

who hide their smallness and their fear,

and you will speak, through me, please Godde,

the words they need to hear

and touch the hands that need to hold:

a mini-me can find the ones who hide,

who need an ear, a hug, a love, a smile, a laugh,

someone to walk beside.

So yes, I will say Yes to your call, although I am small,

a Yes to take me who knows where

to stand alongside who knows who,

but I will go, although the way I do not know

and sometimes I get lost and take the longer path,

but you will bring me home;

and on the way there will be joy, and views of beauty,

and above the stars will shine and sing,

and sometimes too there will be love.

And yes, I will try,

and when I fail and fall then you will hear my cry,

and know that once it was I who said Yes,

and you will find mini-me again

and set me back on my small feet

to take small steps - but never alone,

for where I go you go,

and where you go, I will follow.