God's song.

May God's song over your life drown out every lesser voice. (Paraphrased Zephaniah 3:17 a call to rejoice)
 I looked at the thick fog of the dark morning dawn as the mysteries of the day were revealed: bare branches of a fallen tree punched holes in the fog and a magpie, on its lonely branch sang in the coming of the  new day and all else is blotted out. But there, beneath my window, the fog hidden honey eater is among the branches of the flowering Gravilia - I know he is there for the branches are joyfully bouncing up and down as he gathers the nectar. Even in the fog, there is beauty and a sense of the hidden yet to be revealed. Sometimes we can only see partly through its  darkness. It is so important, as I once read, to remember that darkness, in fact, is the beginning of light.
Be watchful and thankful today, Jesus is with you.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord

Sing through the fog little magpie.

coloured feathers

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. Selah. Psalm 66:1
I have heard it said that in the dark times will there also be singing? Yes there will be singing, about the dark times and, I say, can you see God's glory shinning in the dark times and I say yes, you can see God's glory shinning in the dark times and it revealed itself just yesterday when I was putting a lovely coloured feather from a Crimson Rosella into one of the journals for a grandchild and I wrote: the colours of this feather are just so beautiful but you need to take it out into the light to see its true colours. God's glory is still revealed in this dark world. it shines through you and me in acts of kindness and care and in the colours of the feather but the true light can only be seen through the light of Christ, that burns within us.

beautiful in the light

surprise me Lord.

You are called to freedom, brothers and sisters.  Galatians 5:13
Regardless of how the world is, regardless of how our lives are and our every day situations, the sun will always rise. Some days it might be dimmed and other days it can be a magnificent - one almighty 'hello' from God expressed in red and orange and blue. Its like God is saying, 'fear not, here I am yet again, right here with you.' How can one not be taken by surprise and drawn into wonder but such a sight, such a message. I read this saying by Frederick Buechner. Lord, catch me off guard today. Surprise me with some moment of beauty or pain so at least for the moment I may be startled into seeing that you are here in all your splendour, always and everywhere, barely hidden,beneath, beyond, within this life I breathe.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord

Polish your light

What God said to Moses he said to you. 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Exodus 33:14
When I have walked early in the pre dawn light  I always loved to look across the fields to the mountains still shrouded in night and here and there dotted  in the valleys and nooks  were lights. Lights from peoples homes, bright, shinning, evident in the dark and I would go on my way humming the song from Sunday School deeply embedded in my spirit - 'This little light of mine, I'm going to make it shine, make it shine, make it shine - in this world of darkness so we must shine, you in your small corner and I in mine.'  Somehow that song has raised its head a lot lately  and it comes with a challenge, the challenge of working out a shining light in this worlds darkness. So many people  sit in pockets of darkness, not pockets of light.  Now more than ever is the time to polish the light, get it shining, get it visible and get it known. Mother Teresa said: We are not just in this world to exist. We are not just passing through. Each of us was given the ability to do something wonderful.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Shine a light in the darkness

.

Its there but you cant see it.

I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5
In the darkness its always hard to find something unless you know exactly where it is. You can't see it yet you know its there. It's like the sands in the deep ocean floor that you know are there but you can't see them. The stars in the day sky. - they are still there but you cant see them. The sun behind the dark storm clouds - it's there, but you can't see it. The baby bird in its egg shell - its there but you can't see it. In the flower in the bulb -its there but you can't see it either. So to with God. It doesn't matter how hidden we might feel he is, he is still there. In dark days, in storms, in troubled times or when we close our eyes to sleep  he is still there with us and all we need to know is we only have to reach out our hand and he will hold it.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

The flower in the bulb

Oh, tell me about it.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.  Mat 6:19
The seed pods of last years flowers, held over in a paper bag are brown and shriveling and I thought to myself if I don't plant those seeds they will die. They will never grow, they will never blossom, its time to get them out and scatter them. Now there's a parable in daily life. Its like all the treasure of faith that we hold in ourselves. Keep it within and it will die. Scatter it about, share it and it will grow and blossom. Its like the beautiful cup and saucer in the china cabinet that was given to me when I was 10 as a thank you for helping with Sunday School Classes. There it has sat all those years, never taken out, never used, never shared. Indeed treasured but only in my heart and next time I have a visitor I will get it out, and it  can use  and a conversation will start something like: What a nice cup and saucer,  where did that come from?' Oh,' I would say,' that came from a gift from the church.' Oh, tell me about it.' and before long you are on a conversation journey about faith.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord

Don't keep treasures only in your heart.

Keep our spirit fresh

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. (New Harvest 173)
A field of grass with its seed laden tops can move me as deeply as a vibrant coloured  rainbow arcing the sky or a tiny delicate orchid sheltering near a rock to say nothing of looking into the eyes of a beloved pet or catching the flight of a massive eagle soaring gracefully in the sky.They are all things that bring on a pause and momentarily take your breath away yet leave you with something, a something that is thoughtful,lingering, a 'deeper real,' and its warm and fuzzy and I call that a blessings and its a blessing that lingers. That I say, can only be of God and may he keep our spirit fresh and focused.

They bring on a pause

Gems of our faith

The King of love my shepherd is. (TIS 145)
More and more we look to a source of comfort and grounding in troubled times and the words of this beautiful hymn have been a great source of comfort. So much of the words of the Christian life journey hold  comfort and deep peace, gems of our faith, the very words that keep us walking side by side with Jesus through the ups and downs of life. They are words with a warmth and give us a  sense of being cared for,  held, brought back, saved,loved, hugged. Picture this thought; you can't see Jesus but he is right now beside you, gentle yet strong,his staff and rod in his hand.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Words of the Christian  journey

Spirit of the living God.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Matt 5:8
We really know so little about God and all his creation but I do know that his Spirit moves through it all, not just us. Experiences in life bring the 'thin space' between God and us and creation into a oneness and creation connects with us in a deep, spiritual way if we are looking to see. On the Victorian Police Face Book Page is a story by a lady who had to drive down the highway past the site of that dreadful accident where four police officers lost their lives. She was anxious and nervous and as she came to the place of where the accident had been four beautiful large white butterflies flew gracefully in front of her windows shield as if in slow motion and after a few moments they flew off.   Was it something special? Was it something to do with God?  Oh yes! Indeed it is because the Blue Wren tells me so.
Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
Anne, servant of the Lord

The Lord God made them(us) all.

Be thou my vision.

But their eyes were kept from recognising him. Luke 24:16
Walking is always something I have loved doing when ever possible Early morning walks or early evening all bring revelation, recognition, awareness and pleasure  and yesterday while out I paused under an oak tree to look at the fungi growing in the grass. At first glance I thought mushrooms then a closer look revealed they were toadstools. These are 'fake' mushrooms, I thought, and some people don't recognise that which can often lead to death. For many around Jerusalem the rumor of the resurrection of Jesus must have seemed like 'fake' news. Its a scam some would say, should we believe it or not, but the true believers, though stunned and shocked came to see the reality as flashbacks from their journey with Jesus and his parting words suddenly started to make sense.
 Jesus resurrection is no 'fake' news, its no scam. Fake news and scams  rip us off, there is no good ending in them. Reality, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ is real news, good news and its what will bring us home.

Fake or real?

simple yet profound

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder. (TIS 155)
Sometimes something simple yet profound will remain with us always.I found a note scribbled on a piece of paper in a second hand book I picked up in a book shop and it simply said:'God is everywhere and he is with you now.' On another occasion I found a note on my desk in the chapel of the nursing home where I was chaplain and it came from a lady whose husband was dying, it said: 'Rev'd Anne, can you smell God? I came in here today and the chapel was filled with a wonderful perfume yet there were no flowers.' And every time I open my prayer book I see a picture scribbled on a small piece of green paper and the words Michelle aged 7. This was passed to me during a church service  by a very shy child sitting in front of me and it felt like I had been given a treasure, so special that 26 years later it still holds a place in my prayer book. Mary Oliver wrote: Every day I'm still looking for God and I'm still finding him everywhere - in the dust, in the flower beds - and I want to add in the unexpected note in a tattered second hand book, and in the chapel and a child's picture.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times, in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

simple yet profound

Dance, dance wherever you may be.

For in him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28
Something, anything in life that comes out of the ordinary can throw us off course. What was, is no longer. What  can be or will be  now holds a question mark. But, today, now, this new day is life, this  is how it is, however it is shaped. Stillness and quiet say to us: Look and see. Touch and feel. Bend and smell.   Awareness and appreciation come in stillness and quiet and suddenly we start to see things we have just walked by before. Yesterday I didn't just notice that the autumn leaves were on the  ground but I stood still, under the tree and watched them fall, floating gently, quietly, softly, dancing in the breeze all over and all around me and I suddenly had an impulse to giggle because I thought I heard that coming in the joy of the ride of the leaves from the tree to the ground. Lost in the moment we shared the joy together. Would I have noticed or enjoyed that a few months ago when life was busy and at a hair raising pace? Maybe, maybe not.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Don't blink and you actually 'see' the leaf!

What do you bring home?

How lonely  sits the city that once was full of people. Lamentations 1:1
For this season in time we are experiencing empty and lonely cities, towns, villages and homes but how are we coping with that? Daily life is very different but so many doors can open  for us. Doors of peace and stillness as we slow down from a 'running pace of life' to reflection and awareness. At the close of my day I like to go for a  long walk and find something to bring home. It may be a tiny colourful bird feather that I will place in a grandchild's journal and share with him or her its incredible creation and creator and yesterday I had so much joy from a beautiful coloured flower growing like a bramble beneath a very old eucalyptus tree.As I approached it I could see its petal skirts were red, white and  yellow on stems of bright red with deep green leaves and its perfume filled my space like incense. I picked some of it, all the while telling God how much joy it had brought into my day and taking it home put it in a vase as a bright symbol of a memory filed with perfume in this troubled world.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

So much joy

Easter Day

The Lord is risen indeed. Luke 24:34
A simply lovely Easter gift arrived at my door for Easter Sunday from my family. It gave me great joy and was an expression of what Easter is about for everyone. Made of butter biscuits was the symbol of the cross with the words iced onto it 'He is Risen.', a colourful iced flower and a yellow iced chicken. There was so much joy and celebration in the gift of a families love that I left it untouched on the table before I cold bring myself to demolish it all with a cup of tea and then it was gone!  The gift that Christ gave to us through his death  is not just the gift of his life and death on the cross but all that gift offers us of love, of devotion,of strength, of courage, of perseverance and of eternal life.
The greatest. The most wonderful. The most enduring. The most lasting gift of love is found in the gift of Jesus.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Its not the gift but whats in it

Holy Week

Beauty from brokenness, hope for despair. Lord in the suffering this is our prayer.  (TIS 690)
I held the rough, dirty, round bulb  in my hand before I sank it into the garden and I marveled at its potential. Who would think that in that mass there would be something special, something of delight and beauty yet if you were to slice it open it would reveal nothing but  a cluster of fiber. Marveling at it in my hand I spoke to it asking: 'How is it that something so rough and plain can turn into something so beautiful and perfumed, a glorious flower. How does that happen?' Then I realised my questioning is not to the bulb but to God. In our rapidly changing world in this time we can look and question many things, for example how can the blackened charred and burnt trees ever hold their beauty again yet there are so many signs of new growth with the eucalyptus leaves showing their beauty in the red and green new fresh tips merging up the trunks. Life  comes from death. Resurrections occur and beauty rises.
May the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord

A mystery with an Easter insight.

Do not forget who you are.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1
All across the world anxiety and fear has come into peoples lives. It has crushed the every day life, and  'normal' and peace hang like a thin thread for millions, its fragile and often out of reach. I read a lovely story recently it said this about a tradition among the Native American Communities: The infant is named at birth in traditional community and is passed around 200 arms, one to another, with each person whispering the child's name so that he or she will not forget who they are. Regardless of the dangers that life presents to us, one thing we must always hold onto is the Love of God for us. He wants us to remember we are his, he has called us by name.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Peace, God's peace

And God turns up!

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10
I hear so many  of the older people saying that in the isolation and quiet their 'awareness' is  becoming so acute. There are birds in the garden, tiny birds, that they don't recall hearing  sing in such beautiful harmony and unison with one another as they are now. There is a beautiful rose bush outside their window that only weeks ago was stripped in the destructive hail storms now blooming with mass and colour that they don't recall having seen so beautiful before. And I wonder in this time of quiet and stillness in and around our homes, how God's Glory is impacting on you? Can you see it? Can you feel it? and what is God saying to you?
  I read this quote from  Clement of Alexandria  (c150-c215)Wonder at  things that are before thee, making this the first step to further knowledge.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Beauty from brokeness

There's a bear in there

Comfort, O comfort my people,says your God. Isaiah 40:1
There  is a quote I like from Mother Teresa which says 'we can do no great things only small things with great love.'  What an opportunity lies before us in how we can not only do things with love but in doing, bring God's comfort to others and all from our homes. its a great opportunity for God to open our eyes so we can see the ways we can be more useful. Even in isolation I go out once a day  for a lovely walk in fresh air and sunshine. As I was walking yesterday I saw someone had put a teddy bear in their front window and I later discovered that others were doing this also and it is there for the children so when they go for a walk they can go on a bear hunt and see how many bears they can find in peoples windows.I also heard of a person who had put a hand written note in every letterbox in her street which said. 'I am here, I am well and I am able to shop for you, run errands etc  here is my name and  phone number.. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. I like this Celtic Prayer: As the rain hides the stars,as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of your face on me yet if I hold your hand in the darkness it is enough since I know that though I may stumble in my going you do not fall.
May the Lord himself give you peace at all times and in all ways.
Anne Servant of the Lord.

We can do no great things only small things with great love.

Changing life

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Psalm 22:11
Difficulty and hardship is among us. We have been shut of from our worship places and gatherings. Life is different but we are not shut of from God. There is no need to shout at him across the spaces between you and the church. He is not locked inside the church buildings but is nearer than you think and he knows your thoughts. May our isolated homes become our house of prayer and may we unite  in timely prayers, separated yet  as one.
And don't forget or overlook the little bird sounds coming from the hedge for God  will be found in all places and in all ways.
May the Lord himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

There is a darkness hanging over our world.

Peace under my feet.

God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:5
We are in anxious times and our world is shifting and changing and we don't know how long this will be for.  Anxiety and panic has raised its head in community  yet I can sit outside on this glorious sunny day without a cloud in the sky and its calm and its peaceful and its still.I see the rose bushes recently stripped bare by a viscous destructive hail storm now with full growth and beautiful roses. I see in our burnt out forests new growth springing out of hundreds of  chard  tree trunks from the recent catastrophic fires and the green farm lands rising from a parched drought stricken earth.I see God is  with us. Recovering and restoring brokenness. Recently reread and sitting in my mind are the words (adapted) from the prayer of St Patrick. Peace before me. Peace behind me. Peace under my feet. Peace above me. Peace within me. Let all around me be peace.
May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.
Anne, servant of the Lord.

Peace like  a river.