Friday photo – different rates of change

I passed this tree yesterday. There was quite a collection of leaves on the ground too. I love the diversity of colours at this time of year and I reflect again on how important it usually is not to try and force change but to allow it to evolve in the right timing.

I am writing this as a personal spirituality post rather than commenting on anything wider. I believe that change needs to begin with me but know also when I try very hard I end up frustrated because I can’t make something happen and end up annoyed with myself. For me it is sometimes the often spoken about difference between chronos and kairos time we find in the Bible, the second being God’s timing. Galatians 4.4 talks about the incarnation happening “When the time was right…”.

What’s the time right for now? Missing or resisting change is equally frustrating!

Friday photo – simple beauty

This was taken in our garden yesterday. The colour of the leaves draws my eye with its intensity and beauty. It is a simple plant, and when the leaves drop off, there are beautiful red branches.

I am drawn to wonder at the diversity, simplicity and complexity of God’s creation.

I wrote on Wednesday about the quiet day I had been to. We explored seasons as a metaphor a little and thinking about this and today’s picture I am wondering about what I should be shedding. What do I need to let go or relinquish? I have shed some things in recent years, age has helped me care less, in a good way, about what others think of me or my choices. Saying no and self care come more naturally now. The leaves I am losing will nurture what is to come, experience is not lost, reframing, reimagining, responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit seems to be a feature of this season.

Friday photo – noticing

I was walking around a small park this week getting some fresh air while I could – intensive teaching residential. A month ago I probably would not even have notices this creeper growing all around and over some of the other plants – it would have been green and more hidden or camouflaged.

The changing seasons is something we notice more overtly, colour change like these leaves or falling leaves leading to bare skeletons of trees. Certainly I am colder and wearing different clothes! But how much time do we spend noticing the more subtle shifts, the tiny changes, the little things that perhaps God wants us to notice and reflect on?

We have some of this creeper in our garden and each year it infiltrates further into different parts of the garden. What ideas or concepts or feelings are infiltrating your experience at the moment?

I have finished our first residential and I was noticing how much joy I get over a particular part of what I do, I perhaps noticed it more than usual because I got more feedback on it. When we notice something can we share our noticing if it will be an encouragment or acknowledgement?

Friday photo – autumn beauty

This is our back garden this week. Fleeting beauty, different daily, soon gone.

Autumn teaches me the transitory nature of life, to live in the present moment, to appreciate that transition is normal and to value seasons.

What does the picture say to you?

Friday photo – as the deer pants

Inside the garden that featured in Wednesday’s post. I wonder what you imagined as you looked at the entrance?

The scene evokes Psalam 42.1, as the deer pants for the water so my soul longs after you. We are moving into autumn, I turn the light on when I get up now, our garden is beginning to have brown leaves.

As meteorological summer is over, autumn is emerging. I am in the autumn of my full time working life, although I can’t imagine ever not doing some of the things I call work as long as I have the capacity for them. My soul longs for God as I seek to make the most of the years remaining to me.

This is a similar theme to my blog on Wednesday, I blog what is on my heart or in my head as a processing anad reflection too. I seek to live an examined life where I live and act consciously. I don’t always succeed and I continue to grow and change and become more of who I hope to be.

What does your soul long for today?

Friday photo – autumn in summer

I took this picture yesterday. It’s not even midsummer but leaves are falling from the tree, beautiful autumn colours.

It reminds me that the seasons are a metaphor for our lives and that each dimension is in its own season.

The flowers are beautiful and fragrant, it feels like my shame work is flowering at the moment with invitations to speak in new contexts with fresh angles.

The leaves are beautiful too, such a vibrant colour but they have fallen and will be added to our compost bin to nurture future growth. Endings are not always easy but we take aspects of what has gone before to enrich what is to come.

Friday photo – leaves in transition

I am thinking a lot about transition at the moment as I move from a role I have had for 20 years to being freelance from 1 December. I am aware that all the learning, experience and expertise I developed over these years will be coming with me and like the leaves turn to mulch and nurture future growth what has come before will nurture what lies ahead. I have so many happy memories of both colleagues and students but am excited too about who I might work with in the future as I develop mentoring and coaching offers along with courses and the things I want to do around shame. I am continuing with my doctoral student supervision which I love as well as my spiritual care and paediatric chaplaincy research and support. They feel like the evergreen leaves that will stay with me through this new season as new patterns emerge. Always happy to chat if anything I do connects!

Friday photo – October

A chaplain I know shared this and I really liked it. I am always delighted to be surprised by people revealing things I may never have guessed or showing a side of themselves which is unexpected. The stories I hear in pastoral or educational roles blow me away sometimes. I try hard not to judge by outward appearances and to look for the good in those I meet. We all have hidden colours and it is so encouraging when we meet someone we trust enough to reveal them to.

Friday photo – seasons turning

It is almost autumn. Meteorologically, autumn starts on Sunday but today I looked out of our bedroom window and saw that this tree was beginning to turn. I ate porridge for breakfast, not my usual summer choice. Monday there will be more traffic on the road as people finish their holidays and schools go back. Changing seasons are an opportunity to review our lives as outward changes offer metaphors and images to reflect on. I did a bit of decluttering in Lent but there is still a lot to do and as autumn trees shed their leaves perhaps I will be able to shed some stuff that has outlived its purpose too.

Friday photo – admiring spiders

I took this photograph this week as I left home early in the morning for work. The combination of the web and the dew caught my eye, so much beauty and intricacy that happened by both intention and chance. The beauty of their creations means that I admire spiders, I don’t particularly like them but I don’t get freaked by them like I do when a mouse appears. There are so many connections I can make looking at this picture but perhaps the thing I want to take away today is the connectedness of life and the blessings of what seem like quite random connections at times. I had a brief conversation with someone I had never met about metaphors and chaplaincy – uplifting, hopefully for both of us.