蜜芽传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Sarah Teather, Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK

Good morning.

The early morning sun falls on the table and chairs in my tiny garden from the first signs of spring; doing nothing there with a mug of tea is a daily ritual. This year, first dunnocks, then robins built nests in the climbers I should really have pruned. The snails ate the lupins I planted in the flower bed; but a self-seeder took root in the gravel path. I admired its pluckiness, and so let it be, and its brilliant blue blooms grew tall, blocking access to the shed, until undisturbed, the virginia creeper sealed the door shut.

The arc of the morning sun is lower now, hovering in the sky beneath the line of roof tops behind, casting shadow on my table until spring. So I have retreated to a chair inside the backdoor. Out of sight, behind the Michaelmas daisies, a fox curls up like a cat in the ivy on the sunny wall. He forced a gap in the fence for ease of access, through which I can now see that the clematis is in flower again; though not in my garden. Its beauty can be viewed only from the vantage of the junk-filled public alleyway, on the other side of the fence.

You will have gathered by now that all those extra hours working from home this year left little energy to manicure a garden, but rather yielded exhaustion, and with it, an accidental rewilding experiment. But as I sat, spent out, watching it flourish, in spite of me, I caught a glimpse of the untamed beauty of God鈥檚 glory.

鈥淗ow lovely is your dwelling place O Lord of hosts. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, at your altars鈥� my king and my God.鈥�

Amen.