Part 11 – The Gospels Garden
Walking back to the village we are invited to sit in the Gospels Garden – once a temporary installation at the Chelsea Flower Show. Here we reflect on our own temporariness and the fragility of life…
The Gospels Garden was only a temporary installation
for the Chelsea Flower Show, inspired by the illuminated masterpiece from Lindisfarne.
What a shame to just dismantle and destroy it!
Could we not carry it here, find it an Island home
with its own space to grow?
A later addition was a cross designed by Fenwick Lawson, a Celtic cross depicting Cuthbert, brokenness, fragility.
Sadly in one of our wilder storms the wooden cross was truly broken, (re-cast at last safely in Durham more durably)
but here on the Island it is no more. The garden remains, and we remember
where the cross stood: others never miss it.
Now the question: when I am gone life will carry on without me, is it enough
to stand, however fragile?
embody the truth I own
for the moment that is mine?
to shine, with the beauty of the Lord our God
upon me?
Lenten Journal 📚📖
As you watch each of these lenten videos, we invite you to pause and collect your thoughts in words, images and music.
📕Garden of the Gospel.
What grows within them, literally and metaphorically? Can you recall what trees, flowers and plants grow in the chapters of the gospels?
Allow this exercise to bring into focus the vibrancy of the stories.
📗 A Temporary Installation?
What ‘temporary installation’ has become permanent in your life? Where did you find room for it? Do you still welcome it?
📘The Wheel Cross
Here is a photo of the Fenwick Lawson’s Wheel Cross in situ within the Gospel Gardens on Lindisfarne (taken by Catherine Davies). Here is Cuthbert’s face. Cuthbert’s story remains for us. I doubt he would have expected it to. Within the embrace of the Cross of Christ in all its brokenness and fragility, how might I embody each moment of this one precious gift of life today?
📙 Thankfulness
In the opportunity you have to be outside today pause for a moment to consider the planners, designers and landscapers who created the space you move within.
A lovely space to sit. Nothing to be seen. Ask: do we amount to nothing? Do things that are not seen still have meaning? Will our living have made any difference?
Attune your senses to the verdant life around you. With gratitude name those things that you can be thankful for.
These Lenten reflections are and have been SUCH A BLESSING thankyou ,especially at this time .
From across the pond where challenges are great, I remember: visiting St. Mary’s Church after Easter when the scent of roses still filled the air and
wooden monks carried their leader’s coffin ever onward. I remember Andy
and Anna’s hospitality on the eve of his 60th Birthday at the Crown & Anchor
when many friends were about to visit, how warmly they received me a
mere American into their life, if only for an hour or two. I look out over my
courtyard garden here in NH (USA) at my own Celtic Cross, and I remember.
With Blessings, Debbie Hill
These are precious memories. Thanks so much for sharing…