I’m sure we’ve all read articles over the past few months reflecting on what some of the good things have been which have come out of this whole Covid experience.
One of them for some of us at St Peter’s has been the opportunity to rediscover our fantastic churchyard in a new way. So many casual conversations and smaller meetings which would have happened in the Octagon or the library have taken place in various spots all around the churchyard, not to mention our monthly Family Time services and now our summer 10am services too. (if the weather lets us!)
A particular joy this summer has also been the way in which the wonderful team of gardeners who look after the churchyard have been working with the council to ensure that pockets of the churchyard are allowed to rewild. You can now see all kinds of different grasses and wildflowers pop up all over the place, drawing in and sustaining a real diversity of insects and birds - do go and have a look if you haven’t already.
It also reminded me of a passage Gill Keir selected for one of the Lectio Divina sessions last years, a prophetic vision of God working through nature, bringing life, abundance and wildness to barren and lifeless places:
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
Isaiah 35