Life Slips By - Don't Forget to Pick the Strawberries

There is so much going on in my head. It's been just over two years since I've posted on this blog. A LOT of water has passed under the bridge. Too much to catch up, except to say I've been a chaplain at the University of Derby in Buxton for just under two years now. My kids are growing up fast - way too fast. They are brilliant. Derek and I somehow manage to keep the domestic ship afloat! Life is a bit in limbo at the moment for various reasons. In the midst of it all, I'm going to try something. I wrote a paper about two years ago on the theme of worship as thanksgiving. It's time to practise what I preach. A long time ago, I was on a busy, hot, sweaty double-decker bus, travelling to work in London - from Denmark Hill to New Cross. I saw a beautiful exchange between a mother and her small son. Smiles, laughter, talking. It's a scene indelibly planted in my head. I relayed it to a friend who called it a moment 'awakened by grace'. Garisson Keillor wrote a piece in the IHT about a year ago called 'Life is Wonderful' - it was all about such moments. In the midst of life - its busyness, its frustrations, its anxieties and disappointments - these are the moments we - I - must dwell in, because they are windows into the meaning of life, the goodness of God, 'on earth as in heaven'. So I'm setting myself a task - I'm not very disciplined, so I'll not take bets on my faithfulness. But I'm asking, by the grace of God, for eyes to see these moments and the discipline to record them as a spiritual exercise.

It's strawberry season. We've got strawberries growing in our garden. We've been charting their progress, and having a competition with our neighbours. This has been fun. Last weekend we went for a walk along the Wye, spotting lots of fish. Higher up on the old railway path, we came upon a stretch full of wild strawberries. We picked and ate and the kids were delighted. To and from school, the kids pick the wild strawberries in Mr Kidd's front garden. The other day, Anna picked some that she wanted to save for Finn (our next door neighbour - her best friend), so she brought them home and put them in a little dish for him. I love children, and watching their delight in small things. Father Schmemann reminds us that all of creation is a means of communion with God. Children often get this in a way that we don't, or have forgotten. No wonder we're told that the kingdom of God belongs to them...