Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 October 2004 11:48:56
"THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil"
I read this last week, after trying to find a nice bit of poetry for the harvest service. I confess I was looking for Hopkins because I thought a quote from him would impress some people and challenge others - and in the end I remembered why I was doing the stuff in the first place and stopped trying to show off. But it is wonderful how God can speak to me even when i am being insufferable - I've had this line in my head ever since.
We've been up in the wilds of Scotland all weekend - and it has been amazing. A truly beautiful place where God seemed to be everywhere. On Sunday we went to church and then ran, skipped and danced along the beach in the sunshine. It was like being somewhere magical. I paddled in the sea, and we threw seaweed at each other. And now I'm back at work - and I had to get up extra early to write my column which I should have done last week. It's a bit of an anti-climax, and I'm more than prepared to find my colleagues exceptionally irritating this morning.
It's more difficult to remember the glory of creation when you're sitting in the City of London and it is grey as grey- but I'm trying. We had a friend of a friend who is a Rwandan asylum seeker round on Thursday night for dinner - speaking to him made me realise that just being able to get out of London for the weekend is a huge privelege, and one I've never had to earn. Never has my passport seemed such a valuable commodity. (and yes, arti, you do need one to fly to Scotland, otherwise they won't let you on the plane)