Midwinter Spring

It is mid winter. In the UK the days are beginning to lengthen. Just a little in the morning and in the evening. But it makes all the difference. The snowdrops are in full spate and here and there the yellow of the aconite and the blue iris reticulata make a significant splashof colour in a small way. They are harbingers of the Spring. The grass has been growing ever since the Autumn when the leaves were all swept up. So everything looks clean and tidy. The apple trees and soft fruit bushes have been pruned. In the glasshouse our tomato plants, called Espero this year, are 400 mm high (15.75 inches) and by the end of January they will be flowering. Then the real work begins out there. But just now, when it is wet and windy outdoors, it is peaceful and warm to go and twist the plants round their strings once a week. When you do not often leave this six acre plot of land one is keenly aware of the changes of season, of the direction of the wind and the pattern of clouds. So, in concert with all this energy being displayed around us we take our part in all sorts of work both indoors and outdoors.

Upholding all this activity, and inspiring it, is the daily round of quiet worship and prayer and reading and the sense of being part of a world in evolution and in crisis. The smallest action of positive value - whether in our daily work or in some other way, must be a real contribution to the well being of humankind. The daily news brings in too many examples of demonic acts being perpetrated against our fellow human beings. Whatever is done in active support of those who suffer we all take a share in building up the true society of women and men and children by our own seach for the truth and by our daily life.

Next letter

Click cloister to return to the Letters Index.