Do you remember some weeks ago I shared my constant battle with a Sparrowhawk who seems to have adopted the Rectory garden as his personal hunting ground. Now I know all too well that nature is "red in tooth and claw" (Alfred Lord Tennyson) and that we shouldn't really intervene, but sometimes we just can't help it.
When we came back from Devon we discovered amongst the sea of feathers across the back lawn, a well picked pigeon, no doubt a victim of the green, yellow, stockinged feet of the Sparrowhawk. Everything was clean on the carcass except for one stretched out wing. Naturally the garden was devoid of birds and they are only now showing their faces again. It was sad, but it is life too. We can try to protect nature to try and keep it safe, but ultimately it is a survival of the fittest and the food chain has to be maintained.
Life can seem at times very unfair, some have it all and in abundance and others besieged by disasters, but life goes on. It appears that we are on the tip of a major Covid outbreak again, caused in part by some people's' selfishness, thoughtlessness and greed. Others suffer because of these actions, some even losing their lives. It is nature again, all of us striving but actions of a small minority affecting the future hopes for others.
In his poem In Memoriam AHH, written by Tennyson upon the early death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, through its very many stanzas he reveals the journey of grief and mourning. It is profound as Tennyson works his way through, so many issues of life, death and spiritual awakenings. This is also an opportunity for us to reflect upon our own lives generally and more recently in virus days. How can we use that which is good and positive in our praise of God and how do we relate our worries and fears to the God in Christ who has also experienced them? What do we offer to God when death looms due to greed and selfishness?
I know I haven't reminded you recently, but how is your scrapbooking of life in Covid times getting along. Has anyone chosen to do one for church or the parish as a record of how we managed, what happened etc? Have any chosen to compile one for family, again as a record part historical and part personal journey? It still provides an opportunity like Tennyson had to work through things, by reflecting, using photographs, poems, music etc. It is not too late to start on it and like nature it may not seem fair or right that our freedoms are curtailed, that we are a tiny part of the great whole, but the opportunity is ours, to embrace or reject. Our choices will affect others so we need to select with care.
