Category: advent

Morning Prayer doodle – how do you measure a tree?

advent, Other cool stuff

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

Mustard Tree

I love how Jesus measures tree size not in cubits (or whatever), but in hospitality. How big is the tree?  Oh, big enough for birds to make their home there. Big enough to offer safety and hospitality. Big enough for them to lay their eggs and raise their chicks.

We could ask ourselves, how big is my church? Oh, big enough for people to find themselves at home there. Big enough to offer safety and hospitality. Big enough that people will feel it’s a place they can bring their children.

Advent Illustrated – 3rd December

advent, Advent Illustrated, christmas

Today’s prompt: ‘Immanuel’.  Two versions. Lord, have mercy.

Emmanuel     Emmanuel 2
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7.14)

Morning prayer thought

advent, Other cool stuff

Not sure about a doodle today – but a thought.

I had a curate who retold the parable so that the seed that was carried away by the bird passed all the way through the bird’s digestive system, and landed once again on the ground – there, it grew and took root, flourished, and was fruitful. And all in a place where nobody had planted it.  Perhaps this is why the farmer is so careless with how he scatters the grain, and perhaps some of the seed on the stones and in amongst the weeds also somehow made it, too. For with God nothing in wasted, and there is always grace.

 

Advent Illustrated – 2nd December

advent, Advent Illustrated, Other cool stuff

I found today’s prompt really difficult: Good and Evil (Genesis 3)

scrabble

I didn’t want to draw an apple, or simply contrast something good with something bad – because in my experience moral choices are always more complex than that. And since I tend to draw in black and white, I didn’t want to use this as a contrast. So I tried focusing on the process of choice.

We often don’t get any choice about the hand we’re dealt, but we do sometimes have the choice about what we do with it, and how we play it.

For the ‘do’ ‘go’ ‘live’ one I was thinking about how Jesus uses those words in the commentary around the Good Samaritan: ‘Do this and you will live’ and ‘Go and do likewise’.

Morning Prayer Doodle – 2nd December

advent, Other cool stuff

Psalm 119 is my favourite psalm – C S Lewis wrote that its repetitive verses are like the complex repeating patterns in a tapestry, and to that end, I asked my mum if she would embroider some verses from the psalm into this wonderful woven wall hanging that she made when I was a child.

For my own doodle today, I chose the first verse of the psalm, and set it to the shape of Jonathan Clarke’s Way of Life relief sculpture from Ely Cathedral. No infringement of copyright is intended.