“In those dark days I found some support in the steady progress unchanged of the beauty of the seasons. Every year, as spring came back unfailing and unfaltering, the leaves came out with the same tender green, the birds sang, the flowers came up and opened, and I felt that a great power of Nature for beauty was not affected by the war. It was like a great a great sanctuary into which we could go and find refuge.”
Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of the First World War, from ‘Recreation’, speech to Harvard University, 1919
I love the quote above, which is how I have come to appreciate the seasons – especially this year. The last few days have been dark and dreary indeed, unceasing rain and all of the emotional feelings around living in a city still in lockdown. Yet, there is still hope to be found; the beans are growing, the birds continue to sing, and regardless of the weather, the heather will soon break out! I commend Lucy Jone’s Losing Eden which demonstrates beautifully and in a timely way, how we need wild spaces to maintain our emotional wellbeing. Where do you find your hope?
Tea and Theology 
I’ve been looking at the poetry and life of Gerrard Manley Hopkins recently. Pied Beauty speaks to me of the comfort and security that comes with meeting God in nature, the seasons. 🙂
PIED BEAUTY
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
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Ooh, I’ve not come across Gerrard Manley Hopkins, but this is really powerful! Thank you for sharing!
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