Skylarks

While walking the dog today I heard a skylark - the first in a long time. It reminded me of my Dad and the walks we used to have after mass on Sundays. We'd walk for miles, down lanes, in woods, looking for treasure. I learned a lot about nature on those walks - the names of plants and birds and other animals, and I'll never forget the feel of blackbirds eggs in a nest, all warm and smooth.
Today I was thinking about people who don't have any belief in God or the afterlife. How can you not believe in an afterlife when all of nature is self renewing? The bluebells are coming out here, yet a month ago there was no sign of them. They were in the earth just waiting for the right time to burst forth - and they do it every year without fail. When they've flowered they produce seed that falls in the earth. The seed is nothing like a bluebell, yet out of something plain and ordinary looking a beautiful flower emerges! Just think then how beautiful we will be when we are in heaven. It reminds me also of a very old hymn we sing in the Catholic church, a couple of lines are - "love is come again like wheat that springeth green"
It was lovely to remember my Dad and think of him renewed in heaven.

Daffodils

I was looking around a garden centre yesterday and spotted some of my favourite daffodils. These particular ones are minature and their petals all face backwards - I call them skater daffodils because they remind me of skaters on the ice with their hands behind their backs, skating as the wind blows their petals backwards.They almost look like they should have little scarves around their slender necks!!! But more seriously, they remind me that whatever life throws at us we should skate on with our faces set as flint, in the certain knowledge that God is with us, He will never leave us, or forsake us and He will bring us through.