A Voice of Reason

With so much doom and gloom being written, in the press and around the blogosphere, about the Anglican Communion at the moment it was refreshing, today, to read the voice of reason that is Bishop Alan Wilson. I hope and pray his voice will be heard, and taken notice of: especially this weekend with General Synod meeting in York (Friday 4th — Tuesday 8th July).

There have been a lot of scare stories, about the possibility of the Anglican Church splitting (shattering(?)), hitting the press recently — Ruth Gledhill is covering the majority of them in her blog at The Times Online.

But Bishop Alan reminds us that, “it’s time for fresh thinking, not trench warfare”. It seems that it’s trench warfare that we’re currently facing as each side in the various disputes wants to just dig in and defend its position. Whereas we should be finding ways to talk. We should be thinking differently!

Whether you’re running the Lambeth conference, pathfinding for the Anglican Communion, getting life expectancy in Zimbabwe higher than it was in England in the 11th century, or finding how to be radically inclusive in a fully traditional church, the only method is not Power Play, Militant Entryism and Dumb-Boy Thuggery, but FAITH!

Bishop Alan Wilson

The Passion Flower

We’ve had Passion Flowers growing in our garden for quite a number of years. They are beautiful flowers, one of my favourites in the garden. But this year I thought we’d lost the shrub that had continued to spring up every year, year after year. I thought it had been strangled by the other shrubs growing around the area — I hadn’t been able to trim them up last cutting season, so they were all a bit overgrown.

Today I was trying to tidy things up a little. And right at the back of another bush, there was some Passion Flower growing through. Just one piece had grown up the back of the bush, and when it got to the top spread itself out, until it covered quite a large area on the Berberis. There were a couple of flowers in full bloom. Although they were completely inaccessible — so the picture I’ve used here comes from where I find many of the images I use on the blog: stock.xchng, a very useful site.

When I see a Passion Flower, I often think of the story that goes with it. I first read the story in a hand-written book that came from an elderly aunt. But I’ll copy a piece here from the BBC’s h2g2 site — which is similar to Wikipedia.

The Passion Flower

Unusually for such a story it has a well-documented and undisputed origin. Jacomo Bosio, a scholar, lived in Rome in 1609. He was working on a treatise upon the crucifixion when an Augustinian friar of Mexican birth showed him drawings of a remarkable flower. After much prevarication (and a rather liberal interpretation of the facts) he agreed to include the drawings of the flower in his book. The symbols of the Passion of Christ were many and varied. The unique corona represented the crown of thorns. The ten sepals and petals represented the Apostles (except Judas and Peter, who both distanced themselves from Christ prior to the crucifixion). The five anthers were the five wounds on Christ’s body, and the three stigmas the nails. The leaves were the spear that pierced His side, and the tendrils the scourges that flayed His flesh.

Click here to read the full article

Clicking on the image below will take you to a larger picture: