47) On surrender
After lunch today, I took myself out to some of the local spots reliable for winter orchids. Both the Maroon-Banded and the Hills Tall Greenhoods were out in large numbers, if not quite flowering yet. Out by the cliff edge in the National Park two Large Shell Orchids were up and maybe just a week away from fully flowering. Even the Mosquito Orchid which barely made an appearance last year, was popping up all over with its instantly-recognisable heart-shaped leaf. If you time it just right, the setting sun makes the flowers of Mosquito Orchid burn with bright red notes. As I walked through the scrub, I passed by half a dozen kangaroos. New Holland honeyeaters and blue fairy wrens were darting about me in the bushes or on the ground. “I shall thank Him for every bird that sings. I shall praise Him for every flower that blows. I shall bless Him for every stream that warbles.”
Today was my third hike out into the scrub in four days. The scrub has been my sole companion lately. I joined with the Franciscans for prayer last Wednesday and Thursday evenings, but since then, I don’t recall that I’ve really seen or spoken to anyone. I’m not great company. Still decompressing from congregational life. Still recovering. Still grieving something, I think. Still navigating the geography and rhythm of this winter’s new working routine, and readying myself for the busy week ahead. I have to make a couple of significant decisions in the next week or two, and I’m not sure how things will end up. I wrote to my brother a few days ago, and asked him to pray for me; to pray that I’d have both wisdom and peace in the choices I’m about to make.
Roxy Music’s Avalon just shuffled onto the speaker. I loved that entire album when I was in the sixth form. Today, it seems to add a whole layer of nostalgia and longing to my current solitude. Sings Ferry, Now the party’s over, I’m so tired. The wisdom buried in a song lyric! (Wasn’t it Springsteen who said, “we learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned at school?”) Ferry continues, “The picture's changing every moment, and your destination – you don't know it.” True story. I have no idea whatsoever how this next fortnight will turn out, or what decisions I’ll find myself making…
It's no wonder that it should be so easy to retreat and hole up at a time like this. Like a hibernation. Right now, I don’t need the sounds of summer distracting me; right now I need the hush of a winter landscape. Space to meditate. Space to hear God speak. “Calling back the heart to nature and to God.” I know this much: Jesus withdrew when John the Baptist was arrested, and again when Herod had John killed. I know there is healing, and a renewing of focus in the withdrawal and the return. In the recent scrub wanderings or pottering about in my garden, and the quiet evenings at home, I’ve felt something of that healing.
But what does come next for me? I can’t quite see the horizon.
“Man cannot see the possibilities of man. He beholds the flood, but not the rainbow. God alone can see the rainbow in my flood… He is ever stretching a hand through time ‘to catch the far-off interest of tears.’ He can hear my faintest murmur of unrest. He can detect the lowest breathing of my spirit.”
George Matheson talks so often of rainbows, it’s enough for my heart to burst! Yes, I may not know what comes next, but God knows. God knows to what humble service I would be put. God knows my heart – surely He knows it every bit as well as I know where to look for those winter orchids... My next season of flowering and fruitfulness is in God’s hands and His timing. God sees possibilities I can’t envisage.
I hear Paul’s words: "love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
I say with David, “I trust in you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands.”
And I say with Ruth, “where you go, I will go.”
And I say with Isaiah, “Here am I. Send me.”
If choices are to be made, I would choose to be put to work in the name of justice and fairness and mercy. I would find myself at work in the name of love. I would have my name added to the fight for equality and for peace. Especially now, when the world feels so broken. “I have never spent Easter in a place of such crucifixions,” says Christine Smith. Those words have stayed with me since I first read them. I can scarcely even imagine what she’d write if she was in Gaza right now!
“And it's hard to love
There's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of…”
So go the words of the song. But it is not hard to love. It is precisely because of love that our hearts still break when we turn on the news. It is precisely because there is still a trace of humanity and solidarity and love in our collective consciousness that we can even dare to hope for better days. All is not lost. “The rain will stop, the night will end, the hurt will fade. Hope is never so lost that it can’t be found.”
One poet might say, “I am so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?” but, for my part, I still see goodness and beauty and kindness every day. I still see the orchids appearing in their appointed season. Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above. I still see people doing what they can for others in the name of love. I still see love winning.
“O God of Love, give us love:
love in our thinking, love in our speaking,
love in our doing, and love in the hidden places of our souls;
love of our neighbours near and far;
love of our friends, old and new.”
Yes! Give me love. Give me love, and I will keep marching. I will keep fighting. I will keep joining in with those who struggle. I will keep speaking out against injustice and intolerance and violence and greed. Just like I’ve always done. I will keep speaking out against hatred and violence. Just like I’ve always done. I will continue to speak out against structures that keep people oppressed, that keep people down, that protect the “in-crowd” at the expense of those of us on the margins. Just like I’ve always done. God give me more love, and let me make all my decisions based on love.
St Teresa said, “Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world. Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. Ours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good." And so, I will make my choices based on love and hopefulness, knowing that God would use me for good.
“The picture's changing every moment, and your destination – you don't know it” sings Ferry. Indeed. Change has been a constant, and change is upon me once again. And for sure, the world seems to be changing beyond recognition. But love is the same. Hope remains. God is always faithful. And so, may I return from my time of retreat and isolation, with a renewed heart, with wide hope, and confidence that God has a new chapter planned for me. I surrender to His will. Even in this season of winter, may there be fruitfulness and wonder, and may I be part of that tide of love and justice and hopefulness.
I have no great words for times like this. But my prayer is heartfelt: God, put me to good service, in the name of love. May the decisions I make this week be only those which advance Your kingdom of love and grace – choices that bring peace.
Olly Ponsonby, June 2025
***
Scripture refs. include – Jas 1:5, Phil 4:7, 1 Cor 13: 7, Ps 85:8, Mt 4:12, Mt 14:13, Ps 139:16, Ps 31:14-15, Ru 1:16, Is. 6:8.
I shall thank Him for every bird…” taken from George Matheson, from “The Benefit of Gratitude” from Leaves for Quiet Hours.
“Now the party’s over… destination – you don’t know it” taken from “Avalon” by Bryan Ferry. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/roxymusic/avalon.html
“We learned more from a three-minute record…” taken from “No Surrender” by Bruce Springsteen. https://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/sd3.aspx?sid=406
“Calling back the heart to nature and to God” taken from George Matheson, from “At the Closing Day” from Sacred Songs
“Man cannot see…” taken from George Matheson, from “The Road to Salvation” from Leaves for Quiet Hours.
“I have never spent Easter…” in Christine Smith, “Preaching: Hospitality, De-Centering, Re-membering, and Right Relations”, in Jana Childers (Ed) Purposes of Preaching, 2004. 100.
“And it’s hard to love…” is from Praying for Time by George Michael, 1990 © Robobuild Ltd.
“The rain will stop, the night” taken from Mandy Hale https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8497095-the-rain-will-stop-the-night-will-end-the-hurt
“I am so tired…” from “Tired” by Langston Hughes, 2022. https://wordsthatburn.substack.com/p/tired-by-langston-hughes
“Sun, moon, and stars…” is from “Great is Thy faithfulness” by Thomas O Chisholm, 1923, https://hymnary.org/text/great_is_thy_faithfulness_o_god_my_fathe
O God of Love, give us love..” prayer by William Temple, https://paxtonvic.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/a-prayer-before-sleep-by-william-temple/
“Christ has no body” poem by St Teresa of Avila, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/3637-Teresa_Of_Avila_Christ_Has_No_Body