63) Take it all in
A former parishioner and friend of mine has come to spend a couple of months with us at the care home. Visiting her earlier this week, I noticed that the room was bare, with no pictures on the wall. So, later that evening at home, I spent some time sorting through a score of framed pictures that might brighten up her room. The next morning, I returned with half a dozen for her to choose from. Among the selections she made, was a hand-drawn illustration of African beetles.
This artwork has weaved its own story. Years ago, when I was coming towards the end of my time at another care home, a dear resident, Anna, handed to me a large Bible. At some point in her life, God had called her to Zimbabwe to live, where she served as subdeacon in the Anglican cathedral in Bulawayo. The Bible in our hands was one of several used for cathedral services. Anna told me that when she came to Australia, she was given it as a gift to remember her time in Zimbabwe. I handed back the Bible that was clearly so precious to Anna, and as I did, a piece of paper fell out of it. It was a sketch of beetles illustrated by the wife of one of the senior clergy. And this same sketch is now hanging on the wall in my friend’s room. Anna asked me to keep it, to remember that even small things and small acts of service, when carried out in love and obedience to God, can leave a beautiful and lasting legacy.
Returning from my friend’s room, having installed pictures on three of the walls, I was handed an envelope at Reception. Inside was the original artwork ‘Lead me home’ by Ramone Romero, sent all the way from Japan. I'd written a blog about it some time ago. About how the expression on Jesus' face makes me cry. A print of it hangs in my office. It is the image I use as my screensaver. And here, in my hands, quite unexpectedly, I was holding the original – this painting of Jesus comforting a man in a hospital bed, his hand with heart-shaped scars touching the man’s cheek.
Maybe one day I’ll pick up my Masters again and reflect on touch in the Gospels. For now, though, this precious painting speaks volumes about the touch and embrace of God. There is love and relationship in every brushstroke. It preaches the Gospel without words or complicated ideas. And it cuts through all my wrestling and longing and anxiety, and reminds me of home. Says the poet:
“I must try
and see the whole of what’s in front of me without squandering it.I will write it out in colors and hues…
a stripe of salmon in the middle-sky, with rising periwinkle and solver-gray.
The sight of a pearling ocean contrasting the rust sunset.”
I must see and take it all in – the kindness, the giving of pictures, the portrait of Jesus, the illustration tucked into a cathedral Bible, the faithful believers in far flung corners of the world and their connectedness, the surprise of it all, the hand of Christ on a dying man’s cheek…
I must see and take it all in, and I will write it all out.
I’ve been listening to Seth Lakeman in the car this week. I saw him perform Kitty Jay in Bristol quite by accident nearly twenty years ago when he appeared on the stage at a Jethro Tull concert. That song of his that launched a career remains a favourite of mine: a tale of a woman who died for love and was buried in a crossroad grave in Dartmoor. My formative years were spent growing up on the edge of Dartmoor. Those old tales and that old folklore course through my veins and pull me home every bit as much as the perennial call from the Somerset levels. I’ve been thinking about Kitty Jay this week. And how some folks were not allowed to be buried in churchyards because of the manner in which they died. And how Kitty Jay, because she could no longer live with her broken heart, took her own life and ended up in a liminal space, outside of the parish boundary, at the meeting of roads.
To this day, flowers regularly appear on Kitty Jay’s grave from unknown hands. Humanity, solidarity, and compassion over the years in defiance of that old ecclesial practice.
The Lutherans still won’t let me preach or lead Holy Communion in the church that is part of our care home. I’ve wrestled with it and challenged it, but I can’t change it; churches will have their rules.
On the same day that I received the priceless original artwork from Ramone, a resident handed me a bottle of their homemade wine. He’d asked his wife to bring it in for me to taste. No place for me to handle wine in the Sanctuary, and yet in this resident’s room, where pain and longing for home are the two main stories, kindness and fellowship and wine have also found their place, and ministry thrives.
I must see and take it all in – the stories that hang in the mist for centuries and become part of the landscape of home, the kindness of people, the placing of flowers and the remembering, the giving of wine and the warmth of fellowship, open doors when others are shut, companionship in times of difficulty…
I must see and take it all in, and I will write it all out.
My heart has been troublesome this week. Yesterday it raced for much longer than usual, and my chest was so sore. I got teary when a kind colleague asked me about it. Who knew I carried so much fear and worry and emotion so close to the surface? I know, I know they’re going to fix it all in March, but yesterday took a toll.
Midge arrives in a little over a week, and I have booked every Friday and Monday off to maximise our time together, and to relax. I spent a few hours in the garden today tidying up and getting things ready. I bought a new Adirondack chair and planted plenty of summer colour. I hurt my back lifting the chair out of the car, but my heart didn’t seem to feel a thing for all the gardening…
Right now, the windmill is turning slowly in the garden, and the birds have started their evening songs. I’ll make dinner soon. The sun has started his descent. Soon the sky will be pink and orange. The leaves of the silver birch are already glorious in the western light. I’m reminded of those words from the poet:
“For a moment the sun
reclines on the bare branches of the maples.
They’re rinsed with gold.”
I must see and take it all in – the uncertainty of our bodies, the kindness of people, the friendships that last a lifetime, losing track of time in the garden, the promise of rest, the setting of the sun, the singing of the birds, and the words the poets bring us.
I must see and take it all in, and I will write it all out.
Ramone’s painting is beside me here on the Welsh dresser next to a painting of Brent Knoll that Midge painted. The illustration of African beetles is now on the wall of my friend’s room. Doubtless someone has placed flowers on Kitty’s grave even today. God is in all these things.
Olly Ponsonby, Jan 2026
***
Scripture references include: Eph 6:7-8, 1 Jn 3:18, Mt 8:3 Mt 9:29 and Lk 8:6 etc., Ps 19:1, Acts 17:28.
Earlier blog mentioning Ramone Romero’s artwork can be found here https://hauntedandlovedbygod.net/comfort-and-joy/53-lead-me-home.html
“I must try…” by Prageeta Sharma from “I am learning to find the horizons of peace” in “You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World” by Ada Limon (Ed.), 2024.
“For a moment…” by Ellen Bass, from “Lighthouse” in “You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World” by Ada Limon (Ed.), 2024.
*