We hadn’t been to Forest Church for a while.

It was a good opportunity to get cool after a long hot morning.

We sat in the same place we have sat before, last time we had come it was winter, everything was dead, damp and cold.

Today green moss covered the logs, luminous leaves sheltered us from the sun overhead and a cool breeze made the day bearable.

The boys clambered over fallen down trees and made a den in the forest.

We sat and tried to discern the invisible by looking deep at the visible all around us.

We were sent away to listen, to write, to return.

I wrote in response to three questions:

Today I feel…

Exhausted,

Run dry,

Aching.

But I can see in creation…

Familiar security

Unchanging strength

Eternal rootedness

in a landscape that
transforms, morphs, moulds itself
to the tides of seasons, sunshine, rain.

Everything is altered whilst everything remains.

The light somehow makes it through the trees.

So I will…

Keep walking
Keep hoping
Keep holding your hand

Keep resting in your eternal, secure, dynamic, present, transforming love.

Rest by the tree.
Beyond the view lies
me.

We shared our thoughts, ate brownies and I was left with a deep impression of the protection the trees offer. We have sheltered in these same woods this year in pouring rain and we were not drenched, in the blazing heat of Sunday we were protected again and we did not burn.

In this storm we live in at the moment we are protected, not from it, but in it. We are held in hands bigger than ours. In the wondering why it’s happening, in the joys of life despite it, we are held and we are not abandoned. We trust, not for never facing storms like this one, but for protection in the midst of it. We trust like those throughout the years and years of trying to dwell with the divine and we hope beyond hope that we will not be disappointed.