A guest recently said to me, “When I come to the Bield it is as if all my senses wake up”. What a lovely experience! Because when my senses wake up, I become much more fully alive and open to receive and give. The second-century saint Irenaeus said that “the glory of God is man and woman fully alive.” I love this idea and find it invites reflection. What does it mean for me to be fully alive?
At the very least , it means being in touch with my senses. God meets us where we are. We are humans living, breathing, and moving in a physical world, and the five senses are five entry points for God’s love to become known to us. By paying attention to what our senses pick up , we develop our sense for seeing God in all things and that awareness makes us more fully alive.
Summer more than any season help us attune our senses. Summer offers an invitation: an invitation to “come to our senses,” and to celebrate how God reaches us through our eyes, nose, mouth, hands, ears, and skin.
At this season, entering the walled garden through the blue door at the Bield is like an ‘assault’ on the senses. The rose scent is overwhelming, the colours riotous, sensations when touching hedge or flowers surprising, the variety of bird song astounding and the fledglings adorable, the taste of herbs in the Healing Garden so diverse
As our guest, the experience of many visitors here is that they do find themselves slowing down and taking time ‘to smell the roses’. We can receive that invitation wherever we are and take time to really take something in through our senses, perhaps a flower or a tree, a rock or a pool of water, and ask what God is saying to us through the object which has drawn our attention.
So may we all take time to ‘smell the roses’. It’s good for our body, mind and Spirit.
For meditation : A few Bible quotes - the Five Senses.
Psalm 34:8
We can Taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.”
Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Marianne
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