Consider the Flowers at Hethel


The people of Hethel want you to use their church and the surrounding area for your spiritual well-being.  Their notice board and their entry on the www.achurchnearyou.com  website make it equally clear. You couldn’t be more warmly welcomed!

If you were  looking for a place to heed Jesus’ call to “ Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ (Matt.6.31), or to  “Consider the lilies, how they grow.” (Luke 12.27) All Saints’, Hethel  would suit your needs perfectly.

Next door to the church is the country’s  smallest nature reserve with the country’s oldest Hawthorn tree. It is inevitable that someone should have claimed it as having sprung from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff but it is only 700 year old! 


 Across the road from the church,  maps and a series of way marks invite you to saunter round Permissive Footpaths through woods and pastures. In April the last of the snowdrops and primroses lined the way. By the beginning of May there will be a profusion of bluebells!  In the churchyard  snowdrops, give way to wild daffodils, while the star of the summer flowers  - at their best in June  - are pyramidal orchids. Lots of them !


(The writer understands that orchids are no more  the work of God’s hands than a daisy!  But Solomon in all his splendour was not arrayed as one of these!)

Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Wymondham Nature Group,  manage the churchyard in ways that encourage wildflowers.  Considering the flowers for them means a working party to mow after the
 flowers have bloomed and then raking up all the hay and cuttings.



Inside the church there are some resources to help visitors thoughts and prayers. The website gives wise advice about being still in the presence of God.


 “.......  you could begin to listen to the sounds around you: your breathing, bird song, the wind, the silence. Simply focus on each one for a short time until your mind has slowed down and you are present to this moment, this place and your time with God now.
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
not by any din of drum, nor the vantage of airs
nor by anything he wears,
neither by his crown nor his gown.
For his presence known shall be
by the holy harmony
that his coming makes in thee.
                                                                     (15th century poem)”


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as i...
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not witho...
Read more

York Minster Pilgrimage

Image
The statue is of Constantine lolling in a chair, just outside York Minster’s south door. On the other side of a pedistrianised roadway one of the great columns of the Roman Garrison’s Principia building has been re-errected. As I stood and surveyed the scene I was very close to the place where in 306 CE the IX Legion proclaimed Constantine Emperor, the successor to his father Constantius. Before Constantine died in 337 CE he had converted to Christianity and the privileges and status that had once belonged to those who promoted the cult of the Divine Emperor fell to well placed churchmen. Some thought the privilege, power and status too much and retreated into the cleansing austerity of the desert. Other’s relished in it, climbing the dizzy heights of hierarchy and enthusiastically taking over Imperial Rome’s loveof monumental buildings pouring endless resources into the building, beautifying and maintenance of Christain basilicas. I am inclined to say, “This is where,...
Read more