Norfolk Pilgrim

I particularly like this photo taken in the Spring of 2008 in Cyprus. It illustrates the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4.31) and the Allegory of the Vine (John 15). The brilliant yellow of the mustard flower is every where in the spring -  on field edges, in gardens, on little bits of waste land in Cyprus and Galilee. The mustard seed does not grow into a great tree where the birds of the tree make their nests. Everyone knows that!  It is a pernicious weed that spreads everywhere! Look in the photo at the yellow all around the edge of the vineyard where the vines are pruned and ready!  A different sort of power and a different sort of kingdom to those of Egypt or Assyria  (See Ezekiel 17.22 ff and 36.66ff)

There's a story untold in the Bible -  how the returned to life Lazarus went on to be the first Bishop of Larnaka.  The stone coffin in which he lay is preserved in a crypt beneath the high altar of the Church of St. Lazarus,  When I went down into the crypt it reminded me of  the Cave of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  In Orthodox pilgrim mode I have kissed the rock in both those places! But there was to be no kissing Lazarus in the crpypt His coffin is empty! He has not yet been raised from the dead a second time, in spite of the empty tomb! The body was nicked by the high principled Crusaders who took it off to Marsailles!  However, there was no need to rely on a Homeopathic Theory of relics - i..e. the notion that there's a holy place where the relic used to be. The Crusaders  conveniently left a portion of skull behind. It is upstairs in the church, in a golden relique. Kneeling in the near darkness of ...

The Church of England Diocese of Norwich has a bad attack of the intiatives - caught it from the politicians I shouldn't wonder! Committed to Growth, it's called!  For busy church people it can seem like a burden - Do something more! Be more committed! it seems to shout. Those of us with long memories and a touch of the cynic about us remember Moving Forward and from Maintenance to Mission ( nobody really wanted people to cease maintenance on the 600+ medieval churches in the diocese to cease from maintenance no matter what the slogan said!) I was turning these things over in my mind as I hiked through Cypriot vineyards. I knew the Allegory of the Vine (John 15) as well as the next well educated person in the pew. What I had forgotten, even if I had originally known, was how harshly a vine-dresser cuts back the vine. There in the vinyard were these dead looking sticks! That's what Committed to Growth looks like! ©Richard Woodham 2008