Eclipse and Epiphany?

2026 Eclipse through a colander:

 image created and photographed 

by Rowena Winn, a friend through

our local church..

Eclipse and Epiphany? 

From a bedroom window, 

giving a clear view, 

above a strangely darkened tree canopy,

we watched, as did millions of others,

the awesome moments

of an eclipse of the sun 

 

Few, we know, 

through the reach of our screens,

were unaffected by this incredible 

cosmic alignment.

 

More stood in awe. 

Some even cried to have been witness 

to this rare evidence

of the constant celestial dance

in our little backyard

of the universe. 

 

How many, I mused, 

were wakened to the chance 

of this being evidence 

of the work of a Creator?

 

 

Lay of the Five Senses: A Celebration

Pixabay free image by arverro

Lay of the Five Senses

(Tune: 7.7.7.6 - Gaelic Cradle Song : posted by The Iona Community at Christmas 2025)

 

When my eyes on beauty rest,

when I feel by nature blessed:

when such beauty calms my stress, 

make me deeply thankful.

 

When the scents of herb or flower

waft at me their healing power,

help me feel my tensions lower;

make me deeply thankful.

 

When the sweetness of ripe fruit

tastes so very, very good;

for its heav’nly attributes

make me deeply thankful. 

 

When the touch of friendship true

tells of love and care for you:

means I can enjoy that too;

makes me deeply thankful.

 

When the sound of silence stills

fretful fears and troubling ills,

when God’s peace my being fills:

make me deeply thankful.

Madingley, The Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial

Not far from where we live on the edge of Cambridge UK is the thought-provoking American War Cemetery and Memorial. With unnecessary wars raging across the world, this place of squandered lives seems more than usually poignant.

 

Madingley

Here in ranks and files, 

more regimented 

than those they commemorate

could have ever been on parade,

are white memorials,

representing more than a quarter-of-a-million years 

of squandered human potential.

More than five thousand young lives

brought to a premature end

to bring the dreams of a madman to a halt.

 

This is but a glimpse

of a far further-flung scenario:

just one of many fields of death

planted after the second world war:

the war that made a mockery of its predecessor,

the ‘War to end all wars’.

 

Yet today,

increasingly indiscriminately,

increasingly violently,

increasingly remotely,

played out over and over

in theatres of war

initiated by madmen.

 

 

 

(Cambridge cemetery – basis for estimate of potential lost)

5127 dead and missing

US Age expectancy 1990 = 75.19yrs

So 5000 x (75 -19)= 280,000 years of wasted potential)

 

 

LAUNCHING - BE A 'SPIRITUALITY and SCIENCE AMBASSADOR' PROGRAMME

During the last few weeks, it has been an exciting time on the blog. There has been a sharp uptick in the number of daily page-views and there is a new Volunteer starting work as Volunteer Promotions and Operations Agent. Bella will be looking at our analytics with a view to helping me to understand who it is who reads the blog (and to whom I am very grateful for your support), and helping to promote the blog to give it even more outreach than it has.

To help extend that outreach, we are launching a ‘BE A SPIRITUALITY and SCIENCE AMBASSADOR' programme which is designed to invite anyone who has been helped by, or simply enjoyed the poetry, hymns and songs on the post and would like to make it better known, to make the blog known by distributing or displaying hard copy invitations that look like this

This text can be used in numerous ways: A7 as maybe ‘on seat’ promotions, A6 or A5 as hand-outs, A4 or A3 as posters.

We’ve launched this initiative after receiving several favourable comments from churches in Canada (Ontario) and USA (Pennsylvania) along with generous comment from the former director of The Vatican Observatory on the VO blog.

So, you are invited to join in. The simple-worded poster/hand out should lift on to your desktop from where you can print as many copies as you need. Your help will be much appreciated and regularly prayed for.

The Whole Cosmos Is The Lord’s (Psalm 24 re-imagined)

 

How extraordinary! 

An hour long solar eclipse

 as witnessed by the astronauts on the Artemis mission. 

A time to revisit an earlier re-imagining of Psalm 24

Psalm 24 For Today.

The whole cosmos is the Lord's and everything in it:

every particle of matter throughout the universe.

 

All human beings, the earth’s wild creatures and resources:

and unknown beings who may live on planets far beyond our reach.

Lift Up your heads, you galaxies, 

Bright Nova form a dazzling path,

That your great King of Glo-o-o-ory 

Through all your realms may nobly pass 

 

It was God commanded the deep realm of space, Come forth:

and it sprang into instant being.

 

He established light and dark; light to see the wonders of our generous planet: darkness to invite us to see the vastness of  creation.

You can listen  this and the rest of a reimagining of Psalm 24 at

https://youtu.be/4XHgjfVDhlY  

In The Deep and Dark Recesses of Space (A Little Canticle)

The light shines in the darkness

and the darkness could not put it out…

Acrylic by Jenny McLellan.

Earlier this year, we (Pam, my wife and I) visited a long-standing friend of ours who is fortunate enough to live on the Island of Iona, one of our very favourite places. Jenny was among the first people we got to know on the island.

Whilst we were with Jenny, I was very struck by a picture hanging in her lounge that she had painted. I loved its exuberance and asked Jenny’s permission to post it on my blog, to sit alongside one of my writings.

Since then, I have looked, from time to time, among the many things I have written over the years, but, until today, I had not found a piece that felt quite right to go with the painting. Then, looking back to the earliest posts on this blog, I found this, entitled In The Deep and Dark Recesses of Space. I had not in those early days always tried to find an image to accompany my poems or reflections but this now leapt out at me as an appropriate partnering, for in the fifth stanza, the sort of immeasurable momentum the picture conveys to me could conceivably reverberate the turmoil we know to exist in distant and still unknown cosmic regions,  

So here, the picture, and what I style as a Little Canticle, sit side by side and I hope Jenny feels similarly about the coupling I have made. 

In the deep and dark recesses of space, God moves.

In the whirling orderliness of galaxies, God moves.

In the precise and sensitive balances which hold planetary and galactic systems together, God moves.

In the continuously gigantic forces which fashion and refashion stars, God moves.

In conditions of turmoil in the firmament which confound our understanding, God moves. 

In the preservation of the cosmic vastness, God moves.

In the gift of light across the universe and to a darkened world, God moves.

Yet amidst these cosmic realities he is mindful of humanity: he gave his Son to suffer our woes and his Spirit to comfort us.

How can we comprehend the substance of one so great? Who could destroy the universe with a word?

Whose great love has not only given all that we can see and hear on earth and in the depths of space, but far, far more.

Is it little wonder angels worship him? Or that saints give everlasting praise?

Yet this is a God who hears us if we call upon him: He will bid us, "Come".

Not into the great turmoil of incomprehension; but into the tiny stillness of expectant silence.

Open our hearts and our minds, O God; to see your hand in the universe and hear your voice in the quietness of contemplation.

Another meditation on the greatness of God at work in the Universe can be found at Galaxies Tell of Your Might

Other poems, meditations and songs with a SCIENCE & FAITH theme can be accessed HERE

CLIMERICK: If You Looked Down From Space You Would See

Today, we take an idea from our companion Eco-Verses blog site and post a 'Climerick’ with a spiritual twist.

If you looked down from space you would see,

 ‘The Marble’ with blue and green scene:

it’s God’s planet Earth,

and it has to be worth

your investment to help it stay green.

Why Is Our Sight Drawn in The Night?

Why Is Our Sight Drawn in The Night? 

(could be sung to the tune to Star of The County Down)

 

Sol by the author (Acrylic)

Why is our sight

drawn in the night

to the planets, the moon and stars?

There’s wonder there

of God’s great dare

to create a universe.

So my soul shall sing,

O Creator king,

of the vastness that’s all around;

and the wondrous spin 

that holds us in

to our orbiting planet’s round.

 

Refrain

And way out there,

beyond our stare

are unearthly days and nights.

Wild gases burn

as the cosmos turns

with a billion, trillion lights.

 

And today we know

time began to flow

from creation’s wild big bang.

When space emerged 

at your mighty word

and with joy, your angels sang:

for all was good

and in time Earth would

form with others around the sun,

a planet fair

with sustaining air,

as our saga just begun

 

Refrain

 

In the course of time

With the earth benign

Life emerged at God’s command.

‘O human race

respect the grace

Of the sky, the sea, the land,

And nurture it through all your days,

It will give you food and joy.

Don’t tarnish it

or it won’t be fit

and too soon could be destroyed.’

 

Refrain

Somewhere in Deep Space

Between the writing up of the Mini Eco-Fayre practicalities, comes a moment of inspiration that literally comes in the night and I am especially grateful fr the concept of poetic licence, which ‘permits’ me to take unexpected turns! So...

Somewhere,

in deep space

there may be exoplanets,

where God’s gentle agent

evolution,

has fashioned eco-systems,

in which,

the tiny plants

that adorn all manner of 

our environments

thrive so well

that they reach gigantic loveliness!

The Myth of Galileo

Pixabay free image of ‘Outer Space’;

an image to which Galileo’s findings contributed

in the medieval days of exploration of the Universe.

Our recent visit to IONA saw an interesting completion of a project that has been shaping itself in my mind for some time. I felt I wanted to write a song about Galileo whose insights and relationship with the church of the time are widely misunderstood. The song turned out to have dimensions I hadn’t expected and the scientific concepts needed to be checked by ‘real’ scientists who could ensure I was reflecting the best views of the moment, particularly in the area of quantum physics.

Quite extraordinarily, I have been brought into contact with three notable scientists of faith, all of whom are astrophysicists. They are Prof. David Wilkinson, former Principal of St John’s College, Durham (who generously invited me to be a visiting scholar at St John’s in 2018), The Revd Dr Rodney Holder (who is Trustee of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, among many other responsibilities in the Faith and Science Arena) and Bro Guy Consolmagno, Director of The Vatican Observatory, who I encountered on a retreat he ran at Launde Abbey in Leicestershire.

All pointed out a potential misunderstanding of the very issue I was trying to address, at the opening of the song and it was Bro Guy, who suggested a way round it, thereby leading to the splendid title of this song.

My thanks are due to all three of these ‘advisors’: here’s the song 

The Myth of  Galileo

Tune: Ellacombe/The Day of Resurrection 

 

The Myth of Galileo, should please, no longer stand

He knew that faith and sciences can all walk hand in hand,            

to show the glory God has sown throughout the universe.

So let’s give thanks and praises to show the Maker’s worth.

 

There’s glory in the stars of night, there’s wonder in the sun;

there’s beauty everywhere you look, Yes! great things he has done!

And neuroscience now reveals how connectomes combine,

to organise God’s gift to us, the brain and human mind.

 

In every creature of the earth there lie great mysteries,

which are revealed in greater depth by deft biology.

And botanists who seek for truth will maybe understand,

that as they probe each complex cell, they glimpse the Maker’s hand.

 

The ups and downs and charm of quarks can test the human mind:

as particles collide at speed, to seek what lies behind

the quantum concepts that defy perceived reality.

So maybe physics illustrates God’s cosmic mystery

 

So let’s give thanks that sciences of many disciplines,

show us the wonders and the grace, revealed from deep within

ourselves, and Gods great universe, the cosmos all around. Sing praise, sing joy, sing thankfully ‘We stand on holy ground!’  

 

The song is part of a collection entitled ‘Creation: 16 Songs of Faith and Science’ which is currently under consideration by a publisher. Many of the songs are to be found elsewhere on this blog.

AS I Look Up at The Cosmos and Pray

This is the NASA image of the day for 27th February of star clusters M35 and M36. It is images like this which have been an inspiration in the writing of ‘As I Look Up at The Cosmos and Pray.

The song is to the delightful tune of ‘As I Went Down to the River to Pray’ which I listen to regularly as part of my morning quiet time: a tune I have come to love and which I wanted to vest with a fresh and contemporary set of words. They emerged as a children’s song which was an unexpected delight.

The song expresses, for me, the important understanding that God made, not only earth sky and sea, but the whole Universe -and all its resplendent glories. So let’s sing this with joy and maybe a fresh insight into the amazing greatness of our God.

As I Look Up at the Cosmos and Pray, (Sorry! Score in course of adjustment - for ‘Above’ in heading and first line, read ‘and pray)  

 

Score: Musescore adapted for new words.

As I look up at the cosmos and pray,

marvelling about the wondrous way

in which the Lord created this,

quite daz-dazzling array

 

Oh Children! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

Oh Children! let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

 

Oh Sisters! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

Oh Sisters! Let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

 

Oh Brothers! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

Oh Brothers! Let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

 

Oh Mothers! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

Oh Mothers! Let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

 

Oh Fathers! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

Oh Fathers! Let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

 

All people! Let’s look up,

let’s look up, up-up above.

All people! Let’s look up,

up at the cosmos and pray.

TT February 2025

.

There is a splendid instrumental version of the tune by Kaleb Brasse  at on You Tube here which can be used to sing along with

 

  

In Space A Network of Telescopes (2024)

Here, as the end of British Science Week draws to an end - a poem to celebrate just how far astronomy has reached at this point in time. Some the ideas in the poem may well be overtaken, even by the time the poem is posted. Change is happening that fast!

                                  

 In Space A Network of Telescopes (2024)

In space,

a network of telescopes,

freed from the distorting constraints

of our shimmering air,

reveal more of the universe,

from nearer and nearer 

the time of its genesis.

 

Out on the ground,

communes of radio arrays

are guided to align their antennae

on areas of interest.

identified by the orbiters.

By using various wavelengths, 

ever finer detail is resolved in

those wonders of primeval time and space.

 

In laboratories and computer centres,

data gathered from both space 

and ground-based

observatories,

is interpreted by algorithms

to render exquisite cosmic abstracts

which give inklings

of the wonderful work of God.

 

So we are blessed.

by these automated successors

to Galileo, Maxwell and Jansky,

whose suppositions were endeavours

to comprehend, in their times,

more and more of the mysteries

of the mighty celestial firmament.

 

Now, we can 

peer and probe,

ever further, ever further;

that, in our brains, minds and souls,

we may try to fathom afresh

the emergence of the universe

and the moments of God's love,

when the Holy Trinity

spoke the Cosmos into being.

 

 

 

.

 

In Dark, Dark skies.

Wonderful picture of Northern Lights 

and a myriad of stars

(From Pixabay)

In Dark, Dark skies. 

 

In dark, dark skies

behold five thousand stars:

and planets moving 

in their wandering paths.

 

Five thousand orbs

are all my eyes can see,

of many trillions

in the starry sea.

 

When darkness yields 

this glory to the light,

fresh wonder floods into

our waking sight

 

And from our star

stream light and energy

which bless our planet and us,

most generously.

 

And Saviour when,

our lives come near their end,

if we’re in darkness

light of heaven send 

 

But if earth should

erupt in dark and fear;

Lord, midst such terror 

bid that same light appear.

 

.

Turn Off Your Computers (One Day a Week)

Sing this to ‘Streets of Laredo’: sound file at end of song.

Turn off your computers, your tablets, your mobiles,

put them aside for just one day a week:

then in the stillness, ask God to give respite,

and free of this pressure, allow Him to speak.

 

Open your heart and your mind to the moments,

tranquil, without all those constant demands

that FOMO can thrust on you, minute by minute.

Or colleagues cause pressure, so hard to withstand.

 

So: treat yourself gently,

and try not to worry,

even though this

may seem hard at the first.

Once you’re disconnected

from global distractions,

this gives your soul freedom,

With God to converse.

 

Such space God will honour, be sure you can trust him,

remember his pledge to the weary and worn,

‘Cast all of your worries, distress and frustration,

upon me, and I’ll give you rest from life’s storm.’

 

This one day in seven, is God’s holy pattern,

Six days of exertion and one day of rest:

So in your surrender of constant connection,

You’ll give God His space; and the time will be blessed

 

So: treat yourself gently

And try not to worry

Even though this

may seem hard at the first.

Once you’re disconnected

from global distractions,

this gives your soul freedom,

With God, to converse.

 

Refresh me, dear Lord,

Refresh me, dear Lord,

Refresh me, dear Lord, give me peace.

Refresh me, dear Lord,

Refresh me, dear Lord,

Refresh me, dear Lord, hear my plea.

You can listen to this song, sung by the Author by clicking on the title below. You do not need to sign into Dropbox to listen

Turn Off Your Computer... 

You might also like to look at With My Phone in My Hand which celebrates the astonishing range of knowledge and information available to all of us who have a phone - and lays out some cautions/ prayers for wisdom in using our mobiles.

On Hobthrush Island (off Lindisfarne)

One of the joys of producing occasional reflections is that they can remind one graphically of special moments in special places. And being able to share these on a blog, so the interest of others might be aroused, feels an especial privilege in this electronic age. This musing relates to our recent visit to Lindisfarne where we experienced a range of weather in a two week holiday - which itself made me think of how an experience of 1400 years ago would compare with  our soft and hugely privileged living style. Hobthrush Island was where St Cuthbert retreated from the comparative noise of the Priory!

From Hobthrush Island

On the skyline from left to right

Parish church of St Mary’s, The Medieval Priory,

The Heugh and modern observation tower. 

closed at the time of writing - for Coronavirus protection)

On Hobthrush Island (off Lindisfarne)

 

These are precious moments.

We sit in warm sun

On a tiny islet

Which once bore the imprint of the feet of a saint.

 

For us, this is a brief, comforting and comfortable experience.

But for him, the changeabilty of the weather,

would have brought times of joy, or of testing hardship

either as the sun bestowed its generous warmth, 

or as wild rain, excruciating hail and bitter winds savaged

him and his exposed rocky terrain.

No place to dry a sodden habit.

 

Seals, used to the rhythms of the tides,

would bear witness to the worshipping patterns

of this God-loving man.

And save when those creatures of God

raised their own voices in praise,

or the roar of the ocean

vied with other elemental forces,

all would be enfolded in exquisite silence

as it is even today when the tide is high.

 

A beautiful gift from the same God

whom he, we 

and the sonorous seals,

praise and adore.

This post is part of  ‘My Lindisfarne Collection’, the rest of which which can be found HERE