There’s a corner of my garden where I love to sit and be. It’s peaceful there and pretty; it tastes of sanctuary. The jasmine scented quiet, the little chapel roof, the paving stones, the timber… it all adds up to make this a rather special place for me.

You may join me for a coffee, or perhaps a cup of tea. Or if the afternoon is creeping on, a glass of pinot gris. We can watch the Fantails catching insects on the wing, and listen to the Tuis as they chirp and chat and sing.

Above the sky is azure blue and the sun is beating down, but here my garden bower is cooler with a hint of breeze around.

You’ll often find me sitting here when household tasks are done, and daily burdens weigh too heavy ruining my fun. I come here for the peacefulness, the loveliness I find, and breathe in the quiet beauty that soothes my anxious mind.

For around me is His glory, I can sense Him here with me. It makes this corner sacred, a very special place to be. There is nothing else so blessed than being here with He who is so holy, righteous, powerful, tender, loving, and to my humble awe is also very willing… to share this place with me.

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

(Isaiah 26:3. NLT)

A lovely view of New Zealand’s beautiful harbour capital, Wellington, on a balmy summer evening. If only Wordsworth could have seen this when he was in the mood to write…

Earth has not anything to show us more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the [evening]: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the [harbour], and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air….

(adapted from Upon Westminster Bridge ~ William Wordsworth, 03.09.1802

I know that Wellington is not London, and in so many ways I am glad that it isn’t.
As much as I love London for it’s history, architecture, museums and galleries, parks, the river that “glideth at his own sweet will” and the shows and so much more, I don’t envy the troubles that have erupted there over the past couple of weeks and are a reflection of the extent to which an alien ideology has washed over British shores to settle its turbulent wash in its wake. Those troubles are not present to nearly the same degree in this country, and it was only in Auckland where a peaceful protest was staged.

This morning one of our Members of Parliament braved an article in the Dominion Post, one that to me spoke a lot of good sense. I will quote most of it here…

“I grew up in a world where being able to migrate to a new country was a privilege. In the 1950s, our Department of Internal Affairs assisted with classes for new citizens. They were instructed about the Kiwi way of life, and the things their hosts valued, including the separation of church from state, and the rights of individuals. The underlying message was that being allowed to settle here was a contract. Once you got residence or citizenship, NZ had to come first.

“Why has immigration policy changed? Why are most Western countries dealing with immigrants who think they have a right to punish their hosts if they dislike something they do? Sadly, the answer lies in the postwar nonsense that all cultures are equal.

“Many Westerners practise cultural cringe, debasing our heritage in the process. Human rights and race relations officials, not to mention otherworldly clerics, argue that everyone, everywhere, has a right to his or her cultural practices and religion, no matter the offence given to their hosts. Some African Muslim practices such as female circumcision have been outlawed, but not the wearing of burqas, despite the clear symbolic intention behind them to repress women.

“The care given to the screening of migrants has slipped disastrously over recent years. the cross-questioning that was normal after WWII is frowned upon now. Result? Five million Muslims now live in France, reluctant to acculturate. Remember the fury over headscarves in French public schools? Other countries have big Muslim minorities who are similarly reluctant to fit in. In Britain, many take offence when anything critical of Islam occurs but show no sensitivity to the offence some Muslims’ own behaviour causes.

“What is sinister is that many Muslims in foreign countries appear to have become a fifth column for Islam. On cue from Tehran or Damascus a demo takes place in Copenhagen, Lebanon, Jakarta, London and even Auckland. While ours was peaceful, in other countries thugs rampaged, many of them the same people who danced in the streets after the World Trade Centre’s destruction. They ritually burn others’ flags, and effigies of Western leaders. They pledge blood to redeem the Prophet. Stalin’s edicts had the same effect on Soviet fellow travellers. Ever since the ayatollahs grabbed power in Iran in 1979, they have waged holy war against the West.

…….

“It’s time our leaders woke up to what Islam extremists are doing. After the cartoons, there’ll be another fight. From 9/11 till today there has been a string of atrocities perpetrated by fanatics in the name of the Prophet. Something akin to war has already been declared by Islam’s lunatic fringe.

“Some say it is too late to tighten up on immigration. But there’s still time here. That Auckland Islamist should be made to apologize for his conduct. If Muslim extremists can’t be reined in, a serious conflagration looks likely.”

(Michael Basset, 13.02.2006)

An Australian-born friend of mine who has lived here most of her life finally decided to seek NZ citizenship. Although Australian and already acknowledging the British monarchy as sovereign, she discovered that she was required to take an oath of allegiance - all over again. If our migrants are to do that, then the Queen becomes their new Head of State to whom they owe allegiance - not to their country of origin - and they are accepting the dictates of our legal system which over-rides any cultural mores that they have brought with them from elsewhere. There are no cultural prescriptions or proscriptions that take precedence over those laws.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I have personally found the events of the past couple of weeks to be quite harrowing, and potentially exhausting. Keeping up with the news in any detail has meant delving even further into things that are unpleasant, unsavoury and really quite ugly. For some of my friends it has been seriously stimulating, providing the chance to inform those bewildered and baulking. For me, I have needed to back pedal at times, to take breathers, to do something suitably antidotal to deal with the chilling satanic evil that seemed inherent in the intense vitriolic hatred and venom spewed at us crusaders and kaffirs. There is nothing nice about this, and my soul seeks solace away from it all. The problem will not go away until it is dealt with, resolved. The truth is painfully real, but it is only the truth - not any of the lies - that will truly set any of us free in the end.

Meanwhile, my garden of roses and the following words seemed to fit the “time out” that I need to keep going.

Hello visitors from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, NZ, UK and USA.
It is amazing where you all come from, and it is very nice to have you call in to visit. You are very welcome to register and leave a comment too.

It is Springtime here in New Zealand, and these Iceplant flowers are currently in bloom in my garden. This is a photo of a small portion of a large earthenware container with flowers cascading everywhere. Also in flower at the moment are Freesias, Irises, Sweat Peas, Lavender, Jasmine, Roses and many more, plus the native hebes too. There is nothing like a garden, and getting one’s hands into the soil, to touch base with nature and recharge the batteries when times are tough and life gets rough.

A Prayer in Spring
by Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

The arrival of a large item of computer-related hardware into my Happy Room the other day caused something of a crisis. There was already scarcely any room in there for myself, let alone for anything else. Something had to give. Then a friend told me that her church was having a fund raising fair and she would happily relieve me of anything I would like to move on. Well, being the middle of Spring down this end of the planet just now, I guess it was the appropriate season for a spot of clearing out and cleaning up. Time to scutter the clutter I mutter and stutter.

A ruthless approach, two huge cardboard cartons and many bags later, it actually feels good… even a little exhilarating, refreshing, and much lighter on the soul. Too many possessions becomes oppressive. It is a Happier Room for being an emptier room. All those big and little things that attach like barnacles to the hull of a vessel start weighing oneself down as a burden more than a blessing. Stuff in stuffed cupboards, stuff in stuffed drawers. Paralytically stuffed by stuff, far more than enough. Well, these cartons and bags of barnacles are now ready to go. May my divested burden become a revested blessing, but elsewhere instead.

I think of Mother Teresa… one change of clothes and a bucket. I don’t think we are all called to have that little, but a lot less than what we have in this materialistic age of consumerism might work much better for many of us. Less having, more giving. That is certainly so for me.

I took a walk along the shore, the wind whipping my hair about my face, the sea spray stinging my lips with the taste of salt. Seagulls soared and circled overhead, diving to land among their squawking peers squabbling at the rubbish bins for scraps of yesterday’s lunches left behind by brave picnickers undaunted by inclement weather. Tom, Dick and Harry Gull were fighting for possession of a fried potato, but where was Jonathon? Of course, he had far better things to do… as did I as well.

I am weary and wary of fried potatoes. I certainly have no wish to fight over them. Wherever Jonathon was, I was too… walking along the shore in the biting breeze, savouring the touch of nature through my skin and speaking to my soul. As the days get cooler and the white-caps appear to roughen up the harbour, it is good to get outside, to have the mental cobwebs blown away. Peeling off shoes and socks I stand up to the ankles in the edges of the bubbling surf, the tide pulling back against my heels, the sand tunnelling under my feet. I am invigorated.

It seems I cannot avoid the stress of modern life. Attempting to reduce as much of it from around me, it beats down the door in news reports and incessant demands for my response. I am not immune to it as I was. I cannot shake it off as I once did. It resonates with an accumulation of life’s experiences until the tremors become jarring jolts of pain and I need to get away, to walk the beach, to touch home base within my soul and seek solace in the embrace of Mother Nature.

My family laughed at me, but kindly so. We had driven through downtown Detroit, Michigan, and come to a safe tree-lined place well away from there and stopped. I leapt out of the car and flung my arms around a tree. There is too much that is horrid made by man; too much plastic and waste and ugliness. It is through our skin that we learn to love and be loved, the most basic sense of them all, to touch and be touched. I held my father’s hand as he died, and then my mother’s when she died too. When all else is going, sight and sound, breath and life, to feel through one’s skin becomes primary; the point where personal boundaries meet and become defined, where contact is made and life is real. To touch the wind, the salt, a tree… Mother Nature please touch me.

This text - The Songs of Bilitis - is in the public domain in the United States because it was not renewed at the US Copyright Office in a timely fashion as required by law at the time. It may not be in the public domain in other countries. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice of attribution is left intact.