'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

At housegroup we've just completed an excellent study on the also excellent film The King's Speech, called Finding a Voice. As we were discussing the course and film, someone mentioned the Educating Yorkshire TV series, and dug out this heartwarming clip from it...


https://youtu.be/NFCHbX2jAGI

At housegroup we've come to the end of our exploring Christianity series and are taking a bit of a summer break, doing odd topics before starting the next theme. So today Laura came up with something a bit different to do. She went Facebook hunting and printed out a picture of each member of our group. Then she came up with a list of bible verses following the theme "I am...", and let us all loose with colouring pens...

( I am )

At housegroup we're currently going through a series on aspects of Christianity through the ages, and tonight's (well, last week given that I'm actually typing this on the 9th) topic was Celtic Christianity and its focus on the natural world.

Ca was leading and asked us all to bring something that reminds us of our favourite part of the natural world - I was trying to work out what to bring, but ended up digging out a couple of sunset photos (taken on actual film, to much amusement) as I find when out and about with the camera I take an awful lot of landscape photos, in particularly of landscapes with interesting skies. A quote from Goodnight Mister Tom comes to mind - "I could never tire of painting the sky for it is constantly changing". It turns out quite a few of us had the same idea and had found similar photos of sky and fields.

Later the topic moved on to thin places - this also comes out of Celtic Christianity, and means places where the physical and spiritual worlds seem particularly close. One I found many years ago is this spot:



Hidden to the side of a path between Titchfield Common and the Chilling cliffs are steps leading down to a boardwalk through the trees, along and above a tiny stream. I just find it an incredibly peaceful spot to pause at on a sunny day, listening to the stream burbling along and birds chattering in the trees. The boardwalk has an inscription carved in it - "as time passes slowly by this place, pause awhile, then so must we".

Another one is St Mary's church at Hook-with-Warsash:



I've walked past it several times, but the other day I was attempting some geocaches around Warsash Common and thought I'd give the church micro a try. And having walked into the churchyard and found the necessary clue, I had some time and so decided to explore some more. Doing so turned out to be well worth it and I spent much longer looking around than I'd intended to (abandoning the geocaches due to lack of time) - as with the boardwalk above it was just so very peaceful, and also despite it being a grey overcast day inside the building was very bright and airy thanks to a large pair of clear windows at the rear of the church. Some churches have a particularly spiritual feel, and this is one of those.

This time last year in housegroup we got all artistic and created banners reading 20 C ✞ M ✞ B 17, follow the Catholic tradition of chalking a blessing above the front door of your house. So since it's the start of a new year it was time to dig out the pens and put together another banner...



The CMB stands for two things: it's the initials of the three wise men (Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar), and it's the initials of the blessing Christus Mansionem Benedicat (may Christ bless this house).

During the gloriously sunny weather a couple of months ago house group chose to meet down on the beach, where we actually did very little housegroupy-stuff but instead enjoyed ice cream, toasted marshmallows (and wine gums), and wonderful sunsets...

Team House Group - Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men (Mat 4:19)
Cross-posted to deviantArt


Sky anvil
Cross-posted to deviantArt


This particular cloud put me in mind of Aslan...
Cross-posted to deviantArt