Death stalks the garden

The remains of an unfortunate pigeon

Murder was done in my garden a few days ago. The wings and feathers of an unfortunate wood pigeon lie strewn over the flowerbed beside the water-filled famine pot where pigeons often come to drink. And I think I know the culprit: next day I spotted the feral cat we often see skulking close by, no doubt hoping for another meal. I wrote murder, but that is the wrong word. The cat was simply doing what God has created cats to do, and deserves no moral blame. Cats kill to eat, and God feeds cats as well as people.

The culprit - a feral cat

We all know that a different killer is stalking God’s wider garden just now – the Covid-19 corona virus – and we human beings are its prey.

Transmission electron microscope image of the corona virus (Credit: NIAID-RM)

It appears that for most the disease is quite mild. But it kills a proportion of both older people like me and those with pre-existing conditions - though even for these 90% or so will recover. The Chinese and the Koreans seem to have brought it under some control, and we can pray that we in Europe will do so too, but I think most of us will be infected eventually. Lives can be saved if we succeed in reducing the rate that it spreads (‘flattening the curve’), so that the health service is not overwhelmed, and those who need intensive care can get it. This is why it is so important for us to follow official public health guidance. Let us be the good people God has made us to be by doing so, showing God’s love to our neighbours.

I do not fear death. I know I am mortal, but I would like to stay around for a bit yet. I hope to see the grandchildren grow up, perhaps even to welcome their children. Of course I am apprehensive about dying, dreading indignity and suffering, though perhaps Covid-19 is not the worst death. I will accept what comes, but not facilitate it.

The way I see it is this. My life from birth to death is like a piece of 3 dimensional string in the 4 dimensions of space-time, starting at birth and ending in death. My life-string twines around the life-strings of every other person I encounter along the way, including family, friends, neighbours and strangers. God is not constrained by dimensions and sees the whole of my life-string, from birth to death. Love is what pleases God. God judges me as a function of the love I show, both for him and for every person my life-string touches, summed over the whole of my life-string. I know that I often displease God. But despite the times I have displeased him, I believe that God is forgiving and will always love me, always love the whole of my life-string, just as he sees and loves everyone else’s. This, to me, is eternal life, why I do not fear death.

And God’s garden is full of life as well as death. While we humans worry about Covid-19, the natural world burgeons and unfolds as the days lengthen, this year as every year. The buds of Magnolia stellata in my garden have opened already. The pussy willow is yellow with pollen for the bees. And other pigeons are billing and cooing, getting ready to raise a new generation.

Magnolia stellata bursting into flower

Daffodil stories

The first two kinds of daffodils in the garden are making a cheery sight just now, despite the incessant wind and rain. There will be more different kinds to come as spring accelerates, but there are nice stories behind these two very different ones.

Narcissus asturiensis - I call it the Clonteem daffodil

The first, and earliest for me, I call the Clonteem Daffodil, because that is what my mother always called it, and I got it from her. She in turn had got it from her mother, Fairy nee Devenish, whose girlhood home was Clonteem, Co. Roscommon. The house burnt down when she was a young woman. She had ridden her bicycle to another big house a few miles away to attend a ball and stay overnight, with her ball-gown wrapped up on the panier. When she got home she discovered her family in their night clothes looking at the smouldering ruins of Clonteem. She was the only one with proper clothes to wear. I have inherited a small mahogany desk from her which was taken from the burning house, but very little else was saved. Later on Fairy's parents lived not far away in Drumsna, Co. Leitrim, and I suspect her mother Kitty nee Russell brought the daffodil to her garden there, and gave her some bulbs after her marriage to my grandfather Jocelyn Waller to plant in her garden at Prior Park.

It is a true minature no more than 6 inches high with perfect yellow trumpet flowers, which I have been trying for years to identify. I now believe it is a true species from northern Spain called Narcissus asturiensis. I have no idea how it got to a garden in Co. Roscommon.

An old fashioned double daffodil - can anyone name it for me?

The second is an old fashioned double daffodil, widely grown in these parts, whose name I don't know. The buds are just bursting as I write, so the photo is of some I brought into the house a few days ago. I did not plant it - it came as a volunteer along with regular daffodils with topsoil brought in when we added an extension to the house. Like many double flowers it does not produce any seed, but it is as tough as old boots and has clumped up beautifully in grass on the edge of the drive. I must split some of the clumps later in the year and spread it around a bit.

Look out for the pollinators

An early flowering cherry promises good things to come

My early flowering cherry (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’) has been delighting the eye with its shocking pink flowers since early February. Storms Ciara and Dennis have battered the side exposed to south west winds, but in the shelter it remains glorious. Every year I see it as a promise of all the good things to come as the days lengthen and grow warm, in the same way that the ancient Israelites saw the rainbow as a promise that rain and floods would never last for long.

This tree is a favourite early source of nectar and pollen for honeybees, and on mild days it buzzes with busy harvesters from the hive my friend and neighbour has placed in my garden. I hope it will give them a good start to the season, allowing the colony to thrive and yield a good honey crop later in the year.

A honeybee harvesting nectar & pollen

Pollinating insects are critically important to the health of our environment - not just bees, but also a legion of other species, including hoverflies, butterflies and moths. Pollinators, flowering plants and animals engage in a wonderful three-cornered dance in God’s creation. The insects pollinate the plants and are fed in return with nectar and pollen. The plants produce fruit and seeds which feed mammals and birds. Mammals and birds in turn eat and distribute the seeds, and in the case of humans plant orchards of fruit trees. The dance would stop without the pollinators.

So it is disturbing that there are indications of a large decline in the biomass and the number of insects in many parts of the world, including Ireland. People my age remember well the days when you could not drive more than a few miles without having to clean the splatted insects from the windscreen of the car, which is unnecessary now. This decline is probably one of the reasons why so many of our native bird species are also in decline.

If you want some ideas on what you can do about this, whether as an individual or as part of a parish eco group, do have a look at the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan website.

Symbols of hope

Single snowdrops reaching for the light

The snowdrops have been pushing up their delicate flowers in the garden for a couple of weeks now. How delicate they are, yet tough enough to force themselves up through soil and leaf-litter, multiplying and competing with other, later plants under trees and shrubs.

There are innumerable different snowdrop species, hybrids and cultivars, of which I grow four – the common single and double forms of the species Galanthus nivalis, the large single species G. elwesei, and the double G. nivalis cultivar ‘Hill Poe’. The latter is a local plant, first discovered by the wife of the Rev James Hill Poe in her Nenagh Rectory garden. The passion of ‘galanthophiles’ – snowdrop collectors - leads them to grow hundreds of different snowdrops, and pay immense sums for a single rare bulb. There are fine collections open to the public in the gardens of Primrose Hill, Lucan, Co Dublin and Altamont, Tullow, Co Carlow. Now is the time to go to see them – but be careful you don’t catch ‘galanthophilia’, which is a disease with no known cure!

Snowdrops are not the only spring flower making an appearance. The first to bloom was the Christmas rose Helleborus niger, of which I picked a small bunch on Christmas morning. Others following on include a particularly early green H. orientalis, the lovely purple Primula vulgaris ssp sibthorpii (a close cousin of our native primrose from the Balkans) and the charming but invasive white periwinkle Vinca major ‘Alba’.

For me all these flowers are symbols of hope in the cold dark days of winter. They remind me that by the grace of God the cycle of life continues to turn. They promise a future cornucopia of beautiful flowers and delicious vegetables as the days lengthen and grow warm. And we need symbols of hope this year more than ever, as we begin to experience the magnitude of the climate crisis.

Christmas roses bloomed on Christmas Day

An early green hellebore

Primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii flowers reliably in January

Vincas major 'Alba' is good groundcover, but invasive

What future for rural parishes in the Church of Ireland?

As I see it our rural parishes face two significant challenges:

1. The present model of one incumbent for each group or union of parishes is no longer fit for purpose in many places:

• Fewer parishioners and falling sustentation is increasingly leading to the appointment of part time clergy.
• At the same time administrative pressures on incumbents are growing, eg for safeguarding trust, GDPR etc.
• The work of a singleton incumbent is increasingly stressful and far too many succumb to the pressure.

2. We need to ride two horses if the church is to flourish in the future. We must both develop fresh ministries for new younger and hopefully growing congregations, at the same time as we continue to provide traditional ministry for existing dwindling and aging congregations:

• Small aging congregations fear their churches may be closed. They are suspicious and often resistant to change, while often recognising change is inevitable.
• There is unlikely to be sufficient critical mass and resource in most groups and unions of parishes to support the development of new ministries and fresh expressions of church to build the church of the future.

One pathway to the future could be clustering existing groups and unions into wider ministry areas. Each might consist of up to 4 or 5 existing groups and unions, with a ministry team consisting of several full- and part-time stipendiary clergy with additional NSM, OLM and Reader support.

• Ministry teams would provide mutual support and absence cover for individuals, so reducing stress on incumbents.
• Administrative support would be shared across the ministry area.
• The pooled resources would both provide ministry to traditional congregations and release resources to develop new ministries and expressions of church.

To be successful such a clustering approach is likely to require:

• Sufficient full- and part-time resource to allow mutual support.
• Ministers comfortable with working as part of a team with clearly defined lines of authority.
• Geographical and cultural coherence.
• Reassurance to small congregations. Can we promise them that their churches will not be shut unless they ask for it, provided they can both maintain the building and raise up a reader to lead worship when necessary?

I think it is urgent to explore the implications, pros and cons of such a clustering approach, and if it makes sense to try it out. And we should also explore other pathways. But if we do nothing, the future will surely be one of continued decline punctuated with ministry crises.

A Prayer of Bishop Jeremy Taylor

O God, whose days are without end,
and whose mercies cannot be numbered;
make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible
of the shortness and uncertainty of human life;
and let thy Holy Spirit lead us
in holiness and righteousness all our days:
that, when we shall have served thee in our generation,
we may be gathered unto our fathers,
having the testimony of a good conscience;
in the communion of the Catholic Church;
in the confidence of a certain faith;
in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope;
in favour with thee our God,
and in perfect charity with the world.
All which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This lovely prayer by Jeremy Taylor 1613-1667, Bishop of Down, Connor & Dromore, is included in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, for Visitation of the Sick. He is commemorated in the Church of Ireland on 13th August.

Autumn glory

The view down the Lime Alley to Kilteelagh gates

The leaves in the garden are falling fast now after the first frosts, but they were still glorious in yesterday's sunshine. It was dry enough to take the mower out at a high cut to gather up the fallen leaves, which have been put in piles to make leafmould. The cycle of life continues as nutrients return to the soil to give it the fertility on which all life depends. Thanks be to God!