A tiny sprig, a lofty cedar

Sunday, 16 June - Trinity 3: Ezekiel 17:22-end, 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 and Mark 4:26-34

At the heart of our church yard is a cedar of lebanon. 

It has been rooted there since sometime in the 18th century - apparently one of a number planted by the botanist Peter Collinson - a Quaker who traded in textiles and shared knowledge of science and horticulture. 

Our remaining cedar is a striking tree - with its dramatic silhouette and evergreen leaves. 

The cedar in St Mary's Churchyard from 'find a grave' website

A cedar’s imposing stature is said to represent strength and resilience. The prophet Ezekiel uses it in a vision of God’s desire to restore a community, to bring healing out of despair and new life out of devastation. 

It is through this metaphor that Ezekeiel speaks of God’s faithfulness - not only to the ancient covenant with Abraham, Sarah and their descendants, but also the promise of blessing to all nations. 

A tiny sprig becomes a lofty cedar. 

Such a tree provides shelter to winged creatures of every kind; a promise of the inclusivity of God’s promise to restore and protect; a sign of the universality of God’s love for creation. 

Cedars offer shelter - they point to survival and renewal, blessing and fruitfulness. The safety of those aromatic branches is a sign of God’s life-giving grace to all the earth. 

God takes something small and brings from it hope and the power to restore. God reverses all our assumptions about power. Whether in the face of personal loss or collective worry, Ezekiel reminds of God’s enduring love. 

No wonder then that Jesus picks up this image of how tiny shoots or tiny seeds become places of hospitality. Hope and renewal, protection and blessing start with what looks insignificant. They grow into living places - home to all sorts of life. 

The stories that Jessu tells are intended to stretch our imaginations - prompting questions and opening up our hearts to God's ways with the world; ways of blessing and justice, safety and renewal;  to what in shorthand we call the ‘kingdom of God’. 

Today, he doesn’t just speak of seeds, trees and birds; but also a sleeping gardener and the life giving mystery of soil.  There’s something curious about the way Jesus tells that first story.

Whether you have an allotment, garden, window box - or even some cress seeds on tissue paper - gardeners and growers keep a watchful eye on their plants: weeding and watering, pruning and protecting from hungry caterpillars.

The gardener in the parabel scatters the seed - and then sleeps. The seeds are hidden in the soil - as the earth produces of itself the ripening grain to be harvested.  

The gardener trusts the soil and seeds to the mysterious cycle of weather and seasons. It might sound counter intuitive and even frustrating - especially when June feels quite untypical, and a million miles away from the heatwave of a couple of years ago.

But remember, Jesus is leading out imaginations into thinking about God’s ways: reminding us of the working of grace and love under the surface of things; the hidden, fruitful process of bringing forth life. 

Oftentimes it feels as if we are living in between the time of planting and the harvest: so much uncertainty surrounding the impact of our plans, hoding onto our own expansive hopes; nurturing the potential and planting the seeds of ideas. Beginning. And waiting. Trusting in the long haul that love will build up, restore and strengthen us - individually and together. Not just for the sake of the church - but a kingdom of justice and mercy. 

Our lives and our hopes, our work and our desires so often seem to be skating along the surface of the unknown; dancing on the edge of mystery; trusting, if not sleeping!

We plant our prayers and our plans like seeds. Sometimes we have to allow them the space to germinate; trusting others with next steps; faithfully waiting on God’s care, on God’s will to restore and bless. 

This first parable tips into an echo of Ezekiel’s vision: this time a seed rather than a sprig, a bush rather than a tree. But still, smallness is growing into a place of shelter for birds of all kinds. 

We are taken from the realm of the majestic cedar into that of an unruly, fast spreading plant of the sort often dreaded by gardeners - perhaps like the inability to contain mint for instance.  The mustard plant might not have the structural splendour of a cedar, and yet Jesus uses it to say something about God’s kingdom. 

Perhaps part of what Jesus is reminding us is of the importance of the small and seemingly insignificant - the potential of those tiny seeds, the fragility of the sprigs of new life. 

What does it say about the life of the kingdom if it is like a mustard plant: not something that we can control from the centre, but something which runs through our community, threaded through our lives?  What seems to count in God’s economy - or God’s household - are those places of blessing and safety, connection and hospitality. 

Perhaps Jesus is pointing to himself too. He comes to dwell amongst us - God’s word of love in human flesh. Born like us. Living amidst the tensions of power and worldly empires. Growing up to be indiscriminate in his friendships and conversations - a woman at a well, a tax collector in a tree; at dinner with leaders and out on the lake with fishermen. 

He includes us too: the retiree and self-employed, the manager and carer, journalist and doctor, the musician and scientist, the baker and the administrator, the volunteer and community leader, the student and the teacher, the writer and the gardener.

It really is the case that the working out of God’s ways of love runs through our lives too. We are invited to sleep and rest in God’s care - but also to welcome others into this network of inclusion. Sheltering and welcoming those seeking rest and peace, the curious and the sceptical; the lonely and the extravert; attracting rather than blocking, offering hospitality not demanding productivity. 

Such a vision wreaks havoc with strategic plans and the priorities we thought we had decided on. This isn’t a work of our own effort - though it demands our careful attention; this isn’t about reducing people to data - though it is about noticing what we and others need, and where our dreams of blessing lead. 

This is perhaps why Paul reminds the Corinthians to walk by faith and not by sight, persuading others out of love of the Lord rather than boasting in himself. 

He reminds us that it is the love of God which urges us on - like a seed dying in the ground bringing forth life, Jesus died for all that we might live.  That changes how we are to see each other - no longer from the point of view of human judgements and prejudices but as new creations. 

We are new creations. We share in the slow and mysterious life of God’s kingdom - of welcome and blessing, of safety and hospitality, of what is justice and merciful, reflecting God’s loving kindness. 

Sometimes there will be fallow periods - and times of rejoicing. Sometimes we have to rest and wait - like the gardener taking a nap! There will be small things that surprise us with the life they bring. there will be clamouring birds finding space alongside us. 

This is good news, but also challenging news: for us to trust the mysterious working of God’s love among us; for us to seek God in the small things, embracing the unexpected things; planting the sprigs or sheltering in the branches of a cedar. 

We are invited to live within this countercultural kingdom - we are invited to the fruit of the harvest, sharing bread and wine and blessing, those signs of Jesus’ presence with us. We are notice the Spirit creating and renewing, prompting and disrupting….

© Julie Gittoes 2024

Barbenheimer

 Sunday, 30 July: 1 Kings 3:5-1-12, Romans 8:26-39 and Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

This has been a fascinating week in cinema with the simultaneous release of two films which appear to have absolutely nothing in common.

On the one hand, cinema-goers dressed in pink queued to see Barbie:  “life in plastic, it's fantastic”.

On the other, entering into the world of theoretical physics and the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer: “death destroyer of worlds”. 

Image from the Metro

To do the “Barbenheimer” - seeing both movies in one day or even one week - is intense, but not wholly contradictory. Rather, considering how they interact with one another reveals common threads.

Both deal with human frailty, potential and corruptibility; the legacies that haunt us or the problems we thought were solved.  both make us consider the kind of worlds we inhabit, imagine and create. 

As directors both Chistopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig explore power and patriarchy, ambition and arrogance, fragility and feminism, remorse and repentance. 

The sheer cheeriness of Barbieland’s candy-pink utopia only amplifies the bleakness of Oppenheimer’s dystopia of something not understood or feared until it was used.  

Barbie brings a party dancing to disco-pop to a halt as she asks “do you guys ever think about dying”; Oppenheimer, as he walks away from Einstein, knows he will never stop thinking about anything else.

There are layers of complexity in and beyond Oppenheimer the movie and Oppenheimer the man: from the clearance of Native Americans and Hispanos and Los Alamos to the unseen destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; from the suspicion of the McCarthy era to chain reaction of an arms race and Cold War; from the personal betrayals to the weight of depression and responsibility  as campaigning becomes the pursuit of some sort of absolution.

As this plays out in screen one, in screen two we hear of a different sort of breach of stability; a different sort of fear. A membrane has ruptured, between Barbie World and reality.  The weight of human anxiety and depression, disappointment and longing for some sort of absolution seeps into the naivety of a pink plastic domain revealing a blond fragility. 

Stereotypical Barbie begins to experience the discomfort and tensions of the real world: whilst she tries to put things ‘right’, Barbie World is itself breached by Ken’s discovery of horses and patriarchy and a quest for respect which diminishes others. Neither world is ordered to enable the flourishing of all; power still operates out of the shadows. 

Yet there is a longing for liberation: not just in the acceptance of emotions but in acknowledging that we are enough, or "Kenough" as Ken puts it. But neither Barbie World nor “Kendom” are the answer - it is more complex than that.

There is a breach between the real world and the world as we long for it to be - as God calls it to be. It is a breach that Barbie cannot repair despite her longing to move from being made to making meaning.  It is a breach that God longs to repair - by not withholding his Son: for God so loved the world that he sent his Son, not to condemn but to bring hope of healing.

This is the mystery of the incarnation: God’s word made flesh, dwelling with us amidst the real tensions of human life with its power imbalances, burdens of guilt and exploitation and our longing for forgiveness; life with all the risk of intimacy, the struggle for self-acceptance and our place within systems we are subject to.

God comes into our world not through Barbie cars and roller blades, but through the labour pains of birth.  As Jesus enters adulthood, he is present at lakesides and in synagogues, on the road and at the table. He asks those whom he meets what they are looking for; breathing words of challenge, peace and dignity.

The breach between worlds is overcome in him - by his life, teaching us ways of healing; by his death, in bearing with our pain, separation and brokenness; in his resurrection, by revealing the power of love which wins, binding up hearts and gathering up lives.

In Jesus, we do not suddenly escape the contingency and complexity of our world; but we are given signs and markers of what life oriented to God’s ways might look like. 

In his parables Jesus speaks of a Kingdom - not a "Kendom" or any other humanely constructed realm. This Kingdom breaches the realms of earth and heaven, by bringing something of God’s reign to earth. 

If we listen to the words and images he uses, we notice several things. 

Image here

The first is that the stuff of this reign is small: a mustard seed, a grain of yeast. What is hidden away and barely visible will grow, changing and enriching what is around it. As a plant grows or a loaf rises, so we see the gradual process akin to the working out of God’s purposes.

We need to be patient and expectant; not losing heart or feeling disappointed. We are to trust the process that in our midst something is taking root and rising up which is beyond our expectations; hearts changing and movements of justice and mercy rising.

Such change and growth is not just for our sake, but for the sake of the world. A mustard seed produces a large enough shrub to provide nesting space for birds. Space to abide and make a home; to be safe and flourish. Yeast when combined with a proportion of flour - the most dough someone can knead - produces bread not just for some but for hundreds. It is a sign of feasting, sharing and hospitality.  

The next thing we notice is that a kingdom based on God’s ways with the world is worth everything we have: a treasure or a pearl for which we will gladly sell what we have in exchange for it. 

The parables describe a whole-hearted human response to this gift of love and grace - something we seek after and find, something we dig out and uncover.  There is risk and cost and joy to this quest - but it also brings to birth a newness, a set of possibilities, which redirect our priorities. 

Finally, this kingdom is like a dragnet - drawing in everything in its path; gathering up all kinds of people and lives. In part this echos Jesus’ own way of being in the world - time spent with a wedding couple and a grieving mother; daring to touch the leper and being touched by the haemorrhaging woman;  honouring the widow and embracing the child; debating with centurions, pharisees and samaritans. 

All those lives and stories belong to God - as do the theoretical physicist and doll creator, the campaigner and the fragile, the activist and the brokenhearted. On the one hand this kingdom does not demand rash judgement or a move to exclude or cut others off. On the other hand, to hold open the possibility of hope for all does mean living with complexity and uncertainty - it does demand wisdom to seek a way forward.

This is precisely what Solomon asked for when confronted with what it meant to lead a people chosen and yet rebellious. 

He recognises that to decide between good and evil, particular actions and their consequences demanded not wealth or trappings of power. It demands a mind that could discern - discover, seek after, uncover - what is right.

As we pray for our leaders, and for ourselves, that request remains the same: the pursuit of knowledge and peace, the seeking after justice and a sustainable future, all this demands a depth of wisdom beyond our human minds. It demands that we look to an ordering of the world in God’s ways - seeking to reconcile rather than divide.

Neither Oppenheimer nor Barbie are able to put things right. Yet they do point us to ideals and opportunities, they name the cost of ideology and the possibility of change or allowing space for others - seeking the purity of love which makes hatred cease.

Nor can we put things right in our own strength. The great hope of the climax of Romans 8 is that the Spirit helps us in our weakness - praying in and through and for us. The Spirit that searches the heart of God and our human hearts. There are echoes of mercy, whispers of love: our blessed assurance.

A Spirit that seeks to work all things for God’s good purposes. Paul ends with a resounding hope in the face of death - in the face of the questions of Oppenheimer and Barbie: Nothing - not hardship, distress, rulers or powers, not death or life, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

God is love: enfolding all the world in one embrace. We need to lean into that hope - a loving kindness that holds and guides us even when sin, brokenness, hurt, death and fragility haunt us.

Love is the final triumph. Meanwhile, we touch and taste and see that love in the ultimate fragility of broken bread.

Let us pray: Strengthen for service, Lord the hands that have taken holy things; may the ears which have heard your word be deaf to clamour and dispute; may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit; may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love shine with the light of hope; and may the bodies which have been fed with your body be refreshed with the fullness of your life; glory to you for ever. Amen.

[Common Worship post-communion prayer, proper 12]

© Julie Gittoes 2023

It's coming home...!

 Sunday 4 July: Ezekiel 2:1-5 and Mark 6:1-13

Football’s coming home: It's a quarter of a century since Frank Skinner and David Baddiel teamed up with The Lightning Seeds to write the song Three Lions; a song with the famous refrain “it’s coming home. Football’s coming home, it’s coming home”. 

It’s got hints of nostalgia and has become a code for optimism: it veers from disappointment and underachievement to hope for the future and a trust that the team can play.

After last night, may be football’s coming home. 

Ahead of this year’s Euro’s, Gareth Southgate wrote an open letter which quickly went viral beyond the world of football. He said something about the desire for a diverse, modern and inclusive nation. A vision rooted in tradition, without being nostalgic; radical whilst being alert to the present and supporting communities post-pandemic. 

It acknowledges that this country is a work in progress: it’s full of hopes and disappointments, but wanting to be part of a move towards being a more tolerant, equal and understanding society. 

For us, home is daring to seek heaven on earth. For in Jesus, the home of God is with us and through the power of the Spirit, God’s perfect will for humanity is breathed through us.  Dare we allow our imaginations to be enlarged by a vision of God’s kingdom?

Heal the earth; meet the need; set the captives free. 

Image

Ezekiel:  Yet, we know that there will be challenges - within the church and beyond: reducing inequality and social isolation; strengthening families and households; offering the hope of restoration to the vulnerable; inviting the privileged to seek the flourishing of all.

Ezekiel knew all too well the challenges of restoring a people at a time of crisis. He’d trained to be a priest - following in his Father’s steps by serving God in the Temple. Instead he finds himself in exile with his people - far from Jerusalem. 

There he his called into service as a messenger of God, a prophet.  This call was accompanied by a vision of God’s splendour and majesty; of the dazzling brightness of divine glory.

Against this awesome insight, he becomes aware of the need to rebuild community in the face of disruption. He becomes aware of the ways in which his nation has fallen short; the way hearts had turned inwards away from God and the other.  

Today we stand with him as that’s described in stark terms: a rebellious humanity, abandoning the call to seek justice and mercy; a people who’ve transgressed, stubbornly clinging to selfish ways. 

Ezekiel’s calling in response to this crisis of fractured to community is to remind them that God is the Lord. The one who sees the ways humanity falls short - and on the one hand offers a rebuke (we were called to more than this) and on the other offers the promise of restoration.  

There will be new life; love will be shown in hearts of flesh. God’s loving power will help us live aright and give power to be light.

This God, makes a home with us; but as we hear today, for Jesus’ return home is complicated.  Wisdom and power are revealed, yes; but rather than crowds being amazed, it is Jesus who is amazed at their unbelief, and the offence that is taken.

We hear elsewhere, that when Jesus reads and teaches in the synagogue, he takes up texts which speak of God’s power and human need. Texts which speak of God’s perfect will for humanity - speaking life to cities and neighbours. 

The refrain might be: heal the land, meet the need, set the captives free.

Image

Carpenter’s workshop:  Jesus is one who had an earthly home in Nazareth; who grew up amidst the smell of sawdust and had a trade; one who knew the energy of life with siblings.

But for his hearers, perhaps that was just too familiar.  He was in their minds the ordinary lad; they took offence rather than lay hold on this wisdom and love. 

This Jesus continues to draw near to us in the places we call home; we are invited to see his words not as a threat but as a gift; as not only rebuke to those things which are out of kilter, but invitation to forgiveness and renewal.

On the road:  For those who do respond, who see signs of God’s kingdom and long to understand its meaning, there is another step on the journey. They literally take to the road. 

This is the pace of the life of the church: to walk within our communities, step by step. In schools and cafes, in shops and homes, in businesses and surgeries.

The disciples are sent out in pairs - to travel lightly, relying on others to meet their daily needs. They walk and they go to the homes of others; they meet people at the threshold and break bread around a table. 

Image 

Perhaps these are habits we are now slowly beginning to relearn: learning how to be in each other’s company; learning how to be at home with another, to talk and listen; to break bread.

Where they find a welcome, they are to stay; where they are not welcomed, they move onwards.  This judgement comes from being able to listen well; a listening that opens up space for repentance, the turning of hearts to God and others; it allows space for healing, blessing, anointing and renewal.

As God’s people in this place, we welcome Andrew as our deacon: one who will walk with us as we go to the hidden places of our world, as we strengthen connections between our homes and schools.  

Deacons remind us that our lives are to proclaim God’s word of healing and reconciling love; and that our hearts and hands are to show that love in healing the land, meeting the need, setting the captives free.

We will listen. We will walk. We will be at home in Hendon.

For it's coming home; God's kingdom's coming home.

We do that fuelled by gathering together - for here as we respond to God’s word and as we break bread together we pray that our bodies - made one in the Body of Christ - will be made alive. 

Let us come of one accord; let us see each other and our needs. For when we gather, there is power all around. 

Let us gather as our Creator is glorified; all earth knowing God’s name. May the Spirit give us eyes to see God’s will for humanity. For God has made a home in our midst that every nation, tribe, creed and colour might know life and hope. 

Heal the land, meet the need, set the captives free...

Refrain  taken from The Portersgate "The earth shall know".

© Julie Gittoes 2021

Showing honour

A sermon preached at the Eucharist 1st September on honour and showing honour. The text were: Proverbs 25:6-7; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14: 1, 7-14

Channel Four’s Come Dine With Me  is still running after fifteen years.  

It may be one of your guilty TV pleasures, but if you’re not familiar with the format, it’s quite simple. Over the course of a week, five amateur cooks each host a dinner party; whilst also being the guests invited to enjoy - and rate - the menus and entertainment offered in the homes of their competitors.  

With a £1000 cash prize at stake, the current tag line is pretty spot on: ‘The knives (and forks) are out as strangers compete to be crowned top dinner party host’. Part of what makes the show compelling is the voiceover provided by the comedian Dave Lamb which veers from sarcasm to curt observation.

Rachel Bloomsdale the Executive Producer believes that it’s very reflective of what it is to be British because of the humour running through it - and what she describes as an obsession ‘with status and class and who’s better than who and who’s got what’. 

A range of tactics get deployed: simplicity, complexity, novelty and controversy.  The worst thing, she says, ‘is when contestants say they’re going to be better than everyone else. Even if they do a brilliant dinner, they’ll still lose points because of the way they behaved. Nobody likes a show-off’.

Whether we’re a guest or a host, there are conscious of points of ettiequte or custom. Debretts states that social rank may still be deemed to be of ‘utmost importance’ whilst conceding that the nature of the occasions should offer ‘indications as to the relative significance of guests’. Age, professional, charity representation or local connections might be ‘determining factors’.

Wikihow might take a more informal approach to preparing to host a dinner; but even so when it comes to guests of honour - be it a boss or elderly relative - there are rules about sitting at the right or the left.

The scene described in today’s Gospel is recognisable: walk into any dining room, wedding reception or social function and we’ll pick up on those signifiers of status, honour or importance. 

Perhaps there’s a top table; or chairs draped with scarves to save a space. At school, do the popular or sporty people sit together? Do we notice those sitting alone? Perhaps you’ve bene asked to move - or stood scanning the room for a friendly face?

Luke tells us that Jesus is being watched closely; but he’s also the one who notices.

He decodes what’s going on around the table. 

There is something about human nature that can be magpie-like about the desire for honour or status. This desire for social capital is perhaps a twin to the desire for wealth.

I wonder what Jesus make on the impact of the digital world on our social interactions: the sharing of meals on Instagram; the habit of leaving our phone on the table when we eat.

Jesus’ teaching is an invitation to both humility and generosity.  He invites us to follow his example in giving our full attention to the people we’re with, irrespective of who they are or what they do.

Jesus was being watched; and he watches what happened.

People of importance and privilege could afford to rock up fashionably late before using their  confidence and honoured status to claim ‘their place’. 

Image: Marilyn Todd-Daniels

One the other hand, if you arrived early or on time, you might want want to find a good seat. You might possibly end up in the best seat - knowing there was a risk of immense social awkwardness or embarrassment should a more honoured guest arrive. 

Jesus draws on the ancient wisdom of Proverbs which is encapsulated in the short saying we have heard this morning. The story he tells isn’t simply a way to navigate the social system - i.e. chose the worst seat to get elevated to the best.

No, this isn’t game-playing. 

He calls out the negative consequences of self-seeking; of the metric of honour and disgrace.  Instead he invites us to use our imaginations to think about how we might live well together.

Living together with kindness and generosity.

If we are less anxious about where we sit or whose company we keep, if we stop trying to exalt ourselves, might we make space for others? 

In being humble ourselves, might we give dignity others and allow them to flourish?  

As we celebrate the achievements of our young people in exam seasons, we can also help them to see that pursuing their subjects, passions and careers is not about seeking honour for its own sake. 

Rather we are to honour others - their difference and their brilliance; their vulnerabilities and their foibles. Part of the gift of community we can offer is the welcome we offer.

There is no place for humiliation or exclusion based on age, gender, social status, race, sexuality or ability.

In the places where we live and work we can discern who is regarded with honour or who is looked down upon - and we can dare to do things differently.

Part of the calling of the church is do build social capital: we are a place where all can be held in equal honour and dignity.

This is good news not just for us, but for our world. 

The meal that we share together is a participation in the life of Christ;  here our hearts are changed. By the power of the Spirit, we are healed of our desire of status. By God’s gracious intervention we know ourselves as beloved.  Here the true host bids us sit and eat.

The nearness of God in broken bread reverses normal expectations of social status. We are in possession of dignity and honour as children of God; as children of God, our hearts our enlarged to show empathy and generosity, compassion and service - enables us to contribute to the wider society.  

Jesus invites us to break cycles of social reciprocity for a widening circle of blessing where the honoured honour others. Our Scriptures are remind us about God’s preferential treatment of the stranger and widow, orphan and poor. 

And all who receive grace and love in this way are liberated to extend hospitality to others, regardless of circumstances. 

This is the blessing of mutual love.

This is the possibility of entertaining angels unawares. 

This is a human relatedness that identifies with the depths of isolation and pain; and the delights of intimacy and relationship.

This is honour which flows from contentment.

It is dignity which flows from praise of God not love of money.

As Hebrews puts it: Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.

It’s a society where many are lonely or live alone; where inequality is increasing and many are fearful; where there are flourishing enterprises, vibrant arts and new discoveries; where we need investment in housing, health, social care and education; where Brexit has revealed divisions and challenges. 

We have our part to play in shaping a vision for our national life which cultivates a sense of being in community; where all can be valued and contribute. Where every seat at the proverbial table is a seat of honour.  You can be a sign of hope and generosity. In the power of the Spirit, you share the love of God revealed in Jesus.

Our Archbishop has invited us to reimagine Britain on foundations of hope.  He says: ’the people of God are called to be a blessing to those places where they live. Obedience to God is seen in imitation of God, and those in love for those in the world around and in care for the concerns of God: the poor, the weak, and the creation. Most of all… a people of hope, of faith and of love for one another, for neighbour and even for enemy’.

To live God’s Kingdom in our fractured Kingdom means abandoning seeking worldly status.

We are to open our hearts to the self-giving love of Christ. 

Let’s be generous, hospitable and humble. Let’s honour others.

© Julie Gittoes 2019