A familiar sight on Shrove Tuesday.

These are not the men of our Parish, but here is the clean-up crew that took over when all the pancakes and sausage and eggs were scoffed...



And here are some of the people who scoffed them...



A friendly outreach into the community and a really delightful evening, which morphed overnight into the somberness of Ash Wednesday.



The purple of Lent - and now begin the days of mindfulness and spiritual examination.

This Lent I have chosen to re-read a book by Lucinda Vardey and John Dalla Costa - Being Generous, The Art of Right Living.

I quote from the outside cover......

"Generosity, as the word itself connotes, is about not only giving but also generating. It is a creative act, rather than a handout, an attitude or ethos rather than an exchange between someone who has too much and someone who has too little. Even when pursuing other objectives, or coming from other motivations, generosity is often at the heart of what brings peace and real self-worth... In virtually all relationships, but especially in friendship, partnership and marriage, generosity is the expansive quality energizing hope and happiness. As such, generosity is not optional. Nor can it be occasional. Rather, it works its uplifting magic only when it becomes a central characteristic and ordering principle in one's everyday life".

It is a goal worth achieving, - to avoid the mean and miserly, and to embrace life itself with a spirit of positiveness and sharing. To be mindful of making generosity a way of life, so that where love lives misery cannot abide.

Will I be successful? - ah, who knows. It takes a lifetime of striving to overcome ego and look outward with open arms and heart. And an awareness...

"This delicate balance of living generosity as a spiritual practice takes some dedication and resolve. Like all magnificence it can't align aspiration with practice without a dutiful development of consciousness"
.

The wonder of our consciousness which we
neglect to explore in depth, although we see
that it and it alone provides the cast
that makes the universe so huge and vast,
that it and it alone supplies the base
for all the immensity of time and space,
that it and it alone allots the size,
the shape and form which we mark with our eyes,
also the number, distance and the span
of time we try to calculate and scan.
Gopi Krishna