Last week was the summer solstice, the longest day of year, for those living in the northern hemisphere. It was a day, to celebrate nature and the seasons, to give thanks for the bright ball of gases burning at the centre of our solar system. For me, I was traveling for most of the day. I had high hopes of seeing the sun and thanking God for everything that summer brings; sunshine, warmth and wearing sandals.
However, I only got a passing glimpse of the sun as a large part of the day was cloudy, not particularly warm and I couldn’t see a pair of sandals anywhere. The vagaries of the British summer were in full swing; no one had told the weather how it should act. Despite not seeing the sun when the weather is overcast, we still know the sun is present. Our life on earth couldn’t exist without the sun being there.
The letter reading from this weekend’s Lectionary is from Galatians, and Paul is talking to the church there about the fruits of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is an enigma. We know the Spirit is one person of the Trinity, yet this one person can’t be seen. However, as Paul points out, with the Spirit within us we can be different people. Just like the sun during last week’s solstice, the Spirit is unseen, but we can see the evidence of the existence of both.
Building up the spiritual lives of our congregations and ourselves can be a resource hungry exercise. That is why the Seed is here to help. We have almost 30,000 images available for you to use in sermons and talks, presentations or for personal reflection and meditation. Each resource is available to buy, but you can make great savings by purchasing a subscription, which gives you an amount of credits each week to use on the site. There’s a selection of resources that I’ve found this week below, but there are many more on the Seed.
We pray that the fruit of the Spirit will grow in your lives, and if you’ve planted some seeds in your garden, then perhaps the sun will come out for a while and you’ll have a bumper harvest there too.
