Just a few days to go now until the launch on Friday!
So, here is another snippet. This one draws on a talk I gave a few years ago, the Sunday after Easter, when this memory seemed to speak of resurrection, of new life for things that were broken. Beauty can be made out of even the most unpromising materials.
It tells of how we went to Wells Cathedral, and how the stained glass in the Lady Chapel was made of thousands of broken fragments, gloriously put together, after the windows had been destroyed centuries before.
They were a vibrant kaleidoscope of shape and colour, exuberant and abstract, scattered with recognisable pieces of face and clothing. But this was nothing to the beauty of the light that poured through them, for they turned the morning light to wild splashes of colour, transforming all it touched – all that old stone and wood and metal – to vibrant life.
…….
All those broken pieces, all those jagged edges, all those lost pictures were put together in a new way, transformed into something glorious. Something new was made out of the discarded, useless pieces. And the light of the morning sun poured through them, making everything within shine, lit up with glorious colour.
I saw a parable in this glass, a kingdom story of the new creation. We, broken and discarded and small as we may be, can be held up to the light…….
Christ, in whom all things hold together, can indeed hold us together.
If you’d like a copy, you can ask your local bookshop, or order online.
Here are a few suggestions:
Andrea Skevington 