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Liturgy Reclaimed (a Frog Stampwell Poem)

Nothing is wasted
Bed the moss, the mud
Wove Twigs, the grass
the old dead plum tree welcomes
the crows nest upon the mast

Youngers fly their April beds
Feathers high in drying May
sorrel paints this meadow pink
Edge Yellowen, mid sunken green
reeds shimmering in the wind

Hear singing robin, thrush and finch
With golden trill in echoing refrain
June beckoning the evening rain
Unsquandered chimes in treasured air
Their ink sown songs declare

Bramble, oak and hawthorn, cut
wind, whittle, stack or lay
Futuring with blade and rake
Raise your arms, liturgy reclaim
incense from the bonfire’s flame

Liturgy Reclaimed (a Frog Stampwell Poem)

Nothing is wasted
Bed the moss, the mud
Wove Twigs, the grass
the old dead plum tree welcomes
the crows nest upon the mast

Youngers fly their April beds
Feathers high in drying May
sorrel paints this meadow pink
Edge Yellowen, mid sunken green
reeds shimmering in the wind

Hear singing robin, thrush and finch
With golden trill in echoing refrain
June beckoning the evening rain
Unsquandered chimes in treasured air
Their ink sown songs declare

Bramble, oak and hawthorn, cut
wind, whittle, stack or lay
Futuring with blade and rake
Raise your arms, liturgy reclaim
incense from the bonfire’s flame

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

I’m not sure there is an appropriate specific set of words one could weave or conjoin to adequately describe a unique luminosity that hits the April countryside like this. The pale yellow primrose field - and the bluebells both shimmer and glow with ultraviolet that stunned eyes and honeybees see but the camera lens disguises. To the camera the grassy old orchard is green, the bluebells are blue and the primrose is yellow.But the birds… the sunstrokes through the undying leaves of brightness, the chirrup of robins and the cry of the pheasant , the shivering buzz of innumerable invisible flying things - I can hear and smell and see the gentle bowing of branches. It is still and alive, quiet and yet there are acres of layered sounds.Each year this season stuns me. Each year like falling in love again. Now the years have passed each tree is like a friend, the wild plums, damsons and the creeping honeysuckle, and I feel as if the symphony of bees might just be for me. I know rationally, of course, that the cooing of doves, the whistle of chickens and the beauty of sound smell and sight serves other purposes each to their own. But taken together I marvel that we have a Creator who has designed us to appreciate what is. An artist can paint or sing or write just for themselves and for the art form, perhaps for God, but the audience gives it depth. Other ears and eyes and hearts and brains make the artistry have a second and third life. So I sit by a lichen-red cherry tree in the soft moss of April… Bravo. Brava.Spring live again.

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

An amazing week in Oxford exploring business ethics and leadership - so pleased to have @amyorrewing with us all week, but also great input from Prof Josh Hordern, Prof Tom Simpson , Bryce Butler, Toby Kurth and help from @benjiorrewingon work experience

Remember Thy Song is in Thy RiseInspiration today from the Red Kite, Prayer with friends and John Bunyan

“Thou simple bird, what makes thou here to play?
Look, there’s the fowler, pr’ythee come away.
Do’st not behold the net? Look there, ‘tis spread,
Venture a little further, thou art dead.”
….

“The case would somewhat alter, but for thee,
Thy eyes are ope, and thou hast wings to flee.
Remember that thy song is in thy rise,
Not in thy fall; earth’s not thy paradise.
Keep up aloft, then, let thy circuits be
Above, where birds from fowler’s nets are free.”

Saw the fattest magpie in the sun

Irridescant back procking forth
And catch my eye the wren and plump squirrel and the blackbird along

I thought this was mean to be the depth of winter, wizened feathered souls stretched their necks for spring

Portly magpie let me have your audacity, dinner jacket, gait, plenty in every stride between grass and fraying leaves

The sun winked for a moment and you are rejoicing like it is May yet the moon is closing the January afternoon

Pied splendour among the grey.
(Frog Orr-Ewing 2026 with apologies to Gerald Manley Hopkins

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

And finally … after nearly 48 hours of travel from the Southern tip of Africa , I am back at beloved Stampwell Farm. A wintery refuge and alive with colour. Bracken stalks and frozen grass,a dusting of snow on the shadowed slopes, serenity. Also… broken pipes, leaking roofs and potholes to fix … But that’s for another day. Today happy sigh.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Another beautiful day at Stampwell Farm - crazily yellow mushrooms and the trusty sheep

Another beautiful day at Stampwell Farm - crazily yellow mushrooms and the trusty sheep

Another beautiful day at Stampwell Farm - crazily yellow mushrooms and the trusty sheep

Another beautiful day at Stampwell Farm - crazily yellow mushrooms and the trusty sheep

It’s now pitch black by 5pm, and time to light open fires at home regularly. These are beech logs - several of them spalted as well as oak. (Spalted is a great word - it means when there are traceries of discoloration - brown black in the pale wood 🪵.) after seasoning (this is drying to bring the moisture content down from when they are felled) you can split with a mattock and bond your uncle!

“There were no blacksmiths in the land of Israel in those days.”
‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭13‬:‭19‬ ‭
Last week I was reflecting on this incident in the life of Israel - defeated by Philistines, and their bleak moment when they had lost the capacity to sharpen or make any blades- because their farm implements could with skill also equip an army and help them rise up again - to ‘turn billhooks into spears, and ploughshares into swords’I was reflecting on how it is possible for a nation, a people, a church or organisation, those who have experienced struggle and maybe defeat, that even when they are alive still, they are still unable to rouse themselves and their morale. I’m not sure it’s too big a leap to think that there are moments like this today. When this happens - we even lack the ‘blacksmiths’ those who can help us turn farm implements to weapons when it is time to stand up and contend , or conversely help us turn our swords back into plough shares to plant and build a nation in a time of peace.And then this afternoon I found a discarded and totally rusted old implement. I am no blacksmith - but I know a handmade vintage billhook when I see one. I took it home, cleaned, removed the rust, sharpened and now it is ready to be used again in time for the hedgelaying season. Whether you are a fighter or a farmer - time to sharpen your blades, time to train blacksmiths - those who have the skills to help us lead and serve and love.