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Viewpoint from Rev Shaula Reilly 01/08/2025
 Rev Shaula Reilly
Vicar, St Andrew's Church, Gorleston
Brambles, nettles, thistles, hops… I’m very grateful to Barrie and Kelvin who mow the lawn and keep it looking lovely, but the rest of the vicarage garden… resembles Sleeping Beauty’s forest in places!
Slowly, slowly, I’m clearing the flower beds, cutting things back, sawing off overgrown branches, digging out roots. I need to clear away the undergrowth to make space for the cutting flower seedlings I’ve nurtured for the first time this year, as they really need to be planted in the ground - if only there was space for them! It’s made me think about areas of my own life that might need to be pruned back to make space for new life and new things to grow. What am I wanting to see blossom and flourish in my life that I need to make room for?
 Seeing butterflies, bees, and other insects fluttering and buzzing round the plants and flowers, hearing the birds, seeing things growing and flowering, and feeling sun, showers or breeze on my arms, gives me such a huge feeling of peace and contentment and points me to the love and generosity of the one who I believe created it all
One particular joy recently has been the discovery of a thin straggling rose which has grown up into the space created by cutting back some branches of an overgrown tree and a huge shrub, which had become entwined together. And I was delighted last week when a beautiful white flower, on top of a spindly thin stalk waving precariously in the wind, appeared in this new gap. It fills be with hope and expectation to realise that given a bit more space and light, the forgotten rose can be restored to its former glory
But back to Sleeping Beauty. You may remember the story: an evil fairy places a curse on a baby princess, who on her 16th birthday will prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep. The curse can only be broken by the kiss of a true love. Whilst the princess sleeps and sleeps, a thorny forest grows up around her. The white rose that appeared in my garden reminded me of this story, and as I was thinking about it, I realised that it also points to a much bigger story: that the curse of evil has been broken by the love of the truest love of all – Jesus who laid down his life for each one of us and the whole of the natural world, freeing us from the thorny imprisonment of evil, and rising to new life which he in turns offers us. Or as the Bible puts it in Colossians 1:13: ‘God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves’. Like that rose bush struggling in the darkness under a huge tree and shrub, we too, can be freed and come into the light, with all the hope and expectation of becoming ever more fully what God has lovingly made us to be
photo: Rev Shaula Reilly snuggled up with someone else's dog on Easter Sunday last year
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