‘Lines to ponder savour, stimulate and amuse.’ Photo: 'Wells of Thought: Gospel reflections on life and faith' book cover
Wells of Thought: Gospel reflections on life and faith
Author: Rosemary May Wells. Review by Michael Wright
This slim book of reflections on life and faith delighted me. It came to me when I was feeling low in lockdown: I found it a ‘balm in Gilead’.
I am not normally one for much poetry, nor do I take too literally many of the gospel stories. But these lines come at some gospel stories from an acute angle. Rather like an Ignatian meditation, the author shows us gospel incidents from the perspective of the onlooker, not the main character. The reader is invited to reflect on each incident as if they were observing the key characters, and we are given imaginative and sensitive insights into their thoughts, feelings, and sometimes bewilderment.
When I worked as a counsellor I often invited clients to look at their situation not always straight on, but by using creative means to look at situations they faced from different perspectives. Rosemary’s reflective lines draw me in in a similar way. I believe they will encourage me to bring my life ‘under the ordering of the spirit of Christ’.
If, like me, you read the gospels more as stimulus to reflecting imaginatively on relationships than as factual accounts of events, then these are lines to ponder, savour, stimulate, and sometimes amuse – certainly to enter more deeply into an understanding of long familiar stories.
I will not think again of the story of Martha and Mary, or of the Prodigal Son and his brother and father, without being grateful for the insights shared in this book. It had never occurred to me that the demented man possessed by a ‘Legion’ of spirits could have suffered deep trauma at seeing men crucified by command of Rome in his youth.
Beyond the major section on gospel stories, we are offered reflections on life and faith, and on Quaker worship. I can see I shall find much here to prompt my exploration of that silence which feeds the soul, and energises the resources of love, compassion and service. In one poem, ‘Shorthand’, she writes: ‘But “God” is a kind of shorthand For an inner reality of love To which we all belong By virtue of our humanity… Worship is the acknowledgement of this love – Particular and universal. Service is our response.’
This will be my companion in quiet moments, both at home and sometimes at Meeting. I may sometimes find myself sharing something of them in ministry. They have the simple attraction of giving us new insights, challenging the reader to reflect on aspects of our own relationships, and I can see they may be helpful to Friends. There is certainly a place for this book on the table in the centre of every Meeting house, available for any Friend to pick up, reflect on, and put down again, having opened up channels of spiritual nourishment.
Wells of Thought is self-published and available from the author at £7.50 inc. postage: contact rosemarymaywells@gmail.com.
