Brother Edwin Lloyd-Jones
Brother Edwin Lloyd-Jones is a co-founder of Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust and is a member of the Community of the Little Followers of Saint Francis.
Dreams, Thoughts and Meditations
These are some of my writings that have come to me in dreams, while praying, and while sitting in the silence and inwardly listening. I see these moments as treasures that are offered to us all as we take the time to listen.
Brother Edwin Thomas Lloyd-Jones lfsf
I took the name Thomas as my religious name at the time of my Life Profession.
Thomas was a doubter until he came to know God through a personal experience.
Love
For mine eyes have rested too long on the dusty road
And now to rest them in pastures green.
We see each other o’er time and trial
And come together in harmonious embrace.
Like the petals of the flower with leaves so green.
We embrace and cry out our love for all to see.
A love that seeks never to chastise but only to take you
In my arms and love you.
For you are unique in this world of worlds.
Do you hunger for me? Then replenish yourself.
Drink from my heart for I have only love
To succour Thee. Thy thirst shall be quenched
From my life’s blood.
You and I, together, for all time.
Be with me in heart and soul
For I love you will all the atoms of my being and beyond.
Thou knowest not what foretells
But I, who am your Guiding Light, takes hold of you
And leads you ever onwards
Towards the Home Coming of Love.
You and I have travelled many paths together
And in the leading you see the form and wonder of it All.
Rejoice in this time for time stops still at special moments
Memories linger on, long after the moment has passed.
Love and be Loved in Peace and Harmony.
(From Br. Edwin’s Prayer Journal 13th February 1987)
A Question to Jesus
A Meditation
1988
The following meditation was written by Brother Edwin Thomas Lloyd-Jones lfsf, during one of our regular Quiet Days held at Elm Grove in response to a question posed by Uniting Church minister, the Reverend Peter Elliot, who was leading the day. Peter’s challenge was – “If you were walking with Jesus and he asked you “what do you want me to do for you?” what would be your response’?
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And Jesus asked me, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ I answered, ‘show me the way of the Christ’. At this he said to me:
“The way of the Christ is long and hard or short and simple. You dictate the way by your acts and beliefs or the amount of time you hold onto your past. For I say to you that the time spent on misgivings is time well spent, if you wish to hold on to what you are now.
For those who wish to grow through self, who would transcend that base part of themselves, for them the way is clear. For I say to you, love one another, as I love you. When I speak of love, I speak of the highest born emotion, for love transcends all things. With love you have all that you can have. So, if you ask me, ‘what can I do for you?’ I tell you, to love one another and there truly is the Christ.
No need to travel far to find, for it is all within yourselves. I say to you to go into yourselves and look to find your answers. For truly, all the answers are to be found within yourselves. When we speak of love, we speak of that which is the highest, for that is the state of God. So, to attain to be God is to enter into the state of sublime love which is the state of God.
If another hurts you, will you despise them or love them? These are the areas that you need to transcend, for to hate is not to love and in hating another you enter the state of ungodliness. I will show you the way if you will let me. I say to you, the way is as easy or as difficult as your acceptance. You make the pathway straight or crooked by the degree of your acceptance or non-acceptance of what I say.
So, I say, if you open your heart to me, I will enter and I will direct you along the paths of your enlightenment. It is your choice and my wish.”
A Reverie
Where to now my pretty lass? Shall we walk a while and perhaps lie in the grass and talk of things long-gone in the past? Is it good that we do this? Will others talk as they spy on us and make gossip and slander as we explore our future? What think you?
With your long tresses down to your waist, your eyes as blue as the sky above, will you lie with me so chaste and pure of heart that stole mine? Ah, perhaps not, for you fear the wagging tongues of those who lack memory to relive and while away the time in blissful reverie. But allow me at least to hold your hand as we walk, to surreptitiously cast my eye over your swelling breast and watch as you laugh and toss your head as I see the sun reflect off your golden tresses.
Ah! ‘Tis a wondrous thing this love that swells my heart and casts all doubt before it. But now my mind is in turmoil and my body sweats in anticipation of holding your body next to mine. Would you sense my yearning as we lie close? Would you walk away from me to break the bond that my body yearns to create with yours? I tremble at the thought of rejection, and yet, I see no sign of my fear of rejection in your eyes. Will I dare to steal a kiss? And if I do, what then? No, for the moment, I must just rejoice in the comfort of the feel of your warm body next to mine as we hold hands, and I hide my fears and doubts from you and put on a brave and confident air, so you will not find me wanting in your thoughts but see me as a confident master of myself. One to share your time with.
Oh doubter! My fears await to overwhelm me; my trepidation threatens to unhinge me. Then, you stop and turn to me and pull my head down to yours as you tell me that you love me, and we kiss and the world that had stopped for an instant begins its journey around my heart, but now in a haphazard way. But I care not, for you love me as I love you.
I sit with you now. We have grown old together and I sit next to you and gaze upon your face so serene. The wrinkles smoothed from your furrowed brow. I lean to you and kiss your brow so cold now in death. Ah, but I remember our years together and that day of our walk and our first kiss.
Edwin Lloyd-Jones. 28 December 2016.
Dedicated to all who have found true love
My Easter Dream
Good Friday 10 April 2020
I was walking along the side of a mountain. The mountain was bare of any vegetation and I was walking and slipping on loose shale. I was aware that people were practising military manoeuvres somewhere on the mountain but I could not hear or see them. I was just aware that this was happening. Walking along the slope I saw a man standing on his own. He was of solid build. I asked him whether he was part of the military exercises and he told me that he wasn’t but that he had come to the mountain to make a large cross in memory of his son.
He had formed the cross out of the dry shale which was very large but I couldn’t make it out. I just saw some raised lines of shale lying on the ground.
I asked him if he was there as part of an Agriculture delegation and he smiled and told me that it was sort of something like that. He was wearing an off-white suit that seemed to have seen better days. At that moment some-one came and told him that he had to leave now or he would be late for his next appointment. As he departed he told me that everything was going to be okay. Then he smiled at me and left with this other male.
Later, down at the foot of the mountain, I was with others when I noticed a slightly beat up station wagon approaching, the driver was the man from the side of the mountain. He stopped the car and leaned out of the window and said to me, ‘we must keep in touch.’ I nodded and then, as he drove off, I called out to him that I didn’t have his contact details. He waved to me and said ‘I know who you are.’
A ‘Good Age’?
The other day I overheard someone asking a mutual friend ‘How old is Ed?
‘Hmm, I’m not sure, but he’s a good age’ was their reply.
This set me to thinking about just what is a good age? And how would you define it anyway? Having just turned eighty-nine I have to admit to not feeling too chirpy some days but, then again, I think that I am in reasonably good health. Granted I need my walking stick these days to navigate open distances or rough ground but that’s not too bad considering that many younger folk than me are in a much worse shape. So, what is a good age?
In quieter times I often reminisce about the good old days. As a child I used to do what I now would consider to be impossible things. The fun and laughter times. They were good.
In young adulthood came the adventures and discoveries of life along with its responsibilities. They were good. Then as life took on a more structured aspect with education, falling in love, marriage and children, these times were also good.
With the flow of time most of us face challenges with mortgages, support for our growing children, teenagers finding their direction in life, and career changes, but overall upon reflection, I found these times were pretty good.
With ageing we can be faced with serious health issues, the loss of parents or our siblings with whom we have enjoyed so many good times. All, a snap shot of life and in the pondering, we realise that they become the real nitty gritty of a life fully lived.
Of course, all life cannot be encapsulated quite so simply as having reached the all inspiring ‘good Age’ part of life, one knows that there is much more really to it.
Have you ever thought of what your life might have been had you followed your young age whims or plans? The coming to that fork in the road of life where you can either take the left or the right or have maybe not felt confident enough to take either road. This of course is impossible, as you did choose something that took you to the point where you are now. Sometimes what you think you would like to do with your life comes as a thought or feeling, however, it never comes to be. Or does it?
Growing up during the second world war without my father, who was a prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945, I was quite obsessed with wanting to join the RAF when I grew up. I remember going to my mother at about the age of twelve and saying, ‘Mam, when I grow up, I don’t know whether to be a pilot of a parson’. Somewhere in that young brain, apart from my focusing on the military, strangely had come the thought of joining the church.
At eighteen, with two years National Service required, I enlisted for three years. The extra year allowed me to choose any area of service that I wished to serve in. I was mad keen to be a musician so this allowed me to join a military band enabling a thorough training as a musician. Fifty years later I became a life professed Franciscan religious brother. What a varied journey I ultimately went on that led me to that point in my life that strangely aligned with my boyhood questioning to my mother of either the military or the church.
With my wife Laurel, who had an out of body experience during surgery when she was confronted with her Creator, this led both of us on an unbelievable change to our lives. This culminated in us writing of our journey now encapsulated in our book The Elm Grove Story – a mystical experience. This speaks of the unseen power of love that we cannot see, but can definitely experience. This power can work with us in our everyday lives.
It is interesting that one can perhaps have some sort of a glimpse of what our future might hold. Perhaps not quite in the way that we imagined with life’s many turns and twists but now at this time in my life I can mostly say that my life has been very blessed despite a few ‘downs’ that have been topped by the ‘ups’. So, a good age?
Definitely!
Edwin Lloyd-Jones
That’s Edwin on the side drum.
Br Edwin Thomas