11 Mar 2026

Three Flower Pots and a Small Lesson in Hope

Outside Park Lane Chapel there are three stone urns that sit quietly on their plinths along the chapel wall. Most of the year they look rather dignified and understated, as if they have been keeping watch over the building for decades. But every spring something rather lovely happens. Almost overnight the urns wake up.

Daffodils begin to lift their golden heads, pansies appear in cheerful purples and yellows, and little trails of ivy begin their slow and determined escape over the stone edges. What had looked like solid grey permanence suddenly becomes a burst of colour and life.

This year we have Harry to thank for that. Harry, who quietly does a thousand jobs around the chapel that most of us never notice, took it upon himself to plant the urns. Like many of the things that keep our chapels running, it was done without fanfare or fuss—just the simple decision that something could be made a little more beautiful. I find myself pausing to look at them each time I arrive.

The garden at Cairo Street Chapel has a similar effect. Anyone who has spent time there will know that it does not happen by accident. It is very much a labour of love shared by Ray Beecham, Peter, Elfriede, and Helen, whose care and attention have turned the space into something quietly special. Even on busy days, stepping into that garden has a way of slowing the world down for a moment.
Spring does this every year. It gently reminds us that life continues to grow. Mothering Sunday, which is approaching, speaks to something deeper than bouquets and cards.

Traditionally it was the day people returned to their mother church. But the spirit of the day also speaks to something wider: the nurturing, protecting, and tending of life itself. In that sense, Mothering Sunday invites us to remember our shared responsibility as custodians of creation. There is a famous principle from the Hippocratic Oath, the one many in our NHS live by: First, do no harm. It is good advice for medicine. But it is not bad advice for life either.

Imagine if we applied that simple principle a little more widely: to our communities, to the earth we share, and even to the way we treat one another. Gardens, after all, do not flourish through grand gestures. They grow through quiet care: planting, watering, noticing, tending. And sometimes, if we are lucky, through three cheerful flower pots outside a chapel—planted by someone who cares enough to make the world just a little brighter.

Although I suspect the pansies may also be quietly judging my gardening skills, but we will keep that between ourselves. As spring unfolds, I am also looking forward to seeing something else begin to bloom: our new weekly Wednesday services with Chester Unitarians, which will be held at the Quaker Meeting House on Union Walk, just off Frodsham Street in the centre of Chester. New flowers, new gatherings, and new opportunities for reflection and community, spring seems to be working its quiet magic everywhere.
And perhaps that is the lesson these little gardens teach us: that with patience, care, and a little attention, life has a remarkable way of flourishing.

With every blessing for the days ahead

Rev. Rob 
 

Gallery