Walking on Frozen Ground

Minus 5C. I’ve hung out a wash, standing on the frozen earth and looking at a leaden sky and wondering why I was bothering. In a few hours I’ll bring in stiff sheets and thaw them out. An exercise in futility I guess…

But my days are numbered, as are everyone’s, and every moment counts. So how can that time be redeemed? Is there anything of value to be gleaned from those moments wasted hanging out a wash on a frosty morning?

I noticed the birds, scavenging for sustenance. I connected with their plight in a way I couldn’t by looking at them out the window of my warm kitchen.

Native Americans have a saying to the effect that you should never judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins. Jesus sat with the sinner. He ate with the outcast. He walked with the diseased and the rejected.

May the love of God in me impel me to take the time to walk a mile with those whose experience is different from mine, that I might better understand our shared humanity. May I be more eager to listen to others’ stories, to walk on the frozen ground of some of their lives, than I am to share my own opinion. May God help us all to hunger to know him, to know others, so that we can more truly know ourselves.

A Gang of Pheasants

A gang of pheasants hangs around our garden most days. Actually, they don’t hang around; they graze on by as they try to consume enough calories to keep going another day. They eat what they find, as do the hunter-gatherer tribe from Tanzania who we saw on a programme on the telly last week. Pretty precarious life.

On Friday we were feeling sad for our beautiful feathered friends, knowing the local syndicate had a scheduled shoot on Saturday. We thought many were destined to die soon.

However, I was delighted this morning when, as I walked down the drive, a dozen or so of these creatures tiptoed and lurched into the air in front of me. The ones that got away to live another day.

Generally I act as if I were going to walk on this earth forever, enjoying the rainbows and sunsets, the joys and laughter and love, the challenges and new experiences life offers. Today I was reminded that my life is just as precarious as the pheasants and the hunter-gatherers.

Underneath are the everlasting arms. Thanking God tonight for another day on this beautiful earth.

A Grinning God

Pulling out a Bible buried underneath other reading material in the prayer window, I discovered Thomas the Tank Engine and a toy caravan, neatly parked away. What is for me a place of quiet contemplation is for my grandkids a place of play and fun.

Jesus was accused by his enemies of being a party guy, eating and drinking with some disreputable characters. He was building the Kingdom of God, though, bringing the joy and light of God into all sorts of places, including those which others thought of as places of reverence and quiet contemplation, or places of disrepute.

When I watch a nature programme and see the wild, glorious diversity in creation – from weird and wonderful creepy crawlies (best seen on a screen) to breath-taking waterfalls and plants – I know that the Creator of such spectacular things rejoices in colour and texture and variety. I am sure that when he sat back on that seventh day and saw that all that he had made was good, he grinned and laughed with pleasure.

Black holes into Gold Mines

Our persistent eight-legged interloper was back in the shower the other night. So I dropped the marge tub on top of him for Don to remove later. I’m becoming quite blasé about it all.

We both forgot about him until the next morning. I was concerned he would have died, deprived of oxygen, and thought a quick death by vacuum would have been more humane. Don turned over the tub to discover – he’d filled the tub with a web.

Trapped, he’d got busy making something which could trap other victims, or perhaps protect him.

Some victims make other victims. Sometimes they may do it as a means of self-protection, of masking their own vulnerability and woundedness.

Some victims make a healing balm for others.

Paul wrote that the bad things we suffer in life can strengthen and equip us to encourage and help others. It’s the taking God into the pain and trusting him with the healing that transforms a victim into a victor.

May I trust God enough to transform my black holes into goldmines of his light. For his glory.

Last Roses of Summer

The last roses of summer share their intoxicating fragrance throughout the kitchen/living room. Big, ‘buxom beauties’, their magenta hue and sweet smell make these flowers the queens of my garden. Got them in just before the winter winds strike, forecast for this weekend.

I can’t protect everything that is precious and loved in my life. Husband, children, grandchildren, mother: they all have lives in the matrix of a turbulent and often hostile world, and I am not there with them ( – as if that would make all the difference!).

So I entrust them to God, who loves them all even more than I do. He died for each one. He has plans for each one, plans for good and not for evil. He knows every hair on each head. And he has the power and the will to bring each one through whatever valley they are in and up onto the mountain tops, where their perspective is unrestricted by giants that may threaten on the valley floor.

This morning I give God the glory, totally grateful to Jesus for what he did for us all and to the Holy Spirit who empowers, inspires and guides each of us now. Thank you Lord.

The Autumn Leaves

Clear blue skies. Hillsides alight with orange bracken. Reds and sienna, bronze and gold, leaves and needles cling and release, littering the ground beneath and laying down a bouncy carpet. A perfect autumn, after a perfect summer.

Already, though, many trees stand bare, denuded and prepared for wintry storms. For wintry storms shall come.

I feel the earth move. We live in ‘interesting’ times. Brutality and war. Injustice and oppression. Calloused hearts and shrouded minds. Confusion and bewilderment. Lost in a maze.

Our God is our strength, a very present help in times of trouble. For many, the times of trouble are here. For others, the autumn leaves are falling and the prospect of a freeze looms. But in God we trust, and we know that just as day follows night, so spring follows winter: new life, new hope, new prospects.

I live today with a grateful heart, grateful to my God and king.

It will do

Into middle autumn now, where the flaming leaves drop like a curtain to carpet the damp ground. With the sun on our backs and at times in our eyes, we took advantage of a windless and perfect autumn day. Armed with secateurs, a long-handled tree trimmer, and a bush saw, we set out to give a short back and sides to the trees drooping into our drive. Especially the graceful larch, which has been here since before we were, almost forty years ago now.

Up and down sometimes precariously-positioned ladders, stretching to trim and saw limbs away before they could do any damage. The result is a successful short back and sides done by amateurs. But it’ll do.

For years, I was barber to our three boys. I could wield those clippers – just like cutting grass. Though the result was probably amateurish. Fortunately, I got away with it. And saved a small fortune.

Life often dishes up challenges that we are not expert at dealing with. I am facing one or two at the moment which make me feel inadequate and fearful of failure. But with God’s help, I can do it. Trusting in him to guide. The result may not be professional, but it will do.

Comfort or Clangers

I thought I knew what a chord was. I can play arpeggios on my cello, which I figured just about covered it. No. Turns out there’s a lot more to these clusters of notes than I thought. Relative minors. Added on notes to convey a depth, an emotion. Patterns, numbers, theory.

Sheet music for modern praise songs generally come with no bass clef written in. Just the treble, with the tune, and chord changes for the guitars noted on every bar.

For years I’ve shied away from joining in on those songs. Or I’ve played the melody. Or occasionally just chugged away on the note named for the guitars. But I long to let myself go, to express my worship to God in a creative way and just somehow sing out a countermelody or a harmony. And to be confident that when I do, I’m not going to play a cringing clashing clanger.

That’s where a bit of study of chord theory seems a good idea.

Trying to find words to comfort a bereaved friend, I find there is no line prepared for me. I have to draw a deep breath and silently pray as I fumble for words that will console. I’m afraid of uttering a clanger that will sound heartless or cold. I rely on listening more intently, hugging, expressing my sorrow for her loss.

Sometimes life’s melody is in such a sad, minor key that it’s hard to find any way to harmonise. That’s when a strong bass note comes into its own, perhaps. The only note that can offer real comfort is the name of Jesus.

Spiritual Superfood

Outside the window, clusters of ripe red berries rest in golden fingers of rowan tree leaves. Yellowing larch needles sway in the gentle breeze. Cows which bellowed an hour ago, desperate for food, are now calmed and resting, the farmer having arrived with the daily ration of hay. Though they inhabit a fertile field, that season is past and no green grass is growing.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

In some seasons of life, we recognise just how dependent we are on the provision of the Father. He feeds us spiritual superfood, restoring our strength and giving us hope. Today I lift my head to the loving Lord who sits at the table with me, in the presence of my enemies. All I see is Jesus.

Compost Bin Minuet

Last week, we performed the annual compost bin minuet. For months, we dump raw food and plant waste into the plastic stacking bin, and when it finally reaches the top, we turn to the neighbouring heap mouldering beneath black plastic sheeting. As we pull back the plastic, we find that over the months, what was decaying and smelly has transformed into a black tilth-like material which, when dug into the vegetable patch, enriches the soil. When that mound is gone, we shift the plastic layers very carefully off of the undigested plant waste. We cover that hill with the black plastic and are back in business, ready to make a new mound of organic waste.

What was no good for our digestion – egg shells, potato peels, etc – breaks down into great nutrients for the garden.

Some things in life are no good for our digestion. Illness, abuse, poverty, loss. But, placed into a divine compost bin where God can work on them, they can transform into a rich material the Holy Spirit can use to enrich the soul.

And when the time is right, God can dig that rich tilth, formed through our experiences and suffering, into the lives of others.

Where there is darkness, God speaks light into being. Transformative light. Powerful and full of life and hope and joy.

No Masks

In the America of the 1950’s, at least in my corner of the States, every kid dressed up at the end of this month, pretending to be something else. Not everything was scary. When I was 3 I was Little Bo Peep, but the pull-along lamb I had could no longer bleat as I had fed her far too much paper…

One year my costume included a rubber mask. I still remember the clammy heat beneath that awful mask, which clung to my face like a jellyfish, making me sweat and desperate to get it off.

Not sure if that’s the reason, but I just do not like masks. Menacing or not, they disguise the truth of who someone is.

It’s hard to go through life without a mask of some kind, though. Feelings of inadequacy, of guilt or shame all contribute to the gradual construction of a caricature of our faces and personalities which disguises and distorts the person we really are. Once the mask is on, it undermines our true potential and may prevent us from flowering into the beautiful creations God has made and loves.

That is why I am so proud of my dear daughter Mhairi. She has torn off the mask and can now blossom. Jesus came so that we would have life, life in all its fullness. He is the truth, and he is the light, and he calls us to live in the truth and the light. No masks. He loves us for who we are. And it turns out, so do other people.

The Saviour

One of the drawbacks to warm summer days is the number of fly spots on the windows. Open doors, open windows, hundreds of yellow spots polka-dotting the glass. They don’t really obscure views but once one is aware of them, they certainly spoil the vision.

I thank God that I have been blessed with a big, wonderful family and a group of amazing friends. Recently, there have been situations in the lives of those close to me which have spotted my view of Jesus. Each spot represents a moment when I thought it was up to me to ‘fix’ something. To say just the right words to heal. To give the perfect advice. To do the right thing. To pray the right prayer.

I assume responsibility to ‘fix’ things beyond my ability. The motive is simple: I want the best for those I love, because I love them. But as long as I leave those spots there, I will never see the complete love and faithfulness of Jesus. An accumulation of spots distorts the truth of who Jesus is, polluting my understanding of the vastness of his love and his mighty power.

Jesus invites us to give him all our cares. This is so hard to do. But today I scrub the window of my soul again and pray that as I contemplate the King of Kings, I will relinquish my self-assumed duty to save my loved ones from every pain, to make the perfect decisions always and right every wrong. Jesus is the Saviour. Not me.

Much worse than a simple spider

Yesterday I equated a spider in the shower drain with unhealthy, wrong thought patterns which could creep stealthily into my mind and twist and distort my thinking. No sooner had I written that than my daughter Mhairi published her story of assault and abuse. We have talked and cried together about her experience, so none of it was a surprise to me, and yet when I read her story in black and white and looked at the picture of her sweet, lovely  face crumbling in pain, the mother’s heart inside me broke.

The spider lurking down the drain can be memories, horrific or just haunting, which we can’t deal with in our own strength. And so we push them down. Hide them away. Hope that the eight-legged monsters will just disappear, won’t hold us in their webs of pain. I suspect we all have spiders, of various sizes and toxicity, which we fight, with varying degrees of success, to suppress and disable.

There was no spider in my shower last night, so I am keeping the cover firmly over the drain. So trivial compared to trauma, but for me, a picture of a common reaction to deep, deep hurts.

With experiences which distort one’s own self-worth, it’s no good pushing the memory down and covering it over with busyness and distractions. So far, no spider has been strong enough to push the drain cover in my shower off, but with buried memories, some of them are powerful enough to keep pushing up, to keep disrupting, to keep distorting, to keep spinning webs which entangle and hinder the life God blessed us with. It’s just no good trying to keep them down, because they ultimately poison us.

Mhairi is being blessed with many words of encouragement and wisdom and support. May she be protected from some of the vitriol and hate that can appear in social media. One young woman who grew up in an abusive home has shared her story with Mhairi, advising that the only real healing comes through forgiveness. Forgiving yourself for the misappropriated guilt, but also, agonisingly, forgiving the perpetrator(s).

This is such fundamental Jesus wisdom. The only way I know to get that spider out of the drain (the swamp…) of one’s memory is to give it continually to Jesus, asking him to bless with forgiveness.

Jesus came to set the captives free. Memory can be a cruel jailer. My prayer today is that Jesus will set Mhairi, and all the others who have been so traumatised, free. Free from guilt and self-blame. Free from shame and remorse. Free from anger and bitterness. Free to forgive. Free to live, to embrace life in all its fullness.

Jesus is the master gardener who coaxes life from what looks dead. The God of the second chance, the new creation, the resurrection and the life. May he bless all who struggle today under the burden of toxic memories, shining the light of his love into every dark situation.

Spiders!

Apologies to those who like arachnids. (Anybody?)

Nearly every night, at least one very large spider is found lurking in our shower. I resist the urge to squash or hoover, and call Don to pick up and eject out the window. The window is rarely open. It’s a mystery how these guys get in night after night, unless they somehow dive through the stagnant water in the U-bend in order to reach what they may think of as Nirvana, only to find themselves turfed back outside into the cotoneaster. (Although I’m sure some of them succeed in slipping from shower to bedroom and who knows where else!)

I’m trying an experiment today. I’ve covered the drain, so we’ll see if any of my 8-legged friends revisits the shower. It isn’t that I grudge spiders space in the shower: it’s the potential of them moving into my clothes or bed which compels me to throw them out where they belong.

Paul wrote that God transforms our minds so that we can have the mind of Christ. I fall so far short of that goal, struggling with the same old bad thought patterns. Every so often, I sense I may have made some progress, only to have an unhelpful thought swim through the murk and take over my thinking yet again.

I’m covering the drain in my brain, again today: covering it with the blood of Jesus, covering it with the power of Scripture, covering it with the indwelling Holy Spirit, and every time I see a wee leg of nastiness trying to squeeze back into my brain, I think I may be justified in just SQUASHING it. (In spirit, of course.)

Because once that nastiness moves in and settles down, it has a way of derailing the mind of Christ in me and skewing all my thought processes. So grateful that in Jesus we are always given another chance, and in him we always have the victory.