A visitor myself, I was startled awake by an agonised,
pained cry from outside. It was just past six am, and the street had yet to rouse.
I lay still, listening, wondering.
Again it came, prolonged, pitiful. Opening the curtains, my
eyes widened as I watched a skulk of foxes hanging around on the divide between
houses. (Yes, a skulk! Isn’t that an evocative word?)
We have lived in a rural setting for over forty years, and I
rarely see one fox, let alone a skulk of them! But there they were on the
outskirts of Glasgow, looking like a few dissolutes hanging out together
outside a bar somewhere.
There are cries of pain in all sorts of unlikely places in
our world today. This morning, hearing the news, I know there are cries of pain
and grief in Morocco as they get to grips with the aftermath of a powerful and
deadly earthquake. Floods in Hong Kong; wildfires in Greece, California, Texas
and Oregon. Oregon? I thought it rained all the time there…
There are cries of pain inflicted by hardened aggressors all
over the world, too. Skulks of people with evil intentions in positions of
power. Inflicting pain. Pain: physical and emotional, mental and spiritual, as
innocents suffer at the hands of these dissolutes in places of authority.
The other morning, I rustled the curtains and knocked on the
window and the foxes, with wary glances my way, scuttled off across the street,
into the bushes of the opposite house. Would that the warmongers could be as
easily disbanded.
May I never walk away from situations I encounter, or which
suddenly overtake me. Keeping my eyes steadfastly on the Lord of Hosts, Jesus
Christ, may I pray constantly for this groaning, hurting world. ‘We have erred
and strayed like lost sheep,’ and the foxes are hunting. Forgive us, Lord. Help
us to walk in your ways, with hearts of compassion, eyes of love, minds
transformed by your Holy Spirit.
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.
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