Comfort and Rest

Internet with decent speed is not part of our experience of rural life. We struggle at the best of times. Now, with children doing school work online, work-outs and streaming movies and so on, it can slip further, making skype calls a challenge, Zoom meetings frustrating when several people want to talk at the same time.

Technology is helping us get through this time of lock down, but it is such a poor second to meeting friends and loved ones in person, hugging and just enjoying each other’s company. We are made for relationship, and enforced separation is painful.

On a Skype call last night, there was frequent interference in the form of other voices cutting in and out, other voices having other conversations. I am old enough to remember having a ‘party line’ when I was young. Four households shared the same number, and so we had to take turns using the phone.

I am grateful that our connection to God is not via Skype or Zoom or Meeting Rooms. I am grateful that there is nobody listening in; that the only interference is from my own distracting thoughts. We were made for relationship: first with God, then with other people. During this lock down, I think of all those who are bereaved, anxious, stuck in challenging circumstances or just plain lonely because of the imposed disconnection, and pray that God will break in on any unhelpful thoughts with his loving presence today. May those who are searching for answers find comfort and rest in God.

Connections

‘In .3 miles bear left,’ I said, having turned off the annoying lady on the SatNav. At least I don’t whine on about recalculating every time we have to make adjustments. But just how far is .3 miles? Tricky to know when it’s time to turn or need to remain on the road we were on. Despite my crazy directions which led to many U-Turns, Don didn’t lose his temper. He calmly adjusted our direction and we tried again. For some reason, Bristol was the worst, despite having a major landmark by which we could navigate.

It wasn’t always my poor navigation which led to our turning round. Road Closed Ahead. Twice we had to recalculate and were grateful for the book of maps. Accident on the Edinburgh By-Pass which we heard on the travel report and then found ourselves threading our way through Leith. Snow Gates Closed on the Cairn o’Mount (really! No snow yet, thankfully!) which necessitated a return to the motorway.

We drove about 2,000 miles, from one coast to another round the UK. We reconnected with friends and family. We reminisced, ate together, made new memories. We discovered treasures of geology, history, architecture, and literature which we didn’t know were there. Ironbridge. Lulworth Cove. Wells Cathedral. Ipswich. Whitby and Robin Hood Bay. Lindisfarne.

We came home expecting to find our huge crop of plums would have ripened and rotted while we were away. The morning we left, we discovered one branch had buckled and torn under the weight of the fruit, and we thought we would lose it all. But no. It’s all perfect. Even the plums on the broken branch, which remained connected enough to the trunk to continue to draw nourishment and provide fruit.

Travelling is full-on. It’s hard to find quiet space to connect with God. But even when the connection is weak from my side, He never lets go, and hopefully he can still provide fruit for others.

Connections

For two months we have struggled to be taken seriously by BT: struggled with an intermittent service which latterly has been more often off than on. Finally today an engineer persevered until he (hopefully) found the problem and fixed it.

We have been feeling very disconnected.

One of my cousins recently emailed a photo of her with three other cousins sharing a couch. Each of them was from a different sibling and I had a pang, that there were two more siblings in my mother’s generation who had no rep there on that couch of connectedness. Separated by miles but connected by blood.

I’ve just returned from a funeral of a delightful nonagenarian who had lived most of her life in our small town. A network of family ties emerged.

Equally, though, was the network of Church Family ties, those of us in the congregation who have known and loved dear Hilda for years and decades. To many of us she was the welcoming, encouraging, loving mother-figure in our daily lives.

She has moved on, but my faith assures me that though she is out of sight, we are still connected.

There is no struggle of fraying communication lines breaking the signal between us, but a calm assurance that though the connection with her is down, in Jesus we are forever linked. 

There is a peace prevailing which I don’t sense when I look apprehensively for the blue light on the home hub, fearful that once again it may be flashing orange. In Jesus the signal is always blue.