Daffodils and Rhododendrons

Just back from a walk through the Royal Wood of Drum Castle, a couple miles away from here. 

Today I had Don and Dusty with me.

And what a delightful day it is! The sun is out; the sky is glorious. Winding through the initial copse of trees, bouquets of daffodils are opening their yellow trumpets towards the sun. A carpet of lilies of the valley are sprouting, preparing to bloom. 

Walking underneath and around the ancient woods is always amazing. Some of the trees are hundreds of years old, gnarled and twisted, bulbous at the bottom of the trunk from overgrazing. We didn’t see any of the red squirrels which inhabit the woods, but still found them enchanting.

Signs of the wet weather of past weeks still linger, though. Ponds where there used to be grass. Moss clinging to most trees, sometimes grey-green, sometimes spring green. Squelch where there used to be terra firma. 

Suddenly Don noticed a giant rhododendron off the path, standing at a majestic ten or twelve foot height. The flowers were pale, with hot pink flashes inside and stamens which look like tongues sticking out of open mouths. And the whole lot was alive with bees, busy gathering nectar, preparing to make the honey we so love.

We’d never have seen them if we hadn’t wandered off the beaten track.

In all walks of life, the tendency is to tramp the path worn down by hordes of others. Sometimes it pays to go off-piste. 

As Christians, we often follow the way laid out by others, fearing that if we venture too far left or right we might be guilty of some terrible sin. The good news is that God made us all different, with different flowers to drink from, and the path we should be on is the one he has guided us to. 

Never, in anything, just follow the crowd. Life is too precious for that.

Important or a Time-Waster?

Just finished an article about recognising which urgent interruptions are more important than what you are in the middle of doing. It’s a tough one.

And that made me think about how I’m nearing the starting blocks for another transatlantic flight, going home to visit my mom and daughter. Limping home, still rather crippled by a bad back. 

So I’m in the countdown and very much having to determine what is urgent and what is important and chucking whatever doesn’t really need doing. Finished the article – that was both urgent and important. Now to the packing, which easily falls into both categories as well.

But then – there is fresh granola to be made and shopping to be bought for Don while I’m away. He is quite capable of doing these things himself, but this is where I put pressure on myself to try to minimise his added chores while I am away. 

Jesus once admonished a woman called Martha for complaining that her sister Mary was just sitting around listening to what Jesus had to say, leaving Martha to do all the work. He gently suggested that although there was a lot to do, Mary had chosen to do what was most important. Get herself right with God.

I need to remind myself of that lesson so often, when the to-do list is long and apparently urgent but the time with God is what is important. 

Not so easy to do.

Dirty Windows

Great having such a sunny day, but it sure does show how dirty the windows are! It’s embarrassing, but my back is still not right so they will just have to remain dirty.

Light reveals dirt. That’s the way it is, isn’t it? That’s why when Jesus is around, it isn’t comfortable to be wallowing in sin. Of course, he’s always around. So how is it that so many people manage to wallow in real serious sin without any second thoughts. A look at the paper reveals just how many people choose the dark rather than the light. 

It is a choice, and we all have it. The Bible says that God would rather we turn from our sins and live with him forever, than choose to live apart from him. But he has given us free choice, and he allows us the dignity to make our choice freely.

If you’ve not made a choice for Jesus yet, give it some real thought. You may find that as his light shines on your life, it reveals some dirt that you’d like to have washed away. And that is what he does. He washes our sins away so that we are as white as the snow, and can approach the light without fear.

It is great having such a sunny day, and such a loving God of light.

Palm Crosses

A Christian online resource has just emailed to offer to sell me palm crosses, and it startled me because once again, I find myself moving through Lent without giving it much thought. I wanted to make it more of a pilgrimage this year, but one thing or another intervened and I never got myself organised with focused Lenten meditations or readings, and already we’re looking ahead to Palm Sunday.

I do like the aspect in some church traditions of having liturgical seasons, so that every Sunday one is reminded by the colours of the hangings even, what season it is. Maybe I’m just flighty but I kind of need frequent reminders.

As a teenager, every Lent was marked by one or two sessions of folding palm fronds into crosses to give out on Palm Sunday. I folded so many over those years that I can still perform the intricate folding today. In Scotland palm fronds are hard to come by, so I used to use heavy paper to do it with children in Sunday school. But now you can buy them online and save yourself the bother of folding them.

My memories of the folding of the crosses was not that it was a tedious task but that it was fun to chat and laugh with others as we mindlessly got on with it. Like worries, which once shared are halved, so work like this seems less onerous if done in company.

I say mindlessly got on with it, but actually there were moments when the very act of folding the straight frond into a cross reminded me of just what Jesus did for me. It’s weird that Christians have a symbol which was an instrument of torture, but that symbol means so much. 

Jesus took up the cross, though he was pure and holy, because I am not. He bled and suffered unspeakable horrors and died so that I might live. 

I want to remember that as I walk through the next few weeks of Lent. I want to sense a proper appreciation and respect for his sacrifice. I want to stand with him, symbolically, as we remember his humiliation, his scourging, his crucifixion, so that the full implications of Resurrection Day hit me. 

I can’t say thank you enough to him.

Heady Hyacinths

Three white hyacinths burst forth into bloom last night, spreading a sweet aroma through the room. 

They sit in front of me as I write, and I inhale deeply, savouring their heady scent.

A single pink hyacinth is about to open too, perched on the mantel piece and ready to burst forth.

Smells are so evocative. The smell of hot cross buns as I enter the supermarket takes me straight to Good Friday afternoon, after the 3- hour service at church, when Mom would bake the hot cross buns and Judy and I would frost them, to be eaten with dinner that night and over the ensuing weekend until all were consumed. Sweet memory.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ...’ That is incredible. That we carry the aroma of Christ, the fragrance of the King of Kings. I know someone who is very partial to Chanel; in fact, I am myself; but this is miles better. Imagine being dabbed by the fragrance of Jesus, a perfume mixed of purity and self-sacrifice, love and goodness, mercy and forgiveness, justice and kindness and joy. 

Yes. Those are the ingredients I value in my perfume. I am so grateful that when God the Father catches a whiff of me, it is the whiff of Jesus, and not the noxious whiff I might otherwise emit, a perfume mixed of bitterness and regret, unforgiveness and selfishness, envy and strife and critical thoughts, injustice, meanness and anger.

Thanks be to Jesus for his wonderful aroma of life.