No Fear of Covid 19

The crocuses are glorious in their deep and pale purples and bright golds. Daffodils are through and forming and getting ready to open trumpets of yellow, proclaiming the faithfulness of our God. Spring is springing, just as it does every year.

Though troubles abound, uncertainties can undermine, and fears can overwhelm, our hope is in the name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth. He doesn’t slumber or sleep. Covid-19 has not taken him by surprise. He knows the right response.

When Peter walked on the water, focused on Jesus, he was fine. It was only when he let the winds and waves distract him that he began to sink.

Now is the moment when we believers have opportunity to show the strength of faith in the King of Kings, how it keeps us from being overwhelmed in an atmosphere of growing anxiety and fear.

The only thing we want to bulk buy into is prayer time with the Lord. Self-isolation frees us up to indulge in this, rather than slumping before hair-raising stories on the internet of what is coming next. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; the fear of Covid-19 is the beginning of meltdown.

Such faith doesn’t fly in the face of caution and restraint. As we love our Lord, so our love for sisters and brothers is deepened and we make every effort not to endanger anyone through recklessness or negligence.

Keep safe everyone. God bless you.

Windy Again

The wind is howling round the house, again. It feels like it hasn’t paused for days. Whining at the windows, rattling the doors, branches scratching like fingernails on a blackboard.

I find the wind exhausting. Here in Scotland it’s rarely a gentle caressing breeze, more of a piercing blast with a bitter edge to it.

The Holy Spirit is likened to the wind, among other images. Is this why he is often ignored or disregarded? We don’t like to have our comfortable seats roughed up. We don’t like our ingrained prejudices buffeted by truth. We don’t like the unpredictability of the wind. We like to make our plans and follow them through.

I’ve got my plans, and the wind of change threatens to disrupt and dismantle them.

Jesus beckoned Peter out of the boat, to walk on the water when it was still turbulent because of the strong winds. Peter responded, and only sank when he became distracted by circumstances.

May I not be distracted by circumstances, but be focused on the face of Jesus and step out of the boat, to go wherever he would take me, today and in the days to come.

Green Garden Hose

The green garden hose hangs limp, looped loosely round a semi-rotten fence post. As the garden begins to stir, awakening after a few months’ hibernation, the hose hangs. Most of the year, we have no need for a garden hose. Given a good summer, we will need it to fill the paddling pool, wash a filthy car, and, occasionally, to spray moisture over a thirsty garden.

When we need it, we need it.

The hose is like so much in life. Overlooked most of the time, and only valued when a need presents itself. I never notice the dust until visitors are coming. Overlooked. I never notice the newspapers strewn round the floor, until I’m hosting Bible study. I don’t notice the drying and dying potted geraniums until the person who gave them to me is coming.

I didn’t really take note of the horrifying injustices in the U. S. criminal justice system until I learned more of the sad history of racial injustice just before the recent execution of a ‘murderer’ who should have been exonerated by the confession to the crime given by another man, but whose innocence was ignored, even by the Supreme Court.

Jesus challenges us to be alert to the signs of the times. Be ready for action. Speak out for the voiceless. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Open your doors to the homeless.

Maybe the owner of the house – the creator of the world – will be back soon. It’s possible. I don’t want him to catch me napping, while the furniture is dusty, newspapers litter the floor and the pot plants droop. Napping, while children starve, people shiver, and injustice prevails.

Praise from the Pit

A lovely spring morning. I put the soup on, and, secateurs in hand, I popped outside to do an hour in the wildness that is our garden. After uncovering the parsley struggling to survive beneath a pile of last autumn’s leaves, I noticed the ivy stretching its grippy fingers every which way. Over the dyke in both directions, up the greenhouse wall and round the damson trunk and clawing its way into the black bagged leaf mulch waiting to enrich the veggie patch.

There is something extremely satisfying about clipping and pulling up the roots of hungry ivy. I didn’t have much time. I didn’t get it finished. But I’ve made a start.

I’ve been hugely impacted these last few days by a programme about Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. I’ve been shocked and dismayed. Gutted. That I grew up believing lies and half-truths. That I thought the Civil War decided it: African Americans are equal. Now I know there were many deliberate campaigns and decisions by white men at the turn of the 20^th century which caricatured the noble African Americans and libelled and slandered them. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I learned of the execution last week of an African American convicted of a murder someone else confessed to. He was executed anyway.

It seems that white supremacy is hungry, insidious, and active. It obscures the truth and strangles the facts and perpetuates injustice of the most reprehensible kind. I am appalled and left on my knees asking God, ‘What can I do? What can I say? How can I help? How can I make a difference?’

It turns out that I don’t know very much. I am not finished, but I’ve made a start.

In the pits of slavery, the African Americans looked up to God. They sang and they praised him and their music continues to have a powerful influence in sacred and secular society. Praise is a weapon.

As I stand at the edge of this massive injustice in which I have been an unwitting player, there is nowhere to look but up, nothing to do, at this point, but praise. Praise the God who brings what is done in the dark into the light. Praise the God who loves the weak and the marginalised, the voiceless and the oppressed. And listen for his guidance, and then obey.

Driving Blind

Driving back from Banchory this morning, I pulled the lever to wash the windows. The wipers went, but no water came out. Empty.

The windscreen wasn’t that dirty, but I remembered the first time I drove a distance in the snow. My father-in-law insisted on accompanying me, knowing a California girl had no experience on the ice. Very sweet, but only added to my anxieties. Back in those days, cars did not carry windscreen wash. So by the time we’d gone twenty miles on a road with just one lane each way, my screen was filthy with grimy snow and I had to stop and wash the windscreen in order to see and carry on.

Most people are navigating their way through their lives with no windscreen washer. As self-preservation and greed are voiced and acted out, their vision is obscured and they are driving blind. 

Thank God for Jesus, for his Word, written and made flesh, for his Holy Spirit, living in us and clearing our vision.

Call out the Gold

Back from my walk, I strolled round the garden to see what’s happening. I was surprised to see wallflowers budding and beginning to show colour. I planted them last year, given them by my neighbour, and didn’t know whether to leave them in for another year or pull them out in autumn. I’m glad I left them in.

It’s lovely to find new growth where things appeared dead. 

Kris Vallotton coined a phrase, ‘call out the gold’, in reference to seeing the good in every person, prophetically or otherwise. I pray that this might be my aim today and every day, that when I consider anyone else, I ‘call out the gold’.

That’s what God does with us. Even when we were still sinners, he saw something within us worth redemption and Jesus came and died for us. Even when we mess up, he still looks at what might appear dead, and sees green shoots of life and beauty.

The message of Easter. So fitting for springtime!

Shrunken...

‘I put a wash on,’ he said helpfully. ‘I saw the pile there.’

My heart sank. That’s where ‘the pile’ always is, but usually it’s ignored. Last night, I dropped a favourite cardigan there, amongst the rest. A merino wool cardi which I planned to wash by hand.

‘Everything?’ I groaned. ‘Not the sweater…?’

He looked stricken.

It’s over now. The wash is over; the sweater has shrunk.

Why is it that when I drop or chip a mug, it’s one of the new ones and not one of the old pottery ones I’d quite like to drop? Or if the stem of a wine glass breaks in the dishwasher, it’s never one of the ancient ones the petrol station gave away decades ago?

The thing I’m reminding myself of this morning is the love with which the deed was done, not the mistake that was made. I can get another sweater; the love is priceless.

Don’t store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust and hot temperatures in washing machines can ruin them. Store them up in heaven.

Love is certainly a gift from God. I am so grateful for his love – both God’s, and my dear husband’s.