Turn the Tide

 

King Cnut, in a famous anecdote, tried in vain to hold back the tide. I saw a headline this morning about a $50 million plan to protect Louisiana’s coastline from erosion and rising sea levels due to climate change.

Call me a pessimist, but I think Louisiana’s expenditure could be as effective as King Cnut’s effort.

There is no point in addressing the symptoms and outcomes without fixing the causes. Hopefully, COP26 in Glasgow in November will persuade the movers and shakers in the nations to commit to serious reductions and changes in order to rein in the environmental emergency.

Meanwhile, we can continue to do what we can. Plant more flowering bushes and trees in order to encourage biodiversity; switch to environmentally-friendly cleaning products or make our own from vinegar, soda, etc; change our eating habits to be less reliant on animal products; drastically reduce our use of plastic and lobby for change. It may sound like tinkering at the edges, but as the cargo shifts internally, the juggernaut will alter its course. I also read that the state of Wyoming, which has been a coal-producing state, is switching to harvesting its other abundant resource, the wind, because the call for coal is declining.

Jesus calls us to follow him, to challenge tradition and confront injustice, and to bring light and life into the situations we encounter. We are all affected by climate change; we all bear responsibility for our consumer habits and our selfish lifestyles. It’s easy to become overwhelmed at the size of the problem, but as the little boy said to his critic as he threw another starfish back into the sea, ‘I made a difference for that one.’

We can’t hold back the tide, but Jesus working in us can. When it comes to the power of Jesus, I am an eternal optimist.

 

Hope Rises

 

I look at the bare brown branches, searching for the first yellow-green dots that will grow and sprout and bedeck the world with a fabulous spring show. Nothing yet, but the signs are there. Ends of branches on the rhododendrons are swelling, hinting at the colours that lie within. The flowering cherry has lumps and bumps where there will soon be pink blossom. Daffodil stems continue to grow and swell, a hint of yellow promise. Spring is on its way; new life pushing back against the death throes of winter.

Hope rises. Hope rises as we watch the roll-out of vaccines around the world. Hope rises as the numbers of covid patients decline; as hospital admissions fall off; as mortality reports record a drop. Hope rises as we anticipate the end of this dreadful pandemic which has overwhelmed the world.

It’s not over yet, though, we are reminded by the scientists. We may be in the home stretch, but we have not yet crossed the plate.

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

 

Faithful Always- Semper Fidelis

 

A few moments of pause. I slip into the prayer window to share the seat with Indy. She welcomes me with a purr, which rattles her frame with warmth and a quiet joy. I have no agenda; my Bible notes are in the bedroom. I am just here. Just here to connect with God.

My eye is drawn to the old tennis ball, lurid green, which has sat for days on the grass verge beside the drive. And that draws my thoughts back to Dusty, such a delight, such a companion, so missed still, even six years after her death.

I smile as I think of her dropping that ball at my feet, at anyone’s feet, raising hopeful, pleading eyes as she settled into a starter’s position. Ready. Always ready.

So much joy that pooch brought. So much laughter. She didn’t have to do anything. She just had to be herself. We all loved her for the gentle, loving canine she was.

I drop my heart at the Saviour’s feet. My eyes search for his face; my ears strain for his voice; my voice begins to praise. My Jesus. My Saviour. Lord, there is none like you.

I don’t have to do anything today to earn his love. I just need to be all that he made me to be. Creative. Loving. Compassionate. Joyful. Trusting. With his help, I will try to manage that.

Navigating the Storms

 

In 1989, Tracy Edwards skippered an all-female crew competing in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. The documentary, Maiden, tells this riveting story of courage, skill and tenacity in the face of male prejudice and disbelief.

Early in the journey, Tracy realised that her navigator and she could not work together. The navigator left the crew in South America, and Tracy then taught herself to navigate the fastest routes, while also skippering the boat and keeping everyone’s spirits and courage up during the testing voyage.

Today is International Women’s Day. Most of us won’t be competing in global yacht races. But whatever we are doing today, we are making decisions that affect the course we take. Whatever our stage of life, we need courage to navigate our journey.

When I am feeling wobbly, a bit unsure of my direction, I go to the source of all courage. I lean into God. Decades ago, I sat on a plane on the runway in Los Angeles. It was a wintry night there, wind- and rain-swept. I had a four- and a two-year-old with me, studying my face. We had just said an emotional farewell to my parents and sister. I was trying to hold it together, as these two little ones searched my face for comfort and strength. I knew that if I cried, they would be inconsolable.

‘God,’ I breathed silently, weeping inside. ‘Help me!’ I had recently experienced a life-changing encounter with God, and was just discovering the reality of his living word in Scripture. I sensed he was guiding me to read Deuteronomy 31:7-8. I had no idea what was in that passage; I could barely locate it, but I thumbed through the new pocket Bible I carried and found it near the front.

‘Be strong and courageous…The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.’

He calmed my pounding heart. He brought an encouraging smile to my lips as I looked, dry-eyed, at Mhairi and Jamie. He wiped away the inner tears and gave me courage, vision.

May I never grow so self-assured and cocky that I think I can find my own way. The Lord is a light to my path, in the big and small decisions of life.

As long as he is my navigator, I am safe and all will be well.

 

Broken Branches

 

I started my day in the prayer window. Now that schools are back, it’s quiet in the living room at that time of day. I hadn’t slipped in there, contemplatively, for awhile, so it was with curiosity that I looked out at the familiar scene beyond the glass.

My attention was caught by the dead stump left dangling after a delivery lorry tore a branch off, months ago. It swayed slightly in the breeze, held on to the mutilated branch by a finger or two of bark.

As we begin to emerge through the mists of the battlefield of covid-19, many of us – maybe all – are maimed by loss. We have lost time with precious grandchildren, moments of their young lives which can never be recovered. We have lost time with our precious elderly mothers and dads and aunts and uncles, moments of sunset beauty which are fleeting, fading away before the long night. We have lost loved ones to the virus or other ailments, and have lost the precious moments to share our grief with others who loved them, watching on YouTube from afar. We have lost momentum and direction, lost jobs, lost travel plans, lost celebrations, lost our own health.  Children have lost social skills, education; students have lost the heady freedoms of university life.

It has been a season of profound loss. (It has also been a season of unexpected, hidden blessing. But that’ll be a subject for another blog.)

That branch was torn off by a delivery truck, but the tree still stands. Soon, new leaves of spring will sprout and grow. What was asleep will awaken again and there will be beauty. It’s time for the fingers of bark to release their hold of the broken stump, and to focus on new life. It’s time for hope to rise, for joy to return.

Whatever was torn away from us, whatever we have lost, it’s time to cut away the scar tissue that keeps the pain dangling in the winds of life. It’s time to drop the ache and despair. New life is coming. The vaccines are working. The promise of spring is just around the corner.

Together, we emerge from the very real battlefield on which we have all been for a year. Together we encourage each other as we recover our joy, as hope inspires smiles and tentative expectations are birthed.

Together we lean into Jesus. Some of us will look back at these days like the writer of the famous Footprints poem, and we’ll see just the one set of footprints. When we couldn’t take another step, Jesus has carried us.

 

Splinters in Eyes

 

As much to myself as to anyone in earshot, I sighed and lamented: ‘If I don’t wash those windows, I won’t even be able to see the sun streaming out of that clear blue sky!’ Joey, in the kitchen, heard me. When I returned from the grocery store an hour later, it was to find her up a ladder, polishing and shining the large conservatory windows. With real stick-to-it-iveness, this dear daughter-in-law worked her way round all the ground floor windows, then did them inside, too, including the glazed doors, and then she headed upstairs. I never would have had the energy to do them all over a weekend. A real gift of love, for which I am deeply grateful.

Deeply grateful, because it has sharpened the views from every perspective. I can see clearly now. The sun (when it comes out again…) can shine through unimpeded. My attention is no longer drawn to the swipe of bird dropping that splatted here, or the spots of fly dirt left there. Instead, I see beyond to the world God has created, to the snowdrops and crocus, the freshly dug earth and the tangle of twigs and branches from every tree.

Jesus advised not to judge another person or attempt to remove a splinter from their eye, without first removing the plank in your own eye. Splodge, a cat we had years ago, lived rough in the woods for several months when the arrival of a puppy put her nose out of joint. When we finally found her and brought her home, she had a thorn embedded in one of her eyes. The vet pronounced it inoperable, because time had caused the injury to heal with scar tissue which blinded her. It was too late to remove the ‘plank’. I am so accustomed to the plank in my own eye, that I don’t even realise it has blinded my vision. Jesus, may your gentle touch remove the plank which is there today, so that I can see clearly, with love and kindness, who and what you want me to see today.

Hope Rising

 

Yesterday, I spent some time gently raking dead leaves from some of the flower beds. Removing the mouldering leaves and wilted flowers revealed new shoots straining to break through. Tiny snowdrops. Purple crocus, twisted and malformed because of the weight of death pressing them down.

We’re coming out of winter. We’re coming into spring. The weight of the last several months presses us down. We can be twisted by fear, dwarfed by loss, hidden from the sun by the disappointments and burdens.

March is coming in like a lamb today. Gentle and quiet, yet thrilling with an incipient joy waiting to be expressed. Hope is rising as we welcome spring, however hesitantly, however cautiously.

I think of the Lamb, who faced the trials of his life with love. He welcomed everyone, full of promise, of understanding, of hope. As we begin to stretch up into warmer days, may hope rise within us, based not on circumstance but based on the truth. Based on the Lamb. Based on Jesus.