So when it rains in Southern California, it pours. That is what’s going on now.
As I redirected my morning to going through more of my parents’ files, I first had a quiet time and read Ecclesiastes 3:6, where it says, there is a time to keep and a time to throw away. I’m revisiting the stuff I’d decided to keep, which is too heavy for me to carry back, and am being much more ruthless.
Who knew the Bible had something to say about decluttering?!
Arriving at Mom’s place late morning, usually, I help give her lunch, then roll her wheelchair over to a lighter, quieter spot where we, or at least I, can look out across Los Angeles to the mountains which encircle the city. Hollywood Hills, San Gabriel’s, San Bernardino’s: I’m not sure which I’m looking at.
Mom snoozes, arousing from time to time for a brief interaction. I play her some 40’s music on my phone and am so pleased to see her slight rhythmic motions, assuring me she hears and she enjoys.
After a couple of hours of that I leave for a restorative walk along the coast. Somehow, I missed lunch again. So I nibble on a bag of trek mixed nuts and a few raspberries. Today I added in a smoothie, but not a proper lunch. Not really.
The sermon this morning was looking at the transfiguration as told in Luke 9. The preacher commented that Peter’s suggestion to put up some shelters revealed his desire to make it last, so that he and the other two disciples could linger longer at this mountain top experience with Jesus.
I’ve had mountain top experiences, and am so grateful for them. But I have to confess that even in the most transcendent moment, I’ve rarely if ever been totally absorbed in the experience, but have usually been aware of those around me, or of the need to cook a meal, or even the nagging thought that it’s getting late and I need to get to bed.
That leads me to Martha. Mary chose the mountain top and was able to focus on what was best … time with Jesus … and resist the nagging guilt that she was dropping her responsibilities to help put supper on the table.
That brings me back to the nuts and berries, and skipping lunch. How often do I shorten, or even miss, mountain top experiences with Jesus because I am distracted by many things and prepared to live on spiritual nuts and berries instead of lingering to enjoy the feast Jesus wants to give me?
It feels like a no-brained, so why do I find it so hard?
I have been a Christian a long time, and I still have so much to learn. I’m asking God to help me develop focus and concentration, and the discernment to recognise where I am on the mountain, and the courage to choose pleasing Jesus rather than meeting others’, or even my own, human expectations.
At Jesus’ baptism, when the Father declared his love for his one and only Son, he instructed, ‘Listen to Him’. My prayer is that the Lord will transform me so that I am eager to tabernacle with God for however long he chooses, without falling prey to human motivations and distractions.
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I really want to ‘listen to Him’, especially in these challenging times. Don’t you?
There is something mysteriously comforting to me in standing or sitting by my dad’s grave. I know he isn’t there, but it provides a touchstone to the personality I know and miss. I stood in the warm sun, gazing down. I didn’t bring flowers. He wasn’t sentimental and I know they gather them up once a week before cutting the grass, and throw them out.
The warm sun on my back was inviting and I sat down on the brow of the hill beside his headstone, gazing out at the view. I could see the Harbor freeway, smaller roads, Terminal Island with its working cranes, and the Pacific. Somewhere in there is the hospital in which I was born. Around the corner from the cemetery are the social housing projects I lived in during my first year of life. I felt embraced by the place of my beginnings on this earth.
I love living in Scotland, and have moved away from wanting to live in such a sprawling city as this. But still, sitting on that hill, the dry grass beneath me, little black ants finding their way onto my legs and feet every so often…it was all so familiar, so welcoming. Home.
God is in the mystery. I walk my days between two places, loving both. Only the Lord can bring it all to a happy conclusion, tie my life up with a big red ribbon one day, soon or not so soon.
Good to have time to reflect. To sit. Rain is in the forecast, even here, and I may not have many days for sitting and staring, absorbing the place.
Grateful today for the Valentine our Heavenly Father has given us all, the gift of life itself. Thank you Lord.
While waiting for a banking appointment yesterday, I was leafing through a table top picture book of Los Angeles and recognised the place I walk to every day while here. For a few decades, ending in the 1970s, the asphalt platform held a defensive missile system called Nike. That has now moved inland since longer range missiles were developed. The asphalt has been left to crack and break, its purpose largely forgotten.
I stepped onto it yesterday, finding it curious that in a site of such breathtaking beauty there had lurked a system of death and destruction, albeit defensive.
We may be God’s image bearers, and therefore imbued with his breathtaking beauty, but Jesus warned us to be alert, to be wise as serpents though innocent as doves, to abide in him: these are our defensive weapons. Paul explored that in his letter to the Ephesians.
Perhaps we are living in a time when this advice resonates more than ever. Or perhaps it has always been like this, but just not quite so obvious.
Either way, don’t go out without the armour, especially the helmet of salvation. In an age of deception, only God knows truth.
It rained overnight, hard enough to waken me. This morning, though, dawned dry under leaden skies.
By 4 the sun had vanquished the clouds, and after a busy day I started my frequent walk up the incline skirting the shore at Malaga Cove, a surfer’s paradise. I watched in wonder as a very skilful surfer rode the waves, twisting and turning and finally trying a flip which landed him in the water.
I plodded on, sun in my face, slow and steady, up the hill, thinking about someone else who rode the waves, so to speak. Jesus, walking on the water.
The storm was still raging as he made his historic walk. For the first time, I wondered if his feet stayed dry, or did his toes dip in? Was his robe soaked or just splattered with spray? Was it raining as well?
I think it is probably not possible to walk on water without getting a little wet, especially in a storm.
I’m not in a storm, but the things that need doing for Mom always become more complicated than I anticipate, and I can begin to feel overwhelmed. I can feel like I am in a storm, lashed by rains and buffeted by wild winds. But before I falter I look to Jesus. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and when I remember that, and focus on him, even if my toes dip in and the wild waves splash, I don’t sink.
I don’t know if Jesus got wet, but he didn’t sink. Peter would not have sunk, either, had he not taken his eyes off Jesus and freaked out at the size of the waves and the impossibility of doing what he was doing.
These days there are storms in all lives. My storms are minor compared to the dreadful storms unleashed on so many, so it is with real humility that I suggest Jesus can handle the most terrible of tempests. Keep your eyes on him, and put one foot in front of the other.
The sun will shine again and the gales will blow themselves out.
Be still and know that I am God.
‘It’s so cold!’
I’m packing to go from a bleak midwinter in northeastern
Scotland to what is also winter, but in southern California. What should I
take?
I do this regularly and every time I struggle. There is no right
answer to the question of whether or not it’s cold, because perception of cold
or heat, except in the extremes, is so variable.
I’ve learned over the years that when Don says it’s ‘baking
hot’, it’s probably just a comfortable temperature. Equally, he knows that when
I say it’s really pleasant, it’s probably too hot for him.
The temperatures will certainly be lots warmer than here,
but I know that on the California coast, it can be foggy, damp, and feel cold. So,
I’ve put in more than I will need, for sure.
On every level, our world - the natural, the social and the
political - is open to interpretation and dependent on perception. We may well
ask, as Pilate asked Jesus, ‘What is truth?’
I am so grateful that Jesus has told us that he is ‘the Way,
the Truth and the Life’. So when I look at circumstances and the chaos of our
world, I can look beyond them at Jesus and know that if what I’m seeing is not an
expression of love, of kindness, of grace, of mercy, of forgiveness, or of
peace, then it is not the Truth and it is not the way in which I want to walk.
Grace and peace, enrobed in love. Have a great day.
I am still sitting with the alabaster jar. Meditation can
sometimes last for days or weeks, in quiet times or as I drive in to Aberdeen
for a hair appointment. That was the situation this morning.
As I prayed, again, that the Lord will help me leave that
broken alabaster jar at his feet, and completely let go of all expectations of
myself or anyone else, I thought suddenly of the Japanese art of kintsugi. I
have used a kintsugi kit to repair some broken bits and pieces round my house,
and really do love the golden lines which mark the break and repair. The bits
and pieces are no longer generic bits and pieces: they are my bits and
pieces, which stand out because of the breaks and repairs. They are
something special.
I will need to continue this prayer until I am convinced I’ve
really surrendered all expectations of myself and other people, but this
morning I began to pray that the Lord will help me with putting that alabaster
jar back together with kintsugi. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to
happen, but I want an alabaster jar which is sound enough to hold all my
expectations of Jesus: that he will never leave nor forsake me, that one day
there will be no more tears, death, separations (or airports – I think John
left that one out in Revelation!), and basically that all his promises are
true.
I pray that at the end I will have – or maybe be – an
alabaster jar completely mended and whole, with golden threads of glue joining
me back together. Underneath the royal robes, I don’t deserve, I will be a ‘kintsugi
vessel’, living to serve His Majesty forever.
We are all cracked vessels, but with the Lord’s golden touch
we will one day stand before him, uniquely whole.
Hallelujah!
