Wind and View Breaks

 

We sat sipping our coffee and mint tea in the half-shelter of the marquee. The sun was slowly sinking towards the west, at the end of a perfect summer’s day – a rarity in this corner of the globe. Because we sat in the gloaming, we knew the sun would soon sink over the horizon, but we couldn’t see it, because the trees we planted the year Robbie was born now tower over the property, casting shadows on much of the lawn and blocking our view.

Looking southwest, I remarked that it was perhaps a bonus that the leafy twigs and branches that extended right down the three intertwining trunks of my favourite Norwegian elm had been left there, because they acted as a windbreak – often needed here in the northeast.

Yes, Don agreed, stretching out the word. They stop the wind, but they also block the view of the Hill of Fare and the gorgeous sunsets we used to see from here. Suddenly, what had seemed a positive plunged into a negative. Within an impressively short space of time, he had fetched the bush saw from his workshop and was energetically trimming the twigs and branches that sprouted from the trunks.

We hadn’t spent time just sitting in the garden for a long time, listening to the glorious choir of birds and hum of insects. We hadn’t noticed that the untidy proliferation of branches was increasingly obliterating our view.

Now, with a self-satisfied sigh, Don sank back down beside me. There. Look at that evening sky! It was glorious, wispy rosy-golden clouds stretching towards the sinking sun as if to hold it back.

Time and experiences propagate assumptions and opinions in my mind and spirit which can severely limit my vision. As a result, I can feel cosy and safe in the shelter of my own conclusions. My understanding becomes myopic, obscured by my own untidy experiences of life. Oh, Lord, trim away the sprouts of doubt, the leaves of complacency, and the branches of arrogance and privilege which deny me your eternal perspective. I don’t want to live in the comfort of my own understanding: I want to experience the daily challenge of sharing your perspective and acting on it.

The other negative effect of allowing branches of experienced-life to flourish in my thinking is that they block the free-flowing wind of the Spirit, limiting me to a terrestrial, sepia perspective and denying me the technicolour freedom of God’s Holy Spirit. The wind of the Spirit can expose my idolatrous thoughts and my selfish assumptions; it can stir up reactions I don’t expect , some of which might make me uncomfortable. But it carries on it the seeds of life and love; it propagates in me compassion and kindness, gentleness and mercy, joy and peace, goodness and faithfulness and self-control.

Wind, wind, blow on me today, planting in me these divine attributes so that I can, with your help, live the life to which Jesus calls me, flourishing and full.