The song birds will again be heard

The normal peace and quiet is ruptured early when a cohort of tractors and trailers and other farm vehicles converge on the field which surrounds our house. A vehicle whips round ahead of the other two tractors, literally whirling the cut silage into raised lines of grass. Expertly, the other two farmers zoom round the field in tandem, one machine sucking up the grass and launching it into the trailer attached to the other tractor. It’s all done at break-neck speed as seagulls, pretty far inland, soar and dive overhead, excited at the meal they expect.

Now, two or three hours later, they’ve gone. The field is bare. I don’t even hear the seagulls. Perhaps they’ve moved on with the tractors, groupies in search of the next meal.

The glorious chorus of varied birdsong I heard last night, with the cuckoo as percussion, has gone silent in the mayhem. I do hear the odd crow, but none of the trilling and singing we usually enjoy. I know they’ll be back.

I look across the ‘pond’ at the land of my birth and I see mayhem and strife. In a paroxysm of pain with over 100,000 covid-related deaths. Writhing with over 40 million unemployed. With such a tinder box of heartache and sorrow, anger and fear, a racist crime committed by police has been the spark to ignite expressions of justified outrage. Expressions which began in peace, have been infiltrated and overtaken by noisy disruptors stirring violence and expressions of utter frustration.

There is a vacuum of leadership from the top. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. The commander in chief is playing golf, or eating a Big Mac, or staging a photo op in front of a church, or, worse, preparing to send out the military and quell the crowds with more violence.

It’s past time for dialogue to get serious, to mean something, to shift the endemic prejudice that threads through institutions and to bring about change. It’s past time for justice to break out, justice spouting like a fountain from the core of each individual, changing attitudes, changing traditions, changing expectations, creating a new normal. It’s past time for that new normal to really recognise the equality and dignity of every human being, regardless of race, gender, or creed.

There is no silence yet, and I don’t expect there will be for some time.

But my hope is rooted in Christ, the Prince of Peace. So as we watch in horror, I pray for us all: ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’

The song birds will again be heard.

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Seeds of Hope

We’ve had our morning exercise. A brisk walk down the road, picking up litter in one bag, shovelling up horse manure in the other.

The litter went into the bin. Lifeless and decayed, sterile and unable to nurture or feed anything.

The horse manure went into the vegetable patch. What passed through the horses and came out as waste is rich in nutrients to boost the growth of new life, new plants.

In these days of lock down, perhaps many are thinking they are days like the litter, long and good for nothing but discarding. But they don’t need to be. They may feel like ****, but there is life and growth in them if only we allow ourselves to learn lessons and build bridges.

On our walk, we met neighbours who we rarely see. Keeping our social distance, we caught up with them. Briefly. I was so touched when one offered to drive to Heathrow if we needed help getting our daughter home. We hardly know him.

There are green shoots of new life everywhere. Words of kindness and encouragement. Offers of help and words of hope. Connections being made online, on the phone, across the garden fence at a safe distance.

Our vegetable garden will look different in a few months’ time. We hope it will be full of fruit and vegetables to feed our bodies. The wintry garden we are living in during isolation will also look different in a few months’ time. If we take care to nurture relationships now, they will be lush and blooming when we can resume social life again. We are already talking about a neighbourhood BBQ.

Jesus came to give us life in the full. We have yet to experience the fullness he died to bring us. But just as spring is the season of hope, so this awful pandemic carries in it the seeds of hope for a more caring, more connected, less broken world.

In this season of Lent, I am more aware than ever of the faithful love of Jesus as he headed towards the cross for me. The horrible cross carried with it seeds of hope and life, as Jesus was fully glorified as he rose again, triumphant over death and disease. He is still triumphant over death and disease, even in this pandemic. Hallelujah.

Happy New Year

For years, the farmer has not walked through January without his soulmate. But she passed on six months ago, and today I watch as his green tractor ploughs a lonely furrow in the field over the road. Though loss leaves a gaping hole in the soul, the dailiness of routine demands keep him grounded, perhaps keep him sane.

Jesus promised never to leave nor forsake us. Nobody else can make such a promise and keep it. We are in his powerful, loving hands. He rides beside the farmer in that field – up and down, up and down, mind-numbing and yet demanding his attention. Distracting his thoughts. Filling his hours.

We have turned the corner into a new year. The remnants of last year may hang loose, in tatters, around us, but in the air, there is a sniff of hope. Hope that does not disappoint. Assurance that whatever this year may hold, Jesus never leaves, nor forsakes, us.

The sun shines from a pale blue sky. The winds of yesterday have abated.

Happy New Year.

A message of hope

What a wonderful story I just saw, where two ecologists got a company to dump 12,000 tons of orange peels into a barren stretch of formerly-rich Amazonian rainforest, then seem to have forgotten about it all for sixteen years and when they returned, they discovered a whole new ecosystem teeming with life had regenerated the land.

A message of hope: just what we need right now.

Makes me think of Jesus, ‘dumped’ into a barren world. Though he wasn’t forgotten about, the life that has been spawned from his life over the centuries is just miraculous.

The message of hope is clear: as we ‘dump’ Jesus prayerfully into the barrenness stretching through our own lives and through the nations, life happens. Life overcomes death. Life spawns life. God has the last word.

I am so grateful that Jesus was ‘dumped’ into my barren life, and over the years his richness has helped shoots of spiritual fruit to germinate and grow within me. Nothing to do with me; I’m just the barren ground and his body, his sacrifice, his Spirit are working away.

Jesus is the miracle. Praise him.

Beast from the East

Just when we thought the #beastfromtheeast had blown itself out, it seems his cousin is beginning to huff and puff our way. Snow is a possibility for the weekend. And there I was yesterday writing about crocus and the sense of spring in the air. Sigh.

There’s another beast from the east commanding the attention of news media right now, too, a sinister beast whose huffs and puffs threaten indiscriminate mayhem and destruction. This morning I read Psalm 37, which includes some verses about beasts, referred to as ‘the wicked’. Despite their schemes and attacks, the psalmist declares that the Lord laughs at them. Generally, one only laughs at a bully when one is confident of one’s own power and might.

I find it reassuring, that as nightmarish as it is to know that the wicked lay in wait to target victims with lethal horrors, God is more powerful and he knows that their story will be short. We are to hope in him, trust in him, and pray. That’s where the real power lies.

Lag

Wide awake at 2.30 am. Jet lag. The reality is that my body has travelled thousands of miles in half a day, but my inner self has yet to catch up.

We pray for something. By faith we hear God’s voice, promising change, promising healing, promising breakthrough. The reality is that there has been a step change in our circumstances, but sometimes our inner self has yet to catch up. Faith lag.

My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 63).

Praying that for all who wait for the fulfilment of a promise, the reality of God’s word will quickly align with the reality of circumstances.

Mary awaited the fulfilment of a promise. That promise gestated within her as the Son of God developed and grew. She didn’t agitate as she waited. She watched, and pondered things in her heart.

The word for the first week in advent is hope. Hope in God is never misplaced. He is reliable; he is true; he is love. As advent unfolds, may the truth of his promises overlay the writhing of this world, encouraging hope and bringing light and life.

One day there will be no ‘lag’. Past, present and future will align and peace will prevail. In the meantime, I watch, and ponder things in my heart.

What's so great about Easter?

What is so great about Easter? Obviously Jesus being raised again to life, but also the restoration of hope for all of us. 

The tomb was so dark. No chinks of light. Unremitting blackness, death and decay. Jesus was dead and his body was wrapped for decomposition. 

Then the power of Almighty God knocked aside that huge stone. The light poured into the darkness, resurrecting life and the fragrance of hope.

Hope. World situations can lead us to despair; we can feel shut into a dark tomb where there is no light, no life. No stone is bigger than God’s wee finger or a puff of his breath to shift it aside.

Hope. Our own situation might be claustrophobically dark right now, devoid of light and life. No stone is bigger than God’s wee finger or a puff of his breath to shift it aside.

It’s with a shout of triumph that we greet Easter morn, whether we are still entombed or released. There is hope in our hearts because of Easter, because of Jesus. Our God is great and he is good; light and life are his gift to us today. 

He is risen indeed. Happy Easter.

Always hope

Just back from a walk. The sun is burning off the early morning mist and it looks like it’s going to be the sort of day where I scrap my To-Do list and head out to the garden.

Everything in the garden is screaming ‘HOPE’. Even beneath the bed of leaves (which I still haven’t cleared up since November), snowdrops and crocus and daffodils and tulips are breaking through the earth and stretching skywards. 

As winter’s grip lessens and the sun lingers longer, higher in the sky, the signs are all there indicating that warmer days are on the way. The monochrome of winter will soon be brightened with the lavish colours of spring. Already the white snowdrops carpet the lawn.

It isn’t just the weather that is seasonal. Our lives are, too. 

Ezekiel had a vision from God, a vision of a valley of dried up old bones. As Ezekiel spoke out the words God gave him, the bones came together and when the Lord breathed into them, they became truly alive.

Time to come out of hibernation, to open ourselves to God and be filled with his Spirit and live. In God, there is always hope.

Just before Dawn

The darkest hour is just before dawn.

‘My soul finds rest in God alone. Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.’ Psalm 62.

Trials can be extensive and the darkness can be deep. But the rhythm of the days, of the seasons, promises that the darkness gives way to light, that winter segues to spring and summer, and that as tough as our situation or circumstances are right now, the dawn is coming.

Thanks be to God. All my hope is in him.

Bagging dead leaves

Stirrings of hope through a blanket of dead leaves

Last autumn, I spent a few hours bagging dead and dying leaves to provide mulch in a couple of years. But inevitably there remains a thick rug of dark brown mouldering leaves on some of the flower beds.

Because I see the snowdrops budding and opening on the grass in the ‘orchard’, I know that beneath those rugs of leaves on the flower beds sprout bulbs which will display a variety of colours as spring begins to reveal herself. The snowdrops will be pushing hard to reach the light. Time for me to get out there and clear away the detritus of last season, so that the new shoots have space and light and air. 

Hope. Hope sometimes gets overwhelmed, buried by words of discouragement or unrealised plans.

What detritus of disappointment or dead dreams lies heavy on my expectations and hopes today? 

Time to clear it away, whatever negative experiences, encounters, fears and anxieties disfigure and stunt my hopes. Time to prepare myself in expectation for new opportunities, new ideas as creation bursts forth in reaction to the reliable rhythm established by our loving heavenly Father.

God is not surprised by the sometimes grinding litany of personal, national and global negativities. He saw them coming, and he has a plan, a plan for good, a plan that will bring about justice for all.

Hope. Today I want to bubble with joy as a woman of hope, hope in the God who is faithful. So with his help, I will again work to root out any bitterness and fears, and clear the way for a new season of faith to blossom forth, fragrant and beautiful, so that Jesus can draw others to himself through me.

Hope in our loving heavenly Father is never misplaced.