A Gang of Pheasants

A gang of pheasants hangs around our garden most days. Actually, they don’t hang around; they graze on by as they try to consume enough calories to keep going another day. They eat what they find, as do the hunter-gatherer tribe from Tanzania who we saw on a programme on the telly last week. Pretty precarious life.

On Friday we were feeling sad for our beautiful feathered friends, knowing the local syndicate had a scheduled shoot on Saturday. We thought many were destined to die soon.

However, I was delighted this morning when, as I walked down the drive, a dozen or so of these creatures tiptoed and lurched into the air in front of me. The ones that got away to live another day.

Generally I act as if I were going to walk on this earth forever, enjoying the rainbows and sunsets, the joys and laughter and love, the challenges and new experiences life offers. Today I was reminded that my life is just as precarious as the pheasants and the hunter-gatherers.

Underneath are the everlasting arms. Thanking God tonight for another day on this beautiful earth.

Happiness Is ...

Abundant balls, and a discarded jacket. Who is happier, Dusty or me?

Hard to tell. The sun’s been out again, most the day, and the wind has dropped. I’ve been able to work outside. 

And while working outside, I heard it. The first cuckoo of spring. At last!

Lots of ‘things’ tell a story. 

Like an empty cross. A cruel instrument of torture and death devised by the Romans. Yet Christians wear it around their necks. Why?

Because of the story it tells. That man did his worst to Jesus, but that wasn’t the end of the story. The end of the story is an empty cross, or more tellingly, an empty tomb. Jesus defeated death. He had the last word.

And the last word, like the first word, is Love. God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, his much loved son, so that everyone who believes that he is the son of God will live forever with him.

Now that is happiness.