Vintage

Vintage Fisher Price boy, baseball cap sideways, red freckles scattered over a grumpy face, found lurking under a living room chair. That – and the sheets and towels hanging up drying – remind us of a weekend of laughter and fun as most of the family gathered. Four wee cousins together for the first time: precious. Priceless moments to be savoured.

Blessing upon blessing. By coincidence (!), our reading this morning was Isaiah 61:1-3. Verse 3 was God’s promise last year, a promise graciously fulfilled: during this year we have watched and experienced God’s loving hand on our lives, comforting all who mourn, bestowing a crown of beauty instead of ashes, anointing with the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and bedecking us all in a garment of praise as wee Eliott joins cousins Callan, Felicity and Gregor. 

God is good. As peace settles back on this rather empty home, our memories pop with moments relived, of laughter and joy, love and conversation, fun and an unspoken communion between us all. 

Happy Monday.

Be refreshed

I lift my eyes to the hills, the psalmist writes. Looking up at the hills or the mountains changes my perspective. The tendency is to look down, to focus in on my own footsteps through each day, and these become all important and all consuming. When I look up, and see the vista God has arranged, layers of responsibility are shed as I recognise my own insignificance and rejoice in the Big Picture.

With the world in the mess it is just now, threats and violence commonplace, it is easy to keep my head down and my focus on such things. When I lift my eyes to the hills, to the heavens – when I shift my gaze from the chaos to the peace of God, my soul is restored and refreshed. 

I don’t get it. The world is full of violence and misery, of injustice and pain, and yet we have a great God, a loving God who created a beautiful world and who is all powerful. There is a paradox which I accept: a loving God, all powerful, who does not fix the misery but allows it to continue. I explain it by recognising that this loving God has granted us free will, so that we will choose to love him and not love him out of duress. Loving him brings with it the concomitants of peace and joy and hope, so what’s not to love? 

Perversely, rebellion tempts us at every turn and with rebellion come disharmony and mayhem. So today, I lift my eyes to the hills and pause, breathing slowly and rhythmically, focusing on the God who loves us so much that he died for us. Such love. 

May you take time to pause today when things overwhelm, when temptations rise, when despair beckons. Lift your eyes and adjust your perspective. And be refreshed.

Nip it in the Bud!

I may be running the risk of losing readers who have no interest in gardening if I keep banging on about gardening metaphors for life but ... just one more. 

I’ve been talking about God the Father being a divine, gentle gardener pruning us of negative emotions, attitudes, memories even. This morning I was thinking of the phrase ‘to nip it in the bud’ and its relevance for what God the gardener does. Sometimes there is a temptation to entertain a thought which grows into a concern which swells into a worry which overwhelms into anxiety which can oppress us into depression, and which we can’t seem to shake. 

This often dark and dreich time of the year can be an incubator for such thoughts.

I am praying this morning that any such incipient ideas in me – and in you – will be nipped in the bud by our loving Father. 

I pray that even if we haven’t the wisdom ourselves to dismiss a thought which could easily grow into a giant of an anxiety, the Lord will reach down with his divine secaturs and snip.

Spring is coming, and I’m looking forward to voluptuous blossoms and nourishing fruit.

Apples Galore

The season of dealing with fruit and veg from the garden is drawing to a close. We are digging carrots as we need them, hoping there won’t be any early frosts, pulling in the last of the runner beans and ... of course ... dealing with apples galore.

Not that I’m complaining. But yesterday I made yet another apple crumble for the freezer, and four jars of apple butter – which actually took more time than I’d remembered. I’m about to hit the kitchen again for another session, this time of an apple tray bake for a talk on Caring for Creation tonight – kind of a suitable accompaniment. 

Our lives, too, go in seasons. Seasons of good and plenty; seasons of hardship and little. It’s hard to imagine oneself in one season when the other is overwhelming us. 

The Bible talks about the seasons of life, in Ecclesiastes where Solomon declares that there is a season for every activity under the sun. “... a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

Whew. Pretty exhaustive list, and not all of it something I want to embrace, that’s for sure. But maybe it’s a description of the way life is, rather than a recipe for what it should be. Because God is a good God who loves to shower his children with good gifts, and it breaks his heart when our hearts are broken.

May this be a day of healing, dancing and loving, for you, for me, and for all those who suffer in some of the unspeakable calamities of our time.