Our Trash Runneth Over

Our trash runneth over.

So does our ‘recycling’. 

It doesn’t help that we put the wrong bin out a couple weeks ago, so confused were we with their holiday schedule. Then when we rectified that Friday and had the recycling out, it was left pretty full because we had mistakenly filled it with plastic sheeting and polystyrene packaging which, it turns out, is not recyclable.

Today the ‘bin lorry’ should resume the usual schedule so we are hopeful that the trash bin, which doth really runneth over, shall be emptied some time during this beautiful day.

Stuff accumulates in a modern life which clutters and clogs and hampers forward movement. Sometimes it can be passed on, reused and given a second life; other times there is nothing for it but to send it to the tip.

Sometimes stuff becomes central to our thinking, elbowing out positive thoughts and leaving no room for progress in our lives. We get bogged down and lose focus, distracted and anxious.

Jesus counsels us to keep it simple. Not to worry about what we have or don’t have, or even what we need or don’t need. He advises to take one day at a time and focus on what really matters.

We have started this year, as we have many years, with a resolve to declutter. May 2017 be a year of less stuff, leaving more room in our minds and hearts to focus on what really matters.

Hot Cookies

I must have touched a hot cookie sheet during the Christmas baking, as I notice the line of a burn-scar on my thumb. 

It is a reminder of happy days, baking Christmas cookies with Mhairi, Doug and Felicity. Does it bother me that the trigger for the memory is the mark of a painful burn? Not at all.

Sometimes things which bring us pain, serve to remind us of good moments. I don’t remember the burn, but I do remember the laughter as Flick merrily dumped most of the coloured sugar onto one or two cookies. I do remember the chat as we rolled out the candy canes. I do remember the smiles as we rolled out another batch of pecan crisps. Good memories.

All things work for good for those who love God, Scripture tells us. Not all pains are as inconsequential as the burn on my thumb, though, and I’m conscious that some pain is searing and carries anguishing consequences. But my trust and hope are in the loving God who is with us in every pain, major or minor, who weeps with us and who then works to create something beautiful from within the new normal. 

Praying that 2017 will bloom with beauty as it unfolds for us all, whether germinated in joy or pain.

Resolutions

Back to school/work/normality today. 

New day. New year. God knows the plans he has for me and if I am wise, I will sit with him long enough to hear his whisper and run with him. Too often have I run away from him, following what I thought was my heart or was a better direction.

My ‘to do’ list is as complete a list of new year’s resolutions as I will make, but it is pretty comprehensive and daunting. I need to sit with him and hear his voice, following his advice on what to cross off my list and adding the things he suggests.

The great thing about our Father is that he loves us and wants to hang out with us. How unwise I am to follow my list slavishly rather than offering it to him for his advice. And it’s not all about ‘doing’ anyway...the sitting with him is such a breath of fresh air.

That’s the number one, the only, resolution I am making this year. To prioritise time with the Father.

I’ve got some Bible reading notes published in this quarter’s edition of Day by Day with God, from BRF. Sometimes it helps to have a guide as we navigate the Bible.

Underneath, the everlasting arms

So, I don’t think I played sharp or flat at the memorial service yesterday. Managed the descant to The Lord’s My Shepherd, once, while the flute soared away with it the other two times. While it’s quite fun to play the tune, the cello is particularly suited for providing that low, sonorous richness which to me offers notes of comfort. 

Underneath are the everlasting arms. Perhaps it’s that, a sense that as low as we can go, God’s arms can always go lower, cradling and comforting and caring. 

The service ended with Great is Thy Faithfulness, and as we played, I remembered that on the same day, January 3^rd, six years ago, my father’s funeral ended with the same wonderful hymn. 

Morning by morning new mercies I see. All that we have, we receive by the grace of God. Every breath we take. 

Underneath are the everlasting arms.

Cello Comfort

Just spent time with one of my oldest friends.

My cello.

I’ve had my cello since I was eight years old. We have had some great times together. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet at Millikan High. Stravinsky’s Petroushka  in All Southern Orchestra. Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in a string quartet. Elgar, Saint-Saens, Bach. 

My teacher hailed from Glasgow, had played in shipboard orchestras round the world and ended up in Long Beach. If I had a good lesson, he would give me a hurl on the back of his motorcycle – sans helmet, usually wearing sandals and just clinging round his ample girth. 

When I considered majoring in music and making it my career, Mr MacKenzie told it like it was: don’t do it. You don’t have the single-minded focus to practice eight hours a day. I was a little offended but couldn’t argue. I like a mix in my life.

But despite my dalliance with other things, when I come back to my cello I return to a deep part of me. I can hear that some of the former skill has slipped, but as my fingers crawl over the strings I remember those former days and sometimes catch a fleeting glimpse of them in the sweetness or resonance of the sound. My cello remains my friend, a voice through which emotions can sing or weep.

This morning I practiced because I have the somber privilege of playing in an ensemble for the memorial service of a great woman of faith. I want to bless her grieving family with a beautiful sound that comes from the heart of God. I am nervous that as I play so rarely, I might easily slip up.

May God enable me, and all of us, to somehow ‘channel’ his love to those whose loss is so raw and so deep, and bring them comfort beyond words.

Christmas is not in the boxes; it's in the hearts

That’s it. Christmas boxed up for another year. A duster flung round the rooms, hoover crawled over the carpet, and a pile of cards from wonderful friends and family sitting here ready to go into baskets for prayer fodder in the coming months.

Christmas chez nous was busy, noisy and fun, what with a toddler granddaughter and two baby grandsons. But underneath the joy and celebration droned a bass-line of grief, grounding us in the reality of the Christmas story. 

Yes, it’s about a new baby, bringing new life for us all. But Jesus was born into a time like this, with a crescendo-ing bass-line of political unrest, religious struggles, refugees, poverty and sorrow and grief. 

So while we are putting the boxes back into the attic, the baby born afresh into our hearts this year is more needed than ever. Christmas is not in the boxes; it is in the hearts. As Jesus grows in my heart today, and every day for the next twelve months, I pray that I would be transformed to conform more closely with his grace, his mercy, his love and his truth. 

I pray that what I will have boxed up and put away, not in an attic but in a deep dark pit from which there is no return, are negative and critical attitudes, a loose tongue too quick to pronounce judgment, a heart too small to welcome in the vulnerable, and a faith that entertains a doubt about God’s goodness and love.

How can I doubt his goodness and love, when he has given us his heart?

May 2017 be a year of growing revelation and deeper love, for our fellow creation and for our Creator.