Friday it rained for most of the day - a steady sort of downpour which we need. But apparently Spain and much of the continent are suffering from a fierce heatwave. By Friday evening it was blowing up quite a storm here.
The storm continued on Saturday. Wonderful. I was out on the balcony, in between sessions of the Exercise Patience Convention. There was an interesting Symposium "What Creation Can Teach us About Jehovah's Timing" that I hope Captain B might want to watch with me. It covers Sea Creatures, Birds and Insects among other things, all of which he is quite passionate about.
I was watching the gulls - wonderfully designed flyers - battle the storm, sometimes just resting on a cushion of wind, sometimes being blown backwards, or upwards. You get a bird's eye view from our balcony.
One of the talks from the Saturday morning session of the Convention was: Why Beware of Instant Gratification. I was especially interested in that as I had happened to see part of a documentary about Woodstock during the night - I guess I must have been up taking my painkillers. (the lack of medication is beginning to kick in). And it was fascinating. That was in 1969 I believe just before the whole Peace/Hippie thing began to go all Charles Manson.
Woodstock did seem a peaceful sort of Assembly though the size of the crowd was terrifying. And as for loos... I do not want to think about it. Nobody had realised how many would turn up, but the local people rallied round and somehow people were fed and watered and cared for - even though the whole Festival turned into a sea of mud. But the ever present factor was drugs, and people spoke about the instant gratification they can give, how they make everything seem brighter and better and calmer - for the moment.
But... there is no free lunch - grateful as I am for my prescribed painkillers. And the whole Charles Manson thing and the drug problems of today were waiting in the wings. We have such a longing for paradise though, for joy and peace.
In her song "Woodstock" Joni Mitchell sang We are stardust, we are golden. And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
For all the powerful efforts "the world" has made to make us think that the first chapters of Genesis are just a "creation myth", I don't believe we have ever forgotten, or stopped longing for that beautiful garden we lost, the Garden of Eden, Paradise.
But can we get ourselves back there? Can we turn the whole earth into a paradise of peace? We have certainly made some beautiful gardens - see Col's photo of the garden at Nymans above. Jehovah has let 6,000 years go by during which that question has been answered. Not only do we not have peace on earth, but aren't we on the verge of bringing the whole planet to ruin?
We cannot rule ourselves. We need our Creator, Jehovah. Only the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the loving rule of the Kingdom of God can restore that link so fatally broken in Eden, and turn the whole earth into the beautiful, perfect and peaceful garden it always should have been. Then, and only then, will we have exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. (Psalm 37)
And to return to the Joni Mitchell lyrics for the moment, yes, we are stardust. We are made from stardust - well from the dust of a planet at any rate. As Genesis has always told us: And Jehovah God went on to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life,and the man became a living person.
We are made from the dust of ground - the dust of the earth. I have a feeling that stars and planets are slightly different things, and the earth is a planet, revolving round the sun, which is a star. I guess I ought to Google it.
Stardust does sound prettier than planetdust though.
No comments:
Post a Comment