Flower Carpets

A new moth appeared on our balcony. It was a Blue-bordered Carpet.  It is, of course, very pretty. And I guess it is of the carpet variety, though that does NOT mean it will eat your carpets!  It refers to its carpet pattern.  A cherry picker also appeared at balcony height, holding two guys who are trying to pick up on all the bits the Maintenance Crew left undone. Snagging. Very noisy, but it has to be done.

We went to the lovely Chalk Gardens at Highdown on Monday - see the blog photos. It was only a short walk as it started to rain, but I can only do short walks anyway. It is a wonderful maze of a place and bursting with butterflies and blossom. We saw Red Admirals galore, various Whites, a Painted Lady, and a Comma perched on a bench.

Today should be two Zoom witnessing sessions, plus a doctors visit for Himself - to get the results of the blood test. Why they can't do this over the phone, I don't know. Unless  - gulp - there is some bad news to break...  hopefully that is not the case here.

Which leads me to tell, or possibly re-tell?, a medical anecdote from my past. In my expat years, I was at the Company hospital to get the results of a recent test, not blood.  The doctor greeted me, turned to his computer, looked intently at the screen, looked very worried at what he saw there, and called the nurse in.

My heart skipped a beat, thinking he had some bad bad news to tell me and needed the nurse for support.  However, it turned out he couldn't work the new computer system the whole company was struggling with at the time, and needed the nurse to help him find my test results.

When found, they were fine. Thank God.

The Speaker at the Sunday meeting started off with an interesting illustration, that of how you tell the real coin/banknote from the counterfeit.  He pointed out that rather than trying to study all the various forgeries, you should make a close study of the real thing.

And this was in the light of Jesus'powerful warning at Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’"

This is why it is of vital (literally) importance to study the Bible - to find out what it actually says. 

This warning seems especially powerful as I have just finished Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, the third and final part of her Wolf Hall trilogy.  The horror - the cruelty, including the random casual cruelty to the animal creation, is shocking. I don't know how she coped with the research. And the people carrying out those horrors claimed to be followers of Christ. The countries carrying out those horrors claimed to be Christian.

And some died in such torment because they were simply trying to teach people what the Bible actually says.  

We offer a free home Bible study, or online on JW.org, so you can find out, if you want to.  Having just read the Mantel book makes me realise what a privilege it is to be able to do this.