The Holly Blue on the Thrift

The Monday morning excitement was that I saw a Holly Blue butterfly on our balcony thrift. HOLD THE PRESSES!!!! It was so tiny, so exquisite, and so blue. I alerted Captain Butterfly who came roaring out with his camera - see the result above. I am happy to know we can have a plant that is useful to butterflies on our balcony. We are limited by the constant exposure to the sea, to the salt wind from the sea.

Could I write a poem in its honour? The Holly Blue is one of my favourite butterflies and Thrift is quite a numinous plant for me as I used to watch out for it on our childhood holidays in the Cornwall of the 1950s. It grew on the cliffs. So it ought to be possible, but no inspiration as yet. Is it something to do with age? Anyway I have thrown some ideas into the poem pot and will see if anything emerges.

The first symposium at the recent District Assembly was: Imitate Those Who Eagerly Waited, and one of the three Biblical examples was the prophetess Anna.

She was not young, and the Speaker pointed out that, like so many of us, she faced the unique and cruel challenges of old age. Yet she was never missing at The Temple. Which made me feel rather guilty as there I was missing from Haysbridge, attending on computer. But, on the other hand, I did not feel it would be right to go and cough and sneeze all over everyone. I had to go and get a fresh box of tissues halfway through the video session as it was.

Anyway, I thought I would try to decipher a few points the Speaker made to help old crocks and crumblies like myself.

Here is what we know of Anna, at Luke 2:36-38:

Now there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanʹu·el, of Ashʹer’s tribe. This woman was well along in years and had lived with her husband for seven years after they were married, and she was a widow now 84 years old. She was never missing from the temple, rendering sacred service night and day with fasting and supplications. In that very hour she came near and began giving thanks to God and speaking about the child to all who were waiting for Jerusalem’s deliverance.

Everything Jehovah had written down and preserved for us is important - it is for us to learn from. It is his message to us. There are no wasted words. So we can learn a lot from this brief account of Anna.

What a short time her marriage lasted. So how long she would have been on her own - having to look after herself and very much rely on the kindness of others. There was no Welfare State, no widow's pension.

But first and foremost she relied on Jehovah, kept faithfully worshipping him, and of course He did look after her. And then, at the end of her life, he gave her the privilege of actually seeing the Messiah that Israel had been waiting for down so many generations. We probably can't imagine how wonderful that was for her.

I made a special note of Isaiah 46:4, one of the cited scriptures. It says:

Until you grow old I will be the same;
Until your hair is gray I will keep bearing you.
As I have done, I will carry you and bear you and rescue you.

I feel very old and gray at the moment, and, having found out that now the second of the two girls I shared my first student flat with has died.  So I am having an "I alone escaped to tell you" moment. And I feel dreadful, as if this nasty cold is flaring up all my other health problems. Today I face up to a trip to the Clinic and the struggle to get the antibiotics I need - remembering last time...

So the first and foremost lesson I hope to take from Sunday is that I need to keep strengthening my trust in Jehovah, and rely on Him for everything.