The Sandwich Fairy Panics!

The Sandwich Fairy nearly had a fail this morning.  Captain B, given his full day yesterday - marshalling at an Arun swim, and then on to the Detectorists BBQ - said he would not be going out today.  But to my surprise he was up quite early this morning.  And he suddenly mentioned that he was just about to leave - for The Field.

"You said you weren't going out!"  I panicked.  "There are no sandwiches in the fridge - and no bread unthawed!!"

"Yes, I am going. Of course. I decided last night".

Alas, he forgot to mention it to the mysterious sandwich fairy who makes sure that, no matter how early he leaves, a box of sandwiches and cake is ready in the fridge.

Anyway, she did manage. And he left with his full lunch: ham sandwiches and marmalade muffin. It was touch and go, though.

As August progresses I watch for the moments when Summer begins to tip into Autumn.  The last two Thursday nights I have had to turn my car lights on when driving back from the Kingdom Hall.  That is one sure sign. And on Saturday when I went out onto the balcony the sunlight felt so different. It was hot and calm, really hot, yet somehow the summer had gone out of it. 

How quickly the seasons fly past now. When I was a child they seemed to last forever.

Bede’s famous parable of the sparrow is a common text in many introductory courses of Old English. It is found in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), when he discusses how King Edwin of Northumbria was converted to Christianity in the year 627. In Bede’s story, one of Edwin’s counsellors compares the life of a pagan to the flight of a sparrow through the king’s warm hall.
https://thijsporck.com/2020/07/27/from-bede-731-to-bone-1991-2004-a-sparrows-flight-through-the-ages/

However, both the life of a pagan and the life of a believer is so short - just the flight of the sparrow through the lighted mead hall - from darkness into darkness.

The Bible tells us this: "For there is an outcome for humans and an outcome for animals; they all have the same outcome. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit. So man has no superiority over animals, for everything is futile. All are going to the same place. They all come from the dust, and they all are returning to the dust." - Ecclesiastes 3:19,20

The life of both man and animal - and we are all souls - is short.  But the Bible teaches us that there can be an awakening from the dreamless sleep of death. Jesus spoke of the coming resurrection of the dead, and Daniel tells us that "many of those asleep in the dust of the ground will wake up".

Our first parents were made to live forever, so we feel the tragedy of the shortness of our lives now. Poets have lamented it down the ages.

The photo is of a Rufus Sparrow, not the sort of sparrows that we used to see in flocks everywhere in my childhood.  And that reminds me that I once saw a bright yellow canary living happily with a vast flock of sparrows in a London square  they were feeding together and flying together in harmony. That would have been in the 1960s. Both sparrows and their yellow companion will be long gone, but they were all known by Jehovah, and loved by Him.