The Wild Silence

Col had ordered Raynor Winn's next two books for me  and they arrived on Monday.  I have already got well into The Wild Silence, and am so looking forward to Landlines.

The central metaphor of The Wild Silence is the parallel with the damage we are wreaking on the planet and the damage being done by the illness that is progressively damaging the author's husband, Moth.  Yet it is not depressing - quite the opposite. It is absorbing and inspiring.  And such a good read that I am going to have a struggle to get my necessary studying and housework done today, instead of spending the whole day on the sofa with her books.

I am in a lot of pain too, and got minimal sleep, so the sofa option is very tempting.

What I must do is get this blog finished and published as I try for ten blogs a month.  I need to do some housework.  I also need to do my studying for the day - see the weekly schedule for meetings on the site JW.org.  Plus some witnessing - I have two blocks of flats to write to, along with another email to Bruce of South Africa.  Oh, and some lentil veggie soup for us this evening.

If that does not sound like a satisfying meal for a man back from a hard day in The Field (resident detectorist on local Archeology Site) then please bear in mind that it will have chicken added to it and become a chicken, lentil and veggie soup. And I have his favourite dessert - apple crumble - for afters.

And in any case, the Captain threw my plans into disarray by coming back early for lunch.  I threw the soup together hastily and have a baked potato and some salad he can have for his supper.

I have chosen another Cornish photo from Col's gallery - the view of Praa Sands beach from the house my granny used to own there, many years ago, the house where we spent our childhood summers back in the 1950s.   I can remember nothing about the house, but I remember the steep garden steps. And I remember the wonderful beach vividly.  I chose it because Raynor and Moth are busy re-wilding a neglected farm in Cornwall.

And the book is a reminder that what is needed is not neglect, just letting things run wild, but careful and loving stewardship of the land.  Which is the wonderful occupation Jehovah gave our first parents - to turn the whole earth into paradise - a beautiful garden.

We constantly try to restore the harmony they lost, but we are up against two impossibilities. Firstly, we were not designed to rule ourselves, but were designed to freely accept and follow our Creator's loving law, his perfect standards of good and bad.  And, secondly, the hands that really rule the world are bent on destruction. They are not human hands, and they are much more powerful than we are.  Ephesians 6:12 spells that out for us, clearly and simply.

And is there anything in the tragedy that has been human history that should cause us to doubt the truth of that warning in Ephesians?