The Wrecked Metaphor at the Sand Martin Hide

Captain Butterfly took me to the Sand Martin Hide today.  Not a lot going on but a lovely late summer afternoon with a real feeling of Autumn in the air.  The wildflowers were everywhere.  As he set up his cameras, I watched a swan sail gracefully across the lake and disappear, and then watched its wake disappear in turn.

Mute Swan, Cygnus olor

Its all metaphor nowadays, and it set me thinking of the sparrow who flew across the Mead Hall - in this quote from Bede:

“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.

― Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Well, we do know, because Jehovah, the Creator of life has told us.  From the moment we are conceived in the womb, he knows us. We are a living soul. He knows every detail of our damaged genetics.  And when we die, his inspired word assures us we are conscious of nothing at all. But it also assures us that God will not forget us, and will reclaim us from the sleep of death when the earth is Paradise again.

But, watching the swan and its wake disappear, made me think of the shortness of our lives now and how quickly all traces of it go.

Though the swan then wrecked my metaphor by swimming back and carrying out a long grooming session in the middle of the lake.

 I did wonder whether that could in some way picture the resurrection and... but at that point my overloaded metaphor sank without trace.

There is quite a lot to say about the last few days, but I can't say it yet.  I only managed to get to one session of the Twickenham Assembly, but I do have some notes from the talk about Babylon the Great, which I hope I can read well enough type up and blog.

(No swans were harmed in the making of this blog.)