Tag: faith

Landmarks

Posted on by Olaf

Every locality has its landmarks and we all use them for navigating around our landscapes.  A few like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty are notable beyond their locality, but most only mean something to locals.  When a familiar old tree is taken down or a favourite shop closes, there is a sense of loss and some disorientation.  The pictured monument is probably known only to a very few readers – it is placed in heathland to mark the proximity of habitat for Wild Cranberries, the Woodlark and Nightjar.  Some have creatively also used it for geocaching so if it was moved it would be confusing for dog walkers and for those searching for their next geocache answer.  You will have some landmarks that mean a lot to you but little to others.  Come to that, in the landscape of life, you will have people or events that are significant landmarks particularly to you.  Perhaps you are a landmark for others like a cairn on a mountain walk to help them on their way.  

  • ‘The bees learn where they live by landmarks. If they're moved within their home range, they get confused’ – Gene Robinson
  • ‘All the aftermath that so frequently follows in the wake of war still confront the nation, and we now, as ever before, must hold fast to the ancient landmarks and see to it that all of these plagues that threaten so mightily shall be rendered harmless’ – Alexander Henry

What do you see?

Posted on by Olaf

It is widely accepted that each of us sees the world through a particular lens, either one that may distort or correct vision.  Types of lens might be economic, social, technological, political or cultural but they are forged from our experience of life.  Your lens may help you see clearly or it may add in bias and prejudice.  Much is said these days about diversity, discrimination and equality – how does that sit with you? Are you filtering what you see through the same lenses you’ve always had or has your world view been challenged and undergone change?  The default human condition is to mix with those who reinforce one’s own world view, be that secular or spiritual, but there is another way to see things that is truly better.

  •  ‘We see the world through the lens of all our experiences; that is a fundamental part of the human condition’ – Madeleine M Kunin
  • ‘Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera’ – Yousuf Karsh

Summer

Posted on by Olaf

Whenever you read this, you will be in a season of nature and in a season of your own life.  We tend to think of seasons as a time of change as living things inevitably transition from one state to another.  Nature’s baton is handed from one season to the next and we tend to think of the first ‘runner’ as being ‘Spring’, the word coming from ‘springing time’ in the fourteenth century.  By the sixteenth century, this was shortened to ‘Spring’ describing how plants come forth from the ground (the Latin being ‘ver’ or ‘tempus primum’ as in ‘first time’).  This ‘baton of life’ is handed on to Summer which runs on at a more leisurely pace.  If Spring could suggest the morning, then Summer well conveys a lazy long afternoon and the promise of harvest. What do you associate with a Summer’s day?  Where are you in the seasons of life and the seasons of the soul?

  • ‘Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time’ – John Lubbock

WAITING

Posted on by Olaf

There are many types of ‘lockdown’ but in all of them there is no escaping the time of waiting.  Even before you are born, your mum and other people were waiting for you!  The young can’t wait to grow up and gain their independence.  The old find they have to wait for everyone else to do things for them as they progressively lose their independence and sense of value.  We usually wait for something that matters to us and in doing so give that ‘something’ meaning.  It might be waiting for the bus, the answer to a proposal, the job offer, the operation … or even the exam to start, to stop or to get the result!  There’s lots of waiting in every part of life and we can do it with expectation or dread, with patience or impatience and with trust or in fear.  How do you wait?  What are you waiting for in this phase of your life?  Some are waiting for rescue and others to die.  We always seem to be waiting – even gardeners wait!

  • ‘We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us’ – E M  Forster

by FAITH

Posted on by Olaf

‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you’ – Matthew 17:20

We all face mountains – they may block the way, intimidate and seem impossible to climb let alone move.  What mountain are you facing?  What did Jesus mean when he linked faith to a mountain, even faith as tiny as a fragile little seed compared to the largest solid dark mountain? 

FEAR

Posted on by Olaf

Fear paralyses – absolute fear paralyses absolutely.  It can’t always be rationalised for it is often irrational.  The face of fear has many masks but our fears must be faced if we are to be free to live a life worth living.

‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear’ – Nelson Mandela

‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light’ – Plato

So what fears are you facing?  Are they long-standing fears that have dogged your life from childhood or are they the dogs that began to stalk the corridors of your adult mind? 

HOPE because …

Posted on by Olaf

Is the hope you have a shifting verb or a steadfast noun?  You can hope for many things that may never happen but the Christian hope is an anchor- like noun.

‘We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf’ – Hebrews 6:19-20 

To have such a hope without substance would be to pass a verdict without evidence but we are not called to groundless faith, so what is the hope we can have and what is the substance?

DANGER … cynicism at work!

Posted on by Olaf

Something dangerous can happen in the heart of a person and in that of a community when a general distrust arises.  It is then that cynicism is at work and leads on to a sceptical hardening of the heart which questions everything and believes nothing.  

Just as hardening of the arteries is dangerous for physical health, so creeping cynicism can be dangerous for spiritual health.  It was Pharaoh’s hard heart that led to his rejection of God and the tragedies experienced in Egypt.  A hard heart is a dying heart.

STORM

Posted on by Olaf

Ever been in a storm, seen clouds gathering and dreading the perfect storm conditions?  People the world over have probably suffered these worse than you will ever have to and yet storm surges can happen in our own lives.  Suddenly, out of the blue, something happens and a storm is upon you to threaten your very life and existence – a squall.  Perhaps this is your current situation or you know someone who is in the middle of one.

‘If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm’ – Frank Lane

‘If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm’ –  Mahatma Gandhi