There are many different kinds of barriers which can have either a positive or negative effect. These old groynes were intended to stop coastline erosion and protect beach habitat.
As you see, they are now broken down in many places and no longer really functional. The word groyne (groin in the USA) comes from the Old French groign and Late Latin grunium meaning ‘snout’ which is appropriate as it sticks out from the shore into a body of water!
To be trapped physically in a snow drift is very scary and you might wonder about your survival. Erik Weisz made his career out of sensational escape acts in the early 1900s. He was better known as Harry Houdini – despite appearing trapped in chains, he always managed to escape. Many today are genuinely trapped in all manner of circumstances – poverty, illness, success, failure, poor self-image, relationships, lack of relationships, anxieties, fears and phobias of all kinds. It’s ironic to think that everyone begins their existence ‘trapped’ inside the body of their mother and finds freedom through birth. Sadly, it doesn’t take any of us long before we become trapped through many snares, disbelief and cynicism turning a double lock. Happily many find freedom through a second birth!
Bees work away in their hives building their wax to store honey on ‘man-made super frames’ which are regular pre-shaped slats. They are diligent workers conforming to a pattern – here is a picture of Christians living ‘under the Law’ which you read of in Romans 7. However, taking away these imposed structures gives them freedom to create their own shapes for honey combs which led to this beautiful work of art by a bee colony. This could represent a Romans 8-style ‘Life in the Spirit’ – wonderful, strong, purposeful and shaped by the Spirit to the glory of God. If your Christian life was represented by a honey comb, would it be a free-form thing of beauty or conformed to a rigid pattern?! Have you understood the difference?
