What does it mean to be alive? That is a big question behind which are the bigger questions of beginnings and endings. You may think the featured picture is a panda bear – it is not! It contains three items that were living and one that never had life*. Something may look alive but it might actually be partly or completely dead. Take the shell of a whelk – it may have a living being within it or it may be just an empty shell.
There are many people today who struggle with a sense of rejection, to a greater or lesser degree – are you one of them? Have you ever experienced an unkind word from someone you have cared about, been belittled by a work colleague or blanked by a neighbour? Some causes of that feeling of rejection are deep-seated because they are deep-rooted going back many years, even to childhood. You may have heard from friends who tell you of something a teacher said to them at school (which the teacher would probably have long-forgotten) or of the breakup of a romance when off-the-cuff words cut deep. Sometimes, it can be the words of a parent or sibling that will lead not only to the powerful negative emotion of rejection but also to a relationship breakdown that lasted for months, years or maybe even lingers on. How can you deal with it in yourself or help others struggling with the debilitating consequences as they carry this deadweight around with them? There can yet be a breaking through of the sun for a sunrise can change everything.
In 1623, William Shakespeare wrote a far-fetched play entitled ‘The Winter’s Tale’, borrowing heavily from the plot of Robert Greene's pastoral romance ‘Pandosto’, first published in 1588. Part tragedy and part comedy, it spoke of the deep pain that is caused by separation and the wasted years when relationships break down. Despite the sorrow of the first three acts involving jealousy, accusation, death and injustice, things turn out well in the end. The two fathers, Leontes and Polixenes seem spiritually dead and have lost all ability for feelings. However, there is a resurrection at the end and joy as reconciliation comes through Florizel and Perdita in the next generation. Winter is the season when structures are revealed as trees shed their leaves and you see their essence. This tale echoes this process in a fanciful story but God’s story does it in stark reality as relationships are redeemed through from his son’s work on a bare tree.
What did Brian Cox, Brian May and Sir Patrick Moore have in common? It’s true that they loved music – Brian Cox being an accomplished keyboard player with two bands, Brian May being the legendary guitarist with Queen whilst Sir Patrick was a keen pianist and player of the xylophone. However, their main bond was in their love of the night skies! Brian May is an astrophysicist and generously bought Sir Patrick’s house in Selsey allowing him to live there for a peppercorn rent when finances became tight. Patrick wore a monocle from the age of 16, becoming a specialist on the moon and an eccentric TV presenter who built an observatory in his back garden housing a 12 ½ inch reflector telescope. The fascination of these three astronomers is shared by many, not least the mysterious astrologers from lands afar who followed a star. We all want to know more about what is up there in the heavens above, whether it holds solutions for the problems of the earth and where the location is of Heaven itself.
The four stages in the metamorphosis of butterflies are from egg to larva, then pupa and finally to adult butterfly. All of these are living unless perchance they run into someone with a net who collects them – a Lepidopterist, sometimes known as an ‘aurelian’! Lepidopterology is a branch of entomology (the study of insects) and comes from the Greek for ‘scale’ and ‘wing’. If you were a butterfly, you should avoid them for they are likely to stick a pin through you and mount you in their collection, after killing you humanely … in a freezer! Whilst caterpillars have jaws and can bite back if threatened, a butterfly only has a long, curled proboscis, which is like a soft drinking straw—their jaws are gone and so is self-defence. Margaret Fountaine (1862–1940) was a Lepidopterist who collected more than 22 000 butterflies, published extensively and wrote a diary of more than a million words – that is a serious serial ‘Lepidopterist’. Imagine going through four life forms and the questions it might generate – who is the real me and will there be more to life after this next mutation?
How would you finish that statement if you were thinking about life? To some it all makes perfect sense whilst to others it is complete nonsense. If you know something about this picture then it makes sense but if you don’t, then it is abstract and beyond understanding. The artist alone can explain what was in his mind and what he saw – for sure it wasn’t a baby! Do you know The Artist who alone brings sense to this life? His colours and brush strokes come at times boldly whilst at other times faintly but there’s no doubting that the picture includes a baby, a mystery, a messed up world that is made good and you are in it! At first the canvas is all dark, but then the Word is fleshed out and light blazes into the picture with the Incarnation of Christ Jesus as a baby, God with us. Into the darkness comes the Light of the world, but not everyone sees it or understands it.
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?
