Take 5

A friend and I decided to do the Pinchgut track in the Nelson Lakes National Park. We were told it was the best track for us to do if we wanted great views of the Park in the time we had available.  Naively we began.  The name of the track should have warned us!!  We climbed up, and up, zig zagging our way up the mountain side. Did I mention we were actually climbing a mountain?  The path was relentless. The name of the track began to make sense. I don’t know how many times I needed to stop to get my breath. We kept on climbing up. It decided to rain. The air became colder and clouds rolled around the mountain. Every time we turned the corner of the zig zag, I was hoping it would be the last but no....  Eventually, finally, we reached the top. Tussock grasses swayed, the wind had an icy sting and we were in the clouds - no 360 degree view - but we were at the top!!! “Slogging it out” up the mountain was frankly hard work.   It’s long, it’s tough and many ...

I did a double take.  I couldn't believe my eyes. The dead hibiscus had sprouted!! We had watched in horror as the hibiscus, a gift, had shed its leaves and died. For months two dry sticks were all that remained. In fact we had already begun searching the garden centres for a replacement. Yet, here it was with fresh green sprouts!  The passage in Job 14:7-9 came alive in front of my eyes!  At least there is hope for a tree If it is cut down, it will sprout again  and its new shoots will not fail. Its root may grow old in the ground  and its stump die in the soil, Yet at the scent of water it will bud  and put forth shoots like a plant. Job's Story:  Job feels like he has been cut down.   He is the dead stump.   He has lost his family, his income, his livestock, and his health.   His friends, who came to comfort him have berated him, implied he has deserved the multiple tragedies and question his integrity.   Everything that Job ha...

 The roots of trees fascinate me.  Their structural form is amazing.  As I walk along the coast and see the pohutukawa trees clinging to the cliffs, often in barren, inhospitable circumstances yet flowering, I wonder how they do it.  These trees are resilient to the salt spray from the waves, the prevailing winds and storms that pound them.  They cling on regardless and from barren rocky terrain pull out water and nutrients to keep growing, keep holding on and incredibly to flourish. Recently I heard about the Redwoods (sequoia trees) of North Western America. These are the tallest trees, or the skyscrapers of the tree world. They can live for a couple of thousand years. However, their roots are not deep.   How do they survive winds, and storms? Their roots spread horizontally as far out as 30 metres and intertwine with other redwoods, forming a grand underground network from which they receive nutrients, strength and from which they nurture the young red...

  We are fixated with first.   First gets good press, plenty of press. First gets the photo opportunities, just ask the first child! All the photos are their first smile, first steps, first teeth, first day at school… by the time the second and third child come along……not so many photos.   First gets all the attention in the news whether it is coming first, or the first on the spot of a tragedy, first to speak...   Yet I want to suggest that second, especially a second time has its own kind of power.   I discovered the power of a second time learning to play the piano.   As I sat my grade V exam nerves overcame me. My knees knocked and my fingers slithered off the keys, my hands shook so badly. The examiner took pity and tried to help by encouraging me to deep breathe.   It didn’t help and I failed miserably.   Failure didn’t sit well. I stopped playing.   A couple of years went by. I went back to learning music. I tried the same exam a sec...

 When things turn chaotic, when life becomes messy, loud and tumultuous we seek desperately for stillness or calm and above all, peace.  The stillness of the early morning, quiet waters like lakes or estuaries, the gentle lapping of the sea, or the hush of night. Peace took on a deeper meaning for me this morning as I read Psalm 34. Verse 14 encourages us to   “ Turn from evil and do good;   seek peace and pursue it. ” I switched translations and read the same passage in the Passion Translation. “Keep turning your back on every sin, and make “peace” your life motto. Practice being at peace with everyone.” Down in the footnotes for the word “peace” I read; “Twice the Hebrew uses the word shalom. This word means much more than peace. It means wholeness, wellness, well-being, safe, happy, friendly, favor, completeness, to make peace, peace offering, secure, to prosper, to be victorious, to be content, tranquil, quiet, and restful. The pictographic symbo...

  The cursor on my laptop turned into that annoying circle going round and round.  Everything froze.  Word is not responding.  I begin responding!!  I push keys, hit enter but to no avail. I need to force a shutdown and Restart.  I wait impatiently for the computer to reset itself and start again.  So many of our electrical and electronic devices have this reset function built in to them.  Our ignorance or impatience has overwhelmed them – we asked the device to do too many things at once, or we pushed some keys that confused the computers.  If all else fails turn everything off and start again is the maxim where computers are concerned.  Funny really, we give this “grace” to our devices, we are in fact thankful that if we turn them off and turn them back on they will reset but we seldom give ourselves this reset grace. RESET was the gift Lockdown gave us.   Everything shutdown and suddenly we were forced to stop our frantic, busy...

It was mesmerizing watching the glass being swirled and twisted on the end of the pole. This orange-hot liquid being shaped and crafted. In the furnace, swirled, back in the furnace, beaten and shaped, back in the furnace, for something so beautiful and fragile the process was rigorous. The master craftsman watching and shaping, inspecting and forming the artwork he had in mind. [1]   Just weeks earlier I had watched a similar process with clay being transformed into brightly coloured ceramic pots [2] .   Glass blowing begins in the furnace and ends in a cooling kiln to harden, whereas ceramic pots end in a furnace to be transformed and hardened. Regardless of the process a furnace is involved! That’s an “ouch” thought when I liken the process of glass making or ceramics to the way God uses circumstances to mould and shape us for his purposes. The furnace, that place of “firey trial’, that overwhelming, difficult, gut wrenching place is the furnace that refines and purifie...

I booked in to do a twilight kayak on the Sounds.   I had heard about kayaking, in fact one of my friends raved about it.   So, why not give it a go. Surely it wasn’t that hard. There we were at twilight, a group of 10, adults and children, novices like myself and more experienced folk going out with our guide for a twilight kayak on the Queen Charlotte Sounds.   I was partnered with a young tourist and took the back seat of the tandem kayak – the seat that also had the pedals that controlled the rudder.   Shouldn’t be that hard right?   A few instructions and tips on holding the paddle, of the arm strokes, and about steering and away we went.   So far so good.   Not bad until the Picton ferry moved passed us and the wake from the boat pushed my companion and I into the shore.   With a bit of effort we managed to sort ourselves out and carry on. Seriously, I was making a hash of the whole thing and the magic had rapidly begun to fade. My compani...

There is something warm and comforting about being wrapped in a blanket. To snuggle in, then feel the warmth permeate through you. It’s so relaxing – especially on a cold winter’s day.   When one of my nephews was very small, he had a “blankey” that went everywhere with him – rather like Linus from the Charlie Brown cartoon series. There was no bedtime without his “blankey” and if he was upset at all, “blankey” brought great comfort. It took a long time before “blankey” was left behind. One of the other boys had a very battered bear called Paddy who worked the same “magic”.   The favourite toy or the security blanket make us smile. Yet even though eventually both boys left their comfort symbols behind, I suspect deep inside all of us, even toughened adults,   we continue to seek for a “blankey”, especially when circumstances become stressful.   The desire for comfort and security, the desire to be “wrapped” up in warmth and love is very deep.   We might look t...

When I posted " Shake it Off ", I too was trying to shake off some words and dark thought patterns that were clinging. I knew praise was a powerful antidote for "vipers", but the application was still hard. An hour after posting, I picked up a book by Bill Johnson that was languishing beside my bed. This is what I read...     "Our troubling circumstance may last days, months, or years, instead of just an hour or two, but our approach should be the same: We must declare the goodness and faithfulness of God even in the midst of our trial, before we have an answer.   Why do we have to endure uncertainty? This is a mystery, but the Bible hints at an answer when it gives a spiritual picture of a city called the community of the redeemed, or Zion (see Is 62). Isaiah 60:18 says, "But you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise." In Revelation we see this gate called praise again and discover that is made out of one solid pearl (see R...

There are moments when it seems from out of nowhere a comment, a thought, another problem, an email, a call strikes leaving a sting, a barb that begins to fester.  The proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s taking you down fast. In Acts 28, the apostle Paul, his companions, shipmates, fellow prisoners, soldiers, and sailors have all been washed up on the beach at Malta. They are battered, wet, cold and glad to be alive. They have survived a long horrific storm culminating in a shipwreck that plunged them all into breakers pounding the coast.   By the grace of God they are safe.   They gather their strength and build a fire to keep warm. Paul tosses more driftwood onto the fire only to have a viper who had been asleep in the wood wake with the heat and fasten itself to his arm.  What does Paul do?  I know what I would have done – I would have screamed, hoped someone would remove the thing and then probably done a dramatic swoon. Okay, ...

I have just come in from mowing the lawns marveling once again at the tenacity, the perniciousness of the daisies, even in the middle of winter.  Their smiling faces keep popping up regardless of how many times the lawn mower cuts off their heads.  Invariably, as soon as I finish the lawns, there they are again smiling cheerfully and waving in the breeze.  Actually, I really like the daisies in the lawn. I so appreciate their ability to pick themselves up and come back.  They demonstrate to me, the power of resilience.  Resilience is an “in” word at present.   It is the ability to bounce back after stress, trauma, and hardship. It is the ability to cope with crisis and carry on. Whilst previous generations have learned and practiced resilience our own generation appears to be lacking in this essential character quality. I’m not sure you can suddenly produce resilience. I believe resilience is the by-product of developing faith and hope.   The ...

I perched on the edge, my legs dangling into space, and looked down – what was I thinking? A voice in my ear said “Jump!” Taking a deep breath, I jumped – out of the plane into a crazy, adrenaline, wild, free-fall. Arms and legs out wide, face squashed by the force of the fall. It was exhilarating, freezing and brilliant!   Arms came around in front of me and pointed to the altimeter on their wrist indicating that the parachute was about to be pulled. With a jerk, our descent was slowed and we drifted down, taking in the incredible view as we did.   As the ground came nearer the voice in my ear told me to lift my legs as the experienced parachuter I was tied in tandem to, lowered his legs to touch down and take the brunt of the landing.   That parachute jump was the best!!   As crazy and as exhilarating as it was, it is also a great image to describe faith. In my previous blog, Navigating Uncertainty Part II, I wrote about faith being likened to a hammock and bei...

Grappling with uncertainty, or a fear of the future is not an easy task. Being rational and logical goes out the door when a vivid imagination gets underway. I know, I have one of those! The daily doses of “The News” doesn’t help either. Watching chaos erupt around us adds to the sense of being small boats battered in an angry storm with worst case scenarios, maybes and what ifs, washing over us. It’s not long before fear holds us in a vice-like grip. We respond out of fear, we hold back paralysed with uncertainty. Does that sound familiar?   In “Navigating Uncertainty”, I referred to the need to find a “fixed point of certainty” just as the ancient mariners used the certainty of the stars, moon and sun to navigate their way.   That “fixed point” I suggested is faith in God. Jesus told his fearful disciples in John 14 to not be troubled or afraid by what will come but rather “ to believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on Him ” (John 14:1 AMP).   Jesus also sai...