Take 5

 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...