Low Tide

the withdrawing tide

peels away the water and

strips the shoreline naked

smooth stones pock the

dirty yellow sand and

strands of black seaweed sprawl across

bone white driftwood

seagulls paddle in shallow pools as

blackbirds skip over

empty beer bottles and a

rusted bicycle wheel

man’s careless neglect exposed

the wind mewls and

grey clouds cry bleak tears

Ta Lots, Love You, Shaz

My sister’s email address was hacked and a message was sent to all her contacts.  No one was fooled for a moment that the message came from her. I know her too well to suppose her to be on an impromptu visit to the Ukraine, although she did once pay me an impromptu visit a couple of years ago – not me as such, but my well-able-to-fill-in-a-form husband.  She was applying for a grant and the form was pages long and he knows his way around a form.  Despite his expert advice, her application for the grant was turned down.

Here’s the letter as it appeared in my inbox.  I’m not infringing on any copyright laws because it was delivered to me by email.  I have resisted the urge to correct the spelling, grammar or punctuation.

I really hope you get this quickly. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. we had to be in Ukraine for a program. The program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. we misplaced our wallet and Mobile on our way back to the hotel we lodge in after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contained all the valuables we had. Now our passport is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment.

I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but i have only very few people to run to now. i will be indeed very grateful if i can get a short term loan from you.this will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting me with. I promise to refund it in full as soon as soon as I return. let me know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let me know soonest.

Thanks so much.

Sharon

I couldn’t resist!  The creative writer in me just had to write the letter the scammer should have sent that might have convinced them it was genuine.  I’ve mentioned horses quite a lot because my sister has lots of them.  She loves networking with anyone with links to equine assisted therapy.  The Boss man is her hubby Malc – she sometimes does things without telling Malc.  Signing a letter as “Sharon” is a real giveaway – she is Shaz!

My revised version:-

erMy revised

Anyone out there willing to rescue me?  Just off the cuff I decided to take a trip to the Ukraine.  Even the Boss man doesn’t know where I am.  Equine assisted therapy is just getting started over here and they are bursting with new ideas.  I had a good time networking and sharing good practice. The trouble is I have lost my purse and my mobile phone.  The place I’m staying is getting all shirty because I can’t pay the bill.  They’re holding my passport to ransom.  I know, I know…stupid woman and all that.

I know it’s asking a lot BUT I will be forever grateful and promise to muck out stables for a long time, if you have stables, if you can loan me some money.  Just enough to pay the bill and get my passport back and come home – a few thousand pounds should cover it.  Ha Ha Ha. You could do a whip round at the pub on my behalf! Seriously, I will pay you back as soon as I can.  I will also give you free horse riding lessons but if you fall off I can't be held accountable.

Ta lots

Love you

Shaz

When it's Time to Leave the Building

I can think of only one time when I have ever walked out of a film showing at a cinema.  It happened about twenty five years ago.  I can’t remember what the film was called but it was about a group of people, Sean Connery included, who planned to rob a bank.  I didn’t have any serious problem with them robbing the bank. It was the amount of expletives they used in the process. I rarely explete. I sat through the first fifteen minutes of effing this and effing that and got up to leave.  My friends felt the same way about the abundant use of swear words but were loath to walk out.  They had paid good money for the tickets and were determined to see the thing through.

I can think of only one time when I have walked out of a church meeting. That too was about twenty five years ago.  I’m sure if I think hard enough the name of the preacher will come to me. There wasn’t an excessive amount of expletives that time, and no one was suggesting we get into groups and rob banks. We were called to take out our purses or wallets from handbags and back pockets and laugh at them.  Yes, you read correctly – laugh at them! It escapes me now what the purpose was, but I remember the congregation doing exactly that and my husband-to-be taking me by the arm, and taking the arm of my then best friend and dragging us out of the building, muttering and shaking his head.  I think there might have been a few expletives coming out of his mouth.

Part of the problem was the sheep-like manner in which everyone did what the preacher said.  People, perhaps, had been so wound up to an emotional state through the worship that they would have done anything they were asked.  There was no pulling back a little to ask whether what they were being asked to do was a good thing.

I’m desperately trying to remember what the laughing at our purses and wallets was all about.  Could it have been about laughing at poverty? Or encouraging us to be generous in our giving? Certainly we can battle with ourselves about how much we think we can afford to give or not. This could have been one of those extreme moments.

There was a moment this morning in church when I considered walking out. We had a visiting speaker fresh from Bible College. He was invited to speak about what he had learned at Bible College. 

He preached a clear prosperity gospel message in among other things he talked about.

His starting point was Joshua 1:8 “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Prosperity was spelled out in terms of increased finances and success in the work place. He saw no need for people to be ill or to suffer because obedience meant good health and well-being.  Jesus didn’t make anyone ill, did he?  His unmerited favour towards you means that God loves you, wants to bless you and to prosper you.  Your part is to take the seeds given you, plant them, wait for an unspecified time and then collect the harvest.  He went on to say that to ask for just enough for our needs was selfish praying.  We should be asking for more than enough, not to buy the big car to park in the driveway, but to be blessed to be able to bless others.  He talked about his own experience of moving from one success to another through his own obedience and faith.

It was just my second visit to this church.  I liked my first visit very much.  Had my second visit been my first visit it’s unlikely I would be going back.  The prosperity gospel does not sit easy with my spirit.

I don’t need to look at the state of my bank balance to know whether I am blessed or prosperous – I look deeper, at the peace and the joy in my heart and the assurance of God’s presence in every facet of my life.  If the bank balance is not healthy I don’t assume that God has stopped blessing me – the peace and the joy in my heart are still there and I still know His presence.  Without the struggles in our lives there would be no need for God’s comfort and then how would we be able to comfort others with the comfort we have been given? The widow did not wait for abundance before she gave her widow's mite.

The man, the speaker, then began to talk about the parable of the sower.  He’s moved on to somewhat safer ground, perhaps. Time was running out so he threw out a gem or two.

As he was talking about seeds I had a picture.  It wasn’t a dramatic thing.  The picture was of my coffee table at home. I have a number of piles of things on the coffee table – a pile of magazines, a pile of books I’m reading and a pile of Bibles, daily study guides and printed sheets of song lyrics and how-to guides for personal prayer retreats.  It’s where I have my quiet times.

In this brief picture I saw the coffee table and all the piles of stuff but scattered over the table were seeds – lots of seeds.

“Why are there seeds all over my table?” I asked.

“Ah, why indeed?” said God. “You have a remarkable ability to collect seeds every quiet time.  You dig out truth and revelation. You fill pages in your journal with the stuff. BUT you don’t plant the seeds anywhere.  You just leave them on the table.  The fruit that you ache to see in your life – if you just planted the seeds…there would be an abundance of fruit!”

Hmmm…point taken, Lord.

Something the speaker said that resonated – the ground doesn’t differentiate between seeds.  It doesn’t reject a daffodil and embrace a tulip.  Plant the seed and it should grow.  The ground doesn’t decide.  It’s up to us to be discerning about the seeds we plant.  We just need to know what good seed looks like.  And the bad seeds before we plant them.

Putting Myself to Sleep

The other day I bought the kindle version of Heather Sutherland’s “A Beginners Guide to Spiritual Dreams”.  It was recommended by a facebook friend. I have had my fair share of very vivid dreams.  Some I attribute to cheese, but others bear the divine stamp.  Some dreamed decades ago still continue to speak to me today. 

A section of the book deals with “Cleansing” dreams.  I nodded as I read the first sentence – “Have you ever dreamed of being on the toilet or in the shower?” Yes, to both of those scenarios.  The toilet one creeps into my dreams when, in the real world, I actually need to go to the toilet.  It is my sleeping brain’s way of alerting the sleeping me that I really need to go. I tend to recognise it and then dream I have woken up and gone to the toilet.  Then another toilet appears in the next dream scene and I know I didn’t wake up for real.

The shower one is not always a private affair! I tend to be more concerned about where the water goes as it’s never a proper shower, but a shower head hanging over the top of my bed or some other impossible place.  I always appear much slimmer in my dreams and I’m almost proud to show off a shapely body.  In real life there’s a lot more of me and less of an exhibitionist attitude.

The interpretation given is about getting rid of toxic issues in my life. How I feel about certain people – negative thoughts, or hate or bitterness.  Other people might know about these issues and have some insight.

I was reading this the other night.

“Issues?” I mumbled to God, “I don’t have any issues, do I?”

“Do you want the whole list or would just the top two be enough to go on with?”

Now, in order to dream one must sleep!  I used to sleep, once upon a time.  I still do, but never for the whole night.  I sleep in two-hourly segments.  If I go to bed at 11.00, I will wake up at 1.00 and at 3.00 and at 5.00.  It’s always two-hourly give or take five or ten minutes.  I generally go straight back to sleep unless I accidentally wake my brain up.  If I dream a verse of poetry, the brain is roused to write it down before I go back to sleep.  Of course, once the brain has done its task it has to write a second or third verse and then tweak words before it will settle.  It’s best not to wake the brain.

If you count the hours of sleeping I am getting enough, and I dream a variety of dreams.  I don’t know whether it’s a case of any dream will do or whether there is a depth of sleep where only there can God touch your dreams.  Do I ever reach that depth with my two-hourly routine?

I am not aware of any particular anxieties that keep me awake – except for worrying that I won’t be able to sleep, but I decided last night to enlist God’s help in getting a good night’s sleep.  Out of curiosity I googled prayers for going to sleep.  I pray before I go to sleep but I don’t pray to go to sleep.  I had never thought about doing that before. My two-hourly sleep cycles didn’t appear to be having a detrimental effect.  I don’t think they were doing me any good though.

I started reading some of these prayers and praying them as I read them.  They were beautifully written.

“You’re treating them as spells,” said God. “A prayer is not a magic string of words said in that particular order to get a certain end result. Sometimes I’m not that interested in what your mouth says. I’m more interested in what your heart says.  Just talk to me – your words, not someone else’s.”

So I prayed my own prayer for God to help me to sleep and to stay sleeping throughout the night.

Well, I fell asleep very quickly.  I didn’t sleep throughout the night.  The two-hourly sections stretched to three hourly ones, waking at 2.00 and at 5.00, and I really did feel more rested.  I don’t often lie in, but this morning I rolled over and slept for another couple of hours. It might not seem much to you but I felt progress had been made.

Did I dream? Yes. I was in a church, painting fishes on a wall.  Make of that what you will.

Reflection

this still water

perfectly reflects

cloudy skies,

here, now an

unflawed mirror of every

charcoal shade of grey

this still heart

perfectly reflects

God on high,

here, now an

unflawed mirror of every

vibrant shade of love

(Shadorma is a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively. So I have an extra syllable or two– I can live with that)

Falling Among Friends

Yesterday was my first step in finding a new church to go to. 

It hadn’t been an easy decision to leave a church I had been a member of for almost 25 years. It wasn’t an out-of-the-blue decision but something I had prayed about for a long time.  I was looking for God’s permission to leave, a direct word – “Thou shalt go elsewhere…” but God doesn’t always do things that way.  I had been so unhappy for so long and probably did such a good job covering it all up.  The church had changed over the years and I had changed too but the paths we felt called to follow were not the same.  I did not want to pull them on to my path but neither did I want to follow theirs.  It was an amicable parting and we still have a proper going-away celebration to do.  They are not a number-counting church family and don’t see themselves as the ONE TRUE church in the city. If folk feel their needs might be better met with another church family they are happy to see them settled elsewhere.

If God grins at all He had a mile wide smile yesterday.  I had planned to visit a few churches over the summer holidays and see where I felt settled.  My only stipulation was it had to be a church where I wasn’t known.  I didn’t want people already slipping me into this church box ministry or the other.  I wanted a new start, to be unknown and welcomed as a stranger and then they could get to know me, if I stayed, and slot me into a ministry, if I stayed.

I stepped through the door.  The steward wasn’t known to me – a good start.

“Mel?”  I was enveloped in an embrace with a lady who I hadn’t seen for at least ten years.  I knew her face and tried to hunt down her name from the memory.  My husband said later (he had gone to St Mary’s, Rome, across the river) “We went round her house for a meal. You took her to the Black Isle show!” That doesn’t guarantee a name! Her husband gravely shook my hand and asked “Is Joe not with you?”

“Mel?” I turned around for another hug. The lady was one of twins.  I know them both but need to have them both in front of me to know for sure who is who.  “No Joe?” she added

“Mel?”  This plan of being unknown was rapidly unravelling.  The pastor’s wife is a regular at our fortnightly poetry nights at the Sunset Café.  She was delighted to see me and did the “Joe not with you?” routine.  I couldn’t help spilling the information that he was scared of her!  He had net her once at the poetry night and found her to be more than a little overwhelming.  They were on opposite sides of the Scottish Independence vote and vocal with it.

“Mel?”  The lady serving coffees behind the counter was someone I knew from the “Women Aglow” meetings held every month. She didn’t ask me about Joe having never met him.

“Mel?” I was standing with a cup of tea when the next person sidled up.  “Written any more poetry?” It was the pastor this time who made it to the Sunset Café once in a while.

Finally I sat down. I chose not to sit next to any of the people who knew me.

The man in front of me turned around.

“Do we know each other?  I think we have met.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself from commenting that if he didn’t know me he would be one of the few people in the room that didn’t.  Everyone else seemed to know me.

“It’s possible.” I said vaguely. I thought about all the fingers in all the pies I had in various things about the city and various people that had been in my old church at one time or another and who had left decades ago.  It was possible.

“Millburn!” he said triumphantly. He did his probationary year in the Tech department of my school a few year ago.  He was teaching in a different school now, enjoying the job, enjoying the holiday and about to head off to Romania for three weeks to join his parents on the mission field.

The meeting ticked all the boxes.  The worship stirred my spirit and made me quietly cry.  I felt myself unwinding slowly and the stress of the last couple of years defused.  The word preached challenged me to really be still and to listen to God.  I can be still, but I don’t always listen. It made me want to go back next week and share with the pastor what I had heard God say in those still moments.

I felt as if I had fallen not among thieves, like the man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, or among thorns, like the seed in the parable of the Sower.  I had fallen among friends.  Not such a bad place fall.

And the Walls Came a-Tumbling Down

My current Bible notes are focussing on the known and the relatively unknown women throughout scripture.  The notes are designed for women so I shouldn’t be surprised that they feature women. I do have a light feminist hue about me so I surprised myself by buying the notes in the first place.  It’s most unlike me.  A women’s Bible study group I went to a long time ago did a study “Excelling as a Woman”.  Why should excelling as a woman be something different to excelling as a Christian? The men’s study was about bringing in the kingdom which sounded much more to my taste. That aside the notes are working their way through the known women at the moment.  The women under scrutiny are not making their appearances in chronological order.  Debra doesn’t come before Rahab, does she? No.

I preached on Rahab ten years ago.  I can be very precise about the ten years as I still have the notes and the date they were last amended.  It was one of those preaches that had five bullet points all cleverly alliterated - a device that appealed to the teacher in me.  I can’t say that ten years on the fact that the points were alliterated has helped me remember what they were.  Still, things stick and bits and pieces floated back as I read the story of Rahab in Joshua Chapter 2.

I remembered the bit in my sermon about the difference between Moses and Joshua.  Moses sent out twelve spies and everyone knew about it.  Joshua sent out just the two spies and sent them out in secret.  Two men, one taking over the leadership from the other and not feeling compelled to be the same man.  Joshua’s leadership style was different to the way Moses did things. It can be a challenge to be your own person and not merely a clone of the people who have gone before.

I remembered the bit in the sermon about Rahab’s house being a part of the wall around Jericho.  Here’s what I wrote ten years ago:-

Her home was on the edge of Jericho - part of the wall of Jericho.  The spies might have been a secret to the Israelites but not to the people in Jericho.  They were prepared.  The King goes straight to Rahab.  The Bible says that someone told the King the spies were in Jericho – it does not specify they were at Rahab’s.  If I was the king and I was aware of the Israelites on the way over, I would have looked at the weak point in the walls.  I would have looked at the people who lived in the houses and I would have checked out their background, and I would have come up with Rahab somewhere in the top few names. If I was Rahab I would have known that it wasn’t safe.  Yet Rahab puts her life on the line for these spies.  No comfort zone!

For her help in hiding the spies and sending the king's men on a wild goose chase, Rahab was promised protection when the battle began.  She was told to tie the red cord in her window, gather her family into the house and stay inside.

Just how did Joshua defeat Jericho?  Not a trick question.

“Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho

 Joshua fought the battle of Jericho

 and the walls came a-tumbling down”

Hold on!  The walls came tumbling down?  And where was Rahab when the walls came tumbling down?  In her house.  And where was the house?  In the wall!

I was impressed that she believed the spies when they promised she wouldn’t hurt, or her family as long as they stayed inside the house.  She tied the red cord in the window the day they left to head back to the Israelite camp. She didn’t wait for the first silent walk around the city.

I’m even more impressed that she stayed in the house, part of the wall itself, when all about her the wall was tumbling down. It’s no wonder she gets a mention in that impressive list of witnesses in Hebrews 11. To stay in her house while the wall was coming down is a real act of faith.

How big was the wall?  Here’s what one archaeological website has to say:-

“The mound, or “tell” of Jericho was surrounded by a great earthen rampart, or embankment, with a stone retaining wall at its base. The retaining wall was some four to five meters (12–15 feet) high. On top of that was a mudbrick wall two meters (six feet) thick and about six to eight meters (20–26 feet) high.4 At the crest of the embankment was a similar mudbrick wall whose base was roughly 14 meters (46 feet) above the ground level outside the retaining wall (see diagram). This is what loomed high above the Israelites as they marched around the city each day for seven days. Humanly speaking, it was impossible for the Israelites to penetrate the impregnable bastion of Jericho.”

Humanly speaking? With that kind of security about them the people of Jericho had no need to have hearts melted in fear and their courage fail them, but they knew they were not dealing with just a human army.  Not just for weeks or months but for back forty year they had been listening to stories of an army on the march led by a God that performed miracles.

That kind of wall – that wall that loomed high above the Israelites as they marched – that huge wall did not fall gently.  It wasn’t a carefully planned demolition like the big old tower blocks of today where everyone is evacuated to a safe place, and people watching press a button and they wear yellow hard hats.  It was loud and earth shaking.  It was dust clouds and flying debris. It was not safe.

And in the wall when it fell were Rahab and her family.

I am amazed that the wall came down, but perhaps more amazed that one tiny section of the wall stayed upright – Rahab’s house. And all because the spies made a promise that God kept.

It has been a wall-tumbled-down week for me.  It was not a gentle falling over of a few stones but a total demolition of what I thought to be a high solid wall.  It is perhaps a necessary thing to pave the way for a new building of relationships and bonds.  Right now it doesn’t look that way.

I am comforted by Rahab’s story.  Right now I would like to run a mile or two in any direction to escape the fall out.  I would like to think that there is somewhere safer that I could be standing.  And then I picture the tiny section of the wall that was Rahab’s house that never fell and think about the promise that God kept.

I am safe no matter the state of the wall because God made a promise to take care of me.

His promise is enough.

The Stink of Rotting Flesh

Queues seem to be the order of the day today. According to the news this morning the queue for tickets to Wimbledon began sometime on Friday.  I will admit to a prickle of envy – not so much for the queues, or even the tennis as Andy plays tomorrow, but for the weather.  The weather people talk about heatwaves and tropical temperatures but the north of Scotland is swathed in cloud.

The BBC interviewed one of the Brit girlies.  She plays her first round against a previous Wimbledon champion.  She talked about the honour of playing on the centre court and crossing racquets with a champion.  I would have taken an outside court and an obscure nobody and a chance to make it to the next round any day.  Is that a streak of yellow down the centre of my back?

Another queue much closer to home is outside the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh where one of the world's largest and smelliest flowers has blossomed for the first time in Scotland.  The visitors have been promised the “stink of rotting flesh, mixed with fish, and perhaps a hint of sweaty feet”.  It has taken the staff 12 years of careful nurturing to reach the point where the Amorphophallus Titanum has a flower.   It takes a long time for the plant to store enough energy to bloom and to sustain its bloom for just a day or two.  Does that make it the holy grail of the horticulturalist’s world?

I assumed the smell came from dead insects that fell into the flower and, unable to crawl out, decomposed.  The plant is not a carnivore.  One can fall into it safe in the knowledge that one can climb out.  The plant’s smell is nature’s way of attracting insect attention to make sure the plant is pollinated.  Carrion beetles and sweat bees crawl around, lay eggs and pollinate the plant – and the 12 year wait for the flower begins again.

One cannot help but wonder whether a nicer smell might attract a nicer class of insects who would do the job just as well.  Maybe with just a day or two to attract the pollinator, and the competition from other plants who hang around all summer, it makes sense to go for carrion beetles and sweat flies.

What happens in the world of nature is often a picture or a shadow of what happens in the world of people.  Something blooms in one part of the world that attracts the human equivalents of the carrion beetles and the sweat bees.

In a TV discussion, the religious programme on a Sunday morning, they were talking about Islam and whether people are ignorant about understanding the way a Muslim thinks. I didn’t need to watch it for long before ignorance was revealed.  There was some debate about whether the Qur’an supported violence against women or honour killings in Muslim communities.  It seems to me that anything can be supported. It’s a matter of an extreme interpretation of a line here or there.  A woman stated that Jihad was one of the five pillars of Islam – duties that Muslims must observe.  It isn’t and the mistake was quickly corrected.  Someone else on the programme insisted that he didn’t need to know about Islam.  The old chestnut, unchallenged as ever, about religion being the source of all the trouble in the world was tossed about.

I was thinking about the smelly flower, the carrion beetles and the sweat bees.  Is that not a perfect picture of the Islamic State in Syria and other parts of the Muslim world and the kind of people that flock to join them?  Even in my near ignorant state of all things Islam – what they are doing is wrong.  It is a stinking flower if ever there was one!  There appears to be nothing admirable about what they stand for or what they do. It is not the kind of Islam that most Muslims demonstrate.  Just as Amorphophallus Titanum took a long time to store up the energy to push out a flower – it seems that the Islamic State has stored up years of resentments and petty grievances, and some not so petty ones, to push out their own brand of violence.  It’s not the butterflies and the honey bees that head out there to pollinate something fragrant and wholesome.  No, it’s the men and woman, dragging their children with them, attracted to the “stink of rotting flesh”, who cross the borders.  I suppose they don’t smell it as rotting flesh but something nobler and something other than the Western culture of stepping on people to reach the top of the corporate ladder.

If only there was just the one smelly Islamic State flower out there.  Christians have nurtured their own smelly flowers throughout history, and not the long-dead variety of history. For me, perhaps, it is not the smell that offends – but, more often the absence of smell. 

“To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” (1 Cor 2:16 NLT)

How much of a presence, or absence, of a strong fragrance of life is there in our individual lives or our churches? We should be living our lives in vibrant colours and patterns.  We should be concerned not about drawing people to ourselves, but rather to Christ in us.

Redemption

faith

propels

me into

the place where God

intends me to be

that wide and open space

where grace lavishly poured out

bids me stand tall and shout His praise

He waits not ‘til I am washed and clean

But though I’m stained still offers up His Son

An etheree consists of 10 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 syllables for a total of 55 syllables

Not a Thief

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

The way some people talk about faith it is as if they have mistaken Jesus for the thief!

Jesus is not the thief or the robber.  He has not come to steal…

He hasn’t stolen my reason and intelligence and left me with superstition and blind faith.

He challenges me to study, to weigh up the evidence and seek answers that make sense.

He hasn’t stolen my happiness or my enjoyment of life and left me feeling and looking miserable.

He makes me laugh at the days to come because I am secure in Him.

He hasn’t stolen my creativity or spontaneity and left me dull and boring.

He calls me His poet and gives me a million words for paint and brushes.

He hasn’t stolen my freedom and bound me with a list of things I can’t do anymore.

He expects me to love my enemies and pray for those who ill-treat me.

He hasn’t stolen my compassion and left me cold-heart and judgemental

He cries over a lost world and I cry with Him.

Who do You Trust?

Sharon Wood, manager of Horses for Causes, EAGALA certified, my wonderfully talented sister is my guest writer...

During a recent trip to Huddersfield I was reminded of an EAGALA event that took place at Derby Equestrian College where attendees had a snip of advanced training and the use of metaphors during an Equine Assisted Learning exercise. The trip was long and tedious.  It was fraught with upsets and I hoped that the workshop scheduled for the following day would go smoothly. I had some idea of what was planned but nothing had really been set in stone.

Staying overnight in a beautiful stone cottage surrounded by rolling hills, fields and horses was EAH-equine assisted heaven or for me a haven. Looking out of the bedroom window I saw a large horse nibbling the fence. When the horse saw my face at the window it stopped momentarily then carried on gnawing.  An equine specialist seeing a horse crib biting would automatically think of boredom or stress.  Through EAGALA’s eyes what did I see? Frustration - the horse was frantically biting and gnawing, teeth on wood. It stopped again and looked to the left where a smaller brown pony, eating the grass, had turned away from the larger one.  It didn’t seem interested in the large one, oblivious to its presence. The large horse returned to the eating the fence. A few moments passed then it made its way over to the brown pony. Unhappy with its presence the brown pony swished its tail and lifted a hind leg as if to warn the horse away. It lifted its head and turned to look at the horse. With ears pinned back the warning was clear -‘stay away-I don’t want you in my space’. The large horse stood and waited, then walked a few paces behind as the little brown pony walked away still swishing its tail. I wondered what the large horse had done to deserve being ousted by the little brown pony.  Why was the little brown pony being so aggressive and mean? What had the large horse done to be treated with such contempt?
 

I continued to watch as the two wandered over to a nearby gate. The large horse walked alongside the small brown pony its tail still swishing and ears still pinned back. They turned their heads together nose to nose. There was no malice or squealing.  There was no fighting but an acceptance of each other, a tolerance perhaps. It was as if the little brown pony was saying ‘I will share my space but on my terms only’ and other horse accepted that.

As nature called it was time for a trip to the bathroom. Another window looked out into a field with more horses. I was starting to enjoy this trip after all.

Two large cobby type horses stood in the shade of a tree enjoying the early morning sunshine at their fore legs and hooves. Two miniature ponies were lying down, their legs and hooves tucked underneath them. I wondered how something so big could be trusted not to tread on something so small and not just one horse or pony but two of each of equal size. How did the miniatures communicate that they wanted to share the same shady spot?  How did they make the large cobs aware of the spot they wished to lie in? I was witnessing the huge amount of mutual respect that had been established among this little herd.

I started to look forward to the day ahead. I would be meeting a wide variety of attendees, some therapists and some horsey people.  What a coincidence that the agenda for the day was based on communication and trust.  I had not seen the agenda but had already been pre-informed, not by my co facilitator but by the horses.

Thank Calypso, Cameo, Bobbie and the little mini.

Being the Father

I used to presume that all the people I met were familiar with the parables of Jesus.  I had a strong Sunday School background and had heard the stories, drawn pictures of them and acted them out so many times that I had absorbed them into my DNA.  We live in a different world now where these things are not taken as given. 

I read a book once a long time ago looking at the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the light of Middle Eastern culture.  I was living in Cyprus at the time and many of my friends were missionaries working in the Middle East. Jesus’ hearers might have heard the same story that I read – the words have not changed - but they understood the story in a very different way.  The actions of both sons and the actions of the father have a different significance for people living in a Middle Eastern community.

Most of the sermons I have heard on the parable have focussed on the actions of the younger son. We are encouraged to see ourselves in him – the selfishness rebellion of wanting to do our own thing, the inevitable slide down to the pig sty existence, the hunger and poverty or our existence outside of the relationship with our father.  We have worked out that we are that lost son and that the father is God waiting to embrace us and restore our son-hood.  We often treat the parable as if it stops at this point – the younger son is home, all is forgiven, the boy is restored and it ends with a party.

I preached a word once from the point of view of the eldest son.  My testimony is not one of obvious rebellion or a slide into a life characterised by debauchery. I haven’t wandered far from my Sunday School upbringing.  There were few Damascus road revelations.  It’s the eldest son that whispers in my ear.  As much as I know that I am the younger son, I am also the older son too. I want to take folk to task.  I want some kind of punishment even if it's having them wait on the doorstep for a while. I sometimes worry that God really doesn’t have enough love to go around.  If He loves that prodigal son so much, does that mean that His love for me is any less?  I get into that whole quagmire of who deserves to be loved and who doesn’t – as we all do. 

How sad the father in the story must have felt to realise that he had not replicated himself in either of his sons – not at that point in the story.  Maybe there is a part two waiting to be written where both sons grow to be like the father.

A book that I am currently reading (The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero) explains the parable of the Prodigal Son in a chapter about living in brokenness and vulnerability.  He makes reference to Rembrandt’s painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son. He says a lot about both of the sons, the younger one and the older one making reference to the picture, what they are wearing, or not, and their posture – but then he has a third section on being the father. 

“The church is full of younger sons running away…It’s also full of sons who are older and grumpy…The great need of our day, however…is for you and me to press on and grow into being mothers and fathers of the faith.”

I thought it was our job to be the younger son and come home and to avoid being the older son judging and condemning.  I thought it was just God’s job to be the Father.

I never thought I was being called to be the father – to embrace, to love, to be present for and to freely forgive those that had run away and come home, or those that never leave physically but leave spiritually. The father in the story might not have seen himself replicated in either of his sons but what brings joy to God’s heart is when He sees himself reflected in His children.

The father was once a son.  He might have been just like his younger son or like his older son.  He didn’t stay a son, but became a father.  In our churches it is time for some of us to clothe ourselves in the father and put aside the son.