Joining Together

Two scenes are here in my mind’s eye.

First one is of me, making my way through the woods, and it’s been a struggle… a very personal struggle… cuts, bruises, stinking, stumbling… and I find a clearing, I emerge from the woods, and others are there… by the very fact of there being no other way to get there, it’s unspoken that we all got here in similar fashion.

Another image rises up… it’s imposed rule or authority, a fish on a line, hook in mouth, and I’ve given up!

Exhausted as I am!

I’m helpless against being finally reeled in, a net scoops me up, into the boat, my flesh is eaten, my shell is stuffed and mounted on the wall. “Bertha” is on fake brass plaque beneath my likeness there.

Or it’s a fellow laying down all that he’s ever believed in… and yielding to the overwhelming force that’s pursued him… he’s now forced to pay homage and kiss the ring of the deity enthroned at the front and centre. But all that is an act of outward submission… a yielding to a force that has beaten him down.

The image on the right is of a meadow, gentle blowing breezes, and one big happy family communing together, over cook fires and freshly cleaned clothes hanging out to dry, shady spaces.

The image on the right is a sleeping dragon in chains…

When we don’t get what we want?

When our notion of what ought to be isn’t in sync with reality?

Safe Houses, Quiet Gardens

But look! A king will rule in the right way, and his leaders will carry out justice.

Each one will stand as a shelter from high winds, provide safe cover in stormy weather.

Each will be cool running water in parched land, a huge granite outcrop giving shade in the desert.

Anyone who looks will see, anyone who listens will hear. The impulsive will make sound decisions, the tongue-tied will speak with eloquence.

No more will fools become celebrities, nor crooks be rewarded with fame.

For fools are fools and that’s that, thinking up new ways to do mischief.

They leave a wake of wrecked lives and lies about God,

Turning their backs on the homeless hungry, ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets.

And the crooks? Underhanded sneaks they are, inventive in sin and scandal, Exploiting the poor with scams and lies, unmoved by the victimized poor.

But those who are noble make noble plans, and stand for what is noble.

Isaiah 32:1-8 The Message