Whatsoever |
Whatsoever |
Extracts from a journal - recording a journey in the Sinai desert with school girls, teachers and Bedouin guides. A journey for our times. The final evening, finding meaning We walked to a canyon to spend the night – hidden in the cleft of a rock, secluded like natural walls, although in rainfall this becomes a river a metre deep. A small group of us take a beautiful walk up the little valley onto the sandstone plateau to watch the sunset. The colours or the rocks change by the minute- red, pink, yellow then brown orange. The sky changes to blue, yellow, red, purple. It is still with just a gentle wind. We recognised the spiritual power of the desert and recalled stories of others, in other deserts, led in faith, dependency, lack of clutter and distraction that the desert brings. Alleluia. Now the sun has gone more – blue, pale pale blue, then a thin strip of orange – then the black of the mountains. I feel so inadequate to think or speak about God, yet he spoke here. The only reaction has to be absence of words. Finding solitude is hard - there is necessity for close communal life. However silence is the most necessary appropriate reaction to awesome beauty. Before the hills and plains my mind and words fail – my soul seems still yet I know that things sink deep. It would be good now to pray with someone and to cry - to let all the clutter wash away. That will come, I know – and this has been a most beneficent (and penitent I wanted to write) time. Pondering The warmth of the rock. The strength of the simplicity. The power of the rock. The silence and signs of water in a dry land – life. Powerful yet gentle, preserving. Uncluttered. When the sun goes down the heat of the day recedes. The stars come out and one beauty is replaced by another. Poise and assurance, gentleness and sympathy. Not wanting to be captive but to live in the knowledge of the truth. Let your light shine before men…changing light but always there Reaching the conclusions that other people reached before and understanding why they reached them Waiting to explore the shadows Sinai is a place of reliance on God – and it seems that to rely on Him means silence, stillness, bare rocks.. Sleeping in the desert in a canyon, protected, waking in the night to see stars overhead. Waking at dawn – colour gradually returning to the rocks. Walking out towards the plain and seeing all the rocks gradually flood with colour. Leaving the desert And so back into the noisy busy modern world. Arriving into Gatwick through layers of cloud – extremely bumpy low pressure, wind and rain but, praise be, safe landings. Coach waiting, parents reconnected, all home safe into parent’s arms. And I creep into a sleeping house and wake each member of the family and am greeted by arms flung round my neck…lovely to have you home they say. Home, family, community – these are the core. I need the grace to see around the muddle and confusion and clutter to the simplicity – to ‘Only God’. Six imprints with rock in the centre. Sitting in the shadow of a rock as the sun went down, on the last evening, I let my hands feel the fine soft sand. There was a rounded stone nearby so I made small indentations in the sand, one for each of the family, and prayed for each of them, committing them to God. I knew again, as I would learn so clearly in the coming months, that ultimately there is 'Only God'. Only He can make sense of life and loss and hope. Context of the Bible
Psalm 63:1-8. This psalm became my theme for the journey You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. [ I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me. Deuteronomy 32:10-14 At the end of his life Moses recited this song. This was our experience as we journeyed in the desert all those years ago. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag, with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats….
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WhatsoeverThe posts are 'postcards' on my journey through faith and art. The name 'Whatsoever' comes from Philippians 4:8 in the Bible : Categories
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