stumbling

(Apologies- I forgot to post this last Sunday)

Stumbling into heaven- it's struck me this week how apposite that is as an image of my pilgrimage. Unsure of the way, not very sure-footed when I do find the path, discovering it's all a surprise as the scenery open up before me,  tiring, even exhausting, wondering if I'll ever make it. 

I try not to be a tourist, with all the itinerary pre-planned, everything experienced through the microphone  of a guide, or from the hermetic seal of a coach window. More first hand, a bit riskier.. I think of a bus ride to Kampala, and having no idea how to negotiate the Kenyan-Ugandan border, afraid I would take so long ( the bus already three hours behind schedule) it would go without me. And the rest.....

There are landmarks, of course, places, people where the heart rises on seeing, meeting something familiar. In the faith it's usually the cross. Always a guarantee one is on, or near the right road. I stumble less near to it, although it often seems far from heaven. Nevertheless, it's some sort of guarantee I can stumble on ,continue with some degree of confidence. 

Dog-sitting

 We are looking after our son's dogs- Blake, a black Labrador, content and easy, and his daughter Parker, golden and nervous. She chatters all day in short whiny bursts. What has amused us most about her is the discovery of herself, or rather. of another dog, in her reflection in the tv screen. She cannot understand it. Staring back at herself, dimly, from the black screen is this other, who is not in this room, I will not attempt to say what goes on in her mind- if she has one. 

Through a glass, darkly; a phrase of St Paul as he writes to the brethren in Corinth, taking the metaphor of a Greek mirror, probably made of silver, or some silvery metal, reflecting very imperfectly the image of the one who looked into it. So it is with our present life- we see dimly what in God's good and eternal time we shall shall see and know and experience 'face to face'. . 

The dogs are alert, on watch, when they remember that their master is away, and will be back. Blake has found a perch on the settee where he can stand and look out of the window for signs of the car returning, when all shall be very waggy tails, whimpered joy. They long for the 'face to face'. 

Is it too much to echo their behaviour in the life of faith, with a longing expressed as 'Even so, come Lord Jesus'? 

Celebration

Mary and I celebrated, quietly, our Golden Wedding earlier this week. Cards arrived, and we have received two plants for the garden, but we had sought neither- after fifty years of marriage, what does one need?  We were content to be thankful, visit York for the day, and return home tired. Bur just to prove we are not stingey old curmudgeons, there will be family and then friends' celebrations later. 

It is a rarity in today's world to mark a 50th wedding anniversary. I'm not boasting here, just stating a fact. I hope we continue for a good many years to come.  Any marriage which survives this long will have been through several phases, and ours is no different. We are not the same people as in 1972.

I'm reminded of my relationship with God. Of long duration, but changed on my side many times over, as my perception of God changed. marked by stickability on God's part; love, and variously desperation and lack of other credible alternatives on mine. 

Still, it's lasted. Both marriage and faith have lasted. Just stating a fact. Above all, the grace of God, and of Mary to last out with such unpromising material as I am.