This month I am at home! I have loved traveling around, but one of the blessings of that is the appreciation you have when it is no longer necessary. You can sleep in your own bed every night, wake up not wondering where you are, and if you should be there! If you have remembered everything that belongs to you, and when you have to pack up and leave.
I had not realized, until experiencing it, how much I appreciate having my own food. Some hotels serve excellent meals. You don't have to buy or prepare it, or wash up afterwards. But you do have to eat it at the time it is served, and your choice is restricted to what they have to offer. That, for me, is never enough fruit!
Most of the places I stay in Britain serve the most excellent porridge, which I really enjoy, and I know it is good for you. But if I pay for a full breakfast, and often that is the only choice, then I feel wasteful if I don't eat the whole menu – bacon, eggs, tomato, sausage etc. That is usually too much, certainly it is every day. I am glad many others feel the same way, then I am not so foolish in my feelings.
But isn't it wonderful to be able to choose! The other day I went mad and had a fruit salad of mango, pineapple, melon, raspberries strawberries, blueberries, green grapes and fresh lychees. It was wonderful!
But the point I am coming to is how exquisite is choice! What a God-given gift it is. Choice in what to eat is limited by what is available and what one can afford, but there is still choice. And we can also decide for ourselves how much we eat. We can indulge our personal taste, and also and more importantly select food that is healthy, or less so, or downright bad for us. How much fruit and vegetable, how much carbohydrate, fat, sugar, protein etc. Mostly we can choose whether to allow ourselves to get overweight – or not. Whether to drink enough water – or not.
I know not in all cases, but largely it is up to us whether we exercise or not. That can be restricted by health and circumstance, I know.
But much lies with us in so many things. We cannot choose what will happen to us, but we have a degree of freedom on how we respond to it. We cannot pick whether something will hurt or not. However we can choose whether we lash out in response, pause and judge and wait for revenge, think of ourselves as victims – or respond with courage, generosity and an attempt to understand the other person's point of view, even if to a degree it seems mistaken (and who has never made a mistake?)
In the end it comes down to 'who do you want to be'? Ultimately, that too we choose. A hundred small steps in one direction or in another. Most of us are blessed enough to have a lot of years in which to decide, not necessarily how far we travel, but at least in which direction.
Home, in the eternal sense, is where we want to end up – not that the journey is ever finished, but this limited part of it is. Then the whole universe will be 'home', if we have become a citizen of eternity, and are at home in spirit with all the other wonderful and eternal beings and creations that are there.
The Sunday School lesson today was on learning by study and by faith. That will never end, but we do need to make the best beginning we can here and now. Learning is a habit, and one we need to adopt. It is never too late to start, but on the other hand, it is never too early either.
Sometimes, due to illness, age or other incapacity, we find it hard to retain things, and such a lot of learning is built upon what you learned yesterday. But we are promised that the Lord will bring back to our remembrance what we may forget and if we have really tried, nothing is lost, no attempt, no work is wasted.
There are so many things that are infinitely worthy of our attention.
Things under the earth: formation of continents, ranges of mountains, valleys, rivers, volcanoes, different types of soil and therefore vegetation. Geology and geography.
Things above the earth: climate, air currents, winds, rainfall, every kind of situation and variation of light and darkness. Meteorology and climate.
Things beyond the earth such as all other planets, stars, nebulae, the making and dissolution of worlds etc. In other words physics and astronomy.
The history and culture of other nations, and their languages: that one is almost endless, but how can we love them effectively if we refuse to know them? And how can we know them if we do not know their land, their past and their beliefs, the beauty they have created, what gives them pleasure or pain?
Wars and perplexities of nations: military, political and social history, their disasters and triumphs, their contributions to the richness of mankind's experience. Who discovered or invented what? What does our abundance owe to others?
Barely to touch on these things will keep us busy for several lifetimes. Who has a moment in which to be bored? Only those who are weary, ill, frightened, anxious or in some other kind of distress. And, heaven knows, that may be any of us at some time or another.
But in our good moments, are we using our time to furnish our minds with 'whatsoever things are lovely and of good report'?
If we are to love people then we need to know something about them – all of them!
If we are to create worlds in the future, should we not learn enough about this one at least to have love and respect for it, some slight perception of its marvels, its beauty and its complexity?
If we are to inhabit the heavens, and one day add to their glory, should we not at least gaze at them in genuine awe, not just at their vastness, but at their wonder?
I had a great experience this week. I went to the optician for my regular annual check. There is nothing seriously wrong with my sight, but many diseases can be caught in the early stages by a good optician. I am very grateful that my sight hasn't changed in the last dozen years or so, and even more importantly, the general health side of it was fine.
The point of interest is that the optician told me (I don't know why because I didn't ask) that in the back of our eyes we have literally millions of tiny receptors that catch the light when our eyes are open. They react with a chemical change, which in turn stimulates an electrical charge to the brain – and this is sight! Is that not sublime?
His point was that all these little receptors then need to be recharged in order to continue working, and it is the blood flow to the eye which does this. If we damage our arteries, fur them up, clog them, then they cannot do their job. Smoking especially can do this, and be the beginning of macular degeneration – among other things!
Alcohol also carries damage, but methylated spirits more than wine. Word of Wisdom – are you listening??
I certainly did not know this, but it gives me a jolt of satisfaction to learn it now. Back to choice again.
However the most exciting thing about the whole visit was the perception of the marvels of light. Of course the optician was speaking of literal, physical light, but I thought of how much we can 'see' by the light of the spirit, and surely by taking into our minds certain ugly and damaging habits of thought: anger, self pity, intolerance, bigotry, the desire to judge and condemn, one-upmanship, general selfishness and thoughtlessness, we 'fur up the arteries' that would bring regeneration and hope to our inner eyes – and then we fail to see the glory that is around us, and ahead of us.
How much beauty do we miss because we have not the 'eyes' to see it? Our eyes may be open, but not nourished from within so that the marvel of light does not reach our brains, and we do not see.
One of our great writers, I think it was George Bernard Shaw, but I am open to being corrected, said that 'heaven is like a symphony concert – you can let anyone into the hall, but you cannot make them hear the music'. Rough quote only from memory.
What if the different kingdoms of heaven were not so much places as degrees of ability to hear the music? The glory of God is always there, the beauty of every sort physical and spiritual, emotional, intellectual and of the heart – but have we learned how to see, hear and feel it?
It may be a journey of many years, this life and beyond, to tune our souls to see and to treasure the sublime, to care about it so much that we see God's hand in all things, and love it so much we never treat it lightly or fail to know and savour who gave them to us.
If we do that, to the best of our ability, then God will add to our ability, and we will joy in these things, and nurture and revere them sufficiently that we will never let them slip from our hands.
One day we will awake to hear the orchestra, a thousand strong, and each instrument, each note will be clear and beautiful, and we will know that we have loved them enough that we shall never lose them again in all eternity. Would that not be heaven indeed?
We will forget, we will be tired and discouraged at times. For a while we may even despair, but then we will pick ourselves up and start again.
One day the music will not be intermittent, there will be no fear of loss. Even the silences will be glorious, because we know that the joy is without end. It is what we were made for.
Let us not forget that.
Until next month, march in time to the beat, even when you can't hear it – remember it, and have faith that it IS still there.
