A new dawn
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25)
What a waste! Have you heard that? Or felt it? It comes as such a word of judgement to many of us. In so many years we have achieved so little. Much of what we sought to do has come to dust. An icy storm has left our lives withered and blackened.
Maybe it is exam results that reflect nothing of our efforts, or a pet project gone to pot, or a life offered in service to others but without reward of any kind, even thankfulness. Maybe we have gifts that are left unnoticed and unused, hopes that have never come near to fulfilment, relationships that have left us hurt and lost.
Percy Bysse Shelley effortlessly expresses this sense of dreams dashed in his poem Ozymandias. All that is left of a great king's boasted glory is bits of an old statue lost in the desert. 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!' boasts the inscription, but the only despair comes from the ghost of the king, whose might is not merely thrown down but lost for all time.
Life can leave us feeling like this at any point, but this virus has spread a sense of hopeless waste around much more broadly. Small businesses are going to the wall everywhere we look. New starts have stopped. Projects have stalled. Lives have been broken and lost. Relationships have cracked, some apparently beyond repair.
Of course this is not everywhere. For some families have bonded, exhaustion has left and dreams have found time to grow. If that is you remember those for whom the wheels have come off the wagon of life.
Into such misery Joel speaks the word of God, 'I will repay you for the years the locust has eaten'. I will give it all back and with interest. It is an offer to the people of God that rings loudly down the corridor of time. Hold fast to it in the storm. I will repay, I will give back, I will make up the shortfall however great it may be, says the Lord. Your life has been sucked dry? Lay it all in my hand and I will fill it to overflowing with fresh life.
For me, these have always been the great words of Joel, the key to his message of hope. God is no one's debtor and if you offer all to him, he will pay back double.
What a waste! Have you heard that? Or felt it? It comes as such a word of judgement to many of us. In so many years we have achieved so little. Much of what we sought to do has come to dust. An icy storm has left our lives withered and blackened.
Maybe it is exam results that reflect nothing of our efforts, or a pet project gone to pot, or a life offered in service to others but without reward of any kind, even thankfulness. Maybe we have gifts that are left unnoticed and unused, hopes that have never come near to fulfilment, relationships that have left us hurt and lost.
Percy Bysse Shelley effortlessly expresses this sense of dreams dashed in his poem Ozymandias. All that is left of a great king's boasted glory is bits of an old statue lost in the desert. 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!' boasts the inscription, but the only despair comes from the ghost of the king, whose might is not merely thrown down but lost for all time.
Life can leave us feeling like this at any point, but this virus has spread a sense of hopeless waste around much more broadly. Small businesses are going to the wall everywhere we look. New starts have stopped. Projects have stalled. Lives have been broken and lost. Relationships have cracked, some apparently beyond repair.
Of course this is not everywhere. For some families have bonded, exhaustion has left and dreams have found time to grow. If that is you remember those for whom the wheels have come off the wagon of life.
Into such misery Joel speaks the word of God, 'I will repay you for the years the locust has eaten'. I will give it all back and with interest. It is an offer to the people of God that rings loudly down the corridor of time. Hold fast to it in the storm. I will repay, I will give back, I will make up the shortfall however great it may be, says the Lord. Your life has been sucked dry? Lay it all in my hand and I will fill it to overflowing with fresh life.
For me, these have always been the great words of Joel, the key to his message of hope. God is no one's debtor and if you offer all to him, he will pay back double.
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| Sunshine after a storm in the English Channel |
Dawn is a feminine given name. It is of Old English origin, and its meaning is the first appearance of light, daybreak....
ReplyDeleteDawn suggests the notions of illumination and hope, the beginning of a new day and thus a chance for happiness and improvement. Sunrise is a symbol of birth and rebirth, of awakening. The coming of light, a resurrection...!
And..waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use..
This is happening in the world to~day..the figures that have been disclosed, are simply beyond
belief..l was raised a Catholic in Sicily..food is very precious, and is not..is not wasted, bread for
example, is made, loved and cared for..it is never, never thrown away, to throw bread away is a
sacrilege..and even to place bread up~side~down on the table, will result in bad luck..! it very
precious to our people..!
And bread is eaten as a sacrament either as a symbolic representation of the body of Christ or, as in the Catholic liturgy, as a real manifestation of the body of Christ...!
I was born during the final 12 months of WW2. I remember food being very scarce. My Mother still had ration books for years, well into the 50's. We moved into the countryside of lovely Beer Hackett when I was four. I remember that we did not waste any food. We ate everything that was cooked. So there was no wastage. Bacon, bread, butter and sugar were in very short supply. We were able to get milk from the cows I milked at the farm down the road. Eggs were available at the farm up at Knighton.
ReplyDeleteHow we are brought up has a marked effect on our future. So even to this day, I will not waste any food if I can possibly help it. I think back to my early years when bread was so scarce that my Mum used to bake her own. When I take the symbolic bread from the Rector during Communion at little B Hackett Church, I think back to my early years when bread was so scarce that my Mum used to bake her own.