Basics of life

I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil (Joel 2:19)
I met a most extraordinary man once. He had been a disciple of an eastern guru somewhere in Northern India, whom he claimed could do miracles, though not by the power of Christ. He recalled one journey across the deserted plains of the continent, where they had run out of petrol. The guru calmly called for water. It was duly bought to him, at which point, with minimal ceremony, he turned it into petrol.
I wasn't quite sure how to take the story at the time, and I am still not. Was it a trick to influence his followers, some sort of elaborate hoax dreamed up with his driver? It seems the simplest solution but the teller was adamant this was not the case. Or did I have to entertain a world where it was not only Christ that could bring sudden and dramatic change to the natural world?
Either way neither of these were my first reaction. What struck me most forcefully was this: what a waste of a miracle. Couldn't he have done something useful with such power? I mean, all very clever and so on, but get some perspective. The same strikes me when I read these verses. I get the grain and olive oil. These are the basics of life, the staples that allowed them to make flat bread. But new wine? Seems rather unnecessary.
Some will say that it is also a staple, like small beer used to be in this country. Water was not safe so people drank new wine. I am doubtful though. I suspect that it is not vital in that way at all. No, they needed new wine to celebrate, and joy is an essential to our spiritual diet. Not bread and circuses, though that gets the point, but life and soul. Both are needed in full measure after a time of hardship.
So what will be our essentials after we are released from lockdown? For many work is their greatest need both practical and emotional. For others family, especially if technology does not come easy. Maybe some things we thought were essential are not. So what is your list?

An abundance of eggs, fresh from the farm

Comments

  1. WILLIE...! =(^..^)=3 May 2020 at 09:49

    I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil....
    The 'new wine' does not sound unnecessary..After all
    it was wine that Jesus changed into his body, at the
    last supper..and wine is mentioned many times through
    out the Bible..
    So..Wine plays a big role in Christian ritual as well, either
    literally or symbolically; in the ritual of Communion, it
    represents the blood of Jesus, according to the story of
    the Last Supper...

    There will be 'NO' essentials for me after Lockdown, l will continue
    my life as normal, bump into family and friends, take coffee with
    them, in the local Costa...as before..! I live my life from day to day....
    I also have a trilogy..Love Food..Love Cats..Love Pink...! :).

    Lovely tray of eggs..amazing how chickens, are able to know where
    to lay their eggs in the tray..! :).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thrown away

Image
It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away (Joel 1:7) It is the waste that strikes you. The bark is not merely stripped off the vines and fig trees but then thrown away. It is discarded as of no value, where once it had immense value. The bark that brought water and nutrients to the branches and fruit, and conveyed energy back to the roots has been discarded as worthless. I'm not sure if you have spotted it but hospitals have been issued with government guidelines on how to prioritise patients in need of emergency care when there is not enough to go around. When they are faced with 20 patients needing ventilation and only 12 ventilators, this guidance helps them to make that most awful of choices. As an ex-ethics teacher, I am fairly inured to these kinds of questions. Given a choice of someone who has a chance of survival and someone who doesn't, then there seems to be little actual choice and to have someone remove the responsibility for that decision from you is a ...
Read more

The gift of God

Image
Nothing escapes them (Joel 2:3) I caught a small part of a programme on the mechanics of virus infection last night. It described in exhaustive detail the incredible way that a virus will hijack a cell in order to reproduce itself. I was slightly distracted by the realisation that it was voiced by David Tenant, in our house both Dr Who and the stars, plural, of Nativity 2. His melodic Scots accent is pretty unmistakable. What struck me in the midst of the awful details was how unstoppable the attack of the virus appeared. As Joel puts it, 'before it the garden of Eden, behind it a desert wasteland'. So is it most encouraging that, for the most part, our bodies have little trouble with these infections. Indeed even this most dreadful of viruses, seems to give the young little more than a slight fever and an annoying cough. Our bodies are extraordinarily well adapted to beating off the little blighters, even with all their armoury.  So why not this one? Well, I'm not a med...
Read more

I can't breathe

Image
Their wickedness is great (Joel 3:13)  In my blog on 27th May, I wrote about a universal principle of injustice, one rule for the rich and another for the poor. What you don't know is that I had initially included the difference in American justice between black and white men. I cut it out because I thought it might be too insensitive and didn't have time to fact check it.  So consider my horror when I heard about George Floyd. 'Lynched', as one commentator put it, in full daylight in front of a crowd by four police officers. George collapsed to the ground at which point an officer knelt on George's neck for early 9 minutes including for 2 minutes after another officer had failed to find a pulse. And George's crime? Well, no, he had done nothing wrong. He was suspected by the officers of cashing a fake bill for the princely sum of 20 dollars. In reality he was a leading figure in local care for the vulnerable and addicted,  honest, upright and loved by all. His ...
Read more