I was going to fill up a few minutes of your empty lives with a few thousand words of bile. But then I realised how good God has been to me, how lovely the world around us actually is! The good Lord has created a wonderful place for us and I thought it better to muse on the good things around us in stead of the bad. "Consider the lilies of the field" said Jesus, and I have no idea which 'lilies' he meant, "They neither sow nor spin yet even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like them." And this is true! Flowers come in all sizes, a wide variety of colours and shapes, give off a wonderful fragrance and yet while almost flimsy to the touch they endure all sorts of weather conditions. Plants of various kinds can be found hidden under desert sands, appearing as if by magic when rain falls, some live high in the snows of the mountains and others even survive in Scotland! On top of this they lay an important part in our ecology, if that is the right word, without those little flowers the planet would not survive, and they say we 'just evolved?'
I cogitated on the wildlife around us, partly because passing through the gardens I was disturbed from my daydream by a 'roebuck' which lives there and occasionally races past the unsuspecting. There is a huge assortment of animals around us, from the family cat to the rhino in the local zoo! Such beasts come in all shapes and sizes and have a great many uses for us, and if not we eat them! So at least they have some use. Those animals forbidden to Jews and Muslims appear to be the scavengers of this world, on land and sea. They were banned because what they ate cleaned up the environment around them but did little for your insides, so there was a purpose for them. Try eating a local pigeon today and find out how it would feel.
While it is clear the world can only get worse, overpopulation, shortage of water, routine political instability, famine and natural disasters will lead us in this nuclear age to melt down in a few years, this does not mean there is nothing to enjoy on a day by day basis. Sometimes enjoyment comes with guilt. I felt this today while watching a news broadcast that actually said something! A photographer back from Ethiopia brought pictures of folks starving to death, and in the UK we complained when Gordon Brown said we throw away too much food! We throw away a third of what we buy and millions starve, can this be right? Luckily I have been careful in this regard for some time now, wasting food is awful in such circumstances, but while they starve I am overweight! While we complain about our 'obesity' problem this photographer spoke of sitting before a woman his age dying of starvation, this is 2008 isn't it? 'Tear Fund,' some years ago had a slogan, 'Enough for everyman's need, not for everyman's greed!' I believe it was dropped, maybe someone thought it to 'communistic!'
However, while we do what we ought to help those suffering we enable them to enjoy the world around us. I think it's great, especially in the sunshine. Kids playing happily in the park, fussy mum's scolding them for no good reason, blue skies, flowers and fauna, glares from half naked ladies who do not think old men are the ones who should be looking (close your curtains then hen!), swifts tearing through the sky, screaming as the pass by the window, and an altogether better atmosphere from all around.
Isn't life good?
