ROSIE

She's the best type of dog to have around the house. Not too big, in fact not big at all, a coloured mixtureA of black and brown shades with a very waggy tail and roughish hair. She has a wonderful temperament, which is often missing in one so small. Many times I've been confronted by tiny terriers or, more correctly, tiny terrors, who feel the world owes them something and in the time that they have remaining on earth, intend to get it, usually as a large bite out of your leg. I've been the part owner / keeper of many such small dogs and i have to admit have never felt totally at ease in their company, with a wrong movement or word often responsible for a sudden change of mood into something altogether more frightening. I call it 'small dog syndrome'. Having witnessed something similar in some small men, I guess it's rather appropriate. 
Rosie's not like that at all. Content to lie in the conservatory for hours in the warm spring afternoon, stretched across the mat in front of a roaring winter fire, or simply soaking in the warm summer rays while sprawled across the picnic table, she appears equally at home in any of those locations.   Which is a bit of a surprise, since home for Rosie is about one hundred metres along the road at our neighbour's house!
Some days, we don't see her at all and a whole week might pass before she suddenly reappears, tail wagging and ready for some tlc. Often, it's the sharp, invisible bark at the conservatory door that heralds her arrival and she manages to continue calling until somebody appears at the door and grants her entry. Then it is as if she has just discoved her long lost cousin all over again as she scampers around the house, jumping up and down, tail fully operational and just waiting to be affectionately embraced. After this initial welcoming period, she soon calms down, finds her cushion, plays with it for a short while and eventually curls up and falls asleep for the next hour. And so the pattern is repeated on every occasion, until, probably aware that dinner is awaiting at another location, she approaches the door and silently requests to be allowed to leave.
Some time back, she disappeared for longer than usual and after a full week of non-appearance, we began to wonder and probably fear for her safety. Until one afternoon, a little, well-groomed dog with the same colouring waddled down the road. It didn't look like Rosie but the wagging tail could have belonged to no other. She had been on holidays, to a pet make-over far away and now looked years younger than the little grey hairs under her chin suggested. I began to fully understand why so many people choose to subject themselves to cosmetic enhancement for if they felt and looked as good as Rosie now did, there had to be some merit in their efforts. Unfortunately, in Rosie's case, the enhancements were not sustainable. After all, it is a dog's life and they don't spend their lives staring into a mirror when there are holes to explore, cats to chase and food scraps to gain. And of course they don't sleep in a cosy bed with pressed sheets and electric blanket. And anyway, who's going to tell them when they need to comb their hair or wash their face. So, over time, Rosie has returned to what she once was, until the next makeover, I presume, and in some strange way, I prefer her as she is, ungroomed, rough and ready but still loveable.
But I've learnt something. The easiest pet to look after is the one you don't own nor have to feed. The one that is an occasional caller for tidbits, warmth and a bit of loving care but the one to which you don't have to be committed. Is that the way my faith could be summed up? Faith when it suits, maybe on a Sunday or in the right company, but something I can set aside when I don't want to be committed . A faith where I can enjoy the emotion of a worship song, feel the presence of a Creator as the sermon is preached, show compassion to others in their times of trouble, utter the right words and phrases when it is appropriate,  but then be happy enough if my faith goes AWOL for days or even weeks. And that's not all. The little dog reminds me that no amount of covering up can hide the real me in the sight of God. He sees what I protect others from seeing until of course the cracks in my camouflage  reveal exactly what is in my heart. How often I have read that verse in 1 Samuel 16 as the prophet attempts to find God's chosen king for Israel and as he rejects yet another son of Jesse, God reminds him, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Is my life a reflection of my heart and of God's presence in my life? Is yours? Just a couple of scraps to chew on.

Sunlight

It was a cold and cloudy day. The windows looked clean, having spent half an hour with an extendable pole, that had cost both time in research and money in hard earned cash, and now dangled precariously against the upper panes of glass, more than ten feet above ground level, with a small attached and soapy pad doing its work. I was already suspicious of its ability to do what it said on the packet, or at least the sparsely worded information leaflet that gave less than transparent instructions for assembly and even more opaque guidelines on how it should be used for maximum effect. The fact that this was already the second purchase of such an implement in seven days was weighing heavily on the mind, the previous instrument having broken during its exit from some hastily wrapped clear polythene and following assembly. I should have been suspicious even then that it may not have been the first time it had seen daylight but when I returned it for another and found the new product came nicely packaged in a cardboard box with the pad in its own little covering, it became obvious that the little window cleaner had been in foster care before. 

Well, the windows looked clean and the praise of man, or in this case, wife, w enough to convince me that my purchase had been worth the research, the money and the hard work. But then the sun came out. Not immediately but without invitation. Sunlight has many wonderful advantages. It provides warmth in the summer and even makes us feel warm on a cold winter day. It changes our mood, dries our clothes, feeds our crops, turns grass to hay and ripens fruit. And many a beautiful photograph and painting depicts its coming and going. But it wasn't made to shine on windows, especially high levels frames that have been cleaned by an inexpensive fragile pole and an inexperienced window cleaner. What the rain and clouds had hidden was now exposed for all to see, including wife, as the streaks, missed corners and uneven and dried glass surfaces shouted out their dissatisfaction with my attempts at cleansing. But the sunlight didn't stop there. Soon the stains on the inside of the glass became almost more annoying than those that I had attempted to remove and it was clear, no pun intended, that a re-clean was imperative, impending and hopefully not impractical.  
And yet the sunlight didn't stop there. On it penetrated into the room, dust particles suspended in its rays until they fell on to the kitchen sideboard and exposed fugitive breadcrumbs that had remained camouflaged for days and small cooking stains that hid under the cover of darkness with no thoughts of escape. But it wasn't all bad. Shadows of horizontal blinds painted a temporary pattern on a lamp and candle and reflections of a glass bowl  brought a new, if non-permanent design to the painted. Everything seemed to look better and I felt better, apart from looking through the window.and then it was gone. Not behind a cloud. Just gone. Out of view. Passed on to another window, it's light streaming in its wake but no longer with the same exposing effect it once had.
Jesus once said in John 8 v 12, "I am the light of the world." He didn't just say this to remind us that He was a light to show us the path back to God and Heaven. I think He was really telling us that Son light shines right into us and exposes the dirt in our lives that we either can't see ourselves or try to hide from Him. He calls it sin. We call it everything but sin. Our own attempts to clean up our lives are always going to fail because we can't see everything that's wrong and sometimes don't want to see it anyway. When Jesus shines into our lives, his light reaches every corner, every hidden crevice and then we see what needs cleaned and by His grace we can be completely clean. Of course when He comes into our lives, because His light always shines in us, He shows us where that sin is hiding and because  He is the Master cleaner, we only need to ask Him to clean us every day and it's done, the dirt is gone. 
Some things to think about though. Sunlight exposes the dirt but I needed to be honest and proactive about my windows and the room. I had the free will to do nothing or to just pretend it was ok. That way nothing happens and just more dirt gathers. But I guess I have to take action sometime. Still, it's probably only the sunlight that makes me see it in the first place. Off course I could have just cleaned the outside but the sunlight showed up the inside for what it was. So I think I need to be honest about God too. And proactive. When I feel this gentle tugging and sometimes a more direct grabbing at me, it's Him laying my life out before me with all it's sin and imperfections, telling me not to ignore it. And like the sunlight, this Son light keeps coming back to remind me what I need to do. But here's the difference. When Jesus shines His light into my life, if I invite Him in He does the cleaning because He's the only One who can. 
And what do people see when they at me. Hopefully His reflection shining back at them.

Blackberries

It's that time of year. The briars are crying out to be relieved of their load. 'Pick me' is the cry I hear. And so, armed with a small 1 litre plastic jug, I have forsaken all and headed for the fruit strewn hedges that line our road and divide the fields into smaller paddocks. And what a harvest it has been. Since late summer, I have plundered hedgerow after hedgerow, filling jugs with black fruit and returning to base, whereupon the lady of the house searches frantically for some recipe which includes blackberries. So, we have feasted on blackberry jam, apple and blackberry pie, exquisite blackberry muffins with the ever mounting load of unused fruit finding a cold resting place in the now bulging freezer until our longing for those muffins needs to be satisfied again.
But it's not just the picking that I'm going to remember for blackberries are full of surprising lessons that have helped me understand life better and my faith more fully. So here's what I've discovered. I'll leave you you to work out the faith applications for yourself.
It's maybe not an amazing revelation but even though this is the first time that I have really engaged properly in picking the fruit, they've always been there and I've either not noticed them, been indifferent to their presence, ignored them or just never made the time to include them. But they always come back regardless of my response.
Picking blackberries is never a pain-free process. To get to some of the best fruit means negotiating some of the sharpest and largest thorns I've encountered, but the pain has always been worth it, even if it can last for days. And I suppose there's a lesson for us in the fact that even the thorn bushes that we don't admire can bear fruit.
It's funny though that when you start to pull the fruit, it takes time for your eyes to become adjusted to where the blackberries are. Sometimes I can look at a bush and see only a couple and then a few minutes later I'm still standing at the same bush discovering more hidden treasures behind leaves and other weeds. And some mornings, when the sun is still rising in the foreground, it's difficult to differentiate the black ripe berries from those that are still red. Just occasionally the berries are not hidden at all. It's just that I'm not looking in their direction.
I've also discovered that I only become selective in the fruit that I choose to pick when there is plenty of blackberries. Some days I begin at a section of hedge that is not densely populated and their unit is generally smaller. That's when I try to pick every single one on a bush. Later, when the container is getting fuller or in an area where the hedge is laden down with large ripe berries, I leave the smaller ones alone and grab only the best produce. It's sloŵ work too, picking blackberries. Even a small one litre jug can take over  an hour to fill as every attempt is made to avoid thorns and nettles.
And when I return home, it's pretty evident what I've been doing for my fingers are stained in a dark purple dye and little seeds are lodged under my finger nails.
But what I have learned most from picking blackberries this year is that it gives me time to think. Precious time indeed. To think that my inner stains can also be washed away, to know that God is always near me, like the old hymn says. And to know that the reason we often don't see Him is because we look in the wrong place or don't search hard enough. He opens blinded eyes to the spiritual food He can supply and He takes away all our stains.
I went out today to pull some more blackberries. I'd seen them last week but never got around to picking them. But now they were gone, all dried up or inedible. I'd just left it too late. Only by a few days. But still too late. To be too late searching is to never find. For ever.