Saturdays and the coming of Spring...

Saturday… It began with a leisurely breakfast at MAC followed by a walk to Glebe via Sydney Uni and Vic Park. This led to a coffee and catch up with the headlines… Later on I ate lunch at a newly discovered noodle bar on King Street followed by another coffee and another walk. It was a beautiful day… the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the air was clean, the coffee was good. What more could one ask for? The day finished where it began, with dinner at MAC and an outing to ‘Ice and Slice’.

Life is good in Sydney, perhaps a little too good? We’re constantly surrounded by its natural beauty and brief snap-shots of heaven! It’s hard to beat. We’re surrounded by a wealth of blessings and goodness. Why then does it so often feel as though something’s missing?

Is it the longing for a deeper sense of community or the need to connect and relate more deeply with one another? Is it a feeling of guilt knowing that we’re enjoying a lifestyle most other people in this world can only dream of? Or is it the mundane familiarity with life as we know it? Then again, perhaps the real problem is the fact that even when presented with the very best this world has to offer, it invariably falls short and appears lacking in light of the contrasting glory of heaven. In the end, the sin and brokenness of the world we live in has permeated every crack. Love and hate, war and peace are never far apart. Is it ungrateful to view the goodness of the world through such negativity? Is this a time to celebrate or is it a time to ring the warning bells and tell the world to ‘flee the coming wrath’? It reminds me of the U2 song Until the end of the World. In the chorus line Bono sings the words, ‘…everybody was having a good time, except you, you were talking about the end of the world…’ and I have to admit, this line often reminds me of myself! Is this how we come across to our non-Christian friends? All doom and gloom?

Either way we live in a world of conflicting realities, a world of roses and thorns where such things exist side by side. Joy is often mediated by suffering and fear… And yet in the midst of gloom the gospel still brings hope. It may indeed be a message about the ‘end of the world’, but it is no less the message of the beginning of a new world, a world where every tear will be wiped away, where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Rev. 21:4 ff). This is the reality we all long for in our hearts. Christ then is our only hope of finding true satisfaction.

The poem ‘Spring’ written by Gerard Manly Hopkins’ comes to mind. In it he delights in the beauty of creation and in particular the coming of Spring. He likens the Spring with the glory of Eden in the beginning… There is then the desire to grasp and hold on to it in all its goodness and glory, before it is soured and polluted by the world around it. Anyhow, the poem can speak for itself…

Spring
NOTHING is so beautiful as spring --
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. -- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1 Cor.13:12 "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."