THE READER WRITES
Below is an extract from ‘Some Thoughts About Elijah’ taken from my sermon on 27th June.
“As Paul was saying last week, there are some disturbing events that are bound up with the story of Elijah, and most of us who like to read old testament stories are drawn to Elijah, when because he was totally fed up, he hid in a cave, but as we all have learned by now, there is nowhere that anyone can hide from God. He is told to get up and go out on the mountain, because the Lord will pass by. Elijah still in the depths of dispair manages to get himself to the cave entrance. There comes a mighty wind so strong it could blow a person away, then an earthquake, followed by fire. If you have never experienced a storm raging a mountain rock in the Mediterranean area, you cannot imagine how very loud and frightening it is. But after all that racket comes complete silence, and then the still small voice.
Because time is short this morning, I would like to concentrate on that silence. Have you ever experienced a silence like that. Well I am convinced that I have on several occasions, once when I was sitting beside the sea, and. at other times much closer to home.
You will remember perhaps that I used to take very early walks with my dog, along the sea wall just off the promenade. We would start off in the mornings the birds singing, cars buzzing around the by pass, aeroplanes moving across the sky making those silver trails, and the feeling that the world was waking up, and then one day quite suddenly there came a complete silence, when it first happened I was quite amazed, I thought I had gone deaf! and spoke to the dog to make sure I hadn't. We stopped and I stood for a while waiting to see what was happening, there wasn't a breath of wind, everything was still, it was a strange feeling, it felt like the whole world was holding it's breath, waiting, there was a feeling of timelessness.
Then just as quickly everything was back to normal again. Well as you can imagine I thought about it all the way home, I began to think of Elijah and his experience of that silence when the Lord passed by him. I was inspired and I wrote this poem.
Meeting in the Morning. (Based on 1 Kings 19. v 11-13.)
In the early morning sun,
When the day had just begun,
And busy birds were singing
And human life beginning
Its day of toil and rush -
There came a sudden hush.
I sensed the deepening peace,
Noise of world and nature ceased,
And stood at once enthralled
By the quietness of the world.
And instinctively I knew
That the Lord was passing through.
For some fleeting moments
In the soul restoring silence,
There was mutual recognition,
He acknowledged my contrition,
And His Blessing seemed a kiss
In that early morning mist
As He smiled and softly went
upon his way.
My heart felt its healing,
At that meeting in the morning,
For it’s comforting to know
That wherever I may go
I can speak to Him at will
I’ve only to be still.
And the memory will not die
Of when nature, world and I
In space of His eternity
Amazingly and reverently,
Saw the Lord pass by.
