Friday, January 28, 2011

Old man in fog

Solitary drives often clear my head enough to write.

During my 20-minute morning travels, sometimes I see him.

He's not always out and about.

Mostly I come across his bent back as he walks slowly along the side of a country road. He's usually hobbling along the un-busy, one-lane pavement between Scarsdale and Berringa.

He looks to be in his 90s; his face is rivulets of rubbery wrinkles; his hair is stringy and fine and sparse; his scalp is freckled with sunspots.

Although he looks old, I have learned that in Australia, faces age under dry air and harsh sun. Those who work land, be it mining for gold nuggets, ranching cattle and sheep or growing produce, age like a California raisin in the sun.

In this gold mining part of Australia, several generations have seen hard times and moved on. Some families have stayed and stuck it out, certain that better luck or better weather is on the way. Success depends on whom you ask.

At any rate, it's hard to tell how old someone is.

Stooping, this "foggy" man walks with a crooked cane made from a hardwood gum tree branch. The thin length of wood is skinned of bark and worn smooth with age.

In the tradition of blokes from an older, proper, era, he wears a suit-jacket, but it's worn-out, wrinkled and frayed. His grey jacket matches his grey, baggy trousers.

Hearing my sedan approach, he steps slowly to the side of the road; painstakingly patient in his pause as I pass.

Once I saw him surrounded by fog. He carried an armful's worth of kindling collected from the roadside. Spindly twigs were tucked into a bent elbow on a cold, frosty morning. His other arm used his cane for balance.

I wanted to get out of the car and help, but his eyes told me not to.

I found where he lives through asking the postmistress at the general store: a 150-year-old gold miner's house--a shanty of corrugated tin and plywood with front verandah posts bending under the weight of a roof. A tin water tank lists to the side of his home toward a shallow ravine where a creek may have run decades ago to provide water. When he's not wandering the roads in search of firewood, a thin string of dark smoke rises from an ancient, precariously leaning brick chimney. I wonder, is this ramshackle shack with dried-out land his inheritance from a gold-mining father in the area?

When I drive by him, I slow down out of respect. He never waves or lifts his walking stick, or even acknowledges that I have passed by, except for that "look."

But always as I pass, leaving him in my rear-view mirror, this is what surprises me:

He turns slowly. He stops. He stares, until I can't see him past the bend in the road.

When he does that, I wonder if he thinks about far away days
with horses and buggies passing through the gold towns, carrying women in finery and men in top hats en-route to the bustling Smythesdale Court House Hotel for dinner, or scoundrels to jail in Ballarat.

I wonder if he has or had a wife and children.

I wonder if anyone but me thinks of him?

And I wonder if he wishes I would quit driving on his road while I clear my head to write.

Magnificence

Rumbles, roars, crashing cymbals
drew me to the verandah.

Oppressive heat, humidity
acquiesced to storms on the evening of the third day of stagnant weather.

Springtime sunset behind black, ominous clouds;
gold and fuchsia spread across greening grass and black pine treetops.

Dusky rims of cumulus clouds light up with
paparazzi-like flashbulbs, circling my haven,
my home.

"The God of Glory thunders..."
"The Voice of the Lord is powerful, the Voice of the Lord is majestic."

"Out of the brightness of His presence, clouds advanced
with hailstones and bolts of lightning."

"The Lord thundered from heaven,
the Voice of the Most High resounded."

The scent of sulphur; sun-baked grass and
rain on hot asphalt, fills my nose.

God's display of His presence
fills my soul.

Lightning bolt after bolt
in quick succession draws closer to home.

A pulsing blue-white spear thick as a tornado hits the ground with a heart-shuddering crash.

Thunder shouts, crackles and rumbles
overhead.

My hair stands on end while I gape.

"From the throne came flashes of lightning,
rumbles and peals of thunder."

...Your Majesty.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Treasures

One man's junk is another man's treasure, so I've heard.

I went to a demolition yard recently.

It is astounding to me the amount of junk, and treasure, that people throw away.

Some do with obvious thought as to home projects and such, and others have no idea what treasures they are throwing onto a rubbish heap.

Although I'm not a hard-core craft-ish person who could take intricate wrought-iron ornamentation and turn it into garden or household finery, I wish I could.

Looking at all the piles of discarded stuff made me want to take many and transform objects into points of interest in my new home and yard and invite conversation about its history and renewed finery.

I admire those who can do such things.

While wandering among the piles of rubble, my thoughts turned toward what God, the ultimate Creator and Rescuer, can do, and does in each of us if we let Him.

I think of someone I know who feels he is damaged beyond repair and limited to a life of living in rubble. He chooses to stay there.

I think of myself who often feels like cast-off trash. I choose not to stay there.

Don't most of us experience those thoughts and feelings at some point in our lives? Don't we all know the rejection of our friends, our family, our society and feel more at home in a rubbish pile? Those feelings may not last, but while they are there, it's not a fruitful emotion.

I believe that God created us--all of us, no matter what our "used by" date or "badness"--for more than wallowing in a demolition heap.

He is the One who takes our worn out, dated, corrupted, used-up selves and refurbishes us.

The purpose?

First and foremost, to show others His never-ending, never-give-up sort of love for each one of us, His children. In that vein, He heals us.

And then, we go on to lead lives of peace, joy and satisfaction that only a Potter can give to a lump of clay. Only we can tell the story of how our Redeemer rescued us. No one can tell our story for us.

Psalm 18: 16, "He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters."

Psalm 23: 1-3, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul."

Jesus said about Himself, "...the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...to comfort all who mourn...to bestow on them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour." Isaiah 61: 1-3 (selected)

Here's to hope in God of His taking us out of our rubbish heaps and giving us joy and a life worth living with a crown of beauty--outside of the demolition pile.