A CHANGE IN THE AIR

After a couple of fairly rainy days, this morning a few kayaks and sculls are energetically making their way across the bay. Patches of warm, bright sunshine countered by short and sharp gusts from the sea keep a few early walkers moving briskly along too. Our perpetual little sailboats cluster like white puff-balls over the blue-green water, but wind flurries strike and cause them to flitter like early spring butterflies on stubby white wings. In fact, the calendar insists that spring is about one week ahead of us.

The balance of this day, however, surely bodes little comfort out of doors unless one is addicted to raw edged, windblown walks, and the thunder-storms that are predicted in the area; winds hereabouts tend to increase after lunch time, although today a wayward breeze here and there is scented vaguely of lifted spirits. As early as Genesis 1:14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years…”. In Leviticus 26:3,4 He said, “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit”.


With notable exceptions that has usually been the case, and the lights in the sky are giving their signs. I don’t know how careful or obedient any one has been; unusual warmth at earth’s extremities and melting polar ice-caps suggest to some a reckoning might be somewhere down the road, and we are advised to count our blessings only after the harvest is in the barn. Signs aside, we are blessed by a forgiving Father who knows both our foibles and our hearts—and if it comes to that, a new earth and a new Heaven will be mighty fine—dare I hope for new sailboats too?