(I have a habit of starting without finishing, of getting so caught up in the phrasing of a thought that I never quite articulate it. And I've discovered in these days now that I've returned to Canada from Honduras that this habit results in rather a stockpile of written-never-published blog posts. This week I'll make a half-hearted attempt to play blogging catch up - as long as it doesn't prevent me from enjoying these last weeks of Vancouver summer!
And so...back to blogged thoughts from Honduras:)
There are days when life moves fast and days when life moves slow and I feel that (as I've written before) I am in a constant battle to live with contentment - contentment in all circumstances as Paul says - with every pace thrown my way. Sometimes moments pass by so laden with smells and tastes and sounds that all you can do is bow the knee and give thanks. Like snowflakes you catch for a moment or two on your tongue or gloved hand, when life moves slow it's easy to catch life fully and savour it for a moment before it melts away. And then there are seasons when seconds pass by so quickly that their individual weight is blurred, raindrops that follow one after the other so quickly that each one is subsumed into the next and time moves with the waterfall rush of Honduras' wildest storms.
And so...back to blogged thoughts from Honduras:)
There are days when life moves fast and days when life moves slow and I feel that (as I've written before) I am in a constant battle to live with contentment - contentment in all circumstances as Paul says - with every pace thrown my way. Sometimes moments pass by so laden with smells and tastes and sounds that all you can do is bow the knee and give thanks. Like snowflakes you catch for a moment or two on your tongue or gloved hand, when life moves slow it's easy to catch life fully and savour it for a moment before it melts away. And then there are seasons when seconds pass by so quickly that their individual weight is blurred, raindrops that follow one after the other so quickly that each one is subsumed into the next and time moves with the waterfall rush of Honduras' wildest storms.
Sometimes I forget that even rainstorms pour into the soil and bring forth new things from the earth. I forget that even when I cannot and do not slow myself down to savour seconds, God is at work in the rainstorms. My life has been in rainy season of late - a time not to be confused with sorrow but simply with abundant activity. Scarcely is there a morning of sun but it is followed by an afternoon of rain. In the midst of this rainy season, then, this time of seconds subsumed into seasons, I am learning to be content with the wild pace of it all, to allow myself to be swept into the rush until a moment emerges when I can look back and see the rich, rich spring growth (in myself most of all) that the rains (and God who so often moves through them) leave in their wake.
I took a long road trip this past week, around eight hours of sitting in a van driving first through the terraced, rolling, misty hills of Honduras, then through the dry, hot land that longs for rain, into the city of San Pedro Sula and then back along the same route. Travel does a funny thing to time. It moves oh-so-slowly inside the van (punctuated with the antsy antics of children and, let's be honest, myself), but when looking outside all one can catch are stolen glimpses - a fragment of graffitied wall, a quick view between billboards of the rolling mountains beyond. But there is beauty even in the quickly captured glimpses of the road beyond; the road is beautiful even when moving so quickly that the sights are blurred by speed, by passing trucks, by a strand of hair that blows in front of eyes And sometimes, if ever so lucky, the sun hits a spot of dust on the windshield and suddenly all that can be seen is the sun sun sun shining down on the road and everything passing by.
