The Rectory

Oaksmere

Tel: 01865 862458                                                                                                                  September 2010

Dear Friends

“When one tide ebbs another flows. nothing is lost, only it suffers a tide change.” David Adam

Waiting for the tide to turn on a day out at Weston-Supermare with our little grandson longing to try out his inflatable “penguin” ring, proved to be a lengthy affair – but what passes for high tide at Weston eventually arrived! Rather different to the ferocious high tide we watched on the West Coast of New Zealand last January!

Celtic Christians recognised so well how much the natural cycles of seasons and tides reflect the cycles of our human lives – indeed, form an important part of them. We all experience those different times or periods of our lives that we might feel reflect different states of the tide. Incoming tide marks new beginnings and times of freshness or a period of “spring-time.” Full tide tends to express times of depth and growth when much seems to be achieved and life is lived and enjoyed to the full – “summertime.” Ebb tide can describe periods of nostalgia, when we are tempted to look back because we’re not so comfortable in the present where things have become difficult, frustrating and perhaps, to mix metaphors, may be “on the wane” for some reason - an “autumn- time”? And low tide describes times of desolation and bareness – a “winter-time”.

I’m certain that out of all those who may read this, there will be some whose lives reflect one of these different “states of the tide” for all kinds of different reasons at this present point in time. Perhaps “low tide” may well feel the worst – but as David Adams reminds us in his book “Tides and Seasons” – it can also sometimes become a time of “strange beauty …. in winter we see things that we have never seen before – our vision on clear days seems lengthened – we can see past the trees also, because the foliage is gone….”

As I write this, already the days seem to be growing shorter and the evenings colder – and those of us who love the sun and have relished the beautiful weather we have enjoyed this summer begin to grieve the inevitable swiftness of change as the year moves on. And yet we are aware that the next season will bring its own unique beauty and the full cycle will continue and return. And so, too, our lives, whether in fullness or ebb at this moment in time or as we reach a particular stage of our lives.

The important thing to remember as the tide moves from one shore to another is that although changes come, nothing is finally lost!

The writer of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament famously writes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…” He also writes: “God has made everything beautiful in its time….He has also set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 11)

Have a good September – but as the busy round begins again after the quieter days of August – remember to hold on to the joys as well as the challenges of each season and rest in the flow of God’s own tide.

With my love and prayers

Lyn

Rev Lyn Sapwell