Yesterday morning was washing day. The washing machine was filled… an hour later I hung the washing out on the line. It was grey, but a good drying day. By the afternoon the washing was dry – blowing in the wind.
I walked by the beach. Parents and children were flying kites. Gulliver, the town’s wind turbine was spinning round. Doubtless there were sailing dinghies out on Oulton Broad… all benefiting from blowing in the wind.
…Elton John describes life’s fragility and brevity as ‘a candle in the wind’. Maralyn Monroe… Lady Diana… ‘Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in.’ The wind blows, the candle’s extinguished. A legend remains.
…Bob Dylan asks… ‘How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take ’til he knows that too many people have died?’ The answers to life’s unanswered questions is ‘blowing in the wind’.
… Dorothy is in Kansas: ‘The wind began to switch, the house, to pitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch.’ She’s transported to Oz – the place where she can discover herself and problems can be solved.
God is the ‘Blowing-in-the-Wind’ God… God creates the forces of nature… the earthquake wind and fire… Jesus can control His Father-God’s nature. He calms the storm; his friends say, ‘Even the winds and the waves obey him…’ Jesus leaves His Spirit, God’s breath, the wind: ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
Today I’m attending a funeral, a thanksgiving service for the life of my friend Bruce. The wind reminds me of forces of nature that are beyond my control… the fragility and brevity of life… life’s unanswered questions… transportation to a better place… and the God who comes, sometimes as a powerful wind, sometimes as a gentle refreshing breeze, saying, to the wind and to me, ‘Peace, Be still.’
malcolmsmusings.org 