We have many little hiccups leading up to our 2019 Fitzroy team to Uganda. When we boarded in Dublin for Addis Ababa and the connecting flight to Entebbe, I uttered the famous last words, "Nothing to think about now for 10 hours..." The flight was to touch down briefly in Madrid but a storm sent us off to spend a few very dull hours on the runway in Barcelona before flying back to Madrid. We were now 8 hours overdue and missing our Entebbe connection. This is my sobering meditation on such a day...
You can have your destination planned
And know exactly how you are getting there
Dates and times all on your ticket
“Nothing more to think about until you arrive”
Famous last words
Like certainty,
Or ‘nothing can go wrong’
And “we have it under control”.
“Sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere
And knocks you off your feet”
As Bruce Cockburn sings it
It can send you off course
Divert you to somewhere off your map
Towards worry
Anger
Frustration
And weariness.
That wind and where it blows you
Cannot be eradicated
Or erased
God will not shift the weather patterns of the world
For your own self indulgence
Life is not the wind that blows
But how we respond when it does.
“Worry,” said the Master
“Adds nothing to your circumstances but worry”
“Surmise,” he went on,
“The Uganda Cranes as the fly
Or the sunflowers as the decorate a field
No toiling or spinning
But utterly beautiful.”
“Trust,” he teaches
“Brings a peace beyond understanding”
The breeze of the Spirit
Where it blows, no one knows
And so it is with all of those born of the Spirit of God
Certainty gives way
To faith
And faith was the lesson of today.
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