Blog
In Jesus' parable of the sower (Matt 13:18ff), the key factor which determines whether the seed will grow and bear fruit or not is the quality of the soil - the parable begs the question, "what kind of soil am I?" We have no power to change the seed or the mysterious natural process that turns a seed into a plant, but we do have some influence over what kind of soil we will be.
Every morning as I walk through our front door, I pass an outdoor pot plant - some kind of succulent - that is living its best life. The little plant has green leaves everywhere and it just beams at us when we pass by. It has not always been this way though. During 2020, we were given the gift of this seedling in a pot just weeks before Phoebe (our border collie puppy) joined our family. One day Phoebe was bored and she chewed up the pot and dismembered the plant - all that was left was a stump and a few roots. Hoping against hope I tried replanting it (and storing the new pot out of Phoebe's reach). But nothing happened. It was depressing to keep inspecting this little half-chewed stump in its pot each day and see absolutely no signs of life.
The uptick in morning traffic this week signals that the year has really started now, as schools re-opened. Children are navigating new classes, teachers, or schools, stationery shops have had queues out into the road! and it seems like we are finding our way back into regular weekly rhythms.
In 1874, British soldiers (members of the 75th Regiment of the 1st Gordon Highlanders) were camped in the Giant's Castle area in the Drakensberg and the regimental cook carved the number 75 into a large boulder to mark the fact that they had been there.
I have a clear childhood memory of my father complaining bitterly that there were a couple of Red-chested cuckoos that had their nests within earshot of his office at work. He didn't call them cuckoos though (he used their nickname - 'piet-my-vrou') and he said their calling early in the morning drove him nuts. Maybe you have some of these in your garden ...
I hadn't ever attended a Blue Christmas service before coming to Westville but it's become one of my favourite services of the year. It's a service that acknowledges that Christmas is not just joy and celebration but that it often is also a time of contradictions for so many people.
One our stewards shared a thought in our Exec meeting this week that got us all thinking: If you're carrying a cup of something and someone bumps you, you will spill whatever is in the cup - coffee, water, whatever. In the same way, if we are 'bumped' in life (pressured, provoked, challenged), whatever we are carrying within will spill out. Put differently, Jesus said that the condition of our heart is often revealed by our words ("out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks" Luke 6:45).
Good things happen when we are all together! Last Sunday was our annual combined service and we celebrated the second Sunday of Advent with a full church.
First, a huge thank you to Kerry and Ashley and the team of helpers and contributors that made last weekend's Christmas Market possible. It was such a happy day and we're delighted with the funds raised in support of our various mission projects (unofficial figures place the total at just over R20 000).
There has been a frenzy of activity here over the last few days: As I write this, last minute preparations are still on the go for Saturday morning's Christmas Market. Thank you so much to all who have pitched in and contributed in different ways - it's going to be a fantastic day and we hope to see you there!