Never too late...

Sorry that there have been so few posts over the last week or so

 due to the fact that I've had to rest up a bit again.

After my last post I felt I'd come to a watershed and wondered if I should carry on with the blog,

 and if so just where it should go.

  My ponderings have lead to the decision to carry on with my day to day meanderings of life and thought on this blog,

 whilst using a second blog to express more in-depth explorations of Christian spirituality and praxis.

  I mentioned the possibility of this way back on the blog titled "Treasures of Darkness",

 and now seems a good time to start.

If you are interested in exploring Christian spirituality with me my other site is:- http://mypathofthewind.blogspot.com/

The title of "Treading the Path of the Wind"comes partly from Ecclesiastes 11:5,

"Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby

 growing in its mother's womb,

 so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things."

I chose this because it always speaks to me of the unexpectedness of walking with God,

 not just in the apparent blessings but also through the trials and trouble of life

 we would so much like to do without.

When people talk about faith by calling it a crutch,

  I think "Well if this is a crutch it's a pretty challenging one!"

  because I know that following the "path of the wind" since I was sixteen

 has led me into places and things that would never have been possible otherwise.

  Certainly I would have been too much of a coward to have even attempted most of them.

   It has definitely never been boring!

   Well you get the idea.

  In the blog I talk about what is the real nittygritty for me.

Now to catch up with this blog,

 I've been having real fun with my great grandson who at two and a half

 has been really getting excited about drawing.

Just last week he'd started on the large circle,

 with small circle eyes and a wobbly line for the mouth that signifies "Mummy", "Daddy", etc.

  Over the ensuing days stick arms and legs have been added sprouting from the "face",

 along with many sorts of "noses".

   Then the circular eyes got little circles inside them

and low and behold the pupil was born.

 Somewhere along the way "shoes" got added to the feet

and sometimes there are sort of mittens on the ends of the "arms".

It is apparent that to him these entities are real people,

 (we've all had a portrait done),

 because he stops in the middle of drawing to trot to an invisible bottle

 to get the "sticky" to make the hair that he then proceeds to draw stand on end

, as he sees Mama doing in real life,

 and as the hairdresser does when he gets his own hair cut.

In a short time at the table on Sunday he evolved the single line mouth

by adding another line which he solemnly told me were "lips",

which in a later drawing became a large circle which he filled with jagged lines

 that were the "teeth", accompanied with a suitable very vocal roar.

  There was much deliberation about the brown for the other new developments

 which were the eyebrows.

 Goodness knows what he's up to by now.

What struck me so forcibly was the sheer speed of the development of ideas,

 and their implementation.

  Truly the rate of learning,

 and the desire to learn, is phenomenal at this age.

Of course these early years are exceptional,

 and the pace inevitably lessens but whilst mental faculties remain

 there's no need to ever give up.

  The world is full of fascinating things:

  ideas, people, places...

 Even if we haven't had the chances we would have liked,

or some of our dreams may have been broken or somewhat dented,

 who knows what wondrous new thing waits to claim our attention and spur us on.

Today I came upon this lovely verse by Antonio Machado, (translation by Robert Bly)

Last night I dreamed
-blessed illusion-
that I had a beehive here
in my heart
and that
the golden bees were making
white combs and sweet honey
from my old failures.

God Bless