The Hand Unseen

The hand unseen weaves quietly,

The fabric of my life.

Each fiber hand-crafted,

Colored and formed by the Master.

The hand unseen soothes gently,

The turmoil that surrounds.

Touching my fevered brow,

With a cooling holy calm.

The hand unseen pushes firmly,

As I fearfully take a step,

On a path unknown to me,

But plotted out by Him.

The hand unseen works swiftly,

Laying out the next tile,

Of the winding pathway,

His omniscience, my faith combining.

The hand unseen covers securely,

When the winds of life howl,

When the piercing cold or heat,

Threatens my spirit’s survival.

In astonishment I stand before,

In gratitude I bow to,

In relief I lean against,

The loving unseen hand.

Getting By

Today in the grocery store, I felt a twinge of sadness as I passed an elderly couple.  A small stooped over woman pushed the cart.  She was clearly in charge of the shopping expedition.  A thin man with a dazed expression walked along behind her.  She had tied a rope onto the cart, and he was clinging to the rope.  I have often seen a group of preschool children out for a walk hanging on to a rope to keep them together.  I have never seen this used for an elderly person before.

I suspect that she is mentally alert, and he is not.  He probably wanders off, so having him hold the rope is her way of being able to concentrate on her purchases and not lose him.  On the one hand, you have to admire her resourcefulness and independence.  On the other, life must be a struggle for her.  Although frail herself, she is the care-giver.  He is oblivious to her needs and even to his own.

I found myself hoping that they have someone who pays attention to them…checks up on them…someone who would be aware if her physical frailty got to the point of making her unable to compensate for his mental frailty.

I had a great-aunt and uncle who found themselves in similar straits.  He was weak physically but mentally alert.  She was developing increasing dementia, but seemed physically stronger.  They had no children to watch out for them.  Each one confided in my mother that they were hanging on in order to take care of the other.  My mother did not live near them and worried about them.  They died within 24 hours of each other.

I came home and told my husband about the couple in the grocery store.  We laughed picturing ourselves in those roles.  We agreed that if he ran off, I would never be able to catch him, so a rope just might be necessary. 

Something to look forward to…..

Of Nebuchadnezzar and Ozymandias

Every time I read the story of Nebuchadnezzar and his golden image in the book of Daniel, I think of the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. And, whenever I see the poem, I think of the story. I wonder if Shelley wrote the poem, because he was aware of the story.

Nebuchadnezzar thought himself to be the greatest king. He had some reason for this, because one of the dreams which Daniel had interpreted for him concerned a statue with a head of gold. Daniel had explained that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was the head of gold and that the inferior materials in the rest of the statue represented inferior kingdoms. Of course, Daniel had also made it clear that his ability to interpret the dream was a gift from the one true God who was in control of human history. It was only this God who was (and is) worthy of worship.

Nevertheless, Nebuchadnezzar’s opinion of himself was so inflated that he had a ninety foot image of himself made and erected in an open plain. It was not just the head of this image that was gold, but the entire thing. Everyone was to bow down to the image on penalty of death in a furnace. Nebuchadnezzar thought himself to be a god worthy of such reverence.

Of course, neither Nebuchadnezzar nor his statue has endured. If his golden image still existed today, it would be a major tourist attraction and an artifact of incalculable value!

Consider Shelley’s poem:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The megalomaniacs of human history have come and gone. Each, in his time believing himself to be invincible, has succumbed to the same fate as every commoner. It will continue to be so. The names of today’s famous athletes, entertainers, government leaders, business titans and other news makers will someday be unknown.

But…one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess the one who genuinely is invincible and whose value is far above gold. (Philippians 2:10-11)

The Tale of a Tree

Over 25 years ago, my husband returned from running errands on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a “tree” from McDonald’s.  McD’s was giving out the trees with each cup of coffee that day.  The tree was actually a little slip of evergreen about 7 to 8 inches long.  I asked my husband to plant it in view of our dining room window between our house and the neighbor’s house.

When our son was 4 years old, an ice storm weighed down branches and resulted in many broken limbs.  The swing set disappeared under the downed branches of a maple tree.  Our son sat looking out the dining room window at the evergreen which was by now about 4 feet tall.  Observing its heavy laden and drooping branches, he said, “I have to go outside and help that little tree.”  He bundled up and crunched through the snow.  I watched as he gently shook the ice from the branches of the tree, allowing them to spring back into a more normal position.

Seven years later, my mother had a massive stroke.  We cleaned out the dining room and put in a hospital bed.  She lived with us the last 5 months of her life, requiring round the clock care.    I put lights on the tree which was now a good size for a Christmas tree.  I had to use a ladder to put the lights near the top.  I was happy that the tree was there for her to see from her bed.  She died 2 days before Christmas.

In subsequent years, my father lived with us.  I plugged the lights in yearly as the tree grew taller and stretched the lights as far as they would go.  My father barely noticed.  He sat in the room that had once been our dining room with the drapes closed most of the time.  Eventually I had to remove the lights because the tree had grown too much for me to climb that high and the lights were also stretched too far.

The tree is now 30 feet tall, and we no longer live in that house, but when I pass by, I wonder how long it will be before someone with no sense of the tree’s history will decide to cut it down.  It would be no great loss to anyone else.  But, no one can take the memories from me.