contrasts

It's strange how it's often in contrasts that beauty is fashioned and found.

The winter's sun on the hoary frost this morning. A case in point. A simple, stunning beauty about it all. Captivating.

I was glad of the chance to be out and about this morning. On my feet and not going anywhere particular.

Just out for a walk, to breathe in the air, to take in the sights, to marvel again at how lovely this world always is.

The brightness of the low-lieing sun; and the darkness of the shadows that it left. The warmth of the sun on my back; and the cold of the frost on my feet.

Contrasts. Stark and extreme. And, together, absolutely lovely.

It was a day of contrasts, in some ways.

Not just the sun and the cold, the light and the dark. But a day of simply 'chilling out' (quite literally at times!), in contrast to the normal busy life with so much to be done.

A day of rest in the midst of a life of work. A day for switching off and putting to one side the other things that occupy my time and all my energy.

The contrast between going at it full speed - and then simply resting, relaxing, doing little or nothing at all. There is, I think, a certain sort of beauty in that too.

The resting makes the work more meaningful. The working makes the rest a thing more pleasurable. Contrasts.

The freezing cold outside makes a bright and blazing log-fire on the inside seem a most attractive thing!

Anyway, I was reading a book for some of the day. Nothing to do with my daily work at all. A different world entirely.

This was a book I was given at Christmas, The Silver Darlings by Neil Gunn. The sort of book to get lost in. A different world entirely.

A contrast, again, to the world of today. And yet there are those points of similarity as well.

It's set against the backdrop of the 'clearances'. The hardship and the poverty that folk endured. Two very different cultures, I suppose.

The wealthy, large-scale land-owners, wanting to maximise their profit from their land. And the folk who'd lived there all their lives, for generations back, turfed off and forced to find another way of life. And another place to live.

The issues aren't that different in the world in which we live. Oppressor and oppressed. The wealthy and the poor.

A world of massive contrasts. A world in which there's life and death. A world in which our earthy sin offsets the grace of God. A world in which the 'coldness' in our selfishness and greed points up the more impressively the wonder and the glory of the life that Jesus lived.

A message of life to a world ensnared by death. The darker days are, the more I want my life to be a shining light!