a bastion against erosion

Some words in a book I was reading the other day made me stop and pause for thought.

"The churches here" (the writer was speaking about island life on Lewis and Harris) "are a bastion against erosion. They are defensive structures, a form of retreat from the modern and an insulation against the wickedness of the new."

Defensive? A form of retreat?

Is that how we're meant to be viewing the church?

I found myself reluctant to embrace that sort of view of what it is today to be a follower of Jesus Christ. But the writer was still in full flow and so I read right on to the end of the paragraph.

"However much they may have argued and divided over the years, the churches hold on to their congregations because they give a kind of nourishment and support which the material world has often failed to provide."

He's saying, I guess, that the Christian church is basically conservative.

I don't mean politically. Nor even theologically.

I mean in the sense that what the church does best, in the face of the rolling tides of 'progress' in a rapidly changing world, is simply to conserve the good things that are likely to get washed away. Eroded.

I was up there in the summer. On Harris and Lewis.

And I worshipped there as well.

In some ways it was just another planet. Certainly a very different culture. And maybe that's the point.

In the face of all that is slowly and subtly today eating away at so much that is good in our heritage, here was a place where with reverence, passion and faith the sandbags of defiance were being stacked up to protect the way, the truth, the life these folk have long since known.

A bastion against erosion.

The people were hugely devout. And deeply taught. Well versed in the truths of Scripture.

It was humbling to see and feel it once again. It always is.

And I think it's bound up with the slower pace of life they studiously pursue.

Down here in the city we live at such a speed. And like raindrops falling down upon a high speed train, the truths of Scripture maybe mostly bounce off all the double-glazed, wide windows of our hearts and never really penetrate at all.

Not like up there in the islands, where the steady and persistent rains soak bit by bit deep down into the land.

Anyway, I've been thinking along those lines again today.

The need to slow down. The need to try and help folk here live life at really more a slower pace than hitherto we've done.

And leave our hearts more open and receptive to the truth of God and let that truth seep deep down into all the very fabric of our lives.

So I've tried to be far less rushed. Taking time over what I do.

Which means I get less done, of course! And that's the constant pressure that I'm learning to avoid.

So much to be done! But I can't do it all, no matter the pace that I try to live my life.

I'll settle for the 'one thing' that is needful through each part of every day.

'Defensive structures'? A 'form of retreat'? An 'insulation'?

Well, I guess that's maybe so. Maybe we do need more of those 'defensive' sort of structures in our busy lives today. Maybe we do need those conscious 'retreats'. Maybe we do need far more of that 'insulation' against a modern life which often is corrosive and perhaps, without our noticing, erodes so much of what is truly good.