There are subtle distinctions between a scrapyard and a compost heap although nobody wants to end up in either of them! Unwanted junk heads to the scrapyard to be pulled apart or for crushing. By contrast, careful thought is given to those items put on the compost heap where processes of transformation for beneficial regeneration take place and some useful habitats are created for wildlife. There are certainly some damaging things in life like bad choices and their outcomes that we are best sent to the scrap yard. However there are other painful circumstances and questions that we can safely put on the compost heap to mull on over time and learn from.
- Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping’ – Ethel Barrymore
- ‘Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience’ – Denis Waitley
- ‘God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful’ – Henri Nouwen
All this begs the question about the lessons of life, whether you feel they’re fair or not. Also legitimate are the questions that you and every human wrestle with over purpose and religion. Is your view set or shifting as you have put things on the compost heap? Here are some reflections that you may or may not recognise:
- ‘But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction’ – Job 36:15
- ‘I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind’ – Ecclesiastes 1: 13-15
In the cult film ‘Mary Poppins’, it was Bert who sang: ‘Winds in the east, mist coming in, like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin, can’t put me finger on what lies in store’. It was Admiral Boom in the same film who noticed ‘a change in the wind’ whilst up on his rooftop quarter-deck. Could there be a change in the wind for you too? Consider the parable of the compost heap! What would you wish for? Why not just ask?
WISDOM ON THE WAY (connect4life.org.uk)
TAGS – direction, solution, help, destiny, chance, new start, beginning