Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone

Winter Wonderland

The countryside around, like the rest of Ireland, is a winter wonderland, dusted with a light snowfall two days ago and frosted hard ever since, with hoar-frost glistening on every twig the pale morning light has not reached.

Frosted pink Hebe

It is very beautiful, but dangerously slippy on roads like ours that have not been salted. Susanna and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary two days ago and booked ourselves for a dinner at the Whiskey Still in the village. But when we came to drive there, the car's wheels spun on the compacted ice just outside our drive entrance and we slipped back. Eventually, I let the car slide into the rough margin of the road where rough grit gave enough traction to breast the hill. And we enjoyed an excellent dinner, reminiscing about our Florida wedding and Sarasota honeymoon, spent in shorts sunbathing by the side of a pool, observed by a green-masked heron!

It is a hard time for the birds, which Susanna is assiduously providing with food and fresh water. The familiar common birds visit the birdtable and hanging feeders in a constant stream, including Chaffinches, Greenfinches, occasional Goldfinches, Sparrows, Dunnocks, Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tit's, a single hen Blackcap Warbler and a juvenile cock Blackbird. I can see them through the bedroom window, and observe their pecking order. The Blackbird rules the roost and the others stay away when he is feeding. Next in order are the Greenfinches, but they tolerate others feeding beside them so long as they are not too close. Then comes the Blackcap hen, who is faced off by Greenfinches, but agressively chases away all the smaller birds, like a garden fascist as I previously described it. The Tits and Chaffinches just muck in together.

Elsewhere in the garden, blackbirds maintain their territories despite the weather. I have just seen a Pied Wagtail exploring the gutter for insects outside my upstairs study window. Yesterday there was a Robin on the ground outside the greenhouse which was unable to fly, and later I found it dead and threw its little body into the hedge, where no doubt it will provide a meal for some other creature.

November 2006 - Death and Suffering, Life and Love

The first frosts, later than usual, have cut down the dahlias in the autumn border, and the tender salvias I failed to bring in. Their skeletons stand black and rotting where flowers so recently danced like bright hoors, to remind me of the fate of all created things, myself included, and all those I love.

And murder has been done on the wilderness path. A sad sprinkling of chaffinch feathers among the fallen leaves the only clue for CSI: I suspect the sparrow hawk, but a visiting cat might equally be the culprit.

Feet suddenly chilled in green wellies, I stop and stare, reaching inward to touch dark fears and anxieties. Tim, the father of two darling grandsons, lies in intensive care after surgery to replace a defective heart valve. For two years since diagnosis, we have known this time would come. We have watched his energy falter until he could no longer work, while the doctors monitored his condition, waiting for the time to be right. I so much admire Tim and my daughter for their fortitude and good sense facing this slow-building crisis, and how they have lovingly prepared their family for it. We are told his prognosis is good, and we pray that this will be so. But why, oh why, did our loving father God allow this suffering to fall on such a fine young man and his young family in what should be the prime of his life?

I cannot answer this question, perhaps the most difficult one there is; no more than anyone else can. It is clear that death and suffering go hand in hand with life and joy in this wonderful world we are a part of. CS Lewis suggests in his book The Problem of Pain that perhaps God could not have created one without the other: our freedom to respond to God’s outpouring love may depend upon it. Whatever the truth, we do know that Jesus shared our human suffering, and I believe he shows us how to make it holy.

The gardener knows that what seems like death in winter yields to new life in spring. The red leafless twigs of the limes in the alley already bear fat red buds. The daffodil bulbs I dug up by mistake already sprout white roots underground. And I know that Susanna’s beautifully tidied labyrinth beds will throw up another crop of annual weeds demanding yet more hoeing next year. The cycle of life and love will continue!