 The old picnic table we inherited when we moved in more than fifteen years ago served us again tonight--one last time--as the starter fuel for a fine bonfire. It had fulfilled its purpose. Andrew and I heaped debris on the fire, and with the table crackling and blazing beneath, we watched flames consume what was no longer of use: old rose canes and branches and half-burned logs, fruit tree trimmings and scraps of firewood too small for efficient use in our wood stove. We gathered around the fire again a few minutes ago, good intentions for roasting marshmallows in hand--only the marshmallows, fresh bought from the store, were somehow a homogenous gluey mass. Melissa harvested one glob and roasted it anyway, probably just to say we did. Amid the bright coals and dull ashes was a little piece of history--the residue of a rustic table and the memories of a job well done. The value of a thing is not in building monuments; it's not in preserving in dusty relics. Real value is very often simply the fulfillment of the purpose for which something is made. © Copyright May 2017 by Robert G. Robbins
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 The unison of a hundred voices joined in a single anthem may have greater power than a famous soloist, alone. That's the advantage of unity in a marriage, in a family, in a church. It's often less about one spectacular servant and more about the combined dynamism of many servants using their talents, however small, for the common good. It's often in this way, through many small means, that the Kingdom is furthest advanced and that the King receives the greatest honor. © Copyright May 2017 by Robert G. Robbins
 Tonight a southwest wind is rushing off the Salish Sea and across the flats we call home. The ropes tying up a giant rose bush groan and the power flickers. It's still warm, but there's a marine feeling to the air and ten thousand newborn leaves murmur and the hammock tosses between trees.
I went on a short run tonight and crossed paths with another runner, an older man in a sweaty tank-top, going in the opposite direction. "It's easier going that way," he puffed as he thudded by. I was a bit put off. I had just come UP a hill; he was preparing to go DOWN it. Then I thought about the wind at my back as I pressed east on Thornton Road--and the wind that was in his face as he plowed west. I had further reason to think about the wind after I turned around and started pushing my own way westward. Yes, it was downhill, but somehow I didn't experience the same exhilaration of expanded stride that I might have known. I was tired: Yes. It was the first time I had run in some time: True. But it was that breeze that took the final wind out of my sails. This was no gale, just a pulsing pressure that made every step a little harder. Leaves and needles littered the ground, too tender and too new to hold on in their first significant test. I turned the corner and headed north on North Star Road, the last lap toward home. My legs were still heavy, but the pressure was gone--I was running with the south wind, aided by what had been my foe moments before. Nothing had changed--nothing but my direction. In a nutshell, that's repentance: turning from my way to God's so that the Wind that once was against me now presses me home. As much as I incline to my own self-serving--as much as I enjoy pursuing my own--I'd rather go with God. © Copyright May 2017 by Robert G. Robbins |
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