Jackdaw

Jackdaw                           Word on the week                                25th May 2024.

Now with the warmer weather the hens are being fed outside.   Their trough is an old metal rain gutter stuck into half a hollow concrete block.   The hens are untidy eaters so the Jackdaws who are waiting nearby are on the alert.

As they see me approach with the bucket of hen pellets they venture close with loud “Chaks” to announce their presence.   They know that there are only a few moments of grace before I open the henhouse and the hungry hens race to the trough.

It’s no contest!   The Jackdaws withdraw to appraise the situation from the hen-run wall.    They are normally in pairs as they mate for life.  They also use the same nest year after year.  

The nest can be in a tree crevice, or an unused house chimney.    Some nest in the wall of an old building in the farmyard.   In my youth we lived near sea cliffs which were topped with layers of heavy red clay.   The clay was a favourite place for rabbits to burrow.   Any disused hole was soon taken over by Jackdaws who lost no time in furnishing it with short sticks and moss.

Occasionally we would find an injured bird and take it home for some TLC.  Their claws would catch your fingers in a vice-like grip.   Gloves were essential, although not always available, for handling them.   It is with these claws that they satisfied their predilection for shiny things.   Rings and something as large as a teaspoon could be carried off to their nest.

The Jackdaws themselves are the smallest of the crow family.    Their plumage is charcoal with a grey nape.   The forehead, chin and beak are jet-black.   Their eyes are pale and stare slightly unnervingly at you!

They come from a family of birds known for their intelligence.   The largest, the Raven, is mentioned in the Bible.   The bird was used by God to feed Elijah during his three-year exile when there was famine in the land (1 Kings 17 verses 1 to 6).  

The faithfulness of the Jackdaws to each other is but a pale reflection of the faithfulness of God in honouring all his promises (Psalm 145 verses 17 to 19).

The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and faithful in all he does.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
    he hears their cry and saves them.                                                    

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10 verse 13).

Marriage Joy

Marriage Joy                    Word on the Week                     18th May 2024.

There is nothing like a family wedding to release an outpouring of wedding joy! The clans are gathering, crossing the ocean, flying in at various times all to be there for the Big Day.   Those on this side of the Atlantic feel they are in Philadelphia as a result of the stream of pre wedding photographs arriving in our smartphones!   The joy is infectious! 

Marriage is the vehicle God has provided to convert this wedding joy into a lifelong love relationship (Genesis 2 verse 24).   A new level of bonding takes place, initially to counteract loneliness (verse 18) then flowing out into a lifelong covenant of companionship.

This realisation came to me rather late.   Believe it or not it was when I was kneeling with Betty at my side in the front of the church that the momentous nature of the covenant struck home!   This was no contract dependent on the feelings of those involved as to whether it lasts or lapses.  

This was vows taken before God and in the presence of his people to love and serve one another as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her.  These vows have a permanent ring to them embodied in the phrase “till God do us part”.   This happened, by God’s grace, and Betty’s patience, 63 years ago!

The joy of the marriage day needs to be captured for the long haul!   It cannot be bottled for the future but it can be new every day for the believer (Lamentations 3 verses 21/3).   Where Christ is in the heart the troubles of this life can be conquered at the cross where forgiveness is to be found and mutual love nourished (2 Corinthians 5 verses 17/8).

Children are gifts from God and bring their own Joy with them (Psalm 127 verses 3/5).   They make a couple into a family and are the bedrock of society.   Today the culture tends to oppose Marriage.   It promotes a promiscuous lifestyle with children being looked after by the State.  

The Church is God’s remedy to this where it proclaims Christ, his earthly life, death for repentant sinners and resurrection to eternal life.    Faith in His work changes people from being self-centred to Christ-centered maintaining the love and joy of Jesus in our culture today.

May the Joy of Jesus enter every Christian Marriage and remain there.  Put the old acrostic into effect: – J=Jesus, O=Others, Y=Yourself.   The joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8 verse 10).  

Bodies as Beacons

Bodies as Beacons                    Word on the Week                    11th May 2024.

The practice of body art has had a field day.   In fact, some are so adorned that there is no more space left!    Perhaps a new level of grotesque has been reached in our entry to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Our competitor, Bambie Ray Robinson, sings under the name Bambie Thug. The song, Doomsday Blues, seems to have gone through a number of versions.   The current one depends more on the performance of the singer than the power of the lyrics.

Like everything associated with Doomsday it is full of dark imagery.   Bambie takes on the guise of a witch, or as one writer has put it, she is Irelands ‘Goth, Gremlin and Goblin’.    The song makes use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ which is repeated frequently.   The voice ascends into a scream which earns it a unique spot amongst the other entries.

Eurovision has become increasingly political over the years.   Originally points were awarded based on the performance of the song.   In those days Ireland did well with songs such as ‘The Voice’ with singer Eimear Quinn “.   Then Eastern European countries joined and tended to vote for each other!

More recently the performers have gone in for political point scoring so that Robertson has her body painted with words which translate to ‘Ceasefire and Freedom’.   This referred to the Gaza war and was picked up by Social Media.  The European Broadcasting Union immediately banned it and Robertson washed it off!   However, the damage was done and the message went viral!

Robinson’s practice of neopagan witchcraft makes her well suited to sing Doomsday Blues.   The performance is heavily influenced by her acting of pagan rituals in a darkened stage with only a couple of male props as back-up.

Apparently Robinson is said to have done blood magic.  This involves using her own blood.   Her witchcraft has influenced her songs both in writing and performing them, making her somewhat unique in an event where it is hard to be original.

It couldn’t be further removed from the blood of sacrifice used in Scripture.   In the Bible the blood had to be from a perfect offering which was substituted in place of the sinner (1 Peter 1:18/9).    Jesus Christ was himself the sacrifice enabling the sinner who believes in him to go free from witchcraft and other pagan practices (1 John 3 verse 8).

The believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, a beacon of light as opposed to darkness (1 Corinthians 6 verses 19 to 20).

People as Pawns

People as Pawns                    Word on the Week                        4th May 2024.

‘The Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed. He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing.  So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt’ (Deuteronomy 10 verses 17 -19).

Or, these days, the US of A!    Once uprooted from ‘home and hearth’, in unfamiliar surroundings and in an alien culture, the refugee is dependent, to a large extent, on the people of the land where he has sought refuge.  

If the land is Ireland and he is a recent arrival, he may be excused for wondering where the Ireland of the 100,000 welcomes has gone.  Perhaps used by the 100,000 immigrants who have arrived here to date. Male refugees were met with tents which they pitched outside the Government Immigration Offices!    Food is supplied but water and toilets they would have to search for!

And in their searching they discovered the regular charity food sources in the city including The Lighthouse in Pearse Street, a Christian run centre supplying food and clothing to the needy.   At its busiest they were coping with 500 clients daily.

The authorities moved in to the tent camp early Wednesday morning and dismantled the tents loading them onto trucks and erecting barriers to prevent a return to the site.   They transported 290 men outside Dublin to the hotel at City West where they are to remain till their case is dealt with.   Additional staff have been assigned to the International Protection Office where they are trying to cope with a backlog of applications amounting to 20,000 at present!

There has been some hostility to the refugees.   Some properties designated to house them have been destroyed by fire.   Another tactic has been to try to intimidate the politicians involved in immigration by appearing in large numbers outside their private houses.   The positions of the immigrant and the anti-immigrant have never been further apart.

It was the same story in Ephesus.   The Apostle Paul found the Jew/Gentile conflict, as of now, created divisions.   These were healed by the preaching of the Good News that Christ had made a way by his blood shed on the cross both could have their sins forgiven and be reconciled to God and each other (Ephesians 2 verses 13 – 21).

Pawns have rights!   In chess they advance in a straight line.   They can also be changed to a more versatile piece when they reach their full potential!

Coming to faith in Christ is a surer way to realise it!