Kenilworth and Seasons

A few days ago we had one of those magic winter mornings, the beginning of a perfect Queensland winter’s day. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and the air was still and sparkling.  As I hung out the washing, enjoying the excuse to be out of doors, I was reminded of Kenilworth in winter.

On a day like this one, I’d often walk along the Obi Obi Road, basking in the sunshine, feasting my eyes on the patchwork of green and brown paddocks, breathing deeply the clear, cool air.

I remember one day the air was so still I stood for a while in one spot, all but holding my breath so I wouldn’t break the stillness and silence. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath. Then a tiny rustle and twitter in the grasses beside the road. As quietly as I could, I peered into the grass.  A minute finch, red-breasted, hopped about in the winter-brown long stalks of grass. 

When I returned to the Homestead, I sat on the slope and gazed at the river. Its high mud banks on the other side were carved and sculpted into smooth curves and shapes. I thought about how peaceful the banks looked now, and how the wonderfully twisted shapes had been formed by the violence of the river in flood. That small silver thread of water below me, in wet seasons, swelled into a turbulent brown mass of water, surging and swirling along, gouging chunks out of the banks. 

“The river took part of the paddock across the way and dumped the silt onto our bottom paddock,” Jim told me. I remembered the eerie brown moonscape after the flood. That bend in the river never did look the same.

 

Times of change. Nature has seasons. So do our lives, many of our seasons ordained, I believe, by God. 

I’m thankful for seasons of peace and fruitfulness behind me and ahead as waves of change lap around me and buffet me. 

I think again of the breathless stillness and beauty of the Obi Obi Valley. 

“Be still and know that I am God. “ (Ps 46 :10) whispers through the silence.