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.
