EASTER REFLECTION
© By Rex A E Hunt. 2006.
I was standing.
There.
In what is now called the ‘old’ study.
In Down House.
Standing there.
Caught in absolute wonder and awe.
In silence.
Feeling its pulse.
Charles Darwin’s home.
Charles Darwin’s study.
A sanctuary
where professional standing and personal
integrity, were risked.
On the origins of species...
Out of the stars in their flight, out
of the dust of eternity, here
have we come,
Stardust and sunlight, mingling
through time and through space.
Out of the stars have we come,
up from time;
Out of the stars have we come.
Time out of time before time in
the vastness of space, earth
spun to orbit the sun,
Earth with the thunder of
mountains newborn, the boiling
of seas.
A sanctuary for a life’s work:
examining and re-examining the minutiae
of the natural world
day after day.
By a countryman at heart, who loved
the changing seasons
and to breathe the clean air...
Being with his son at the worm hole.
Listening to his wife play the grand pianoforte.
Letter writing.
Reflecting on life aboard the Beagle in the Galapagos.
Earth warmed by sun, lit by sunlight:
This is our home;
Out of the stars have we come.
Mystery hidden in mystery, back
through all time;
Mystery rising from rocks in the
storm and the sea.
Out of the stars, rising from
rocks and the sea,
kindled by sunlight on earth,
arose life.
A creative theorist.
A great speculator.
With a dream of a connected and re-imagined world...
A ‘tangled bank’ clothed with many
plants, with birds singing on the bushes,
with insects flitting about,
and with worms crawling through the damp earth.
Raw.
Beautiful.
Observable.
Ponder this thing in your heart;
ponder with awe:
Out of the sea to the land, out of
the shallows came ferns.
Out of the sea to the land, up
from darkness to light,
Rising to walk and to fly,
out of the sea trembled life.
Ponder this thing in your heart, life
up from sea:
Eyes to behold, throats to sing,
mates to love.
The fascinating ‘mystery of mysteries’...
Life from the sea, warmed by
sun, washed by rain,
life from within, giving birth,
rose to love.
This is the wonder of time; this is
the marvel of space; out of the
stars swung the earth; Iife upon
earth rose to love.
And I remember another authentic life.
A wisdom embedded
in seemingly innocuous observations
on the everyday world...
Stunning insights.
A dream of a re-imagined world...
Celebration rather than apocalyptic was its pulse.
Indiscriminate conviviality.
Seeing the world and other people for
what they are when viewed
through God’s eyes.
Acting on that perception.
Trusting.
Affirming.
Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Yet...
navigating the waters of others
expectations can be a threatening, dangerous
past-time.
Yet...
only fragments remain.
This is the marvel of life, rising
to see and to know;
Out of your heart, cry wonder:
sing that we live. “Out of the stars” by Robert Weston
Yet...
everything that exists,
in backyard worm holes, a neighbour’s pigeon loft,
the dryness and dust of an Australian climate, or around
the family dining table,
gives expression to this reality we call
‘God’.
Generosity of Being.
Naked Possibility.
Ground of Grace...
oo0oo
It’s Autumn.
Trees flaunt their colours to the sky.
It’s Easter.
The mystery of life is held for a while.