Tag: water

Creating Encounter in Colour: Rainbow Trout

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Building Lakelight, Creating EncounterLeave a comment

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Speckled rainbow breathing water and knowing better than we do how to let it flow, gills gently moving in and out. Skin that reminds me of the surface of puddles settled under cars, driven off and leaving swathes of oily colour. Did God paint you to remind us of his promises, made to all life, no exceptions? Or have you just absorbed so much of the spectrum in your swim, bathing in pools kissed by sunlight, that it cannot help but ooze out?

Gliding in places we cannot find, secret eddies and glittering ponds fringed with the long tears of the willow that tinge and tickle your spotted hide with olive green, you spend your days gilded by mystery. You flick your fronded tail at disgruntled anglers, speeding past them with your raspberry stripes, making me glad we are now fishers of people, and can let you wend your rivery way onwards, supple and gleaming.

© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt  Photo from Pixabay

Creating Encounter in Colour: Lilac Lake

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Building Lakelight, Creating EncounterLeave a comment

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Dewy pearls sit smoking on the grass in the misty morning light. Each one catches a piece of dawn’s lavender lustre  that smiles through tears. The nearly-Spring trumpets in clusters of crocus, each one a saffron-centred pale amethyst, royal resurrection reminders.  Here and there, the pretenders to purple, the soft lilacs of thistle and artichoke, the tips of clover, and the waving flowers of chives, bring their gentle song to the chorus of colour.

There is a pinkly light settling over the waters of the lake, letting us know it is the time for prayer, and we get up and wade out until the heaviness of water makes us start to curl up and fall down, diving without effort into our embryonic selves, able, in the weak light, to float between two worlds, breathe bubbles and watch the birds and butterflies swoop through the holy water.

 

Text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt  Composite art by R R Wyatt  © used with permission.

Creating Encounter in Colour: Blue Pool

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Building Lakelight, Creating EncounterLeave a comment

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Come lay yourself down on this lilo of leisure, close your screen-weary eyes and float to somewhere lostly deep. The pool is azure punctured with zaps of lightning sun, refracted zig zags of gold lapping at the lapis lazuli tiles. All is Mediterranean wonder and bright cobalt ceramic.

Feel the celestial coolness below you, imagine how the floor of heaven must feel to feet of bronze coming home after walking the earth on a summer’s day. Let your soul right itself, a Spirit levelled horizontally as you recalibrate your centre and plumb the depths in your mind’s eye. All other measuring can be released as the foolishness it is, attention given to cool turquoise surrounding you with softly undulating mammatus clouds of water, ripples kissing your sun-drenched skin and imparting life to arid places.

text © K Dibbens-Wyatt  Photo from Pixabay

Creating Encounter: In the Bathtub

On By Keren Dibbens-WyattIn Building Lakelight, Creating Encounter4 Comments

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If we can welcome God into anything at all, can we even ask him into mundane things like bathing and showering? I believe we can.  It’s not that long since Maundy Thursday, when we remember Jesus washing the Disciples’ feet. Many churches and Christian bodies choose to commemorate this act of love by having the priests or ministers do the same for members of their congregation or the local community. But this act of Jesus, done on the same night as those feet would, in almost all cases, run away and even betray him, is also an act of cleansing and of grace.

Jesus knew what was going to happen. He had tried to explain it many times to his followers. Still he chose to symbolically show this band of men that his servant heart could reach down even to touch and minister to their dusty smelly feet, and if that was possible, then maybe their Lord and ours might even condescend willingly to cleanse our dirty but contrite souls.

Washing for me has been an exhausting and difficult business since I got ill over twenty years ago. I’ve not been able to bathe myself or wash my own hair since my last relapse over two years ago, and so I have to rely on my husband to do it for me. We have a system that’s working okay, and a bath cushion from social services that can lift me in and out when I am too weak to even do that. It is hard to have no independence in any area, but this one is particularly galling.

I used to enjoy a long hot bubble bath, or, back when I could stand for long enough (before I was ill) an invigorating power shower. I would love to be able to do those things again, unaided, and feel really clean and fresh every day. If I could, I don’t think it would be something I’d ever take for granted, much as anyone who has had to live without running water could also make gratitude a great part of their ablutions.

As it is, love washes me. Love patiently helps me in and out, washes me gently, dries me with care. I am blessed to have someone love me in this helpless state, and to do so without any hint of pity. Vulnerability and dependence both generate a deep humility and gratitude. Every time, it reminds me of the kind of love that God administers to us by his grace and I am so thankful. Yes, it is difficult, and yes, I pray beforehand that we will be helped, because it is so exhausting and I always feel nauseated by the physical effort and hot water, but because each time an uncomplaining kindness is extended to me, this too is made an encounter with our loving God.

Text © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt Photo from Pixabay