Haumoana, looking towards Cape Kidnappers
At Haumoana, it appears the sea is winning the arm wrestle for dominance over the land. Tectonic forces may cause a bit of uplift, but the tides and wind are doing their best to cancel that out. People think they can build permanent structures here, but nature dictates that at best our structures are temporary, they are merely interim resting places.
I think sometimes of the great cathedral of Notre Dame in the heart of Paris, brought down by a simple electrical fault resulting in a catastrophic fire. A testament to and wonder of religious architecture reduced to a smoking ruin. The seemingly permanent, rendered temporary.
Human lives, like human structures, are interim arrangements. Psalm 103 soberly observes;
As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
Yet, as we regard our own interim and temporary nature, and the ever-changing, re-negotiated structure of our lives, we can experience not only beauty, but the very presence of, and relationship with - God.
The battered, yet hopeful sea wall of the holiday home at Haumoana reminded me of this. Obviously knocked around by the elements and the passing of time, there was still the presence of beauty and evidence of God's creative love. We live in an amazing world.
The psalmist does not leave us with our status as withered grass however, but adds;
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
May you experience and know deeply the loving presence of God in the interim.