More Ponderings

My day of reflection yesterday was fruitful. In the morning I wrote a 1^st draft of a sermon for the Harvest Festival at South District Church – and yes- I included my issue about water as a part of the celebration and hope we can bring with the stewardship of God’s good gift.

Then I went to the beach to paint. After some searching along the west coast of the island, I found an interesting local park south of Holetown. It was called Bat Rock Beach and it was under some degree of rehabilitation because of some of the old structures. The surf was just pounding for it had been very windy that morning. With the tall waves came the surfers – tourists and locals. They were intriguing to watch playing in the thundering caps and obviously enjoying the sport. I sat by a low coral rock wall on the clean sand and soaked it all in. But it was the rocks that eventually pulled my attention more and more. I became struck by the relationship between the people and the rock upon which they live. When housing is the topic, it finds expression as “owning a piece of the rock”. When construction is underway, it’s all about manipulating the rock. When the surf curls on the ocean, it is because of the coral reef that edges the island of coral. When I leaned against that coral rock wall, it seemed like I leaned into a spirit and I began to sense the people themselves – porous like the rock they live on.

Perhaps I glorify this sense of the spirit. Perhaps I juxtapose my imaginings of what it must have been like historically to work this land on the rock – cutting cane by hand like the slaves had to do and digging crypts and foundations for churches where there was only rock. Maybe I glorify things or perhaps I sense something of the fragile life upon this rock. And every day, the water pounds away at it and transforms it.

What Spirit will these people need? From where will their visions come? Where will their hope find fertile ground? Living as a developing nation with a relatively short history of independence, the fruits of their first visions, hopes and spirit as a free people, these fruits are seen in their universal health, education and social networks. Yet, the tides are pounding the whole global community. Global warming, for example has a particular reality for this little island like it does for all coastal communities around the world. Yet, Barbados also has the 3^rd least amount of fresh water per land area in the world – add to this a history of decimating the landscape in order to grow sugar cane for export to colonial powers and the more recent effects of massive urbanization in response to the tourism industry and its consumption of water and Barbados is struggling with desertification.

Throughout the world, the voices of the silenced ones scream as they try to protect the old lands while many of the inhabitants of our communal home consume our very home for profit. Living in our new Empire with its monopoly of economics and cultural, we threaten the diversity and tolerance that has been built up by the people of this island. If I can just glimpse how this rock called Barbados responds to their ongoing struggles, what hopes and visions they lift up to the winds, then my time here will be a real gift. I wonder what I have to shed from my own being so that I can glimpse these things?

Blessings - come again!