September 2010

Dear friends,
It’s been a funny kind of summer…these last weeks, never knowing what to expect weather wise… You fairly appreciate a day of sun when you get one, but you don’t go taking it for granted. In the course of 30 minutes the other afternoon, driving home from Forfar up the A90, I passed through torrential rain, then humid sunshine, and watched a beautiful rainbow, arching across Brechin. I wished I’d brought my camera.
Rainbows are special for many of us: these mysteriously shimmering arcs of light that suddenly remind us of God’s promise. ‘I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth’ God tells Noah in Genesis 9:13.
And then we read a bit further: ‘and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.’ (15b)
It’s the tough bits in the Bible that really make you think. Some of the floods we’ve seen on the TV from Pakistan seem Biblical in their proportions….harvests gone, families living up trees or waiting for rescue on tiny pockets of land. Millions of people have been affected by the floods and what infrastructure they had is gone, though, thank God, not ‘all flesh.’ But where will they all go, those displaced folk, numbering many more than the entire population of Scotland?
We’ve been hearing a very clear message from the Gospel of Luke over the summer, backed up by words from the prophets. ‘Seek justice: and rescue the oppressed.’ (Isaiah 1:17).
What can we do, when faced with the world’s poorest people in such straits? We are generous when it comes to donating, but it’s harder to make a connection between the way we live our lives here and the climate change effects that can result in such extreme weather conditions, that endanger so much of our global resources, and threaten the word’s food supplies.
It’s been said that there are only two basic impulses, either to grasp or to give. Pray that our community and church will always be welcoming of those in need, reaching outwards, sharing our privileges and blessings, seeking justice and opportunity for everyone.

‘ I trace the rainbow through the rain
And know your promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.’ (CH4 557)

God be with you,           
Jane