Danny was having a bad day. The morning I met him he was sweeping the gutters outside the Prince Regent Hotel. Every 20 yards an impressive heap of rubbish to be shovelled into his bins and carted away. But most of it was green leaves and new twigs, ripped from the trees in the high winds of the previous night. He swept with determined anger, as if these leaves were each a personal offence. Our eyes met and I stopped to commiserate.."Don’t expect to be doing this in May… usually September before you have to sweep up leaves".
Took out his map, showed me the streets in highlighter pink that were his patch, then showed me the patches in fluorescent green where he was to help the next squad. Asked how he was supposed to get all this done? It didn’t seem like the time to tell him it was Pentecost week… you know the Holy Spirit…like the wind of God, blowing through the world. Nor the words of John Newton, Amazing Grace, in a storm every leaf (and snowflake) falls by the will of God at the appointed time and in the ordained place. Instead I said thanks for what he was doing…it was appreciated…made a difference, he was a bit embarrassed and said he wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t need the job. So he got stuck in again, tidying up the world, tackling the chaos, bringing order to those parts of the world he was responsible for, picked out in a couple of inches of fluorescent pink.
People who tidy up our world…You know how Genesis begins, "In the beginning…." Think of it, the Spirit of God as the wisdom and purpose of God tidying up the chaos, making sense of the messiness. Proverbs 8.30 refers to 'the craftsman at [the Lord's] side'. The one who takes raw material and the right tools, who works with skill, experience and flair so that something is manufactured, created, brought into being. And the Spirit delights every day, rejoicing in this whole world and delighting in human life. This is a view of God that is playful, the relaxed leisurely joy of the artist with her gifts in full flow. The Holy Spirit as God’s craftsman, God’s artist, working in the world.
It is this God who works in our lives. Proverbs 8 is about the wisdom of God. This is a view of the universe that has God at the centre. When you think of the God who watches over us think of one whose wise delight iImagined oceans into being, touched the depths of the earth to gush springs of life-giving water, settled the mountains in place like an interior designer arranging the furniture, spreading soil like fitted carpets, arranging the dust of the world, speck by speck. Tell that to Danny, whose two inches of fluorescent pink mean hours of back-breaking work.
But this is poetry, this is truth, deep truth about the world we live in and the life we live in the world.
‘ Earth’s crammed with heaven
and every common bush afire with God:/
but only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
And the deep truths are all here. The heavens set in place; the Lord rules the stars, and so the Lord, not the stars, rule our lives. The horizons are measured, all our possibilities fall within the wise love of God. The clouds are established, ‘Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread; are big with mercy and will break, in blessings on your head.’ We all have our clouds, those experiences that come between us and our happiness, the job we hate, the job we can’t get, the row that hurts, the illness that lays low, the depression that won’t lift, the lost chances that don’t come back, but they are part of life, and in the miracles of our lives this craftsman God can turn clouds to blessing.
The sea boundary is set and it can’t overstep God’s command…"when you pass through the waters they shall not overwhelm you"… "he marked out the foundations of the earth." Foundations give a structure its integrity, its durability, and the integrity and durability of God’s creation is in his hands. This isn’t science; it’s a way of looking at the world that sees beneath the surface, that senses God at work. All these words are work words, from architects and builders vocabulary. This is God at work. Set in place the heavens… marked out the horizon, established clouds, fixed the deep fountains, set the boundaries of the sea, measured out the foundations. The world isn’t a chaos and neither are our lives. John Newton knew perfectly well that he was exaggerating when he speaks of God ordaining the shape, the precision timing, and the exact location of each falling snowflake and every wind-driven leaf. But he was trying to find pictures for the grace that brings us safe thus far, and the grace that leads us home. Just as Proverbs is trying to give us pictures of a God who doesn’t leave us to our own devices, but who is working in us and through us, in the details and the dailiness of our lives
And if the wind blows, and the leaves fall, then still,in this vast mystery of generous creative yet sometimes fristrating and wounding place we call the world, God works at working things out, according to a purpose established in love deeper than thought.
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