Month: January 2025

My beautiful black lab stood in the snow staring off into the forest.  The moon was casting magnificent gray shadows across the reflective white floor.  She was trembling.  It was not fear.  Her hackles were not raised.  This was different.  The coyotes were calling from the treed mountain.  She looked at me and then looking into the night she moved a step forward.  Again she looked at me with a longing.  She wanted to go to them.  There was something primal moving her memory of being free to run and explore with her far removed cousins.  Taking yet another step forward she paused and when I said her name she turned back to me.  As we reentered the house she looked back to the trees.  She wanted to go.  It was only her love for me that restrained her.

She is not unlike us, who have primal memories of Eden.  We visit beautiful gardens laden with flowers and all manner of flora and there is an inner pull, an unsettled urge to want to live forever in such beauty.   Was it really so long ago that Eve and Adam tended God’s artistry? There are many layers of consciousness in our magnificent minds and deep inside there is a draw to go home.  How often must Adam have taken Abel, Seth and Cain to the gate of Eden and spoke to them of the beauty inside.

How grand that we have a way to satisfy this longing for eternal life in a paradise of God’s making.  Unlike my lab that resisted the call for her love for me we can respond with a yes to our call.  Our love for the One who formed us has made our entrance available. All we need is to say yes.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 20, 2015

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We have almost three feet of snow in our yard with another foot coming tonight and tomorrow.  That does not take into account the ten foot high mountain of snow at the end of the driveway pushed there by a nice man with a pickup truck.  The path from the driveway to a front door of the house is only as wide as our snow blower.  I traced a way in and then backed the blower out.   The problem is the dog.  The only place available to her needs is that narrow path.  The sides of the path are higher than she is tall.  Her problem is if she cares for her needs facing away from the house she can’t get back.   Her mess blocks her out because she will not tread over it to return home.

As I watch her dilemma from the front window I think of Adam and Eve blocked from the Garden entrance by the mess they made.  Just as they could see the Garden, my dog can see the house but the way is blocked.  It’s a common life theme.  People lose out on something good because of something they have done.   Jobs are lost.  Marriages are ruined.  Relationships are spoiled.  The list is as long as history.

I can intervene.  I can go out with a shovel and help my dog come home.  As for mankind the only way home was for God to intervene.  Because of the magnitude of the crisis the solution was much worse than my getting a shovel.  Jesus came and rescued us by way of the cross, which is by far the worst mess ever made by mankind and the best ever rescue by God.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 9, 2015

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My woods are deeply asleep beneath winter’s heavy white cover.  There are no rabbit tracks, no sign of chipmunks or disruptions in the scape indicating an owl’s early morning breakfast.  Only a handful of oak leaves are left clinging to their summer perches. The bones of the oaks, maples and birches are beautiful etched across a gray winter sky.  It’s a short menu, if any, for the coyotes, bears and foxes.

I wonder about the chipmunks living in dark tunnels and rooms stored with seed from my bird feeders.  During the summer months I watched them figure out how to harvest from the squirrel proof feeders. (There is no such thing.)  They would stuff their cheeks and disappear into the cracks at the edge of the patio and quickly return for another load.  I have a lot invested in those underground pantries.

In Matthew 25 and other places Jesus speaks of preparing for the future.  If we live long enough winter will come for us.  No one is immune.  We will be required to call upon the resources we have stashed away in easier times.  In Psalm 119:12 we read, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”  If there is any correlation between the ease of winter and the amount of seed carried away my chipmunks will have an easy winter.   We can ease the intensity of winter when it comes by storing up Scripture.  “Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil….Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  These promises are real and sure. It is a matter of preparing for winter.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 30, 2015

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