Walk the line

I had this dream last night of four young people walking along a rope that spanned the Thames, near to the Palace of Westminster.

It was an interesting metaphorical contrast, for the houses of parliament are the quintessential symbol of solid, enduring government and the stability of that great nation, whereas the youngsters on their rope were dicing with death.

It was a prophetic dream and I will interpret it accordingly. 

The picture attached to this post probably says it all more eloquently than I ever could, but well let me have my say anyway.

The institutions that have so long been at the cornerstone of peace and security may well be walking their own tightrope. Compromise and the blurring of values, has left the citadels of power in a vulnerable place.

A distant relative once tried to blow up the house with Guy Fawkes. If he wasn’t out of his mind before that, he was when they caught up with him. Fortunately, I am not descended from him or I wouldn’t be here …

Before that, a well-used battle tactic was to avoid a direct assault on a city’s walls, by undermining its walls. The raiders would then prop up the walls with wooden posts, which they would surround with fuel and then set on fire. The walls, by then no longer supported by their foundations but by the substitute posts then collapsed in the fire to breach the defenses.

Germany once tried a frontal assault on London and pounded it with bombs, but what they could not destroy was the human resolve.

A reporter shared a breakfast table with his host’s family, in a London B & B, when they all heard the engine of a flying bomb cut, followed by the whistle of its fall.  He witnessed the unmoving silence around the table until it exploded somewhere else and the resumption of chatter that followed, to which he proclaimed, “Then I knew there would always be an England”.

A de-feathered parrot found in a house that did take a hit, showed his British stiff upper lip by whistling like a doodlebug.

Today, using a more subtle, undermining approach, the greatest symbols of western stability are being eroded at their moral foundations. They are no longer on solid ground, but walking the wire.

Another group is emerging. Survivors. They gladly walk the wire, living off grid and in community, insulated from the crises pelting the world all around us.  They may have started out by using their frontal lobes to walk that fine-line, consciously. However, my dream portrayed people who so adapted to that kind of lifestyle that it became second nature stuff.

They were able to sit, lean out, jump and dance along the wire with no thought about the risks of falling off. What a contrast to the once-safe place in the background. They were on surer ground, fully adapted to a marginal existence and happy to be so.

I see the church as a people on the wire. Our reliance on the systems of this life will fade, as we focus not on what is around us but what is ahead, where our forerunner has gone. Every tightrope walker will tell you, the trick is to look ahead, not around you.

The church will also survive by looking ahead, to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith - as we rely on the tension of a rope that extends into the throne of God (Hebrews 6:19-20).

(c) Peter Missing: bethelstone@gmail.com