Ships and the Sea

I (Heather) have always loved metaphor and narrative and symbolism, and that is often how God communicates with me, particularly at the moment through images of ships and the sea. Although I grew up six miles from the Moray Firth, most of what I know comes from books and the media. The picture I had at our first open meeting in June was as follows:

I had a picture of a powerful sailing ship on swelling sea – not bright but a bit overcast – I asked for more and got the sense that it was like the Dawn Treader, the name being symbolic of the light of Christ, that they went off the map and brought light into darkness, discovered some strange lands and strategies, and ended up transforming the islands and writing the new map for others to follow. They did not have a large crew, and yet they brought freedom to many, many people!

I have gone back and am now re-reading the novel for the third time. How did C. S. Lewis get so much truth in there? I am just drinking it in, like the sweet water they find at the shore of Aslan’s country – beautiful!

Moving to another genre completely, the next Sunday we had a number of words and pictures on the same them from the folks at The Rock. God has such a sense of humour – one was about the Starship Enterprise, and of course we’d been to see the recent film, but for me the influence of my dad, who had every episode of all the series playing constantly in our house as I grew up, gave this such a depth and richness, as well as making me laugh. We want to pioneer, to seek out the new things God is doing, to enjoy the adventure into the unknown…