Sarah Starrenburg

This came out of an assignment I’ve been working on, an exegesis of Romans 13:1-7. Verse 1 and 2 are as follows -

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves”

_ _ _

Andrew hadn’t seen it for himself, but he had heard things. Things which his head wanted violently to disbelieve, and yet his heart heavily and quietly knew were probably true. One of his work colleagues hadn’t turned up last Thursday. His supervisor said he had gone to visit family in America. Yet on the drive home that day, Andrew swung by his workmate’s house, and saw that the front door was splintered, no longer able to be closed properly.

Not daring to slow down, his stomach churned as he drove the rest of the way home, to the townhouse he and his wife, Gina, had bought just after they married, almost five years ago now. It had been a good home – small, but space enough for just the two of them. Part of a group of six villas, they had quickly become great friends with some of the other couples, and though sometimes the thickness of the walls left a little to be desired, they had all managed to keep a good humour about it.

Now, however, those walls were the source of the roiling mass of fear and anxiety gnawing at his soul. Since the papers had started to talk of war, he hadn’t seen as much of Harry, the neighbour to their left. Once out almost every night playing sport and having a drink at the pub, Harry now did his drinking at home. And late into the night, Andrew could hear Harry’s discussions with his wife getting heated.

Andrew knew the laws were clear. He knew that the things he heard Harry saying would be considered subversive, and were supposed to be reported. Gina kept reminding him of just that fact. But could he really make that call, suspecting deep down that he might not be sending him to a detainment and trial, but to his death?

It was the birthday on the weekend of one of my long-standing girl friends.

I have a photo in a frame, which i keep on my dresser, of her and I and four other girlfriends, out to celebrate her birthday exactly five years ago.

I was looking at it tonight. Since it was taken that group of 6 girls has seen two weddings, 3 babies, and an uncountable number of house changes, career changes and hair changes.

And I feel so blessed, though there are now more new, wonderful girlfriends in my life who I treasure as well, that I still get to count all five of those girls in that frame among my very closest friends. So so blessed:)

xoxo

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,

Scribbling on the sky the message, He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves.

 

He was my North, my South, my East, my West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

 

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and dismantle the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

 

- ‘Funeral Blues’, W.H. Auden (1938)

 

Auden’s beautiful elegaic verse will for me be forever associated with Rememberance Day. It was read at a service when I was a child, I believe in honour of all the sweethearts who lost their soldier loves to the battlefields.

It is a moving yet sobering reminder to me each year. Brave men marched out to do battle for their country, their home and their loves. And brave women had to carry on without them. Some for a few years. Some for a lifetime. I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose the person who is your whole world, because they were trying to save it.

Lest we forget.

Tell me this doesn’t make you smile!!

In honour of 40 years of Sesame Street, one of their all time classic bits:) Surely everyone saw this growing up!

This is a story of a monk by the name of Telemachus. Telemachus was a dominionative man who lived amongst flowers and nurseries and reclusive settings.

One day the word of God came to him and told him to go to Rome. He did not want to go to Rome, he was not a city man; he despised the noise and the clanging, and the artificiality of city life. He wanted to live in his monastic reclused setting.

But God has strange ways. He raised Moses in a palace in order to use him in a desert, he raised Joseph in a desert in order to use him in a palace. He takes Telemachus out of a reclusive setting in order to use him in Rome.

Telemachus said ‘Okay God, if you want me to go, I’ll go. I don’t know why you want me to go, but I’ll go.”

As he is marching into the streets of Rome, he was quite overwhelmed by its monumental buildings, its spectacular edifices, the statues, marble sculptures and painting of man glorifying himself in self-worship.While walking into Rome he a saw huge crowd elbowing it’s way into the Colosseum. Telemechaus did not know where they were going but he was involuntarily dragged in by them and entered.

To his utter credulity as he sat in the bleachers there, he looked down and saw that what would that was going to entertain these sadistic masses was blood-letting orgies of hatred and sadism, as they were going to see the gladiatorial spectacles and fights; human beings tormenting and butchering one another.

He couldn’t believe it! As soon as the first sign of that violence was shown, in that huge amphitheatrical setting, he rose to his feet and screamed out “In the name of Christ, forebear! In the name of Christ, stop this thing!”

That amphitheatre had the ability to carry even a whisper to a marvellous crescendo of sound, and as he screamed, everybody heard him. He ran down the stairs, vaulted over into the centre arena, all the while shouting “in the name of Christ, stop this thing!”

He became a kind of innocent side show, and one man yelled from the stands, “Run him through!” A muscle-bound gladiator heaved him away, took his spear and thrust it through the body of Telemachus. As he bent over, clutching himself, the blood spilling out of his body and moments away from his death, the crowd now listening carefully, he speaks audibly once more for everyone to hear: “In the name of Christ, stop this thing.”

There was silence; then one man stood up and walked out. Then two; then three; then the thousands until everybody had left the Colosseum; they were gone.

The historian writes this: “Many other factors were brought to bear, but the death of Telemachus crystallised the opposition so that never again was there a gladiatorial fight, ever fought in the Colesseum.”

 

- Ravi Zacharius, ‘Is There Not a Cost’

I get lost.

A lot.

Take this afternoon, for instance.

I got on the bus, print out of necessary bus/train travel combination in hand – route numbers, location of stops, times, the lot.

So I get on the bus.

Then I get confused as to where to get off the bus.

Eventually I realise I am the only person remaining on the bus.

And I now have no idea where to get off.

I see bus driver looking at me in his big rearview mirror.

I decide to come clean.

‘Hi…’ – I confess my lostness.

Driver, being extraordinary kind and taking pity on my directionless self, offers to drop me off where I need to go, even though it’s not on his route. God bless kind bus driver man.

Others might find this unnerving, but I have come to accept my complete and utter lack of an internal sense of direction.

I have gotten lost trying to park – once ending up kilometres away and up the top of a mountain instead of in a carpark…

I regularly get lost trying to leave large carparks, once circling around the ground floor approximately five times trying to find the exit…

I get lost walking, driving, catching public transport…It really doesn’t matter where or how, I will find a way to get turned around and heading in the wrong direction.

And it doesn’t matter how hard I try to study the map – it just doesn’t sink in. There is no little gut sense nudging me in the right direction.

An incredibly optimistic guy friend with completely unfounded faith in my ability to learn how to sense direction once tried to teach me how to navigate by the sun:) He was so sincere too:)

I once missed a musical I had free tickets to because there was a detour on my usual route to the theatre  - It threw me so much I couldn’t get headed back in the right direction in time, and eventually I had to admit that there was no way I was going to make the curtain. Instead, however, I ended up on a street I’d never been and discovered the most amazing hot chocolate at a cafe I didn’t know existed. I ended up having a very special night having wonderfully memorable conversation and delicious hot beverages with the person I was with.

Because when you live a life which could at any moment veer off into completely unplanned territory, you learn that unplanned adventures can always be just around the corner:)

…you also learn to leave a lot of extra travel time…;p