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Good Morning

However often I pass that same way, I am always taken unawares by their sheer loveliness.

The Kelpies are two massive horses’ heads, forged out of thin, stainless steel plates. They were built on land near the Forth and Clyde canal by the sculptor, Andy Scott.  The two heads rear straight out of the ground, 30 metres into the sky, twisting and turning in opposite directions.   I see them when I’m driving along the motorway, and each time, without warning, they appear - massively and gloriously.  A gleaming, soaring vision which makes me catch my breath.  

We are surprised by joy.  These moments can happen anywhere, at any time.  On mountaintops, or in a quiet, ordinary act.  For instance: there’s a point near the end of cooking porridge, when it’s just barely simmering.  Slowly, slowly, little skins of air begin to swell on the surface; they rise, and rise, and then they pop with a sigh, and subside. Every time I watch it, I’m seized by a longing for my father – and he is there, in heart and memory.  He used to come and stand beside the cooker, because he loved that moment when the porridge was bubbling and hissing: it reminded him of hot springs in his homeland of Iceland.  And in that moment I see him there again, standing beside the scalding pools, wreathed in steam and the smell of sulphur. 

There are moments when the present hovers, stops.   And for an instant, we’re released from time.  Before the bubble bursts, we’re freed from regret or anxiety That is joy; that is wonder.

Creator God who undoes Time; who is both now, and forever; you are the beauty, memory and love which surprises.  Amen