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Diversity and Freedom

I am slowly learning new things about God; about myself; and about my relationship with Him and with others.

God is a God of diversity; a God who loves diversity. If we consider the godhead, the Trinity, we see that perfection comes in three distinct, different, forms - Father, Son and Spirit, bound together as one in mutual love and support. 

When we look at creation, we see diversity. I've often wanted to include a couple of my photos of dragonflies in this blog - this is my chance. The first is a Common Darter (sympetrum striolatum); the second is a Ruddy Darter (sympetrum sanguineum). 

CommonDarterS

They are similar - superficially so similar that, the first time I saw the latter, it took time before I realised that it was a different species (it's much easier, believe me, to see the differences in photos than it is in 'real life'). Their behaviour, food, habitat, are similar - though in the U.K., the Ruddy Darter isn't found as far North as the Common Darter. Each individual in each species is subtly different too. Each has different life experiences too - as can often be seen by the 'wear and tear' to their wings. 

Mystery

This week has been a bit tough. We've had some stressful situations to deal with in the family, which I often end up feeling as though I’m 'carrying'. And it was Charlie's birthday on Sunday (Charlie was stillborn on 13/11/1993). Some years, Charlie's birthday passes almost unnoticed; other years, something occurs which brings back the grief. Often, the years when it passes most smoothly are the years when I'm expecting it to be tough, and vice versa; this year, with life in general having become so good (thanks be to God), I expected to sail through it with barely a ripple. How wrong can one be? So, this week, I am, uncharacteristically for 2016, struggling a bit. But in one sense struggle is good - in that it provides a necessary contrast; a counterpoint which helps one appreciate the good all the more.

I have been neglecting this blog. Actually, that's not true... I have written lots of things for this blog; I just haven't published them. I've written them, and then found that though they helped clarify my own thinking, they weren't suitable for publication. Often that was because whatever I'd been thinking about was complicated, and I found it hard to write a coherent 'narrative' in a 'bloggable' number of words. Other times, what I'd been thinking about simply didn't seem like the sort of thing that would be enlightening or useful to others. And some of it was simply confusing... Reading it back through, even I'm not sure what I was trying to say - or why!

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