Thrum Thursday

Thrum – the end of warp which is not woven but remains on the loom when the woven fabric has been cut free.

While we were at the beach I started reading Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light. For some reason, I read the first few chapters and then put it down. It was a really good read, though, and I plan to finish it. Not sure why I stopped.

In chapter three, “Lanterns at Sea”, there was a lot of information about whaling in the 1800’s. Two sentences planted themselves firmly in my head and and I haven’t been able to get them out since. That’s what Thrum Thursday is all about…. taking those little loose bits of thread left on the loom and seeing what you can make of them….

So, here are those two sentences:

”Whales have always inexplicably beached themselves, and once out of their element, they can’t survive for long. Exposed fully to the sun, their skin burns, and they are crushed by their own weight.” (pg. 38)

It was the thought of the whales being “crushed by their own weight” that captured me. In the water, everything is fine. The water buoys up their bulk and blankets their skin from the scorching sun. But “once out of their element” the whale’s body betrays her and she dies – suffocating under her own weight while being slowly roasted to death by the sun.

And this is where my mind has been lingering…. Like water is to the whale, what is my “element” without which I cannot live? Why do I sometimes “inexplicably” remove myself from where I can thrive and be well? And then go to a place where there is the potential for self-destruction?

There are many things I consider “my element”:

Being vulnerable and real with my husband and children. 
Being in relationship with other people.
Being able to give myself space to create in one way or another.

But mainly, after living some 42 odd years, I’ve found for certain that my most basic, most needful “element” is God. I have been made, I have been created, to commune with Him, to worship Him, to live in right relationship to Him as the created adoring the Creator.

And when I’m not? When I start hauling myself out of the safety and comfort of His waters? I find the very weight of myself too heavy to bear. Without seeking God everyday, without reading His Word, being with His people, worshipping at the foot of His Cross, I am unprotected from the scorching rays of this dry world, and I begin to shrivel and melt within myself.

But when – as always because He will never, ever leave me or forsake me – I turn back to Him and sink into that wonderful, mysterious, unfathomable depth that is God, then all the other things (love, relationship, and creativity) click back into place.

My “element” is simply Christ. Without Him I cannot survive.    

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
(~Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing)

He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (~the Apostle Paul to the saints in Colosse)

Blessings, bloggy friends.