Last week I bought a jigsaw of the Grand Canyon from my favourite charity shop. The sticker next to the price tag, informed me that it was complete. I've now begun to piece it together.
As I looked at the magnificent contours of this great national park my mind went from the macro to the micro; from the canyon to the communal compost heap where I have been barrowing out the lovely stuff.
Like the canyon, our compost heap is arranged in strata. At the top is a matted mass of grass and other vegetation, still in the process of decomposition. Further down is a layer of dry-ish, russet coloured, strawy stuff. Particles of fine soil fall from this in little cascades whenever I hit it with the spade.
But lower down is the compacted treasure waiting to be dug out - dark and rich. Real compost.
Buried among the strata are evidences of human and animal activity. I will not detain you with the human stuff. Sufficient to say that despite the optimism of fellow allotmenteers, it will not break down. The biodegredable is mainly yellow and brown snail shells, empty, delicate and easily crushed. There is also plenty of invertebrate life busily digesting the vegetation: writhing worms towards the top of the heap, and centipedes and woodlice scurrying to the crevices for shelter .
So I imagine asking a sentient centipede - how long has this been here? Millennia in insect memory, it replies. Yet I remember how it was before. The first heap we dug out completely when we arrived here, before starting afresh in the empty hole - packing in weeds, vine branches, carrot tops, piling it high and then waiting until the right time to start all over again.
I might have the picture, but when I cannot see God as Creator, it's like trying to fit the pieces of an incomplete jigsaw. God said to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 38:4)
