When the wildcat brews coffee

The Malagasy have a phrase for “dawn” that literally means “when the wild cat washes itself”.  On our visit in 2014, attending morning devotions at 6am was rewarding not only spiritually but also visually with a beautiful dawn over the hills to the east of Toliara.  

 

This visit, Todd and Patsy’s continuing recovery from typhoid (thankfully now pretty much complete) has led to these devotions being deferred to 6:30am.   (What decadence!)    By half an hour after dawn the sun may not be fully risen, but the golden glow in the eastern sky has turned into blueness.

What does the wild cat do half an hour after dawn?   Brew coffee?  Deal with emails?  Help get the kids to school?   I must admit to being a tad hazy about the morning behaviors of wildcats.

 

Anyhow, while the wildcat is brewing coffee, or whatever,  I have been pondering some of the Psalms from 130 onwards.  I’ve currently reached 136.   Although I’m reading them only in English, I’d hazard a guess that the Hebrew word underlying one the major themes of these Psalms is heseth.   (YMMV on transliterations of Hebrew, but let’s agree on “heseth” for now.)   “Heseth” gets translated into English in a variety of different ways.   “Steadfast love” and “faithfulness” are some of the English expressions used.   The basic idea is of always being there for someone, even when that someone is being a pain in the backside, or simply doesn’t want to know.   I happen to be one of those men (I’ve read that there are lots of us) who aren’t into using the word “love” very often.   But I can relate to the idea of God being consistently there for us, any day of the week. 

 

Simon