I should be in Dubai. Instead I am shuffling through damp leaves in Richmond Park early on a misty autumn morning. The trees are russet and gold; the bracken, which was thick and green a few weeks ago, is limp, bruised and brown. The sky is cloud laden and mist hangs over Pen Ponds. Three stags, majestically antlered, strut across the grassy plain and disappear among the trees. All is still, save for a couple of walkers and their dogs. It is beautiful and peaceful, difficult to believe that this haven of calm is so near the frantic seething roar of London.
Mist. It distorts distance, blurs objects, obscures the sun, brings a slightly sombre ambience to the landscape. But it also adds a touch of mystery and magic. Trees reflected in the lake double their beauty, and the water merges with the sky.
I was supposed to be in Dubai where it is hot, hot , hot. No mist. Blue skies, sharp clearcut high rise towers thrusting up through the shimmering air. Sleek cars; the stream lined tube of the new metro train on its high rail; modern malls, all glass, gloss and glitter. Sand; camels; sea. It would have been fun and I am disappointed not to be there with all my friends from around the world at the Hub conference. But the sudden illness of a close relative changed my plans.
The misty fog of regret dulls my thinking and my mood. But as I walk in the quiet Autumn morning, I begin to appreciate the beauty around me. I notice things: colours of leaves, the rustling of them underfoot; the damp leafy smell; the swoop of geese landing on the lake; the clattering cry of a magpie. ” Live in the present,” I tell myself. “Don’t settle in regret, it robs you of joy.” It’s a choice.
Mist can make things beautiful as well as blurred and uncertain; for a while. It is not permanent. For now, we see through a glass darkly. But the mist will melt away, brightness will come. Then face to face; and we shall know things that right now are obscure. We don’t need to know all the answers , just trust that the One who knows all things is with us in the mist and he can see clearly.
The Wendy House 