December 2022
“Oh, Badger,’ cried the Rat, ‘let us in, please. It’s me, Rat, and my friend Mole, and we’ve lost our way in the snow.’
‘What, Ratty, my dear little man!’ exclaimed the Badger, in quite a different voice. ‘Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too, and at this time of night! But come in with you.’
The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside, and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.”
Here the door offers a place of safety for two lost creatures. Closed securely behind them, the door shuts out the cold, the dark and the fear of attack. On the other side it offers them warmth, sanctuary and friendship. We all need a safe place to go when we are tired or frightened. I wonder on whose door you would knock? Who would bundle you inside and comfort you?
Perhaps someone has already done this for you? Or maybe you have offered someone else that safe place?
At Christmas we often think of the homeless (although homelessness is a year round problem) and so it has become a time when we are invited to support those places that offer safe overnight shelter.
Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, pleas for the widow. Isaiah 1:17
The Green Tau 