I is for ISLAND

When youngest son reached the grand old age of ten we took him to an island for a break. Actually the break lasted only about an hour and we walked all the way. But just before you start to think that we had some miraculous powers of travel, there was no water around the island at the time. In fact there never is, except sometimes when the field becomes slightly flooded due to incessant downpours or an overflowing nearby river. And there on the island he had his birthday party with some friends from school. It was indeed his first major birthday party, which seems a bit mean on our part, on first impressions, but the truth is that he had usually celebrated his birthday with grandparents but just that year, he chose to be different. No pressure! Anyway the whole part of going to this land-locked island was to hunt for eggs - of the chocolate variety. And before anyone changes their plans and makes their way towards this chocolate egg heaven, I have some bad news. The eggs were only there because eldest son and I had gone on before the main party and hidden them under stones, on top of bricks, balanced on branches, stuck into crevices, even too close to nettles for comfort. Now almost ten years later, there might still be an egg lurking in the shadows for I'm not sure if they were all retrieved, but I would reckon on decomposition having done its bit for mother earth by now.

Standing outside our house, you would never begin to think that we live on an island for no matter which direction you gaze, there is no coastline in sight and even if you could see a shore it would still not offer absolute proof that we were surrounded by water. I suppose, like most people, my concept of an island is something you can actually see sitting in the middle of an ocean or a sea, or something that you could drive, cycle or walk around in an hour or two, where you could hug the shoreline all the way. Certainly not a great big mass of land that seems totally self sufficient. Still compared with the rest of the UK we are certainly a more conceivable island, yet in a sense no more or less so than huge land masses like the world's biggest island, Greenland. Which immediately poses the question, when does a piece of land stop becoming an island. I only ask this because in my geographical memory, Australia is completely surrounded by water but I don't hear too many referring to it as an island and if you want to take it a step further, the whole land mass of America, north and south is lying in the middle of a huge puddle yet to call it an island might be correct but absurd at the same time. I've been to many islands, including the Canaries, the Balearics, the West Indies and of course not forgetting the Easter egg island down the field and it always amazes me how,even on a small island, communities can operate in so many different ways, only a few miles apart and even some which live as if the coast never existed.

The Christian preacher, John Donne, once said 'No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.' Much later Paul Simon was to challenge such thinking in his song, 'I am a rock, I am an island,' yet his reason for writing such lyrics seemed to be more based on the fact that human friendship had been a disappointment to him. Why else would he have written ' I have my books and my poetry to protect me,I am shielded in my armour,Hiding in my room, safe within my womb,I touch no one and no one touches me.' And then he ends with the line 'And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.' I suppose there are elements of truth in both points of view, but the more I learn about an island, the more I realise that it's not until you see it from a distance that you begin to realise just how isolated you can become living there. And as Christians we need the comfort, encouragement, fellowship of fellow believers as we walk along this path. Paul tells the Corinthian Christians 'Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it' and also confirms the need for fellowship to the Thessalonians when he writes 'Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.' Sometimes I feel like an island, other times I want to be an island but I'm always glad to see a ship stop at the shore!