The Ferris Wheel

“The most fun there is,” retorted Fern, “is when the Ferris wheel stops….”14

Fern loves being stopped at the top of the Ferris wheel with Henry where she can see all around the countryside for miles. The top of the Ferris wheel is the place for perspective. When God is present with us, not only does His presence make life worthwhile, but He also gives us the perspective we need and can in no way gain apart from Him.

When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, they received divine assurance: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Ex. 14:14). Knowing that the Rock of Ages is your center, that God guards and guides you, allows you to be silent and confident in the storms and schemes of crisis threatening your peace. The Ferris wheel’s axis where the spokes are joined is like the still point in time that we access with praise. The Ferris wheel’s body resembles a clock. Time, cycles, and seasons of earthly life are like spokes in the wheel. It is a symbol of time progressing, a crossroads of time. But God is ageless, outside of time, ever present. Use your imagination to see the center axis of a Ferris wheel as a symbol of the eternal, inextinguishable Life in the center of your being that gives foundation, direction, and energy to your seasons.

Prayer: Possibly, praise is the still point of our souls. Thanksgiving looks back. Supplication looks forward. Praise is the focus on the eternal God—His unchanging character that is the axis of all time. Lord, I will praise you often and relish extended times of steeping and soaking praise.

Radiant Action: Journal Entries: What is the still point of my life, the never changing hub or axis from which all my movement, my dance, comes forth? Am I connecting with the timeless One who weaves the web of my life, who stands alone in time, and invites me to join with Him in the eternal? I will let a Ferris wheel (or even a ceiling fan) remind me of the only Some God! I will kneel to make an axis with my body to remind myself of You being my center in the changing seasons of my life.

Webs: The Honey of Wisdom (June), Home (June), Death (Apr.), Purpose Series (May), Energy and Hope (May)

Gleanings: In Four Quartets II, “Burnt Norton,” T. S. Eliot writes about the still point of the turning world:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.15