Three bought, three borrowed

I can’t remember the last time I went to the library. It must have been a very long time ago as the lady at the desk insisted on up-dating my card and checking that I had not moved home or changed my name or anything. I didn’t find what I was looking for but never the less came away with things – a leaflet with details of a poetry contest and three books. The book that I was looking for, according to the computer the keeps a cyber eye on what is where and with whom, was on a shelf in the library at Fortrose, and another copy was due back some time this week in the library at Fort William.

At the creative writing weekend, someone recommended Stephen Fry’s “The Ode Less Travelled – unlocking the poet within.” It was on the shelves at Waterstones and I had neough money in my purse. I find that I am not content to lament that I can’t write poetry as good as Omar Khayyam. I can give up when faced with the masterpieces that other poets write, or I can do something to sharpen the tools that I already possess and become a better poet. So… I no more excuses, I will see where Stephen’s insights and challenges takes me.

A second book I bought, this time from the Christian bookshop was “The Gospel Centred Church” by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. As much as some of us don’t like to embrace change, our church is changing. In my quiet times and prayer times with God this week, I am being made aware that I am changing too. I was reading the opening couple of chapters of Nehemiah yesterday. From the time he heard the news from Jerusalem to the moment he shared his concerns with the king, there is a period of four months. The study I was reading suggested that during that time, God was building into Nehemiah the vision and resources he would need to be the man for the job of rebuilding the wall. God has a role for me in the church that is perhaps different from what it used to be and I want to be prepared. God would like to build into me a vision of my place and resources i will need. So…having a clearer picture of what church can be all about might help.

Third book bought doesn’t qualify as a book. I sometimes get tired of following a daily Bible study and give myself a break, or swap studies. I have had just such a break and feel the need to get back to structure, so my third purchase was Bible study notes that stretch from July to September.

The borrowed books? One is a children’s Scottish poetry book. I am into poetry at the moment. Adult poetry can be a bit too cerebral.

The second – Stephen King “On Writing”. It must have been Monday morning, fresh from the weekend, with a list of “must have” books that I went on line at Amazon. I compiled an order and was about to hit the confirm button when I noticed the post and package charges – I could have bought another book for what they were intending to charge me. Many of the titles I had foraged through the “used copies” button and none of the qualified for free delivery. Seeing Stephen King sitting on the shelf (his book, not himself)– that is one less book to buy. But will I want to give it back in four weeks time?

The third book – Nigel Tranter “Columba”. As part of the Highland Year of Culture we explored the life of Columba. I was inspired by some of the episodes – his meeting with and scaring off the Loch Ness monster being one of them. We learn a lot about the faith by looking at the lives of heroes.

Just a minnow

Ah love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!
Would not we shatter it to bits - and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!




I grew up in a mostly book free environment, but one book I seem to remember was a small poetry book – “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” I sounded very exotic and I would dearly like to say that reading the book ignited a love of poetry – but I didn’t read it. I looked at the pictures, but poetry never made that much sense to me.

I went for a walk today, high up in the woods that look down on Loch Ness. Following a path marked out with yellow arrows, I climbed higher and higher towards a viewpoint. Some kind soul, in loving memory of a dear wife and mother, planted a bench and engraved on a small silver label were the words of Omar Khayyam. I am sure that if Joe had been with me he would have recognised the words and the source, but I wrote them down in my notebook and googled them when I got home!

A rubaiyat is a quatraine – a four line verse and although Omar Khayyam’s complete work may have many verses, each one stands alone and complete.

I swam around in a small pool at the creative writing weekend and thought I was a big fish because I could string together a few lines that rhymed while others in the group struggled. Then I read Omar Khayyam’s lines on a bench and I was cut right down to size. I am nothing more than a minnow! I am in awe of you, Mr Khayyam!

Sitting this one out

I suppose that when you don’t particularly hold strong religious views, or even fairly mind ones, there are things that you would not give a second thought about that someone else might agonize over. The lady who was leading the creative writing course thought she had just found another source of stimuli for creating story scenarios and characters but the pack of tarot cards really didn’t go down so well at the creative writing course I attended at the weekend.

For the most part, most of the attendees were able to look at the cards objectively and use them as a starting point for a story, much as they had been using postcards and photographs earlier on in the day. The tarot cards proved to be a serious problem for one of the ladies. She had been a missionary out in Kenya fro thirty years and although she appreciated that no one was going to put the tarot cards to any occult-ish use, she didn’t feel comfortable handling one of them, studying it in any literary manner and excused herself from the activity. Her sister showing solidarity went with her and they sat out side on the patio while the rest of us struggled to write anything half decent from the pictures on the cards.

I have to confess that I struggled. I had no problem with the tarot cards as such. It was a piece of card with a picture on it. If anyone had set up an ouija board and told me to use the words it spelt out in an opening sentence to a story, it might have been a different matter. Perhaps if I had some knowledge of how to use the cards to tell someone’s fortune, that might have been a problem too. They were just cards with pictures on them and without the power to scare me.

The struggle was in how the two sisters might have perceived my actions as an act of compromise. I hadn’t gone out of my way to share my faith or anything, but in introducing myself I had mentioned that I was a Christian and had written inspirational poetry that had been published in Christian anthologies. They did not look at me with any kind of expectation that I would join them on the patio and “sit this one out”. I toyed with it. Part of the reasoning behind staying was that I had paid money to come on the course. I didn’t want to spend an hour sitting on the patio. I also didn’t want to give the tarot cards any power over me. I wanted to prove them to be just pieces of cards with pictures on them and nothing more. Sometimes a person’s perception of Christianity is based on what Christians don’t do or what they disapprove of. It becomes very negative and very narrow. There was a kind of wave of not-quite-tutting from the rest of the attendees, although one lady, not me, tried to defend their stand. I am really not sure whether I had made the call. (I had had very little sleep the previous night because of other things on my mind!)

I admired the two for sticking to their guns and I wondered about whether that passage in Romans about not eating food sacrificed to idols might apply to using tarot cards as literary aids. The task was not a good one and provoked not good opening paragraphs for a short story – so I might well have preferred the patio.

The leader the following day must have been aware of the feelings of the two ladies, but that did not stop her trying something similar with horoscopes this time. I caught the eye of the ex-missionary, expecting her to yet again absent herself from that activity, but she just contented herself with shaking her head in despair!

I had more trouble with the horoscope than with the tarot card surprisingly enough, but managed to come up with a wonderful opening paragraph for a story from it!

Young love

I know the summer holiday began on Thursday afternoon and I spent it watching Tim Henman claw his way back into a fifth set in a second round Wimbledon match where he eventually lost to a Spaniard in need of a decent haircut. It is always the Monday that the holiday becomes a reality! That is today! So now I can say to myself and actually believe it that I am on holiday for the next six weeks!

Friday, the technical start of the holiday, was spent in a flurry of cleaning. I usually take a week to work my way to clear the mess accumulated over the last few months but we had guests staying and beds needed to be made ready. A daughter of a friend was home from university and her bed at home had been booked by a more organised pen-friend. We know Dani well – she was our cleaning lady when she was much younger, with her menagerie of pets to support: she was also my piano teacher for a short while until I put myself under too much pressure to earn colourful stickers for playing pieces well; she occasionally gate crashed our Bible studies with her enthusiastic and youthful perspectives. Yes, we know her well – but we didn’t reckon on the new boyfriend coming with her! We have enough bedroom and beds to accommodate quite large families – but I was rather anxious about whether they would use enough bedrooms and enough beds!

Earlier on in the week there had been a conversation about whether the boyfriend would get the grilling from the father – the inquisition that normally comes when romance stirs in the daughter’s heart. The folk there talked about trust and seemed to agree that they trusted the daughter enough for her to make the right decision about the boyfriend – so they didn’t need the grilling.

However, they didn’t have the daughter and the boyfriend staying with them. I felt under pressure to act as parent-in-absentia and although I knew their views on boyfriend grilling, they are not my views! It is fine to say “She’s trustworthy”, or “She sensible and mature”. She is also in love right? He is accessible right? It seemed to me that sometimes being mature and sensible and trustworthy really go out of the window when romance comes into the equation! I am speaking as a woman who has gone through it. You really don’t get as trustworthy and sensible and mature as I was then – but I battled to stay that way when Joe walked into my life.

So as they went out for long romantic walks in the evening I watched the second hand on the clock and hoped they would be home before long. As they sat in the front room at two in the morning, I hoped that talking was all they were doing! I found it hard to draw a line between giving too much space and too little.

In the end, yes – it was about trust. On one of the mornings that the daughter and I had a little time before I drove away to my creative writing course, and she went for a scavenger hunt round Rogie Falls, she told me that they had talked so much. He wanted to know everything about her – and yes, she liked kissing him!

What the two of them really did was to remind me what is was like to be romantic. In the busyness of school and church and home, of ironing clothes, washing dishes and mowing the lawn, sometimes married life gets a little pedestrian. It is like you are oiling the wheels of an efficient machine – and marriage is not supposed to be like that! I am not sure I can physically do a two in the morning chat having discovered quite a bit about the man I am married too. The romantic evening walks might prove a bit much for his dodgy knees and vie with the programmes on TV that we both like to watch. I am sure there is a web-site dedicated the fifty ways to be romantic!

Watch this space I will keep you appraised of my latest moves and chat-up lines.

Silent Prayers

Silent prayers

Guilt gnaws
I don’t pray enough
Coins in my pocket
A candle in my hand
The gaze of Jesus
Safe in his mother’s embrace
Looks down upon
A rippling wave of flames
Candle stubs
Clustered together
Dripping wax
My own
Tall and virgin
Bows to the flame of another
A bright tongue of fire
Licks
And strains upward
A thread of smoke
Spirals
Silent, my candle speaks
Saying what I will not wait
To put into words

In heaven

In Heaven

There is a door I heaven
A door thrown open wide
There is an invitation
To me to come inside

Upon a throne of gemstones
I see a mighty king
Beneath a brilliant rainbow
That circles everything

Four and twenty elders
Stand dressed in robes of white
I hear the rumbling thunder
And lightning flashing bright

The Holy Spirit dances
A purifying flame
His sanctifying presence
Burns away my shame

Four living beings rise up
With wings spread out in flight
They gaze upon the Father
Their hearts filled with delight

They never stop declaring
“Holy is the Lord”
Lifting praise forever to
The One to be adored

I stand beside the elders
And kneel before my King
My golden crown surrendered
And with it - everything

Gaelic Mass - the sequel

After the mass Joe and I were invited to stay for a cup of tea. The only denominational school in Inverness is St Joseph’s primary school and St Mary’s is next door, so it was the school hall that the venue of the tea. It wasn’t just tea. There was a whole evening of entertainment planned, part of which was a ceilidh. The priest who had conducted the mass was a good friend of Joe’s, father John Angus. A few years ago, while Joe and a friend from work had been visiting him in Glasgow, the three of them had drank their way through a couple of bottles of whisky!

Entering the hall, I was greeted with a chorus of embarrassed giggles, a few waves and one or two “Hello, Miss”s. Seated around one table, and lined up against one of the walls were an assortment of pupils from many of my classes.

It is always interesting to see people in a place other than the environment that you associate them with. Whereas in the confines of a prefabricated hut, forced to learn something they may have no interest in, surrounded by like minded people, they might form a fairly hostile mob, here in the church setting – they were different. They had cast off the hostility. They were just really nice kids! They are bound to say something to me next week!

The evening was a feast of fiddle music, Gaelic songs and ceilidh dancing. There were a few other things thrown in for good measure. One of the parishioners was an Italian opera singer, so he did a couple of songs. One of the fiddle solos brought a group of the kids to the floor to line dance to! A man and his guitar busked through another couple of songs.

Joe had been to Tyree a few weeks ago and the islanders had hosted a similar kind of entertaining evening – although on a slightly bigger scale.

There was a break in the middle for a buffet of sandwiches and sausage rolls.

Joe and I later danced our way through a couple of reels. One of them was quite chaotic with everyone swinging each other around. – an Orcadian “Strip the Willow”. The young people knew what they were doing and generally pushed us in the right direction!

It was a thoroughly pleasant night – most unexpected. Joe felt totally at home from the moment he entered into the church, and he recognised many people that he knew from his work and from travels around crafting country – and he knew Father John Angus. I wasn’t so sure about feeling so settled as I felt like I was intruding into another world. I wasn’t sure just how happy some of the children were to see me there! Quite a few parents crossed to room to introduce themselves!

However, we got invited back to the next one – along with some interesting bait - poetry readings being included next time round.

Gaelic Mass

A number of years ago I went to a teacher’s In-service meeting. One of the activities was to highlight reading problems from the perspective of the student. The lecturer handed out a passage to everyone – much like we would hand out a worksheet or a book, and then asked certain people in the room to read – much like we would. One of the “volunteered” said that she had left her glasses at home and couldn’t read it. The lecturer’s eyes lit up with delight. It turned out that he had given her a copy of the passage typed out in Greek and rather than make a stumbled effort to plough her way through it, she had thought up some excuse. For those of us who had the English version – it had been no problem. To some pupils in school – the passage might as well be in Greek for all that they can read it, or understand it.

Last night Joe and I were invited to a Gaelic mass! Roman Catholic mass I can probably remember from my childhood days. I know that for some people the idea of a written liturgy is stifling, but for me there is a certain comfort in the words – I affirm my faith as I listen to the words of the priest and speak my responses.

Having a Gaelic order of service handed to me – was like being given the Greek passage at the In-service day! Even trying to follow my phonetically stumbling over the words doesn’t work either because the letter that are written and how you think they might sound as a word don’t always match up. So I just remained silent throughout. Can you imagine how frustrating that can be?

I contented myself with looking around and trying to match my Roman Catholic memories with my current surroundings. They didn’t match!

St Mary’s Church is beautiful inside. I think it is the simplicity which makes it so beautiful. I cut my spiritual teeth as it were in a small chapel in a village two miles from where I lived. It was a wooden hut – you don’t get more simple than that. The two proper churches I remember were one in Rugby where I took my first communion. The place was very grand, quite gloomy, with a distinct smell of incense and crammed with statues posted at every pillar. The other one was in Northampton next to a convent we were “visiting” while my mum was in hospital. That was even more imposing. It was ditto to the nth degree.

The walls of St Mary’s are white and the ceiling is blue. There are windows down each side of the aisle – some of them are stained glass but most are just plain frosted glass. The window opposite where I was sitting was of Jesus carrying a sheep with the words “I came to serve” written beneath. I was reminded that Jesus has given me the same commission – to serve, to follow in his footsteps. I am not here to build my own house, or have my own troubles sorted out – but to serve others.

Another window – when the meeting was over and we had a chance to meander – was just awesome. I could have stood beneath it just gazing upwards! It was Jesus walking on water reaching down to grasp Peter’s hand. Peter’s head was above the water, the rest of him was underneath with the fishes! There was a rainbow in the sky stretched between the clouds. It was a really beautiful window. How often have I felt like Peter? He was not just ankle deep in water but his head about to disappear beneath the waves – about to be overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like that. Sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t feel that way and I hear in my ears “You of little faith.” Sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t share with others that I feel that way because I am expected to be a pillar in the church. I am sure that no one would actually deny me my moment of weakness. My church body would gather round to support and pray for me if they knew I was feeling that way. But it is what I do that counts – so calling out to Jesus – “Lord, save me!” – and he does.

I have been thinking a lot about remembering our weaknesses. Talking in a meeting a number of weeks ago with some of the teachers in the church I broached the idea of confessing weaknesses. We seem to encourage one another to confess strengths and build one another up that way. We speak of victories and positive testimonies – which I am not denying that we need to do. I don’t think we treat our weaknesses in the same way. Maybe it is a matter of pride that we don’t tell people about them – bit it all leaves an impression that we are strong and that we don’t have our crushing doubts and uncertainties. I am not sure that I am looking for rallying prayer support at those moment either. I want to be accepted with all my bumps and bruises. Do I want to wallow in my sorrow? No. I don’t want to wallow – but to rush away from weaknesses, and cast off suffering as quickly as we are inclined to do – I am not convinced that is beneficial either.

I guess the window has made me think. In my mind Peter may sink in the water – but never to the point where his head is about to disappear beneath the waves. To have him gulping almost a last breath before he cried for help – I never pictured that kind of desperation. To have Jesus leaving it until that last breath to pull him out – I never pictured that kind of heartlessness, if that is the right word. Because I know the end of the story I think “He was never really in any real danger.” That’s not what his face on the stained glass window showed!

Is it a mind-set of Christians that they think they will never be in any real danger simply because they are Christians?

A "Barry Manilow" moment

Barry Manilow occupies a very unique place in my life. It was a long time ago, when I was at university. I think it might have been in Woolworth’s that I happened to be browsing at the time – I was a poor student, so actual shopping was a rare event! They were playing a record over the loud speakers. It was Barry Manilow. I loved the timbre of his voice – I still do. I bought a cassette tape – just because I listened to the songs and I liked what I heard. I played that cassette over and over again until it became all warped!

This afternoon, on the way home from work I had a “Barry Manilow” moment. I thought it was the Lighthouse Family. I have a couple of their CDs – but it turns out to be someone called Simon Webbe. I was just suddenly aware that my ears were listening to the words.

Grace is an amazing word! It is not just an amazing word – but an amazing experience! God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense – G R A C E. I have been given so much that I don’t deserve.

Why do I find it so difficult to extend that same grace towards other people? I am on the receiving end of grace, yet sometimes I feel that I make people jump through endless hoops before I will show kindness. And then it is so quickly withdrawn at the first sign that the person doesn’t deserve it! And God never withdraw his kindness towards me!

Grace

Reaching out, looking for some way to escape the crowd
You whispered words that I’ve been searching for
Somehow you answered my call
Reaching out I feel I’m rising up

[Chorus]
You give me (grace)
In a world that doesn’t sleep at all
You give me (grace)
It’s a place I’ve never been before
You give me (grace)
And in all of the confusion you’re the peace in my soul
That’s why I will never really be alone

Suddenly, I’m up on the surface now where I can see
And picture the person who I need to be
And I know, yes I know I can make it
See me now, I’m slowly rising up

[Chrous

Well yeah, these are difficult times
These are difficult days
But I know we can face it
Ours are difficult lives
In a difficult place
Oh you give me grace to say when I got it wrong
The grace and the will to carry on
Reaching out I feel I’m rising up

lyrics from ALLYRICS.NET

Appraoching the King

Last night I caught just a small bit of “Marco Polo” on Sky One. I had not ear-marked it as something to watch – I was channel hopping at the time.

Marco and his companions had reached Genghis Khan (I think) and were being given instructions about how to enter the presence of the ruler. They were to crawl in on their hands and knees, and not look directly at the leader. It all looked very humiliating.

In today’s western culture we place such an emphasis on equality and dignity that no one is allowed to feel subservient or inferior. I am not saying that we should return to an era where we take off our hats and salute the upper classes, but we have lost our sense of awe. Even the queen no longer gets the curtseys and bows when she meets member of the public.

We feel so equal to everyone that I think that it affects the way we enter into the presence of God. What Isaiah experienced in Is Ch 6 is so remote from our own experience that very few of us relate to it. At best we can only imagine what it feels like.

At the end of the day, God does not expect us, or even want us, to come crawling into his throne room. He has, through the cross, restored to us our dignity as sons. The devil would love us to come crawling in, overwhelmed by a sense of our unworthiness, the litany of our sins played on the screen for all to see, but not God. We have access to His throne room and He welcomes us.

He does not wait for us to clean up our act, but embraces us, even though we reek of the pigsty. He covers us with a robe of righteousness.

I just don’t think God is looking for “high fives”. He is not looking for “best buddies”. We may be sons receiving the Father’s love, but we are also servants doing the master’s bidding, and subjects approaching the King.

I just think that sometimes we’re a little too casual.

Open the eyes of my heart

I began writing a poem this morning. My husband knows when I am thinking of rhyming words – I get a glassy look in my eye! It is not the finished article, but just the stirring of something.

You say, “Son of David
Have mercy on me.”
You cry, “I am blind
And I want to see.
I’m trapped in a world
Of darkest night
Lead me, Sweet Jesus
Into the light."

But what will you focus
Your gaze upon
In the light of day
With the darkness gone?
Will you see the things
That break My heart
That grieve my soul
And tear me apart?

Will you see the tears
The needy cry
Or gaze on clouds
That scud the sky?
Will you see the scars
That people bear
For those who hurt
Will you be there?

I am mindful that I don’t always see things. A week or two ago, we employed a man to cut back the tree in the garden. It was big enough to scrape off the pebble-dash on a neighbour wall. We also asked him to remove a couple of conifer stubs. Last year we had hacked away at two conifers, but the roots went deep and we did not have the right equipment.

I noticed the tree cut back, but walked right past the missing conifer stubs! There was a space in the garden that I had not noticed!

I was reading the opening chapters of the book of Acts. The story where Peter and John see the lame man sitting at the Temple gates always challenges me. The man was there everyday, Peter and John were there everyday – but they never saw him. Even more so, if the man was there everyday, then Jesus also would have seen him – the day he overturned the tables in the temple. Jesus did nothing, Peter and John for a while did nothing.

Here is my speculation on it. Jesus saw the man and he left him alone because he knew that Peter and John would one day see him and act in faith. Jesus could have healed the man, but he chose not because he trusted Peter and John to follow in his footsteps and do the things he himself did. The man was marked for healing – but not right then.

What made Peter and John turn and look this time around was the man’s appeal for help. We have been given all of our senses – our sight, our hearing, our sense of touch – all from God that he might make his appeal to us through any one of them.

Jesus has trusted each one of us to follow in his footsteps and to do things that he himself did. The plea to “Open our eyes” isn’t so we can see the light at the end of our dark tunnels, but that we can see the light at the end of dark tunnels that other people inhabit.

Too often we live with blinkers on, self absorbed and in-ward looking. God want us to use our eyes to see more than the clouds scudding across the sky. He wants us to see what He sees – be broken by it – an act to bring things in line with His word.

The A to Z of Mel

A few months ago I joined something similar to My Space. I hate the phrase “social networking” but that is what it is all about. I joined because I wanted to read a friend’s blog, but they don’t let you just read stuff. There were lots of boxes to fill in to give a full profile. I skipped that so accessing my profile tells you absolutely nothing worthwhile! It amazes me that I keep getting requests from people to “be my friend”. Why do they keep asking? They know next to nothing about me and yet they still want to be my friend. I put out no feelers whatsoever. I am sure that there are some people that just blast out an invitation to all and sundry and they don’t pick out people as such.

I thought I would kind of remedy the lack of a profile by doing an alphabet of my likes and dislikes.

Ankles – this is a dislike. A number of years ago I had a DVT – a deep vein thrombosis. It has left bruising around the ankle. Even without the bruising – they are not slender.

Bananas. I am very choosy about the kind of bananas I buy. They have to be Fairtrade. Teaching a unit on justice in the world and poverty issues has altered my shopping habits.

Chocolate – It was Dianna Troy on Star Trek that said she had never yet met a chocolate she didn’t like. Ditto, Dianna!

Dark mornings – My serotonin levels take a dive during the winter. Apparently bananas and exercise are the solution.

Elegance – no matter what I wear, or how much time I take over my make-up, I just never hit “elegant”. I am not clumsy and I’m not frumpy – just not elegant. I put it down to the lack of a decent length of neck!

Frodo Baggins – is he not one of the saddest characters in literature? “Sad” in the dictionary definition sense of the word. He goes through so much hardship and he doesn’t really come out at the other end blessed.

Gardens – my neighbours have wonderful gardens. The grass is green, the borders are free of weeds and they have such a magnificent display of colour and fragrance. And then there is my wilderness in the middle!

Help – something I should ask for and offer more often than I do.

Independence – the reason why I don’t ask for help. For the first few years of my Christian life I wasn’t nurtured, but left to fend for myself – I have just got used to doing it, and not inclined to invite other people in to solve my problems.

Joseph – my wonderful husband is the perfect partner for me. He’s my toy boy! He keeps me grounded and real.

Knitting – I have recently joined the knitting club where I work. I used to knit a lot, and quite complicated patterns. I am rediscovering my knitting passion but with all these new yarns available it is confusing. Why don’t they say that it knits up like double knitting?

Loosing weight – I have been a member of Weight Watchers since September. My body is a battle ground. My will power is being eroded by the smell of fish and chips!

Melanie – I love my name. I have never wished to have another, more interesting name. It means “dark and mysterious” and I try hard not to live up to it.

Nun – I think I may have missed my calling! Every Catholic girl who ever watched “The Song of Bernadette” wanted to become a nun!

Orbo – he is a character in a book I have not yet written. He is not actually a person but a planet with a consciousness – deep, huh?

Poetry – once upon a time I would have insisted that I was not a poet – a writer perhaps, but not a poet. I was wrong!

Quiz nights – our team is called “Jams” and consists of Joe, Archie (Joe’s friend from work), me and Sandra (Archie’s wife). We are almost unbeatable – almost.

Rhubarb – best fruit on the entire planet!

Silence – something that I will never experience in this life. I suffer from tinnitus – ringing in the ears. It is there all the time and I have got used to it. I try to avoid loud noisy places as they tend to make the ringing that much louder.

To do lists – I love writing them out. It gives the impression that I am well organised. I even manage to do some of the things on them!

Unravelling – I love untying knots!

Vimto – not the fizzy variety, but the diluting stuff. I used to get through bottles of it when I was at university.

Writing – words are the paint that this particular artist uses to create pictures.

Xmas – I hate the whole X bit of it – taking “Christ” out of Christmas. I also hate Christmas decorations and Christmas music appearing in October!

Yellow – I once shared a house with lots of other girls, and the bedroom that was mine had yellow gingham wallpaper. It was hard to feel downhearted for long surrounded by yellow walls.

Zeal – the kind displayed by Phineas when he speared the Israelite man and his Canaanite floozy. I don’t particularly want to spear anyone, but I would like to be that passionate about honouring God’s name.

How does your garden grow?

If I knocked on your front door to ask if I could sit on the bench in your garden would you let me?

It is not so much on the way into work that I notice the bench, but on the way home it looks so inviting. The garden in question runs alongside the golf course. All that separates the bench from one of the holes is a wire fence over grown with some climbing variety of rose, a fast slowing burn and, on each side of the burn knee high nettles! The bench doesn’t have a back to it and is painted green.

It is not so much the bench that attracts me, but the even lawn and the border of brightly coloured flowers. The time that I am walking past is just at that moment when I am far enough on the way home to feel tired after a day on my feet. The garden is bathed in tranquillity and I would just like to soak a bit of it up.

As I was looking lovingly at the bench, and eyeing up the doorbell on the front door, it came to me that the garden didn’t just happen by accident. The owner of the property didn’t just wake up one morning and there it was all in place – the bench, the grass and the flowers. It was planned and it was planted. Borders were dug over, seeds scattered and watered and nurtured. It didn’t just happen. A lot of work went into producing the tranquillity!

You have to plant a flower in a garden to get a flower to grow – it doesn’t just happen. (Alhtough I once had a most exotic looking mushroom that grew entirely of it's own accord, and according to the book of mushroom I looked at later, that particular mushroom tends to favour "rubbish tip" conditions!) You have to build a bench and place it in the garden – it doesn’t just appear. And once it is planted, it takes time and effort to maintain. Ignore it for long enough and everything gets overgrown as it is as it was in the beginning.

What is true for the garden – the whole process of digging the soil, removing the reeds, planting flowers, watering and maintaining – is true of my spiritual life. It is no use looking on the vibrant life of another Christian and longing to “sit in the bench” and soak up his or her tranquillity. If I have the annoying weeds of bad habits and critical attitudes – I have only myself to blame. If I want to see patience and gentleness and kindness – I have to plant them and nurture them.

Joe and I are about to do the whole garden thing – last year we had someone build up a patio. This year we are brining in someone to cut back the tree. We bring in the experts to do the things that we are not able to do. Who better that the Holy Spirit to bring in to do a bit of the spiritual pruning?

Fragile moments

I used to do Scripture Union, or some kind of Bible club in school. I don’t know where I picked it up from, but we did an activity that involved an assault course of mops and buckets, chairs and other obstacles.

For the first step a volunteer was blind folded and encouraged to stumble through the course. This was like spiritually blind people, stumbling through life.

The second step was for someone to talk them around the objects, telling them to move a little to the right or to the left. This was supposed to be about hearing the voice of God and being guided by Him through all of life’s obstacles.

The third step was to introduce a second voice that was supposed to tempt them to ignore God’s voice, to introduce the idea of the devil leading us astray. Whose voice were we listening to?

I had the opportunity a long time ago to try it in a church setting. It was one of those “involve the children” moments. A girl volunteered to be blindfolded, and stumbled through the course, hands outstretched, bumping into things. I couldn’t get another child to volunteer to be God, so the girl’s father volunteered.

He did something so unexpected! Instead of merely talking his daughter around the objects like he was supposed to, he picked her up and carried her around the objects. I loved it! I loved the concern he showed that he didn’t want his daughter to bump her knees anymore. He just picked her up and carried her.

There are times when I just need God to pick me up and carry me around the obstacles. It is not that I can’t walk. It’s not that I can’t distinguish His voice from any other. Sometimes it is just because I am a bit bruised and feeling fragile.

What if?

What if
I had nothing
But a little oil
In a jar?

What if
God
Told me to do
Something ridiculous?

What if
I were to borrow
Jugs and jars
From friends and neighbours?

What if
From my jar
I could fill
Every empty vessel?

What if
With every jug filled
There was always more
In my jar?

What if
I never stopped
Finding and filling
Another empty jar?

What if
The only reason
There’s an empty jug
Is because I stopped pouring?

Scattering a few seeds

My sister, Sharon, had a dog called Chester. This was before she was married. I’m not sure what breed of dog he was – probably the usual Heinz variety. He was very lively. He didn’t walk – he bounced!

He was a stick chasing dog! However, he had a curious habit when it came to retrieving sticks. My sister would start off throwing a reasonable sized stick, and Chester would obligingly run and fetch it. If he saw a slightly bigger stick, he would pick that one up instead. He would not a pick up a very big stick – just something a little big bigger. When the “slightly bigger” stick was thrown, Chester would pick up another one that was slightly bigger than that. As the walk progressed, the sticks would get bigger and bigger, until Chester was hauling half a tree back to my sister!

The stick that Chester had started with had been abandoned in favour of something bigger each time. The stick he had been given, had been dropped in favour of something else.

In a study last night, I breezed past a verse taken from the parable of the Sower. Speaking of the good seed, it reads “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” The Message puts it this way, “But the seed in the good earth – these were the good hearts, who seize the word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there is a harvest.”

I stopped breezing and went back for a good look. I just knew that the good soil produced a harvest. Looking closely at the four conditions for producing the harvest was quite a revelation and quite convicting!

A noble and good heart

Time and time again, it is not about what you do on the outside that counts but what you are on the inside. Jesus told the Pharisees and the teachers of the law that it wasn’t what went into a man that made him corrupt but what came out of him. I ought to be more shocked at what comes out of me – in terms of what I say, or how I say it. Perhaps I ought to be more shocked with what doesn’t come out of me that should. The things that aren’t there, that can’t come out, because I didn’t put them there in the first place – that is something to consider.

Hearing or seizing the word

I often accuse my students of allowing things to go through one ear and out of the other. When I think of all the sermons I have listened to, all the books I have read, the quiet times I have spent – I wonder how much has gone through one ear and out of the other. I can remember buying a second hand book “The Bourne Identity”. I read the blurb on the back cover and decided it was my kind of book. Taking the book home to show Joe, he told me that we already have a copy and I have already read it! I argued my case – as I do, but then he disappeared upstairs for just a moment and returned holding the book we already had. My name was faithfully inscribed on the back of the cover!

To seize is very aggressive almost. You can’t passively seize something! I need to do a bit of seizing!

Retaining it, or holding on no matter what

Chester dropped the stick he was carrying because he saw a bigger one. Reading back through the story of the sower there are other kinds of soil. There’s the path. The seed doesn’t even get picked up at all. It is snatched away before it can get picked up. It is not seized. The second one is the thin soil over rock. The seed is seized “with joy”. When “the hot winds of testing blow”, that seed is probably dropped! There is nothing worse than carrying something, or holding onto something when things get hot. You want to shed things in the heat, not hold on to them. The other soil, the thistles and thorns – again the seed is seized, but later surrendered because something more appealing come along.

I think for me, the problem is not so much holding on to things, but knowing when it’s time to let go. It reminds me of the Ecclesiastes passage – a time for everything. There is a time to keep and a time to throw away.

Lying in bed this morning, God said to me that it was time to shed the winter coat. You know how some animals during winter grow a thicker coat to protect them from the bitter cold? I do something similar. I dislike winter – I miss the sunlight and I drop into a pessimistic mindset. I grab a whole load of God’s promises and I repeat them like mantras throughout the winter months, I suppose to sustain my faith. That way I don’t drop too far!

It is not winter anymore though – and I feel like I am still in hibernation. I am still repeating my mantras, instead of looking for fresh food! In the middle of Jesus’ story of the sower, he says, “You have been permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of God.” I have a back stage pass, not to be tucked away in a pocket, but to be used. God has opened the door and invited me in to come and, not just look around, but to take whatever I need for life and godliness.

Persevering or sticking with it until there is a harvest

I once told the gospel outreach team I was on that one of my weaknesses was giving up half way through. You just needed to look at my knitting basket to see the truth of that. I get disheartened when I don’t see something visible. Way back in September when I first joined Weight Watchers, I wouldn’t say the pounds dropped off – but there was significant weight loss. Nine months down the line, the body is fighting me for every pound – and winning! I think if I hadn’t paid for six months in advance I just might give in! My husband – bless him – on giving me a cuddle, told me he had discovered bones! There is not longer a layer – a very thick layer – of padding around some parts of my anatomy. It is persistence that is winning the way.


Am I persisting in the things that God has given me to do? In some area – most definitely. But I am not up to scratch in others.

Martin Luther King in one of his speeches said, “I need some victories!” – me too, MLK!

I don’t mean to write a sermon here. Just some thoughts. I have encouraged myself tremendously.

A Comiplation Episode

I have been incredibly busy these last couple of weeks. There has been a plethora of things to write about, but no time to write!

One of the many things I introduced my husband to was the concept of the compilation episode in a TV series. It is Star Trek – James T Kirk is in a coma and the crew are advised to talk to him in the hope of rousing him. They do the whole “Do you remember…?” thing, the screen goes all squigglely and you get the replay of the scene.

This is not strictly a compilation blog because it is not stuff you’ve heard before! It comes close though!

On Publishing

You last heard that I had sent a selection of poems to a publisher. I received a very nice email explaining that they were not able to publish my work. It is a small publisher on a tight budget. They host a poetry competition, once a year. The winning entries are published in a small book each year.

She invited me to submit the poems into the competition. However, having read the rules, my poems do not meet the entry requirements – not the ones I had passed on to her. They are too long.

On report writing

My hearing has never been that good. My husband says that I am selectively deaf. I misheard the deadline for first year reports. I thought they had to be completed and handed into the office by last Friday.

I worked extremely hard. It is hard enough having four classes of any year for reports, but first year seem to be very difficult to do. Even with a seating plan, a name means nothing to me, unless I they are in the room at the time. I might see Chloe Murphy somewhere else in the school but unless she is sitting in her assigned seat in my room, I might not recognise her!

I got the deadline wrong. It was this Friday! Still they are all done and out of the way!

On curriculum development

My particular project this year has been to review the fourth year course – Making Moral Decisions. Lots of the information in the workbooks we produce is now seriously out of date. My job was to re-write them all and bring them up to date.

If I was a race horse I would be coming over finishing line just as the all the punters are on the way home, and the security man is about to lock the gates. Slow seems to be an inadequate word.

Suddenly there is a deadline on the horizon and I have been picking around books and sourcing DVD’s, but there is nothing really to work on. So, I am knee deep in egoism and utilitarianism, with altruism and hedonism hot on my heels! I am getting there – slowly!

On third year assessments

Nearly done! The pupils do not seem to understand the concept of “exam conditions”. They are good at the “quiet” part of it, but they seem to think it is OK to ask questions. They seem to think they are entitled to a re-wording of the question so that they know what they are supposed to write about. It doesn’t occur to many pupils that understanding the question is part of the assessment itself! “So what should I write, then?” is a common question!

And then the marking! There are one or two individuals that use the assessment as an opportunity to express their opinions, unhindered, about any religious dispute they have with me! The “hostile witnesses” let their hostility pour onto the paper. A couple of well placed “Why do I have to do RE?” type comments does not make for a pass grade.

On being creative

Once upon a time I used to knit and sew. The last thing I knitted was probably a baby cardigan. One weekend, it was a Monday, a holiday Monday, Joe and I headed up to Ullapool (the home of the fab four according to Joe). There is wonderful wool shop. They don’t sell balls of wool, but skeins. If one had someone who was willing to stand around for a while, hands outstretched while one wound the wool into proper balls – all well and good. The backs of two dining chairs sufficed.

I knitted a scarf. I admit that it ranks rather low in the knitting skills scale – but I did it. I used the wrong sized needles, but it turned out fine. I promptly wrapped it up and gave it away as a birthday present.

I bought myself some more wool. I can do scarves! Knitting is quite therapeutic!

On Being even more creative

Joe and I have been invited to a “themed” birthday party. The theme is the seventies. I was going to say that most of my seventies was spent in Cyprus – but that was most of eighties. The seventies was school. I don’t remember that far back

I googled it looking for 70s fashion trends. I remember at school, in the space of a year, a girl in another class went from wearing the shortest of mini skirts to the longest of midis.

Apparently tie dying was in. I seem to remember doing it in Brownies or guides, or perhaps in school. Joe wanted to tie dye a t-shirt, so we bought the stuff and had a go. Tying bits of string round bunched up bits of t-shirt did not make any sense to Joe, but he followed my instructions.

His is purple and looks really tremendous. Mine is yellow and looks a little less wonderful. I have some fabric paints rattling around the house, so I have decided to paint on some flowers.

I have discovered that there is a limit to which I will go in dressing up. I won’t pull out all the plugs and go overboard – well, there’s a surprise!

There is another compilation episode on its way later!

I did it!

I did it! I said I would do it and I did! When I got home from school I wrote out a query letter, something you send to a publisher inviting them to publish your work! I say letter – it was an e-mail. I attached a selection of poems and sent it off. So the worm is in the water and I am waiting to see if the fish will bite!

Part of the conversation I had with my friend at the Bible study related to a meeting a number of years ago. I can’t remember where we were, but there was a prophetic element to the meeting. Words of knowledge were being tossed out to various people. It was very casual. There were a number of leaders present.

The word of knowledge for my friend was something along the lines that it was time that she wrote the book. Now, if the leader had said that to me, it would have been the perfect word. I had discovered that I had a talent for writing. The church was in need of a newsletter and I wrote one. For four years, every three months, I would harass people for articles and play around with fonts and columns and things. I was an explosion of words just waiting to happen. All I needed was someone to put a lighted match – or in this case – a prophetic word – and I would have been away. My friend just looked blankly at the man. Was there a book inside her, just itching to get written? She wasn’t sure!

I waited for the word of knowledge that was coming my way, and it was about stepping out and being confident in the prophetic realm.

Because he didn’t say anything about a book to me, but he said something to my friend, and as he was one the “big boys”, it was as if he had pricked a balloon and burst my dream of writing a book. My line of thinking was “Well, if he didn’t say it to me that must mean that I am not supposed to be a writer.” My confidence really took a dive. I did not stop writing, I just didn’t dream big any longer. I allowed what he didn’t say to colour my thinking about things. I am not quite sure exactly what i did with what he did say!

That was a long time ago and I have written a lot of things since and shared a lot of things too. Maybe what I just needed was time and it is only now, after all the FW challenges that I have confidence to believe that I am marketable!

Digging up and dusting off my talent

I made a decision on Monday.

On Monday night, the teachers/preachers in the church met together to work out the programme for the next month or so. We are hoping to base the next series of “sermons” (I hate that word but can’t think of another one) on the church described in Acts 2. It wasn’t about encouraging the congregation to drag their friends to a church meeting, but equipping the church so that they could take Jesus with them into their friendships. The phrase that I came up with – or rather, the Holy Spirit suggested – was “Take it home.” We have to work out how to take our faith outside the church setting and into our everyday lives.

Somewhere in all the chat of the evening, a friend told us a testimony of a woman. I can’t remember the details, but it was about doing what God asked you to do, not what you thought He might like you to do. It was something to do with a missionary, who had been on the mission field and seen lots of people come to a saving faith. However, God was not impressed because what He really asked her to do was to bring up her children. To be the missionary, she had put them into a boarding school and it was really left to someone else to do the bringing up.

I was convicted! It is not a case of “What if I am not doing what God asked me to do?” The week before, during the Bible study I have with a friend, the same thing came up. The study was about the value of work, and knowing that you were doing what God had set aside for you to do, and being fulfilled in that.

How many clues does a person really need before they catch on? Evidently, if you are me, then it’s quite a few! It was Tony Howson’s book that started it. My friend pointed out something at the end of the book about the publishers of the book being on the lookout for good Christian material to publish. Knowing that I have a passion for writing, my friend suggested that I might want to take them up on the offer. If they were looking for material to publish, and I had material just sitting around waiting to become a book – hey presto!

I also have the phone number of a publisher of Christian poetry that was passed on to me at a recent writer’s workshop. I am planning to attend another of the workshops later on next month. To have someone pass on a phone number, and for the person you passed it onto not to make use of it, you have to question the seriousness, or the hunger of the writer to want to see their stuff in print.

I am convicted that I am like the man with the talent that digs a hole and buries it. I could agonise about whether my writing is good enough – so many people have said that it is (and my friend has said she will buy a copy of the book when it is published!). I could also agonise about whether there is a market for Christian poetry books – apparently not if you were to go into a Christian bookshop and ask for poetry books! It is not about agonising but about obedience. If I have been given a talent then I it is not for just playing around with. There is an intention to use it and for the gifting to bear fruit. The fruit is not about me getting lost in my own private heaven for an hour or two – but about using whatever talent I have to reach out and touch people.

I read my stuff and I get touched.

So my intention is to dig out my poems, phone up the publisher and see where it all takes me. That is my weekend plan.

“And about time too…” I hear some of you say. I am making myself accountable. Feel free to nag me if you think I am playing chicken! I seriously cannot bear for God to say to me, “I asked for a poetry book, Mel. Where is it?”

Stained glass windows

After dropping Joe off at work this morning, I went for a walk along the river and then stopped off at the Cathedral. It is not really that much bigger than a parish church so how it gets to be called a cathedral I am not sure. (That’s a shocking confession from a RE teacher!)

I like stained glass windows. A friend of mine bought a house a number of years ago. It was in a bad state of repair, so he got grants to help with renovations. In one of the bedrooms there was a round window. He had a special stained glass window made of a ship or a sailing boat tossed about on the waves. When he went into the bedroom to admire the window, he discovered that they had put it in upside down. They had not recognised what the picture was and just assumed it was a pretty pattern!

When we were in Durham Cathedral a few years ago, they had some very modern windows portraying all the different trades or guilds in Durham. The ones in the Inverness cathedral were just your run of the mill depictions of the life of Jesus. There were four windows on each side of the building, apart from the ones in the chapels. Each window comprised of two separate panels side by side. They covered the annunciation of Jesus’ birth, up to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. May be the crucifixion and resurrection were depicted elsewhere.

As soon as I worked out that these eight windows were the life of Jesus, I began guessing which bits. One pair had me a little mystified – one the right hand panel was Jesus reaching down to a man half lying, half sitting on the ground. I figured it was Jesus because he had a halo. On the left hand panel was what looked like Jesus giving a drink of water to a man who was draped across his knees. Again, it was the halo that made me think it was Jesus. I did a trawl through the memory to match it with a gospel story. I couldn’t come up with anything that fitted, and finally read the words at the base of the window – “He showed compassion”. It wasn’t Jesus at all, but the parable of the Good Samaritan. The halo threw me!

I liked the thinking behind one pair of windows. On the left hand panel was the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was surrounded by people. He seemed to be holding what looked like a bible in his hand. Underneath the window were the words “Blessed are the pure in heart”. The next panel was one of the Transfiguration. Moses was easily identifiable by the tow ten commandment stones he held in his hand. Elijah got to hold and unrolled scroll with his name on it, just in case people were wondering who he was. James, Peter and John were at the bottom, looking freaked out. The sentence beneath the window continued “For they shall see God”. I liked the balance of the two pictures and the illustration that, yes, we do get to see God. Jesus at His transfiguration was as God as he could get at that moment. All the “man” part of him took a step backwards to allow all the “God” part to be revealed.

I discovered a book in my efforts at spring cleaning. "Discipleship" by David Watson, has wonderful chapter on life in the Spirit. He says that trying to explain what life in the Spirit is all about is like someone trying to describe the stained glass windows of a church to someone standing on the outside of the building. No matter how eloquently you describe them - it is only by being inside that you really get it. Until we step into God's Kingdom by being born again we cannot see spiritual truths but are blind to them.

The Helper

On one of the rare mornings, on our holiday, earmarked for doing our own stuff, Joe went off the get a hair cut while I took mum around Sainsbury’s supermarket.

We don’t have a Sainsbury’s in Inverness. There are a number of Tesco shops, a Morrisons, and a Co-op.

Being as mum is a little shaky on her feet, we commandeered a wheelchair and she balanced a basket on her knee. There wasn’t much on the list, just enough to see her through to the weekend – bread and milk and other necessities. My niece, Kelly does the proper weekly shop with her at the weekend.

The wheelchair wasn’t heavy to push, but there were lost of trolleys and lots of shelf stackers to get in the way. In Tesco I might have been able to navigate blindfolded to the UHT milk, but not in Sainsbury’s. Rather than toil up and down the aisles looking for what we needed, I kept tapping the shelf stackers on the shoulder and asking them for directions. They were incredibly well informed. Such and such an item was on aisle 37, or aisle 24 or whatever. My mum was very impressed with how swiftly we got around and finished the shopping.

The shelf stackers knew exactly where everything was and in some cases, rather than just tell me, they walked beside me till we got to the right place. Without their help we could have been wandering around aimlessly for ages, perhaps giving up altogether!

I have just been reading about the Holy Spirit.

How often are we like the shoppers in a supermarket, endlessly trailing up and down the aisles trying to track down some obscure ingredient for a dish? Asking the person who knows where we will find what we are looking for makes things so much easier. Likewise, we stumble through life, looking for answers, scraping our spiritual knees in the process when we could ask the One who knows!

Jesus does not call the Holy Spirit the Helper without a good reason. How sad that He gives us a Helper, and we don’t ask for help! Our walk with Jesus could be a really vibrant experience if we used the help the Holy Spirit offers.

It is not enough really to merely comment that we need to use the help the Holy Spirit offers. What am I going to ask Him to help me with?

Holiday snapshots

I have just arrived home from a visit down south to see family. The rest of the this blog could be the equivalent of digging out the holiday photos and showing you endless pictures of people you are never likely to meet. So, I will hand out a few awards instead!

The award for the least stressful day – there wasn’t one! When you have a huge family and feel obliged to make sure that you visit each and every member and they don’t live near each other it is stressful. The one day that we did not visit anyone – the Monday – that was stressful because of all the phone calls I had to make to arrange who to visit and when!

The award for the most stressful day – take your pick! I am opting for Thursday – visiting my sister in Northampton. She has moved house, not that I could ever find her previous house either. Northampton isn’t a part of the UK that I know well. I had been to the library earlier on in the week and downloaded an AA route to the house. It worked up to a point. There were considerably more traffic lights than the route mentioned. Once we found the place, we had a great time, catching up with the news and re-acquainting myself with nieces and nephews. They told me a quicker way home, which might have actually been quicker in daylight! Driving around Northamptonshire villages late at night is not fun.

Award for the best family cooked meal – there were a lot of cooked meals to chomp our way through. Every sibling invited us to dinner! I have no wish to eat pasta for quite a while - that seemed to be the staple ingredient for most meals. The prize goes to my brother who cooked a wonderful chicken and rice meal with spinach. He also let us join in on the preparation of the desert – a wonderful lime cheesecake. I de-rinded the limes! Second prize, if there was one, goes to my youngest sister. It was the opposite of the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes. She had cooked to feed the five thousand, and half a dozen of us polished the lot off.

Award for most entertaining company – not relatives at all this time, but a very good friend. That is not to say that visiting the family was not entertaining because it was. It is just that my family don’t do magic tricks and these folks do. On a previous visit, many years ago, their younger son, practically set himself on fire juggling with lighted batons! This time he kept the repertoire down to card tricks. It is all about miss direction and having the right kind of patter!

Award for nicest niece or nephew – they are all rather wonderful people and a real credit to their parents. I have to admit that my personal favourite is Harriet – not for anything she did this time round, but on a previous visit. She had been extraordinarily kind and like an elephant, I don’t forget! She is a person that looks out for others and makes people feel comfortable and at ease. Her sister, Charlotte, is wonderful too! She loves poetry! She is the one most likely to change the world – lots of opinions about what is wrong and what needs to be done to improve things. Most likely to make it to the Olympics, if they have women’s rugby as a sport, is my niece Emma who is going to a rugby festival in Great Yarmouth this Easter weekend.

Award for best family pet – apart from one cat and a guinea pig, they are all into dogs. I think there are as many dogs as there are nieces and nephews. We only had brief glimpses of some of them – like Bailey, the bulldog. He belongs to Kelly who bought him and then discovered she was pregnant. She is optimistic that there won’t be any problems. Jethro, who belongs to my sister Sharon, has to be the most laid back and relaxed of them all. He hangs around horses most of the day. Bob gets the prize though. He belongs to another sister, Carla, a black Labrador, endlessly patient and mild mannered. We took him out for a walk, or a “pull”. The village playing field was overrun with children learning how to play football, so we found an old footpath and took him down there. Lots of puddles to throw sticks into that Bob gloriously chased down!

Holiday snapshots

I have just arrived home from a visit down south to see family. The rest of the this blog could be the equivalent of digging out the holiday photos and showing you endless pictures of people you are never likely to meet. So, I will hand out a few awards instead!

The award for the least stressful day – there wasn’t one! When you have a huge family and feel obliged to make sure that you visit each and every member and they don’t live near each other it is stressful. The one day that we did not visit anyone – the Monday – that was stressful because of all the phone calls I had to make to arrange who to visit and when!

The award for the most stressful day – take your pick! I am opting for Thursday – visiting my sister in Northampton. She has moved house, not that I could ever find her previous house either. Northampton isn’t a part of the UK that I know well. I had been to the library earlier on in the week and downloaded an AA route to the house. I worked up to a point. There were considerably more traffic lights than the route mentioned. Once we found the place, we had a great time, catching up with the news and re-acquainting myself with nieces and nephews. They told me a quicker way home, which might have actually been quicker in daylight! Driving around Northamptonshire villages late at night is not fun.

Award for the best family cooked meal – there were a lot of cooked meals to chomp our way through. Every sibling invited us to dinner! I have no wish to eat pasta for quite a while - that seemed to be the staple ingredient for most meals. The prize goes to my brother who cooked a wonderful chicken and rice meal with spinach. He also let us join in on the preparation of the desert – a wonderful lime cheesecake. I de-rinded the limes! Second prize, if there was one, goes to my youngest sister. It was the opposite of the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes. She had cooked to feed the five thousand, and half a dozen of us polished the lot off.

Award for most entertaining company – not relatives at all this time, but a very good friend. That is not to say that visiting the family was not entertaining because it was. It is just that my family don’t do magic tricks and these folks do. On a previous visit, many years ago, their younger son, practically set himself on fire juggling with lighted batons! This time he kept the repertoire down to card tricks. It is all about miss direction and having the right kind of patter!

Award for nicest niece or nephew – they are all rather wonderful people and a real credit to their parents. I have to admit that my personal favourite is Harriet – not for anything she did this time round, but on a previous visit. She had been extraordinarily kind and like an elephant, I don’t forget! She is a person that looks out for others and makes people feel comfortable and at ease. Her sister, Charlotte, is wonderful too! She loves poetry! She is the one most likely to change the world – lots of opinions about what is wrong and what needs to be done to improve things. Most likely to make it to the Olympics, if they have women’s rugby as a sport, is my niece Emma who is going to a rugby festival in Great Yarmouth this Easter weekend.

Award for best family pet – apart from one cat and a guinea pig, they are all into dogs. I think there are as many dogs as there are nieces and nephews. We only had brief glimpses of some of them – like Bailey, the bulldog. He belongs to Kelly who bought him and then discovered she was pregnant. She is optimistic that there won’t be any problems. Jethro, who belongs to my sister Sharon, has to be the most laid back and relaxed of them all. He hangs around horses most of the day. Bob gets the prize though. He belongs to another sister, Carla, a black Labrador, endlessly patient and mild mannered. We took him out for a walk, or a “pull”. The village playing field was overrun with children learning how to play football, so we found an old footpath and took him down there. Lots of puddles to throw sticks into that Bob gloriously chased down!

Just hand me a black bin liner

I can’t remember the last time I wore a full length coat. To be honest, full length coats probably means an inch or two off the floor for someone my height, but I just couldn’t resist the bargain – reduced from £100 to £30 in the sale. Having just dropped a dress size on the diet, I dared to try it on. Dark grey wool with a light grey scarf, it fitted to perfection. I fell in love with it, and despite being on the cusp of spring, and this being a very winter coat, I bought it! I’m sorted for next year!

There are some people in the world that can wear bin bags and look terrific. I am not one of those people. I can wear something that looks terrific on the coat hanger, but on me – well, I might as well be wearing a bin bag! I just don’t have that thing called style!

I remember many years ago asking a friend of mine who worked in “Dash” or “Miss Selfridges” to come shopping with me. I can’t remember where I had got the money from, but it was, for me at least, a huge amount. I needed new clothes and I didn’t possess dress sense. She expertly glided around the displays, filling up my arms with things that I would never have contemplated – the colours, the styles were alien to me, but she knew her stuff and made me look good. I even bought a colourful floral hat! However, I spotted a brown skirt and fell in love with it. I insisted on trying it on. I liked it, and although she argued vehemently that it was not the right style for my height, or my figure, I bought it. She was so disgusted that I did not listen to her advice that she refused to go shopping with me ever again.

Incidentally, I was looking for a blue jacket – when I bought the black coat. I needed the blue jacket to complete a wedding outfit. Despite being two stone lighter than I was at my niece’s wedding last summer, I found that the outfit still fitted. It was a little loose – but not “two stone lighter” loose surely? I hate to think how tight it must have been on me last year! I don’t think I will get another wedding wear out of it if the weight keeps shifting – but that is kind of encouraging, isn’t it?

Becoming Jane

I am not really a social body, but I am trying to nurture a circle of friends beyond the holy huddle, so when the ladies at Joe's office invited me to join them at the cinema to see "Becoming Jane" I took them up on the offer. Going to see a film is not exactly something that encourages great conversation and relationship building – what else is there to say but, “No thanks,” when the bag of liquorice allsorts passes by for the umpteenth time?

Although I have read “Pride and Prejudice” and drooled at a dripping Colin Firth rising from the lake at Pemberly in the BBC adaptation, I don’t really know that much about Jane Austin.

Having seen the film, and assuming that it is based on fact, she has joined my heroines list. Agent Scully from the X-Files has long been number one in the list – for always being the first to go into scary dark places! She doesn’t do the shivering wreck thing that many women do. Judi Dench is also in the list somewhere. I remember watching a programme about her life and deciding that she was living the life that I wanted! Jo Brand hit the list earlier on by learning to play the organ and playing some complicated piece in the Albert Hall in front of thousands of people. Marg Simpson is also on the list because she loves Homer and I would find him very hard to love – although at times he reminds me of Joe!

At the time when Jane lived women were very much encouraged to marry – and marry well if they could - and have children. She had the chance to marry well but turned it down because she was looking for love. When she found love, although she had a chance to elope with the young man, she chose not to – not because she minded losing her reputation, but because she didn’t want him to lose his. As one of the characters said to her at the end of the film, “It appears that you won’t marry for money…and you won’t marry for love either.”

I found it challenging that didn’t choose the safe option. She never married at all in the end although she was in a position to do so. She was not prepared to take the second best option. She was not prepared to compromise to make life easier for herself. She did not live her life to fit in with other people’s expectations. Even choosing to become a writer and get her books published was not the done thing, but she did it. I admire her courage and commitment to principles that she wasn’t prepared to brush aside when they became inconvenient.

Where is the balance between pursuing you own plans so doggedly and fulfilling family obligations and duties? Her independence came at a price and it wasn’t just Jane who was paying but her family too.

There are things that I know I would like to do, but I often feel the pressure of responsibilities. The tutor at the creative writing course shared with us that she was retiring from her teaching post so that she could pursue her writing full time. She had written a novel that had never been printed, had begun a second novel and wanted to see it come to something. She could afford to do that and there was always supply teaching to fall back on.

I guess that Jane considered the price of things she really wanted. Some things, like marrying the lawyer, came at too high a price and would have brought more suffering than joy. Other things – the suffering would have come through not doing it and she was willing to pay the price.

God's carefully planned days

There as a whole verse in one of the worship songs on Sunday that described my Saturday to a tee - “Lord, You have searched me and Know me, You’re familiar with all of my ways, Such is Your knowledge about me, that You carefully plan all my days.”

When God plans the day, He adds in interesting little challenges! The first challenge was a flat battery! I had left the lights on overnight. There was a time when my neighbours would knock on the door and tell me! I phoned a friend who kindly came out to jump start my car. It was kind of an emergency as I had booked myself on a creative writing course and offered people a lift down. I was already running ten minutes late!

Once I had picked up my passengers the car stalled. I put my head down on the steering wheel and prayed that it would start up fine. I suppose in the course of everyday life many people say “Dear Lord” or “Oh God please…” and they are not actually praying but just expressing frustration that things are not going to plan. Mine was a genuine prayer and led to an interesting conversation on the way down. There were lots of questions about my faith – about whether I believed God could do anything, whether I ever felt abandoned by God, whether I was really sure that God loved me and if I believed he did – why did bad things happen?

It was an unexpected conversation and there were plenty of opportunities to testify to God’s faithfulness and share scripture.

It also led to one of the ladies asking me to pray for her. She was going through a difficult time, having just broken up with her boyfriend. She was feeling emotionally fragile, but she had also hurt her arm. We found a quiet corner of the room and prayed together!

I had my own plans for the day – to spend the day writing! God had his own plans and neatly wove them into the day! It was not a church setting, and not on a Sunday, but just as every day life was being lived. It was a natural, unforced and fruitful encounter with God.

Natural evironments

I caught the last half hour of “The March of the Penguins” on TV last night. Had they let Johnny Morrison loose on the narrative, one could have imagined the penguins saying all sorts of interesting things – about the cold weather, the eggs the male penguins had balanced on their feet, the absence of the females who had gone on a sixty mile hike to find water and food and so on. As it was Morgan Freeman did an excellent job!

There was so much that spoke volumes to me on many levels. Watching the march of the female penguins on their hike to reach the shore you couldn’t help but notice how cumbersome and slow the whole thing was. They are not built for walking. Often they fell onto the bellies and slid along for a while, but it was once they were in water that they really looked at home. They were eager to get into the water, and there were no orderly queues. Once in the water they were more like fish than birds. Did you know they can hold their breath for fifteen minutes? They were darting here, there and everywhere snapping up fish and skilfully evading the seals that wanted to eat them. Outside the water they were lumbering and clumsy. In the water they were mermaids. The difference of environments was amazing!

Come Saturday, that’s tomorrow, I get to be in my natural environment for the day! I have signed up for a creative writing day course in Aviemore. Some people may prefer to have all their finger and toe nails ripped out before they would ever put pen to paper and be creative, but not me!

I have always been of a writing bent – the written word just does it for me in a way that any other media doesn’t. Writing, as opposed to reading, is so my natural environment. A number of years ago I was exploring the world of college evening classes. The head bit of me said that I ought to sign up to do a counselling training course. It would have been so useful as at the time I was thinking about trying to get into the guidance role in teaching. It would also have been useful in terms of Christian counselling. I stood there, at the desk, with my money in my hand, ready to sign away the next twelve Thursday evenings. My eyes saw the words “Creative Writing”. Instead of following the head, I followed the heart. I was like that penguin who dived into the water! Home! I have rarely felt so comfortable in any other environment as I do with a pen and piece of paper, or a computer and a word processing package – and a topic of course!

Penguins spend very little of their time in the water. They delight in being in the water, but they are not there all the time. Nature demands that the reproducing and the rearing of the young happens outside, on dry land. It looks very inhospitable – with driving snow, dark days, biting wind and gnawing hunger. But when they are in the water, it is like all of that is cast aside. The chains of responsible parenthood fall off, although they are eating so that they can feed their young when they get back.

Some people live their whole lives never finding their natural environment. We were all created to live in fellowship with God, but if you look at statistics, very few people find that fellowship. Things happen, the devil happens with his lies, that force people to live somewhere that is hostile and inhospitable, where God never intended them to be.

A Sense of Wonder

This is just a snatch from my dream last night – not the whole thing. I am not sure that I remember much of the whole thing but this one scene caught my interest.

It was one of those rare dreams in the third person. It was like watching a movie rather than being personally involved – although if you are anything like me, you do get involved in movies!

The scene was a furniture shop. Around the walls there were cupboards – the kind that you would build into the walls of the home. One of them was made to look like something you would find in a Victorian home, perhaps in a sewing room. There were lots of drawers of various sizes. In some of the drawers, for display purposes, there were rolls of material for making dresses, and there were smaller drawers with ribbons in, and buttons of various kinds. One drawer contained a pair of scissors on a pile of lace.

The shop assistant called over a young girl and showed her the drawer with the scissors in it and told her it was a magic drawer. Things put in this drawer would sometimes disappear. To demonstrate what he meant, he opened the drawer to show the girl the scissors, and then shut it. Maybe he tapped lightly on the drawer, or blew on it like magicians do. When he opened the drawer, the lace was still there but the scissors had gone. The little girl looked really wide eyed.

The main character in my dream was a very pushy woman. She marched over to the cupboard and told the assistant not to be so silly. It wasn’t a magic drawer and there was a very simple explanation. She opened the drawer to reveal the scissors, and then pushed her finger down the side of the drawer. There was a small hook, or button, and a small eye on the side of the drawer. She hooked the eye on the button, closed the drawer, and when she opened the drawer, the scissors had disappeared. It wasn’t magic, just a clever devise to hide the drawer.

Suddenly, the woman’s face changed and she burst into tears. She was distraught – not about finding that the drawer worked by a clever devise, but on realising how determined she had been to find the devise. She had dismissed outright the idea that it could be magic and sought straight away to find the “truth”. She realised that she had lost her sense of wonder. Everything, it seemed, could and should be explained away.

I woke up with tears on my face! How sad that there are some people – not even grown ups – that need to have everything explained. There is no sense of the miraculous. What they can’t see doesn’t exist. I sometimes wonder if my own sense of wonder is being eroded away by the science and reason of the world I inhabit. Then I spend time in worship before God, and it is restored!

Many years ago, when I was attending a creative writing course at college, one of the assignments was to re-write the lyrics to “Raindrops on Roses”….”My Favourite Things” from “The Sound of Music” I thought I would do the opposite – and write about the things that I really didn’t ‘like. Here is one of the verses that came to mind this morning.

Science unlocking the secrets around me
Mysteries solved nothing left to astound me
Looking at stars and not being impressed
These are some things that I really detest.

This...

This…
My ultimate creative miracle
So unlike what has gone before
All else was just the frame

This…
Is not spoken into being
Commanded to be
By a single potent word

This…
Is no huge expanse
No firmament above the waters
No separation of water and sky

This…
Is not a mountain or a valley
Robed in swaying grasses
Clothed in forests of mighty oaks

This…
Is no flaming sun
Glorious in heat and radiance
Or cold and remote like the moon

This…
Is no eagle soaring on high
No sparrow skipping on a sun speckled branch
And nothing that twists and turns in the dark waters

This…
Is not a beast
Lumbering and clambering
Empty of soul

This…
I have held in my hand
Clay from the ground
Fashioned and crafted

This
I have breathed upon
Touched by my Spirit
Ignited and stirred to life

This…
Vessel of My image
In his being
I see Myself

This…
Fragile bone and flesh
Small in the immensity of the universe
Endowed with significance

This…
Free to choose
To love or reject
To draw near or to walk away

This…
Is man

This…
I love

If only I was Dorcas

The FW topic last week was "sewing". This was my entry and it came second in the Editor's Choice. That means that it will be published in one of their anthologies! I am somewhat delighted and over the moon!

If only I was Dorcas

Let’s suppose I died today.

It wasn’t a long drawn out affair of gasping breaths and whispered words. It wasn’t so swift and surprising like a car accident, that I had no time to prepare. I just became ill and didn’t get better. At the end it was like turning off the lights and gently closing the door to this life and falling to sleep. It was a good death.

Let’s suppose that I am tucked in my coffin.

One would hope that I am wearing my best blue dress. It brings out the blue flecks in my eyes, not that you can tell. I was never one for wearing much make-up so I hope that it is a natural look, not too heavy on the lip stick. I had hoped to touch up the roots on my hair, but never mind.

I hope that the conversation isn’t too solemn and hushed. I don’t mind a few jokes or some carefully chosen cheerful anecdotes of the things I had done. By all means, wear black if you feel you have to, but try to smile even just a little. I have gone to a better place remember!

Let’s suppose that in the next town, not too many miles away, is a church leader.

He had been given the keys to the kingdom. The Spirit of God rests upon him powerfully. He reaches down to the lame, pulls them to their feet and dances with them into the church. When he is arrested for preaching the gospel, an angel is dispatched to unlock the doors and sent him on his way. Some say that this man, this church leader, has even walked on water.

Do you send for the man?

If my name was Dorcas, you would have gone to the nearby town to urge him to come at once. She was a disciple who was always doing good and helping the poor.

If I was Dorcas, you would have taken him up to the room where I lay and shown him the clothes that I had made. There might have been a wonderful wedding dress that I had carefully sewn together. As I worked in the light of a candle, I would have been praying for the bride-to-be. I would have prayed for a fruitful married life, for fulfilment and harmony, for children and for laughter. Perhaps you show him a simple strong shirt of a working man. It’s nothing dainty or fragile, but fit for the fields and fighting against thistles. As I sewed the seams I would pray that he would be strong to fight the thorns of injustice in the village where he lived.

When you sent for the man, did you expect a noble tribute spoken at my graveside? Did you entertain the possibility of his turning you out of the room, taking me by the hand and commanding me to awaken?

You see, the community could not function without Dorcas. She had an essential contribution to make that they just couldn’t do without her. There was no understudy waiting in the wings to say her lines, no one to pick up the mantle she dropped. She was irreplaceable so God restored her to her church.

I am not Dorcas. I am not dead yet, but if I was, and if there was such a man in the nearby town, would you call him? Is there anything you could show him about what I have done that was good and helped the poor? There are no wedding dresses, no simple strong shirts that I have made and given away. What can you show him, what evidence can you provide that I have an essential contribution to make? Can you persuade him that I am irreplaceable?

I cannot be Dorcas. I can only be me. Is it enough?



Inspired by Acts 9:36-42

"And He made the stars"

Last night, in an attempt to generate a WW point, I walked into town last night. On a Wednesday evening I help out as an English language speaking class. It is nice to be a just helper encouraging the students to say the words and phrases correctly.

The numbers of the class fluctuate quite a bit from week t week. Many of the men who attend are from Poland. They are also football supporters. I don’t think Poland has a team in the Champion’s League Cup, but Celtic has a Polish goal keeper. There were a number of big games on last night. Sometimes there are more helpers than there are students, and sometimes I can excuse myself.

Walking home last night, the stars were just magnificent. Living fairly near to the edge of the town, the light pollution is not so bad.

Part of my route home takes me through a playing field. In the summer months, in the evening lots of the young players’ leagues uses the pitches. There are always dog walkers. It backs on to the row of houses where I live.

Last night I had an overwhelming urge to lie on the grass and just look up at the stars. I had my MP3 player plugged in and was listening to worship music. It just seemed appropriate to look up at the stars and remind myself that I serve an awesome God.

I found a spot far enough away from the path, and just patted the grass. It was wet!

Suddenly there were a million reasons why it was not a good idea to lie down!

The grass was wet.

With all the dog walkers and the darkness, there was a good chance I would settle down on a pile of doggy do. Just because there are notices reminding dog owners to make use of pooper scoopers – it doesn’t mean to say that they do.

And not to forget the dogs. I can imagine me, lying on my back looking at the stars and then being pounced upon by a large furry object. I could then have taken the opportunity to witness to the dog owner, I suppose, about God making the stars and stuff.

In the end, I contented myself with staring up at the stars and then going home for a cup of tea.

Spontaneity is not what it used to be! I wish I didn’t talk myself out of doing things that would probably encourage my faith!

In it together

I almost thought I had come to the wrong meeting last night! A lot of what our Weight Watchers leader said could almost apply to a vibrant and growing church!

Every week, we get given an inspirational article and this week it was “Perfect weight loss partners”. It was looking at the support we need that will help our weight loss the most. It is all about weight loss, but the principles apply to anything really.

“Many successful WW members find that losing weight is easier when they have the right people, information and encouragement around them.” It seems to me that if you apply this to developing your relationship with God, the same things apply. You need to have the right people, the right information and encouragement to grow as a Christian.

“Encouragement – someone to celebrate my small achievements.” The scales at WW measure half pounds too. Sometimes it is not even the weight loss that is celebrated – but a habit broken, or a good practice taken on board. Sometimes, in church, we wait for the big achievements before we testify about the goodness of God.

“Accountability – someone who’ll expect me to step on the scales each week.” I know from trying to loose weigh on my own that if I don’t feel like I have lost weight, I will just not step on the scales. Why bother having it confirmed that you have had a bad week and eaten far too much – much better to wait until you “feel” slimmer! Backsliding as a Christian does not happen over night – it is gradual and slow and relatively unnoticed. Being built into a body, someone notices and hopefully says something.

“Understanding – someone who knows what it takes to lose weight.” It is important to remember our roots and where we have come from. Our leader has a very unflattering picture of herself posted on the entrance board. She has lost masses of weight. Inevitably I look at the picture and I think that if she could do it, so can I. I know that she has been through what I am going through. In a church setting this has to be true. If we feel that no-one can relate to our situation, then we take the next step of believing that they cannot help us. Maybe we need to be prepared to paste the unflattering picture of ourselves for people to see!

“Motivation – someone to keep me inspired.” It says in scripture that we are to spur one another on to love and good works. I can remember preaching a long time ago from a few verses in Ecclesiastes – the bit about why two are better than one. There was a line about two keeping warm, while one person on their own gets cold. I saw this in terms of passion – on your own it is easy to let you passions cool down. Another person can remind you, and poke and prod you to pursue the passion.

“An exercise buddy – someone to exercise with.” Our walk with God is our own walk, we are accountable for our own spiritual temperature. But other people can have an input into that. I enjoy a bible study with a friend every week. We don’t just exercise our minds over what a verse means, but we allow the word we look at to throw light and convict us and challenge us. I could do a good job on my own – but my friend sees things I don’t see, and she sets me challenges that I would never reach for.

“Day to day support – someone who supports the small changes I make on a daily basis.” I have people, WW people, who I can phone if I wish. I haven’t phoned them as yet! I have been on weight loss programmes so often that I am an expert at knowing what I ought to do. I don’t have many questions. When it comes to my Christian life – I have experience, but I am not an expert. It is sad that our day to day support has become for many of us our week to week, Sunday to Sunday, support. We can phone people mid week, but we rarely do, so in the end we struggle. The equipping that God longs to give is in people – but we don’t ask, and we don’t offer, so we struggle. We may triumph in the end, but only after a prolonged battle that we need not have fought.

Well, I am certainly challenged to play a more effective part in building God’s living temple – His church. I am running through names in my head and thinking of how I can help and support people.