Poetry at the Museum of Childhood

“Poetry in Motion” was out at Strathpeffer this afternoon. We spent an hour or so in the Museum of Childhood at the old railway station. The first task was to write a word or phrase about the first ten objects that interested us, something that stirred a childhood memory or a feeling attached to the object.

I had two problems here. I can say with hand on heart that I remember very little about my childhood. Currently I am reading the first book of Maya Angelou’s biography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. She writes with so much detail and depth.  It’s unlikely that I will ever write my own biography.  Certainly not the early years. Not only can I not remember much, but I think it was not particularly that remarkable. I have a feeling that the things I think I remember were stories told to me over and over again that I have made my memories, if you know what I mean. I don’t know where the dividing line between story and reality lies.

Second problem – the museum wasn’t about my childhood.  The people I was with poked and prodded the dolls and the marbles and studied the pictures of cutting peat and collecting clams on a muddy beach. They remembered leather satchels and Peter Rabbit books. It was an interesting hour – but not evocative of my childhood. I had dolls. I might have had marbles too. I never cut peat or collected clams. I remember the occasional afternoon spent gleaning rosehips from hedges.  I don’t remember ever tasting the rose-hip syrup they became.

I made my list of ten. It wasn’t a satisfying list or one full of surprises.

The next task was to choose one or two of the objects and write about them – the colour, the shape, the function and anything else that comes to mind.  I took myself off to sit in the sunshine at a picnic table.

The Pram

Hers was not small and neat.  It never folded away to take up as little space as possible on the bus.

She never used the bus anyway. There was something of the claustrophobic about her. She imagined the bus crashing.  She knew she would be unable to climb out of a tiny window should the bus come to rest upside down. She was a woman of generous proportions.

Her pram was big and black, fashioned out of iron and springs. It was a station wagon rather than a nifty compact vehicle. A nest on wings, if you will, housing the next generation of Wilkinsons, silent and wide eyed, rarely mewling.  Three girls and a boy.

She fretted about the next arrival, due in March. The pram couldn’t take five children.  She scrutinised the current occupants and wondered which one to evict.

She kept close to the edge of the road. There were no pavements. A hedgerow of nettles and brambles, punctuated with dog-rose bushes and pale pink flowers, brushed against the side of the pram.

She thought about her children and worried that just as some had inherited her blue eyes and mouse brown hair, they might also inherit her fear of busses.

The pram, big and black, iron and springs, the nest on wheels, was her excuse not to face her fear.

Chosen

Before a word

Was spoken

Before the world

Became

Before the Spirit

Hovered over the void

And order was carved

From chaos

You chose me

Before a spark

Ignited in the hidden place

Before bones and flesh

Became

Before cells

Multiplied and divided

And ciphers concealed in DNA

Dictated character

You chose me

Before light

Greeted birth

Before breath

Became

Before eyes opened

And fingers twitched

And a mother’s breast

Nourished

You chose me

Before I learned

Right from wrong

Before aware I

Became

Before sin engraved its name

On cruel words

And careless actions

And selfish ambitions

You chose me

Before You called my name

And claimed me

Before Your child I

Became

There was no beauty in me

No worth

No advantage

No reason for choosing yet

You chose me

In a world of

Fatherless children

Seven thousand million lives

Disconnected and drifting

I am humbled

Pressed to my knees

Amazed beyond understanding!

You chose me

Holiday Snapshots

Last week was a visit down south to see family. Although I took the camera down with me I took very few pictures. I used to be a keen picture taker and worked my way up through different cameras and their levels of sophistication. I stopped printing off pictures with the arrival of digital cameras. Anyway, rather than drag you through pictures of people you don’t know, I will highlights some of the events of the week.

Most miserable day

I know.  Holidays are not supposed to have miserable days. And most people wouldn’t classify this as miserable. Tuesday was a very hot day. It was the kind of temperature that was good for the Costa del Sol but not for Warwickshire. Temperatures peaked at 33^oC which translates into the high 80s or 90s on the Fahrenheit scale. I have lived in Scotland too long and become acclimatised to cooler weather. By mid-afternoon, my body really didn’t know what to do with itself.  I am convinced I have more sweat glands than anyone else and every one of them was overworked. It was nice to sit in the shade, but even nicer to sit in a room with a few fans shifting air. It seemed as if every part of me was dysfunctional. I can’t believe that I lived in Cyprus for five years in similar and hotter temperatures! Is it an age thing? This intolerance of very hot temperatures?

Nicest niece or nephew

It constantly surprises me that I am related to so many beautiful young people. There was a newspaper article yesterday about the UK population being taller now than a generation ago.  I think that the niece and nephew generation on our family might not be taller but they are a good looking bunch! I was probably quite good looking too when I was their age but middle age spread happened and other aging events.

All of my next generation are nice, but I will highlight two of my nephews.

It’s not often when we go down to visit that we see my nephew Tom. It was really good to see him.  He has a wicked sense of humour. He seems to have reached a place of liking where he is at in life – not the physical place where he lives or the people that he encounters – but just being himself. I like him a lot!

The other nephew, Micah, I hadn’t seen since he was a boy. We lost touch when his parents were divorced and I miss not having a hundred photos of him and his sister, Melody, growing up. I apologise if I stared too much. I do that sometimes.  In my head I had all these deep conversations about his dad, Michael, and the last week of his life in Spain. I reality I talked about Brexit and Scottish independence. It was nice to be in his company and his wife Angela is awesome, confident and friendly.

Most interesting meal

Was the meal that great? The food? Maybe not to my taste. Richard and Linda, my brother and his wife, help out with a cookery club once a month. It’s a multi-cultural thing. Someone had funding from the council to buy half a dozen plug in induction hobs, half a dozen pans and chopping boards and kitchen utensils. The idea was to teach people to cook healthy food. A local church offered a room and the use of the kitchen. It is a great way to learn to cook meals from different cultures.

We cooked a stir fry. Everyone chopped and grated and sliced and quartered different vegetables, threw them into a hot pan with different sauces and sprinkles of spice. Joe is a purist when it comes to stir fries – the spices go in first.  They didn’t stir fry Joe-style. We got to taste one another’s meals. Linda’s chickens had an abundance of left over vegetables.

It was the desert which I really loved. Fruit salad with meringue and vanilla yoghurt. The meringue was vegan. I had no idea you could make a meringue without egg whites. I am wrong! Chickpea water! How would someone even go down that path of using chickpea water? Creativity at its best.

Best afternoon activity

I discovered a shopping gene one afternoon. Clothes shopping has often been a bit of a chore. What looks good on a coat hanger doesn’t look good on me. I also have a little voice in my head that reminds me that I possess knitting needles and a sewing machine and tells me “you could make that yourself!” Let’s not rake up the knitting and sewing days – yes, once upon a while I could have made things, and did.

Linda and I hit the sales one afternoon. She was looking for bedding for spare rooms in readiness for sons and families to stay.  She wasn’t hostile to dresses and other stuff. She collected dresses and skirts and tops much as a bee collects honey before heading off to the dressing room to try things on. She came away with a couple of dresses and ordered other things to collect later.

I caught the shopping bug. The hot weather helped in the sense that what we had packed wasn’t suitable. I bought a pretty top – sleeveless – I don’t really do sleeveless.

I suppose what made it so enjoyable was Linda. She took her time looking through the rails. There was no sense of urgency or hurry. Time was there to be spun out. I wasn’t hurried from one place to another. I wasn’t required to make snap decisions.

More vegan deserts

One of my nieces is vegan. She introduced us to vegan alternatives to some of the stuff we eat. I was just about to say I could become a vegetarian perhaps, but not a vegan, but I like meat too much. Bacon sandwiches – there are probably vegan alternatives.  A vegan lifestyle doesn’t sit well with my basically lazy nature.

As well as the vegan meringue, we also tasted vegan ice cream. It’s not made with the usual ingredients but tastes very much the same. I liked the vanilla ice cream, but didn’t like the chocolate one so much.  

The whole week was one of healthy eating and we have managed not to fall back into the fish and chip takeaway and cake and chocolate eating rut from before. So, although I am not about to embrace veganism or vegetarianism, or the two/five diet, trying to eat better is a good idea.

It was nice to see the family. I miss them. I admit to thinking often about returning to Warwickshire – but I love Scotland too much, and Nicola, and life in a slower lane.

Written on Your Palm

Lord, I ask

I beseech and plead

Show me Your palm

Outstretched and open

Let me see my name

Written for all eternity

Let me gently trace

Each letter

With my trembling fingers

My name

Carved with love

Cut into flesh

By the nails on the cross

And stained crimson

By the blood of Your Son

My own name

Written on your palm

For I have forgotten

And need reminding

That You love me

That the trials that I face

Are light and momentary

That the yoke on my shoulders

Is not so heavy

That the silence between us

Will soon be broken

By a gentle word

That soon

I will be lost

In Your strong embrace

Tears

Cloud my eyes

So that I cannot see

So I must feel

My name

Written on Your palm

Chosen

Cherished

Precious child

Which name is mine?

I hear Your whisper

“All are yours.”

© Melanie Kerr 2007

Cheese Dreams

I am a vivid dreamer. 

Some dreams seem to be very obvious God-dreams. They contain something very profound, life changing perhaps. They have got God stamped all over them.

Other dreams I call “cheese dreams”. Nothing profound happens and they seem to be linked to something that happened at work.  I assume that it’s just the way the brain sorts out stuff from the day. They can be interesting, or not. They can leave a bad cloud hanging over me in the morning, or not. Does the fact that I remember them mean they are not true cheese dreams at all? Sometimes I sit down and pick the dream apart looking for some kind of revelation. Sometimes there is vague insight to be gleaned. Most of the time I put it down to cheese.

This morning I fell among dream interpreters. The intention was a cup of tea with a friend and a handing over of the poetry manuscript for book 2. She had offered to take a look at it and cast a poet’s eye over it.  I’m not looking for any major overhauls of any of the poems, just a gut reaction about whether they made the grade. I have a few poems waiting in the wings for last minute evictions.

Another friend joined us. Apparently I was sort of gate crashing their weekly dream interpretation meeting. The group was usually bigger than just the two of them, but it is school holiday time and people fluctuations were to be expected. It’s possible that it was just tea or coffee on the menu with a break from the dream interpretation side of things – but I tossed a cheese dream onto the table. I was expecting confirmation that it was a cheese dream and no more.

It appears that cheese dreams don’t exist.

I’m not sure what I expected in terms of dream interpretations. I think I was looking for eyes closed and silent prayer and a particular connection to the heavenlies that I don’t possess. I was waiting for “I think God is saying this…” Instead, they took out notebooks and asked probing questions and drew spider diagrams. They went online to hunt down the meanings of the names of the people in my dream. There were corresponding numbers and related Bible verses to explore. They made interesting connections. It was very different from what I had expected. Very thorough. Significant looks passed between the two of them.

I thought it was all down to my insecurities at work. The dream featured people at work being given slices of my responsibilities leaving me lots of time and nothing to do.  I was being overlooked or passed by, or replaced by someone, who in all honesty I felt knew nothing at all about how to do my job better than I could. In the real world much of what I do has been cut down to a minimum and I often feel like a spare part. I know that “they” said I was indispensable and irreplaceable when “they” denied me voluntary redundancy, but that doesn’t mean that I feel particularly valued at times.

I soon discovered as I answered questions and listened to the conversation between the two ladies that unlocking dreams is not always as obvious as it looks. Even if it is just about my insecurities at work, that gives me something to bring before God to talk through and see His perspective. My ladies were not content with that.

My boss, who in real life is so supportive, in my dream showed little concern about my plight.  After some research on his name and linking in numbers and Bible verses they concluded that he could represent God. We all have expectations about God and how He should act – yes, God is supportive. I have been doing my own research into the faithfulness of God for a poem to be included in the book. God is faithful to His purposes in my life not to my purposes. Times when God wants to push me on to a deeper awareness or intimacy can be uncomfortable times. He has begun something in me and He is determined to see it to completion and doesn’t always get my full cooperation. God not acting the way I expect Him to act is something I know in my head, but don’t always embrace in my heart.

There was no dialogue in my dream just a one sided commentary on how badly I thought I was being treated.  I said things and no one answered. I expressed my sense of betrayal and no one said anything. I thought my sense of betrayal was significant. My dream interpreters thought otherwise. The fact that there had been no dialogue about it meant it might not be that important.

They didn’t come to a settled conclusion about the meaning. They missed the usual crowd and the varied tossing of thoughts into the pot. They agreed that despite the dream storyline there was a very positive message coming out. There are, or have been, new beginnings.  It could be work related, or church related or Mel related. It could be specifically poetry related. They didn’t say hard times are coming, strap yourself in. They did say God will show His grace and mercy. And, of course, I should never doubt that God loves me.

What I really valued about the whole experience was the permission granted to express my fears. Dream interpretation wasn’t something done to me. In the context of trying to figure out what my dream meant there were opportunities to look closely at some aspects of my life, to prod and poke around my psyche in a safe environment. All my “negatives” were balanced out with their “positives”.

So, yes, it may not be just about the dream interpretation but providing that opportunity to really talk and explore the hidden part of ourselves.

Those Curveball Moments

The Urban Dictionary defines a curveball as “a particularly difficult issue, obstacle, or problem. Named after the equally tricky baseball pitch.”  A friend of mine was talking about curveballs last night at our Women Aglow meeting.

I almost didn’t go. Imagine the scene - the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and the three hundred men debating which inspired writings made it into the Bible and which didn’t. Think about that on a much smaller scale.  We are not talking about the Bible this time, but my second book of poetry. Working out which poems would make it on to the page and which wouldn’t has been a challenge. I’m still not quite there – the urge to tweak is strong. So, yes, saving the document, my precious manuscript, switching off the laptop and walking away – I almost didn’t make it! Even then, over my fish and chip supper I was still scrolling through the poem list in my head.

It surprised to me to discover that my friend and I share a very similar trait. It appears we are both nervous speakers – except that we are also very confident speakers too. In some situations we are shy people.  Out of our comfort zones we need to take the deep breath and launch out. Our comfort zones aren’t the same. I am comfortable speaking to large groups of people but not so easy with the one to one conversations.  My friend is the opposite – she does the one to one stuff brilliantly, but faced with the large group she is out of her comfort zone.

She talked about Joseph – the one with the technicolour dream coat. She chose not to read his story from start to finish, but picked out his curveball moments. Being thrown into a pit, and then sold into slavery by his brothers. Then to be accused of having an affair with the boss’ wife was not good either. Meeting his brothers later on when they came to Egypt for grain he chose not to take revenge testify to God’s plan for his life. God never approves of the evil that people do, but He works His own plans through it. Everything that Joseph went through was a part of God’s plan to make him into the man He could use, to put him in the place where he could best be used and in contact with the people he could have the most influence over.

I didn’t have a notebook so I couldn’t take notes – a shock to the system, a writer without a notebook! In one of the creative Bible communication course sessions the man leading the course scorned taking notes. He said that it was the responsibility of the speaker to make his word so memorable that taking notes should almost be an insult! I am not sure I agree with him on note taking. I take notes not because the speaker isn’t memorable but because weeks, months or perhaps years later I want to remind myself of the word. Whatever – I didn’t take notes.

One of the points made was about not allowing the curveball experiences to make us bitter or hard hearted. It is all too easy to build walls and tell yourself that you will not let them hurt you a second time – staying soft hearted is a challenge. We might never take revenge in any physical way, but thinking of the numerous ways we could cause harm to someone hardens our heart. We talk about learning through the experience but there is a right thing to learn and wrong thing. Letting God teach us the right thing is important.

She also talked about how easy it is to draw close to God in the difficult times. We have no solutions to the problem so we fall back on God. It is the times when all is going well when we are prone to let things slide. We think we don’t need God so much.

My friend talked about her more recent curveballs. Her son was diagnosed with Crohn's disease that causes inflammation and ulcers in the digestive system. He was admitted to hospital for treatment. She stayed with him for the two weeks sharing the same room. Theirs was not the ideal mother and son relationship, strained at times. The two weeks spent together brought about a new relationship.

She talked about the different people she met in the hospital – other mothers with sick sons, doctors who were praying for her and her family, those who had watched love ones die. God had put my friend in that place at that time to touch people with her words and her prayers. The curveball that the enemy would have liked to use for evil, God put it to good use.

When we are dealing with life’s curveballs there is always the opportunity for a wonderful witness to the power of God in our lives. So many conversations ready to happen, prayers ready to be launched, lives waiting for a touch or blessing. Too often we surrender the curveballs to the enemy and allow him use them to badmouth God or other people. Let’s wrest them from enemy hands and let God use them for His glory.

Me Because of You

I’m redeemed and stand before You

Dressed in a robe of righteousness

I’m amazed that I should be here

Treated as Your honoured guest

I am humbled that You chose me

Before the world began to turn

By Your grace I have been given

Blessings I could never earn

From on high You stooped down

To lift me up, to help me stand

You tell me I am precious

Write my name upon on Your hand

Undeserving yet You love me

Paid so much to bring me home

I am nothing, I am no one

Yet You’ve claimed me for Your own.

Evanton Woods

I’m hesitant to declare that fairies don’t exist. They probably don’t but I don’t want to be responsible for killing Tinkerbell.  I’d like to think that there is a little magic and mystery that we haven’t quite explained away with science.

The last few months I have been hanging around with the Poetry in Motion gang. It’s an offshoot of Creativity in Care. While other creative writing groups huddle indoors with pen, paper and prompts, Poetry in Motion heads out of doors, taking inspiration from nature.

Although I was invited, I felt somewhat a gate crasher as I arrived at Evanton woods late Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t really about poetry, although poems were shared.  Saturday was a celebration of winning an award. The woods belong to the Evanton Wood Community Company.  A long time ago I knew people in Evanton. It turned out that the people I knew then were part of the company. It was nice to catch up although I admit to fluffing names of kids now grown up that I’d once taught in Sunday School. The company had won a health and wellbeing award. There was a plaque and a cheque and a need to mark the occasion.

Being a few days after the summer solstice and mid-summer’s night, Shakespeare was on the menu. The plan was a short, steep and slow walk around a part of the forest not keeping to the main paths but forging through the foliage. We stopped every so often to read a poem or a quotation or act out a scene. We were accompanied along the way by two young musicians. A guitar and a fiddle provided lively tunes as we travelled along.

“Let’s take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magic whispers of old trees.” Author Unknown

Evanton woods was new territory to me. Although I spent time in Evanton years ago I never visited to woods. My younger friends had a passion for playing hide and seek, in the dark, in the woods, but I deemed myself too grown up for such frolics. I am not afraid of the dark, but neither am I at home in it. I am less grown up these days and much more inclined to frolic. It could be the onset of early eccentricity.

I doubt the trees in any woods have ever been so sweetly serenaded as they were on Saturday. Do trees smile? The Bible uses images of trees clapping their hands. Had I been a tree I would have clapped. They were not just somewhere in the background doing tree stuff while we walked and chatted and breathed in forest fragrances.  They were centre stage, being applauded.

“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” Martin Luther.

It wasn’t too fanciful to imagine that the trees were being entertained. They understood a message that some people, the ones in the community wood company and friends, recognised the need to connect to forests and nature. We are the takers in this world, very rarely the givers. The company gives its time to maintaining the woods, chopping bits back, replanting new stuff, finding ways to teach people bush craft and educating people about the diversity of plants, insects and animals.

I have done a lot of reading over the last few months about issues to do with creation and evolution. I am not a creationist but they talk about God's two great books that reveal His nature. One is the written word – the Bible. The second is God revealed in nature. The one doesn’t contradict the other. I may be able to read the Bible, but I fumble to read nature – It’s a language that I am not fluent in. Saturday’s people were fluent nature speakers. It was no wonder I said so little.

“The trees are God’s great alphabet:

With them He writes in shining green

Across the world His thoughts serene.”

~Leonora Speyer

Do you know, I think I said “Thank you” to at least one tree? There was a steep part of the path and I was making my way down hesitantly gripping one tree trunk after another. I traced pattern in the bark. Has I been on my own, chances are I wouldn’t have taken that path, but had I, I would have stopped and touched and dreamed a little. I would have strained to hear tree conversations. One tree trunk was so covered in rich green moss that my fingers wanted to linger.

It was not hard to think of fairies. The wood was so quiet. If, as some fairy-lovers suggest, we have pushed these mythical beings into hidden places, I would suggest that they hide in Evanton woods!

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

There is something un-striving about nature. That’s not true. What appears to be peaceful isn’t really. All forms of life are in competition whether for food or water or adequate space. Another thing I learned on my creation/evolution travels is that the Victorians were shocked not about the apparent lack of a need for God when Darwin shared his observations. He talked about survival of the fittest and the dog eat dog way of life. Nature wasn’t about peace and harmony and lambs and rabbits frolicking (I like that word – frolic) but about predators and their prey. It didn’t tie in with the Victorian idealistic view of nature.

I hear the wind among the trees

Playing the celestial symphonies;

I see the branches downward bent,

Like keys of some great instrument.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In all my encounters with woods and forests I feel better for having walked there. I breathe a different air. I think settled thoughts. My imagination is given permission to see fairies and talk to trees. I feel connected.

The Boy with the Flame Red Hair

She wakes to laughter, love and song

And peers through leaves – a happy throng

That stops, share poems, moves along

So confident that they belong

They glimpse her but see other things

Like butterflies, not fairy wings

She rises, dances, lightly springs

From twig to branch and softly sings

She sees him, fiddle in his hand

As men and women, children stand

Beneath an oak its branches spanned

And feel the magic of the land

She loves the boy with flame red hair

His grace and youth beyond compare

A life together could they share?

He doesn’t even know she’s there

She thinks to conjure up a spell

To draw him to her side to dwell

A love for her his heart compel

All thoughts of other worlds expel

But fairies almost never stay

It’s just part of the fairy way

To love a while and then to stray

She blows a kiss and turns away

Their journey through the woodland weaves

Stroking bark and catching leaves

A dry stick tossed a dog retrieves

And peace of heart each one receives

An Evening of Encouragement

I confess that I’m not a person who easily joins in things. I put it down to a childhood of never being picked for teams. I figured then that if they don’t want me, well, I don’t want them either.  I can manage all by myself.

Last night I went to “An Evening of Encouragement” at one of the local churches. It was a inter-church event tapping into the not-so-traditional gifts of the Spirit. I was in need of encouragement. It had been a rough previous week and there were one or two spiritual bruises I was nursing. One or two grudges too it turned out!

I was offered a list of options to make appointments for, steered towards selecting a couple to start with.  I could add to the list if I wanted to later.

I hadn’t had any interesting dreams so I didn’t feel the need to opt for dream interpretation. I have a young friend who has very vivid dreams that involve ghosts and zombies but didn’t really know enough detail to ask on his behalf.  Anything involving nails, nail art and hand massages were also out because at this time of the year, under stress, I don’t have nails, just chewed stubs of nails.  A week or two into the summer hols and I will I have a decent set of nails to decorate and massage.  I was left with a word of encouragement and responsive art.

I should just lay it down on the table from the outset – I’m a little bit cynical. I know it isn’t like horoscopes which can be vague enough to fit the circumstances of lots of people, or people can snip at their circumstances to make them fit the word given so I go into these things hesitantly.  There is an element of thinking that God could just tell me without resorting to a third party. Throughout scripture God uses third party messengers all the time. It was kind of arrogant of me to think that I has a special inside track and didn’t need anyone else to speak into my life.

The people giving the word of encouragement were people I knew.  I hate that initial silence at the beginning. Perhaps they had nothing to say.

The word given was Ephesians 5:1-2- “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” There was an almost apologetic shrug and a run-with-it-if-you-want-to body language thing going on. I am a person that likes to be told. “God says” has me jumping to attention.  Take it or leave it doesn’t. God did say, despite the shrug. I struggle to be like Jesus.  Don’t we all? I’m surrounded so often by people who don’t walk in the way of love and I allow myself to be dragged along. I don’t always stand my ground. The “giving myself up” part is really hard as I can be very assertive at times.  God doesn’t ask us to do the impossible without first equipping us and pouring into our lives all the resources we need. Following God, walking in the way of love, giving myself up – all possible.

The second word was in picture form.  Avril saw a candle burning strongly in the dark. The strong wind blows and it feels as if the candle will be extinguished. There’s always oxygen, always the Holy Spirit enabling the candle to burn brightly. She talked about direction and light, and making a difference, and lighting up a room.

I knew all about strong winds and candles almost going out. Hadn’t I lived through the strong winds of someone’s hot anger the previous week? I would like to say that it was uncalled for – the intensity certainly was – but I hadn’t acted wisely. I hadn’t been given any benefit of the doubt. The anvil of anger fell and I was underneath and felt crushed.

I talked a little about the incident. God and I had raked over the embers for most of the weekend. He called me to forgive myself for being so unwise in the first place. I kind of felt I deserved the woman’s anger.  However, she knew a just single moment of my work life and had painted the rest of it in a matching colour. She didn’t know me at all. Forgiving her hadn’t really occurred to me. I was beating myself up with her words. It was nice to put down the stick.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry but I did. That’s another reason I try to avoid these things. I am sometimes so tightly strung up that I can’t afford to fall apart – but I can’t really afford not to. I’m not designed to live as wound up as I get.

They prayed with me and I was collected and moved on to my next appointment – responsive art. I could have gone home at this point. I was feeling fragile. I didn’t need another spiritual poke in the ribs.

The lady on one side of me got a wonderful picture of a blazing fire in a forest. The lady on the other side of me got a glorious overflowing well. I liked those pictures. I wasn’t close enough to eavesdrop on the words that were spoken about the pictures. My artist drew a picture of an open door. An open door didn’t feel very creative or interesting. But not more than a month ago I had drawn the very same picture at a prayer meeting. I had a man dancing before my door, but it was the same kind of thing. An open door and a hesitation to step through. Another poke it the ribs? Another kick up the backside to shift me?

Not at all. Her door was one I wanted to step through. She talked about God taking me further in my creative journey with Him and a sense of fulfilment and joy. I love writing. Poetry is the one thing that really floats my boat. It’s my sweet spot. God, not just giving me permission to do it, or approval, but saying He is with me in my writing journey is very encouraging. To glorify Him through my poetry makes me want to write better poetry!

There are poetry adventures where I have not been able to whip out the swash and buckle and gut the enemy.  It was encouraging that God was not looking for another poet to do the work instead. He knows what is inside of me and is determined that I should know too. I like that.

The evening did what it said on the tin. I was encouraged.

Cornerstone

See now - God’s precious, treasured living stone

Tossed aside by men who too blind to see

Their feet are caught, they stumble, skin the bone

They glance but never see eternity

See now – the stones He chooses for His own

His living stones that move to do His will

Assembled as a house for Him alone

With praise His holy priests His temple fill

See now – the cornerstone He puts in place

For those who cast their lives, on Him depend

They look and know forgiveness, no disgrace

And own Him, Saviour, Shepherd, Friend

See now – the stone that holds in place the world

Tossed it is, into hungry hearts it's hurled

1 Peter 2:4-8

A Tale of Two Gardeners

Let’s suppose you need a gardener.

Actually, let’s not suppose at all. You do need a gardener. The shed is full of dead electric mowers. No one knows what killed them. They just stopped working. The last mower you purchased was not electric. It was a push-along-cylinder mower. Perhaps it brought back old memories of childhood and long summer days, short grass and a lilac bush in the corner of the garden – leaning at a slight angle where your older sister backed into it one driving lesson.

This mower, the push-along  one, is also dead now. You’ve tinkered with a spanner and fed it oil in its deep recesses – but it’s dead. No one knows exactly what killed it.  It just stopped working.

So, you decide not to buy another mower. It would be cruel to the mower to assign it an early death, just like the others and you are probably not as young as you were. Kneeling down is possible.  Getting back up again, less so.

The mower might be dead but the grass isn’t. It grows. A balance of spring to summer sun, lots of rain and no working mower conspire.  Ankle high.  Knee high.  Thigh high.  The grass grows.

The neighbours frown. You wish you had the courage to invite them to cut your grass for you, and weed the borders while they are at it, if they have such strong objections. You actually think your neighbour did have strong objections to living next door to your wilderness. You think they moved house in the middle of the night. You were greeted the other day by a stranger across the wall introducing herself.

Hiring a gardener is the answer.  There’s a list in the local paper. So you choose one. He doesn’t call back.  You choose another and he or she doesn’t call back. The man that lives around the corner is a gardener. He says he will call round about six. But he doesn’t.

The grass grows – waist high? Not quite.

You get lucky.  The next gardener you phone comes around and gives an estimate. It’s a bit steep – but the grass is high and you think you saw a lion, a tiger and a bear the other night. You agree to the price and tick off on your fingers exactly what is required. He’s not allowed to touch the bluebells and he’s not allowed to spray pesticides anywhere – think about the bees!

You look at the finished garden. Maybe you weren’t lucky at all.  Maybe the man could come to do it because he did such a bad job on other people’s gardens that he was never invited back. You have maybe had a bad hair- cut once upon a time and thought about wearing a paper bag over your head for a while. Paper bags don’t come lawn sized. It’s not good. There are no trim edges and the thistles at the back have been left to threaten the rhubarb. The conifers have been trimmed but my new neighbour mumbles as she sweeps up the mess he leaves on her side of the wall. No, it’s not good. You take a pair of scissors to his business card.

Meanwhile back around the corner, where the other gardener lives with his mother, he mows her lawn, trims the edges and weeds her borders.  She doesn’t have conifers to trim but you imagine he would to a good job and tidy up afterwards. He takes his time. He takes a few days. He pours love onto every blade of grass. He practically serenades the brown soil of the borders.  The garden sighs with happiness.

Now.  A quick change of direction. Suppose you want to be a gardener. Yes, there is a definite tinge of green on the fingers. So, you apprentice yourself out to one of our two gardeners.

Who do you choose?  Go on.  It’s not a trick question. If you are looking for a quick buck or a hundred and the fingers are not that green at all – maybe you will go with gardener number 1.  He is only going to teach you bad habits and he will never nurture your love of grass and ground and grubby worms.

No, you will go with the gardener around the corner. You have watched him work and you have seen the results. The garden loves him and gazes at him with adoration.

Another quick change of direction. Suppose you want to be a Christian. You don’t exactly apprentice yourself out.  Even you know it doesn’t work that way.  But you do have a good look at a couple of Christians.  Maybe there’s one that lives just around the corner. You want to know if being a Christian works! Do these people seem to have the inside track on troubles? Do they know something you don’t know? Are they happy? So you look at their lives.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  God doesn’t wrap his people in cotton wool or clean them up with antiseptic wipes. There is no vaccine against life. But how they deal with life – that tells you whether faith works or not.

Christians! No one is watching in anticipation and glee for you to fall. They are watching with baited breath for you to keep standing.  Only then will they begin to believe that faith in God works.

30 Days Wild

I signed up with the Wildlife Trust to do their “30 Days Wild” challenge. Each day I am being challenged to do a random act of wildness.  I am one week into the challenge and have discovered that wildness, random or otherwise, is hard work.  It doesn’t just happen but has to be planned into my day.

Day One – a thirty minute walk in a nearby forest. It was a quiet walk. I met a man and his dog.  The dog was willing to be friendly but the man wasn’t.

The thing about forest walks is I inevitably end up feeling guilty. I feel bad that I don’t know the names of the different trees.  I can’t identify the different birds by their songs. It’s like gate-crashing a party and not knowing any of the people there!  

Many years ago I taught for a while in a country primary school.  I arrived very early each day and spent the first half an hour in the company of the canteen staff. They spent their first hour drinking tea and gazing out of the kitchen window onto the school playing field. They pointed out various birds by name and talked about nesting pairs and all things wildlife. I knew what venn diagrams looked like and could draw the outline of the island of Australia. I wished I had their knowledge.

Day Two – closer to home this time. I filled up the bird feeders with new stuff. The peanuts had not gone down so well. The suet balls were gone. It has rained quite a bit previously and I could tell that I hadn’t changed the seeds in a while – the seeds had sprouted in the bottom of the feeder, sending up green shoots around the edge of the plastic.

Day Three – nothing to report.  It was a Friday.  I had planned to arrive early at my husband’s work to pick him up.  There was a meal to be eaten and then we were off to a race night raising school funds. I’m not a joiner-in and felt really out of place when all the ladies turned up dressed for Ascot in summer dresses and hats.

I discovered that when it comes to picking winners, I can’t do it without looking at the form – the horses' past race placements. Race nights don’t include that kind of information.  I thought that my husband, being a man who knows horses and horse racing, might actually be able to identify the races for real, but it wasn’t to be.  Everyone on our table won money except for us, although we did win two bottles of wine in the raffle.

As I say, I planned to turn up early to pick my husband and take a walk around the duck pond at his work.  I could have ticked my box but I was delayed.

Day Four – Another “I planned to do…” but it didn’t happen.  It was our monthly creative writing morning.  I planned to leave early and drive further down the road to a spot that looks out over the Beauly Firth. I have no idea why I was delayed – ah, yes, I wrote a poem instead. I’d looked over last month’s meeting notes.  What we wrote then was notes, lines, first drafts that I hadn’t done anything with. I needed to remedy that. What’s the point of creative writing workshops is you never polish up those first drafts.

I went along to the firth later on in the day. The day was glorious. The sky was very big and very blue. The tide was coming in. A few gulls were gliding on air currents. I tried to breathe the peace and tranquillity.

Someone was having a party and the throbbing beat of music and the drifting smoke from a barbeque didn’t do much to promote peace and harmony – though the neighbours seemed to have having a good time. More friendly dogs and unfriendly dog owners!

Day Five – I had witnessed forty four young people being confirmed at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. It wasn’t my usual place of worship, but I have a young friend who was one of the candidates and I wanted to be there to witness the event.

“Who’s St Harvey?” I whispered to my husband as my finger went down the list of candidates and their confirmation names. 

“He’s the patron saint of invisible rabbits,” was the reply.

This is not true, by the way. Harvey was a bishop in the very early church who was blind. He is a patron saint of bards and troubadours, and the man to pray to for eye infections.

Afterwards, I went to sit beside the River Ness. The last flakes of blossom were falling. I wasn’t watching the river or the trees but indulging in people watching. I loved seeing some couples walk in perfect synchronicity. I remembered my school days and how my best friend and I were matched for walking together.

Day Six – there are just some very busy days and fitting in something wild just isn’t possible. It was poetry at Eden Court. The topic was “Tea”. The poetry group can sometimes feel like that party crashing moment when you know they know lots of poets and poems and you don’t. One man, however, despairing of ever finding a “tea” poem resorted to writing his own. It was a wonderful comparison of men and women drinking tea. I suppose it was stereotyping – the ladies with the delicate tea cups and Earl Grey, and the men with the mugs and PG Tips doing DIY.

It was late. I dug out a nature magazine when I got home. I lusted after a decent camera so I could take good pictures of wildlife. I learned a lot about soil and how it takes 500 years to get good top soil and then a week of wet weather and it’s washed away, or a week of dry weather and it’s blown away. I discovered there are lots of species of bees beyond “bumble” and “honey”. I intend to be a more informed forest walker!

Day Seven – that’s today! My random wildness today was drinking a cup of herbal tea. I admit that it’s not so random. I have quite a collection of boxes with various “use by” and “best before” dates. Today’s selection was peppermint and nettle – Twinings, not homemade. 

The Dandelion Clock and the Hour for Letting Go

Finally.  Yes, finally I have got someone to come around and mow the lawn and clear the borders of weeds. They arrive tomorrow with rakes and spades, mowers and strimmers – but not weed killer. I gave the man strict instruction to spray nothing.  I may not have a liking for insects but birds do.  Enough that so many gardens are paved and pebbled over, not mine, I say, not mine!

I have been saying a last farewell to the long grass and the dandelion clocks. The grass has got to that interesting stage with vertical lines from the tall grass.  There is always movement and the grass seeds are ready to be tossed on the wind. A cloud of tiny winged things scatter everywhere I place my feet and the lawn is dotted with forget-me-nots and buttercups. What’s not to love? I’m not sure that I like the manicured look but my neighbours will stop frowning at me.

I know I should wage war on dandelions and dig down to the roots to get rid of them – but I like them. I am glad that God doesn’t rank flowers according to garden centre pedigree.  I like their persistence. I like their deep shade of yellow.  I like their clocks. I like their mechanism for reproducing. It’s a perfect strategy.  Over a hundred and fifty seeds, equipped with parachutes, just waiting to be loose enough to take to the air.

In our weekly prayer meeting I drew a picture of a dandelion clock with a few seeds sailing away. If the dandelion clock held on to its seeds and refused to surrender them to the breeze they would go nowhere. They would just shrivel on the end of the stalk. They would not be allowed to find a bit of soil and send down roots. I suspect that some gardeners, the lawn manicurists and the border patrol types would not object. There are plenty of out-of-the-garden places they could go – let them go there! But the breeze doesn’t discriminate.

I would like to have more of a dandelion mentality. The truth about Jesus I have learned over the years should be like the dandelion seeds loose and ready to take to the air.  The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, but I stubbornly hold on. My truth I would like to pass on to someone who is worthy of it, who won’t brush it aside, or smirk at it.  I want to know, before I pass it on, that it will germinate in a ready-to-listen heart and it will be bear fruit. It’s not as if it’s the only seed I possess. There is a lot of truth in me.  But it’s not for staying in me.  It’s for giving away.

A wise friend of mine suggested that the world, not always embracing the spiritual or the Christian, has of late become quite hostile. Humanists and atheists alike are not content to live and let live. It’s hunting season all year round and the prey is the man, woman or child of faith. Calling us idiots and fools they want to skin us of our faith and present us as naked, stripped-of-all-superstition life forms that finally face up to the real world.  They insist we will be happier knowing the truth. They are doing us a favour! Tough love!

We stay silent and hold onto our seeds of truth because we don’t want to be called idiots and fools. How the world labels us matter too much. We should not let the world dictate to us about truth and the real world. Their's is a looking at the world with only one eye barely open.

The breeze doesn’t discriminate – it blows on field and garden alike. The dandelion clock strikes the hour for letting go. The breeze comes and it holds nothing back.  The poet in me would like the hear the inner dandelion wishing every seed the longest of journeys, the brownness of soil, the warm touch of sunshine and the absence of trowels and green fingered gardeners.

The Christian in me knows about the path, and the rocky soil. Knows too about the choking weeds and thistles. But right at the forefront the Christian in me remembers the good soil and the harvest.

I pray for every seed of truth the best of journeys, readiness of spirit and soul to embrace God’s truth, the transforming touch of Holy Spirit and the resilience to flourish despite the enemy’s trowel.

Spiritual Blessings in the Heavenly Realms

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3)

I read this verse earlier this week. I wasn't feeling very blessed at all - not on earth. I sat for a while and wondered about the blessings in the heavenly realms.

I was reminded of a poem I wrote many years ago. We had a worship workshop.  The theme might have been something like "less is more" and involved learning how not to have everyone playing every note and to not have everyone singing every word.

We were asked to bring along a few lines that we could use in worship - the spirit-led part when we came to the end of a song and moved into something more spontaneous. The fledgling poet in me couldn't stick at two or three lines and a poem emerged. As the musicians played a sequence of chords I sought out a melody and launched into singing the lyrics of the poem. It worked for a verse before I began laughing. It felt so awkward trying to mould the words into a melody. It was a poem that wasn't looking for a tune. The man leading the workshop also laughed. He commended me for my bravery in rising to the occasion, but agreed the poem was too strong, too structured and wouldn't bend to music.

I think the words emerged from my personal Brethren Church experience.  The hymns we sang were strong and repetitive. We sang them with a spirit that marched rather than soared. I loved songs that were full of doctrine and had a melody and meter that lent itself to singing.

Written in every line are the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms.

All this is mine

No longer bound, for You’ve set me free

No longer blind, for my eyes can see

No longer lost, I'm a lamb that's been found

No longer sinking - I'm on solid ground.

No longer in darkness, I stand in the light

No longer defeated, for I've won the fight

No longer silent, my lips sing Your praise

No longer aimless, I walk in Your ways

No longer broken, in You, I'm made whole

No longer at war, Your peace floods my soul

No longer a stranger, for You call me 'Friend'

No other allegiance, I'm yours to the end.

No longer in Adam, but in Christ I stand

Salvation secured, I'm safe in Your Hand

All this is mine, through Your Grace alone

Through Jesus...My Saviour... Redeemer...My Own.

Shaking Off the Dust

“Shake off your dust; rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your neck.  Daughter Zion, now a captive.” Isaiah 52:2

How much does dust weight? I ask because I have done a clean-up this morning and pulled out things from walls and moved boxes.  After an hour and a half of dusting the long undisturbed corners of my house I am sweating. I am not glowing.  I know glowing and I know sweating – come to think of it, I almost always sweat. I swear I have more than my share of sweat glands.  I don’t know how to look cool.

How big the dust particles are and where they came from makes a difference. Particles of dust from a stone weigh heavier than particles of dust from old clothes.

How much might the dust of forgotten dreams weigh? Or disappointed hopes? Or the dust of last year’s successes? The dust from neglected friendships?

Wednesday it was when God drew attention to my dust.

He told me that I was carrying excess dust. My life had fallen into a pattern. Just as in a dusty house you might be able to trace the route someone took through the room by looking at the footsteps in the dust, God said he could see my comings and goings clearly.  There were just places that I had stopped going and the dust in those places had settled – places in worship, dancing places, singing in the spirit places, kneeling on the floor places.  The kneeling on the floor that I no longer do is down to a dodgy knee. Getting up afterwards is an issue. But, you get the picture. I have surrendered a lot of the things I used to do. I am comfortable.

Wednesday it was when Broken Walls came to town. I had every intention of going.  There are things where my heart really isn’t in it and I allow myself to talk myself out of going. This was not one of those events.

“But are you going to spectate, or to participate?” said God.

I didn’t know whether I was allowed to participate. Was it a concert? Broken Walls is a band made up of native North America Indians.  Some of them have Scottish connections. They communicate a message of freedom and respect told through music, songs, dance and storytelling.

They have a Mohawk water drum! They invited my friend, George, to take his seat round the drum and join in. I have seen my share of westerns and know about Indian drums and war dances. On Wednesday I was introduced to Healing dances, singing and dancing over a patch of ground before building a tepee and a Good Dance song that celebrates unity and friendship. Just for a while I was an eagle. Every step matters. I am sure that there are right steps and wrong steps as in any professional dance but what caught my heart on Wednesday was just dancing. It was a joy to fling arms and stamp feet and know that with each step I was making a stand against the enemy.  In the Healing Dance I knew that I was claiming healing – that dust that had been weighing me down was being shaken off.  The inner Mel that had slowly been pushed down by tiresome circumstances began to stand tall. The music offered me freedom and I took it. 

The band abandoned the big drum and picked up guitars. The volume was loud. The floor shook. I decided that I could do without my hearing aids. The ponytail of one of the Indians was shaken loose as he sat inside a normal drum set hammering away.  He did a drum solo. I wished I was fluent in drum-speak – the drums whispered to one another, they spoke, they listened and they responded.  There was a conversation happening and I wanted to tap into it. It was awesome.  Some people would have called it prophetic.

We were reminded that we were all created to be different, to be unique. We are created - I am created to do something that only I can do. I can never be satisfied when I am not doing what I was created to do. When I know my place in God’s Kingdom, and step into the role God has planned for me there is so much joy to be had.

Wednesday was followed by Thursday, Friday and the weekend. I might not be dancing on the outside, but on the inside?

Since then I’ve not stopped dancing

I’m not keen on sitting down

I love to feel beneath my feet

The firmness of the ground.

Strictly Forest Ballroom

Beneath the rays of the glitter ball sun

On a forest path a dance has begun

Two butterflies waltz on gossamer wings

A light leafy bough gently dips and swings

Lindy-hop birds lightly skip on a branch

Scattering blossom in a soft avalanche

A tuxedoed beetle all dapper in black

A bouncer watching the crowd from the back

A flush of flies in a frenzied display

Out of control and in everyone’s way

A fat drunken bee kissing flowers in blue

Humming a melody as he drifts through

A grey boulder clad in a thick moss cloak

Refuses to dance with a sprightly oak

Too soon it’s all over, they all drift away

But promise to gather some other day

Dem Laptop Blues

It was after the Easter holidays that the workplace replaced the desktop computers with laptops. It came with an untidy mess of cables.  At the end of each day it was to be carefully locked away in a filing cabinet or a cupboard. I made a diagram of which cable went where so I would be able to assemble it the next day. No one told me what each cable did but I worked it out.

As we moved from one desk to another, the laptop came with us. We were to detach it from the cables, carry it to the other desk and the plug into another set of cables. It was tedious, but like highly trained seals we caught on.

Docking stations began to pop up about the place. The untidy mess of cables was tidied up. The laptop clipped on to the top of it, lid closed down, and stand-alone monitors and keyboards would take away the need to squint at the small laptop screen.

On Thursday I took my laptop to a desk with a docking station – I didn’t have one yet. I clipped the laptop and hands hovered over the big keyboard and monitor. Nothing happened. Nothing kept happening. Eventually someone came over. Her advice was to remove my laptop and pull out the relevant leads from the docking station and plug them into my laptop. Hey presto…I had lift off! I did my stuff.

Back at my own desk, the one without a docking station, I plugged cables back in. Nothing happened.  Nothing kept happening. The blue ended cable that connected to the projector to the laptop wouldn’t do its stuff.  That’s not quite true – the laptop screen was blank, but the projector screen wasn’t. I could use the screen and the remote if I twisted my head and pointed it over my shoulder. It wasn’t ideal but I worked with it for a while. At the end of the day, despite knowing I had coffee appointment, I stayed to see if I couldn’t fathom it all out. Let’s just say that the cleaner and I gave up after him standing on a table and pushing buttons on the projector. The laptop screen was still black and the picture on the projector screen was now upside down.  I dashed off a memo to the workplace in general, sending out an SOS.

I was frazzled to say the least.  I was also late.  I spent five minutes reverse parking somewhere close.  It was private carpark happy to open the barrier after 5.00. It was 4.15 and the barrier was up. Notices in yellow warned me that CTV camera were operating. My dance with the car, in and out of a space had been recorded and it was just 4.15. I sensed the possibility of a fine and drove off.

I was also breaking in new shoes. This little detail tells you I had the promise of a blister on the back of my heel.

My coffee companion was a no show.  I ordered tea and a cake anyway. The tea was good, the cake was stale. Always be suspicious of a cake with lots of frosting.  My domestic science teacher’s words came back to me.

Thursday night is prayer meeting night. I seriously didn’t want to go. I knew I would end up crying over my bad afternoon.

I went. I picked up my Bible (one should never go into battle without one’s sword) – and grabbed my stiff upper lip from its dropped and quivering state and headed off.  I repeated the mantra “I will not cry!”

I didn’t cry. In the midst of worship and prayer, I didn’t want to cry. Being surrounded by church family, the angels in heaven and God in the midst of us – I didn’t want to cry. Tomorrow I would have to deal with the laptop and the projector and the upside down picture on the projector screen – but that was tomorrow.

There was a lot of love in the room – yeah, that old cliché! There was. I felt loved though no one told me I was loved. All the angst of the afternoon – the laptop horror, the parking CTV images, the no-show coffee friend, the stale cake and the sore heels – I knew myself to be deepy loved.

Isolation is the worst kind of strategy when things are not going well! Take it to the family. They may not have the solutions you want but they have what you really need!

I went home.  I hummed a tune as I drove.  Has I a tail, it would have been wagging.

The idea of a poem was in my head. The next morning I wrote this.

Mu baby got dem laptop blues…oh yeah

Mu baby got dem laptop blues

Dey took away her desktop

Now she’s hitting the booze

At work there was a docking station on my desk. The SOS memo had been effective. The boss had sent the IT man to solve it. The projector screen was the right way up. The laptop still wasn’t talking to the other technology. A maths teacher came by and pressed lots of buttons and the laptop fired into action. The IT man also came by to check I was up and running. A senior management lady visited to check I was fine.

I emailed my poem to everyone and all the laptop and docking station troubles surfaced from all the corners of the building. Perhaps the poem had given them permission to admit that they had their own laptop blues. Everyone had their own story to share over coffee in the staffroom. The IT man had been told to write a troubleshooting article. It felt like family – and we haven’t felt like that in a long time.

There was a lot of love in my workplace!

Altar Boy

There are some churches that have dispensed with so much that is traditional. So many celebrations along the way that punctuate the year have been passed over. So much of the ritual and the liturgy that frames many traditional church services just don’t happen any longer in many churches.

On Thursday I went to a mass celebrating the Day of Ascension – that part at the end of the gospels and the beginning of the book of Acts where Jesus is taken up into heaven. I had been invited by a young friend of mine. He told me that his confirmation class would be there and he would be taking an active role in the service.

He has plans to become a priest, my young friend. The teenage girl in me cries out for him not to enter the priesthood.  He would make someone a fine husband one day. He's a lovely boy! His mind is not quite made up but nearly there.

My husband is wrestling with the idea of going to confession so that he can participate in Holy Communion. It has been a while, years, since his last confession. He fell out with the church in his teenage years, as many teenagers do. He began wearing a beret and talked of Marx and socialism which the church didn’t encourage.  Confession was more of a negotiation rather than a flat acknowledgment of sin, and penance and absolution were skillfully worded.

My friend and my husband both love the Roman Catholic Church. They are both comfortable with the ritual.  It doesn’t replace God, or become the focus of their worship.  All the elements that make up mass are like stepping stones drawing them nearer to God’s throne. Where some might see meaningless actions, they don’t.

I have to admit that there is a bit of me that’s jealous.  I grew up in a Catholic home and went to mass.  I went through all the rites of passage.  I didn’t love it though.  It was what we did, a kind of external thing without the warm beating heart. I learned only that God was remote and I was far away from Him and would never measure up.

A friend reminded me today that a lack of ritual and the empty walls of a modern, non-Roman Catholic Church, for all its charismatic leanings, can be unsatisfying too. It can be hard to engage the spirit when there is nothing that appeals to any of the senses.  It makes for a bland feasting menu when it comes to worship.  We see only the danger of turning the objects into what we worship and fail to grasp that they can lead us to the throne of God.

I loved what the priest said during the service as he talked to the confirmation class.  He commented on the evening light shining through the stained glass windows and the patches of colour on the walls. He waved his hand at statues and candles, at the altar and the vestments. He reminded us that we were not there to merely look at all that stuff but to be drawn onto a higher path. As we sing the songs and speak the litany something of God’s way of living should filter into our soul and spirit and be seen in how we walk through our daily lives serving one another.

Altar Boy

A cloud of sweet fragrance

Purifying, sanctifying

An echo of another cloud

an encounter with God on

a holy mountain

He loves the smell of incense

A steady rhythm, a slow chant

Sounds and words on his tongue

Repentance expressed

Forgiveness embraced

Promises claimed

He loves the sound of the liturgy

Busy windows

Stain walls as evening light floods in

Stories told in rainbow colours

Dust motes transfigured

Beams of soft haze

He loves the play of light

Dry on his tongue

Melting wafer that bears so much

Wet on his tongue

Crimson fullness of wine

Transforms soul and spirit

He loves the intimacy of communion

Skin thin and fragile

Ink black and paper white

Crowded words

Their words, his heart in harmony

Read and consumed

He loves the feel of the prayer book in his hands

A priest’s graceful wave

At all this ritual

This isn’t the end of the journey, he says

These things are only lights along a path that

Leads to the Saviour

And lets us lean on Him

Doing the "Do"

Last night while watching Morgan Freeman explore ideas about the nature of evil from different religious and scientific perspectives, I did some ironing.  You might not be able to tell from the size of the ironing pile still there that I had made any inroads but I did!

A man in prison was interviewed about his history of serious crimes against women. His brain scan was picked over by a neuroscientist. The neuroscientist said that the man with his crimes was wired differently in his brain to most people. He had pathways missing and bits that didn’t light up. The neuroscientist declared the criminal unable to tell right from wrong, but did not excuse him from any responsibility,

I ironed a t-shirt belonging to my husband. Fastened on the T-shirt, somewhere in the vicinity of the heart was a pink ribbon – something to do with breast cancer. It was girly-pink, not boy-pink and, perhaps not something a boy would consent to wear.  I thought about the contrast between the man and his crimes and my husband and his pink ribbon and what they said about the two of them. Could the man and his crimes ever wear a pink ribbon?

My husband has a collection of ribbons, enamel pins and plastic bracelets for different causes. He doesn’t just put the money in the box and the ribbon in his pocket – he wears them long after the campaign has finished. He wears his heart, not on his sleeve, but on his wrist, or on his lapel or on his heart in a pink ribbon.

I was reading the story of the rich man stumbling up to Jesus. What could he do to inherit eternal life? If it was down to being justified by the law he might have scraped something together with his keeping from a boy some of the Ten Commandments.

“You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone. Honour your father and mother.” Mark 10:19

There are too many of the commandments are missing for the man to be that confident. None of the ones about God are listed, or the one about coveting the neighbour’s donkey. How easy it would be measure our qualification for inclusion in the kingdom on the basis of what we didn’t do. The man with his crimes – he did commit murder.  He has excluded himself through his actions from God’s Kingdom – or perhaps not depending on what he does later.

Murder is defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” Someone takes away the life of another and plans to do so. What would be the opposite of that? If murder is the “do not”, what would be the “do”. How might we restore life to someone? Maybe it’s a word of healing that restores their life.  Maybe it’s a word of encouragement that restores a broken spirit within.

To steal is to “take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.” Again with the taking, not a life this time but a person’s possessions. What would be the opposite of that? If stealing is the “do not” what would be the “do”? What should we be giving to someone rather than taking away?

The rich man perhaps never had the need to kill someone. He certainly never had the need to steal from someone. But he had the riches to give to someone and take away their need to steal. Maybe Jesus would never have challenged the rich man if he had been using his riches to bless other people.

Living life according to “do not”, when we probably “would not” anyway seems to give us an advantage. It is a different story when we work out what the “do” is in each case and make steps to do it, not to earn our way into the kingdom, but to show that we are participators in it.