Wednesday 26 August 2009

Old friends

More 'old friends' have come to visit. I suppose, as the years go on, that many of my friends are 'old', and there must be a better word for this warm feeling of familiarity and 'being known'.

How we all long to be known so well that there are no secrets.

Friends: like...
slipping on a pair of super comfortable shoes
listening to a favourite song
the first sip of a cappuchino
cuddling into a cosy armchair
sitting by a fire on a cold evening

Kim and Dave, you seem to get younger every time we meet. Welcome!

Sunday 23 August 2009

Adventures in encouragement

I’ve never really thought much about ‘prophecy’ or ‘words of knowledge’ or anything like that. It’s not tangible enough for me – not certain.

Encouragement, on the other hand – that’s easy.

Encouragement is a quiet chat; sending a card; inviting someone for a cup of coffee.

Encouragement is a thoughtful gift: a book, a bunch of flowers, a cake.

Encouragement is good words.

Good words are not just words I think are good. The ‘nice’ comments. Good words are words which speak with meaning.

I’m learning to trust those words of meaning. I’m learning to speak those words, even if – sometimes, especially if – they make no sense at all. To me, anyway…
A cup and saucer; a golden arrow; the gangplank of a cruise ship; a chicken shed destroyed by foxes. Such are the peculiar images that come to mind when I pray.

(These are not just random thoughts, but persistent ideas which crop up when I am praying, or praising with music, or reading the Words. Thoughts which God brings to my attention, almost as if he is saying: What about this, then?)

All bizarre.

All made sense - to the hearer. Those who heard were encouraged that God has His finger on their lives. He knows every detail.

I’m also learning that there are no blindingly obvious opportunities to share these little thoughts. I’m learning that I never know for certain when I’m supposed to share ‘my’ random thoughts. I’m learning that Tentative, Hesitant and Unsure are my companions in this game.

When these are with me, then, even though I am uncertain and unsure, the words are usually meant. And right. I know that I offer the words into potential void, and I pray that if they are irrelevant or unhelpful in any way, that they will drop away and be forgotten.

Bizarre.

PS I'm learning, also, not to leave ANYTHING out just because it sounds silly. Twice recently I've done that, only to realise that I needed to give EVERYTHING. not to edit. I'm just a messenger, not The Author and Editor.

Saturday 22 August 2009

Nostalgia

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning. Headed for the beach on my bicycle, I saw a cyclist in front of me.

A Breton. Unmistakeably so - tanned, weatherbeaten skin. Deep-set eyes under bristling eyebrows. He lacked only the cap, the blue and white striped jumper and the Gauloise between gnarled fingers.

It was only half an hour after the boat from Saint-Malo had docked at St Peter Port.

How did I know he was a Breton, apart from that? Dangling from his handlebars was a real, authentic, string of onions. Just like the ones my mother used to buy at the door from visiting French onion sellers.

Thursday 20 August 2009

The Boy and His Toe

The boy is back from Soul Survivor - helping lead a group of nearly 20 teenage kids to this wonderful Christian event.

We didn't hear from him all week. It's that kind of event - so much to do and take part in that there's no time for texting. Plus, that his phone ran out of battery.

There was still enough in it for one cryptic message, sent at midnight the first night: Cut my toe. Got 3 stitches in it though. Love you!

This mama didn't exactly go into overdrive, but the possibility of the wound becoming infected was uppermost in my mind. So when he returned a week later, it was no surprise to find that the wound HAD become infected. (No surprise if you've seen the state of the showers and the toilets at the campground where they were. Imagine a teenager's bedroom nightmare and multiply by 10,000.)

Trip to the doctor. Antibiotics and hot compresses. Inspection on demand several times a day. (Work out who the demand was from.) Comfort,encouragement, nursing, nurturing, reassurance,... ad hoc,ad lib, added to and multiplied...

I thought of putting a photo up here but, for the sake of everyone's sensibilities - not least the patient's - I won't.

PS Why is a patient called a patient, anyway? Surely this is paradoxical?

Tuesday 18 August 2009

'Sisters'

24 hours ago they were here. Leaving them at the airport felt very strange. Wrong, somehow.

Leaving my ‘sisters’.

These dear friends – a friendship which goes back nearly thirty years – came to visit. Our days were filled with laughter, reminisces, secrets told, more laughter…

Days of wonder, as we looked at the Little Chapel, so lovingly crafted out of shells and fragments of porcelain and pottery.

Days of exhaustion, walking the steepness of the cliffs. Marvelling at the birds soaring above us, the tiny flowers clinging to the spare soil beneath our feet.

Days of laughter, when we couldn’t stop smiling for the joy of being together – especially when we met up with Alan, also a friend from Kenya days. I’d kept it a surprise for them. Their shrieks of amazement and delight, when they met him on Herm as we stepped off the boat from Guernsey, brought smiles to the faces of strangers.

Days of enjoying the sun, the sand, the shells and the sea air.

Days of eating and drinking in celebration of a birthday, a reunion, thanksgiving for the years then and now.

Days of the comfort of being known so intimately that there seemed to be nothing we couldn’t talk about and share with each other. Days when we realized that there are very few others who we love so much that we feel as close as family.

We plan to meet up again soon. Because leaving felt so very, very strange.

Leaving my ‘sisters’.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Further reflections from New Wine

I usually go to New Wine, hopeful and expectant of a new touch from God.
My mind tells me that life is for living, that I cannot expect the miraculous every day.
My spirit longs for that to happen. I live in tension.

We talk a lot of ‘work/life balance’. As if life is somehow more meaningful, more spiritual than my work life.

But it’s more than that.

My balance, my tension, is not really between my work and the rest of my life.

It is between the humdrum and the ordinary.

It’s between living in this world, and the kingdom of God.

It is between who I am, and who I am meant to be.

It is between who I am, and who I am becoming.

Pictures with words

There are some things where only a photo will suffice. This is one of them, but, sadly, no photo. I will just have to try my best to snap this in words.

Setting: The back door of my house.
Scenario: Jonny has just returned from surfing. He has had a shower and is about to go out - he is late, in a hurry.

"Bye, Mum, see you later," he calls from the doorway.

He is wearing a towel, wrapped turban-wise, on his head.

The rest of his 6 foot frame is completely enveloped from the neck downwards in an enormous, virulently bright pink bath sheet.

I wonder how he will manage to drive his car.

Monday 3 August 2009

Hunger: or, how to get two evening meals...

5.30pm Son arrives home from work. “I’m starving. I’m going to Ian and Jane’s (youth leader and his wife) for a planning meeting at 7."

I reply: “Supper will be ready soon.”

6.00pm Supper is ready, but Son announces he is going snorkeling. Back in half an hour. No big deal.

6.35pm Son returns home, showers and changes.

6.45pm Supper is served.

6.50pm, halfway through supper: Son announces that Jane is cooking a meal for them. No doubt he will eat it. I wonder why he didn’t tell me before. Must have been VERY hungry.

Very tempted to text Jane to tell her he doesn’t need feeding. I don’t. I am sure that he will eat whatever she serves him.

With customary relish and appreciation.

Sunday 2 August 2009

Cat in South Africa














Catharine is in South Africa for two months on work experience. She met up with Aletta (used to teach in Guernsey, now living in Johannesburg) and Karyn (from Port Elizabeth, still teaching in Guernsey).

She is working with the “Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands” (LADA), a project begun in 2006 with a general aim of providing informed policy advice on land degradation. The six pilot countries of Argentina, China, Cuba, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia are participating in the project along with their national institutions and the different actors involved in implementing this initiative include United Nations Environment Programme, (UNEP) Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) as well as the University of East Anglia/Overseas Development Group. (UEA/ODG) The LADA project aim is to develop and implement tools, strategies, and methods which can be used to assess the extent and severity of land degradation as well as looking at the biophysical and socio-economic driving factors. She works with the Agricultural Research Council on local assessments which involve visiting 3 different villages in the Limpopo province and assisting experts in taking detailed water, soil, and vegetation samples as well as interviewing key informants, Agricultural Extension Officers, and local chiefs, conducting livelihood assessments and wealth rankings. The information will then be compiled and reports written up to assess the land degradation in that area and what the key drivers for this might be.

And she has also visited Kruger National Park in the course of her work, as well as meeting many new people, experiencing church in SA... can't be bad!

New Wine

Just back from a wet week at New Wine. It didn’t really rain all the time, but when I found out that the West Country had received 250% of the average for July, I wasn’t surprised.

However, the work with the children in ‘Pebbles’ (the name of the 3 and 4 year olds group) went very well. We were a team of nearly 100, working with over 300 children in a morning. Despite arriving in gumboots and waterproofs, the children’s enthusiasm for all the activities was not dampened. They played with toys, sang songs, listened to stories, watched cartoons and puppets, chatted to their leaders and learnt different ways of praying. I was, as I am every year, impressed.

I was impressed with how quickly they settled in. After the first day, the children came in as eagerly as if they had been coming every day for several months.

I was impressed with how well the children listened. At times, you could almost hear a pin drop in a marquee filled with more than 200 people.

I was impressed with how simply, yet confidently, they prayed. Watching a little girl put her hands on the shoulder of an adult as she prayed, or hearing a small boy say, after I had prayed for his sore leg: ‘It’s better now.’

I was impressed with how caring they are. One 4 year old asked me: ‘Is your arm all right now?’ He had remembered that we had prayed for my tendinitis a few days previously.

I was impressed when one mother told me how her 4 year old had woken at 1am, asking if he could pray for New Wine.

I was impressed when parents said, time and time again, how the sessions (one and a half hours a day for five days) had changed their children’s lives. ‘Pebbles’ is not a babysitting service. It is not even some kind of a mini nursery school. The sole aim is to help the children have an encounter with Jesus. When that happens, no one is ever the same again.

I was impressed with the parents. I teach, having a good mix of parents to deal with, ranging from the charming to the downright unpleasant and aggressive. Yet the parents of the children, despite arriving with dripping coats and hair, or having had to wait precious minutes before the doors opened, making them late for their next session, were invariably delightful. They had had a difficult week in the rain and the mud yet they were incredibly positive. They were calm, smiling, thankful and enthusiastic: thrilled with the sessions offered in Pebbles.

I know, given the same circumstances, that most people would not have responded like this.

I’ve always said that the Holy Spirit is tangibly present in the quiet, listening atmosphere surrounding these tiny tots it is my privilege to work with this week.

Now I have seen the same presence in their parents.