Category: living wittily

Now and again life fills up when you aren't looking and then overflows all over your other plans. This blog has been one of the casualties of a week that has been busy, mostly away from home. C S Lewis once complained about the disruptive impact of his brother's alcoholism on Lewis's plans for academic peace and quiet, and his desire for freedom from the interruption of other people's demands, needs, presence. Then he wrote one of the wise lines that helps us tolerate such selfishness in a scholar writer Christian whom Christians either love or dislike – and some of his attitudes are thoroughly dislikeable, from snobbery, to chauvinism to the use of wit to diminish others. On the other hand he could be unusually compassionate, unexpectedly tender, and was just as likely to use his intelligence to lift up and encourage.

The line is in the volume of letters, They Stand Together, a book I once lent, and never saw again. I asked for it and the borrower swore they returned it. I swore he didn't, and maybe I also swore! Anyway as Lewis pulled himself back from complaint and criticism to compassion and accepted inconvenience on his brother's behalf, he wrote to his friend Arthur Greeves, "I often wish life would get back to normal, and then I realise this is normal". And I suppose the wisdom in that is to accept that normal cannot ever mean problem free, obligation free, change free. Wouldn't endless normality be tedious, lacking the oxygen of new possibility, stagnating for want of movement. Isn't there a place in our lives, and maybe many of them, when a new normality has to be allowed to emerge, routines established but always provisionally, because life never stays the same?  I hope so. because that's where I am, trying to construct a new normality of life at two bases for a while. And no it isn't easy, it has its moments of self-doubt and other times of wishful thinking about a life less complex.

A number of times recently (7 weeks after moving), I've been asked if life has settled down now. No is the answer. How is it working out others ask. I don't know yet. Someone even asked, do you think you've done the right thing – disconcertingly I want to say "yes, and no"; or "it feels like no but I know it's yes"; or even more scary, how can you know how any big life-changing decision turns out till you make it, and then whether it was right or not, you live with it. I think that's more of what it means to live by faith than all the praying for certainties and signs. I've always admired those who look you in the eye and say " I have a peace about this". It's not my experience – I sometimes have to look right back and say, "I wish I had a peace about this". The truth is, for me, faith cannot be without risk, certainties and sign feel to me like safety nets for the untrusting, and seeking them more like risk assessments in matters of the soul.

So there are days when I wonder and worry; then there are days when I have a sense that the new way of life is workable but needs working at; other times I push in the John Michael Talbot CD in the car and sing loudly along with, "And he shall bear you up, on eagle's wings"; and then there are emails and comments from students who talk about their own life changing decisions, and their appreciation and gratitude, and share what for them is also scary times, loss of normality – and then  you begin to realise that loss of normality, and working at making our lives work, and taking risks because life is for movement and growth, and change and is a gift for giving which can't be lived under a canopy of certainties, all these are in fact the normal way a human life of faith is to be lived.

Lewis was right – no point waiting for life to become normal. What we are living is normal – and in the normality the faithfulness of God which for all Gods durable lovingkindness, is a love that manages to be constant without tedium, supporting the heart without dominating the will, allowing risk and freedom and room for error and never for a nana-second wavering in a love that is eternal, self-giving and ever responsive to where we are in our lives, wherever we are. To God, eternal love is normal – to us, it is that eternal love that means however safe or scary, however hurt or whole, however good or bad life turns out, and however unsure we are of decisions made and consequences lived with, eternal love doesn't change. It might feel like it. There are hard places and barren roads, and frightening corners enough at this stage of my life journey to make me think twice at least about talking up my own faith in God's durable, faithful love. But behind all my uncertainties; beneath all my shaken foundations; around all my questions and hesitations, there is a Love that doesn't depend on me believing in it all the time. It just is. Ands because of it, I just is! 

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The detail from the Book of Kells is included because I think it's wonderful. No other reason, it is simply beautiful and deserves to be enjoyed.

Several moments of grace recently. Not the holy, theological, prevenient, or sovereign kind. but definitely the saving kind. Here's two of them.

In Dobbies for a scone and a latte – a frequent sacrament of friendship with Sheila. On this occasion we had one scone broken between two so yes, a sacrament. At Dobbies you take your tray, choose your scone and butter and jam. Then you can bypass the cooked breakfast queue and head straiight for the coffee makers.

As I begin walking the 20 yards to the coffee place, alongside me two women, mother and daughter. She eyes me, I eye her, she walks faster, so do I. Moral and pastoral question. Do I sprint and beat her to it, or do I slow down and let her "win". Being the last word in repartee I said, On you go". She grinned and said,"Thanks. I'd have beat you anyway." Much laughter. She ordered, I ordered, and my coffee provider worked faster so I got to the till first. Who won? Who cares? We both did.

Having a bad day. We all have them, and I had just had one. All kinds of reasons and none of them really fixable in any quick way. You know the kind of day when you would feel more negative about things if only you had the energy. So as it is, and as you can only carry so much excess baggage, you give up  your aspirations to feeling negative+, and just settle for being, well, negative. And then a friend intervenes. Conversation, coffee, company, affirmation. And by the end of the day you are in that place in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, just moving from the thunderstorm to the peasant's thanksgiving and dancing, and the gentle persistent intervention of that beautiful melodic movement I never hear without thinking of all the good things that make it possible for us to look again and be surprised at how good life is. And all that negativity is discharged like lightning and earthed harmlessly, and the sun shines again. Well, that was yesterday.

Grace is undeserved favour.

Grace is the gift we never asked for, looked for or worked for.

Grace is beautiful and makes beautiful.

Grace looks you in the eye and says you matter, no matter what.

Grace is two people with scones on trays inadvertently inventing a new sports event, the scone and tray race.

Grace is the presence of those people who are like sunshine pushing through clouds, and inviting us to dance. 

And yes, grace is what God is about, always and ever.

And we often encounter that grace in the faces, and at the hands, of others who love us with the friendship of God.

The Rublev Icon above is there because it is in my view one of the greatest Christian images of grace as loving welcome and attentive hospitality.

Now and then I wish the car rear view mirror was a camera. Not because of the irresponsible tail-gaters, and not to watch the car I just ovetook vanish in the distance, humiliated because overtaken by an elderly Corsa with a mileage that would take it round the world 3 and 3 quarter times. No. I want a rear-view camera not to glower or gloat, but to glory in the beautiful artwork of God.

This morning, around 5.15 am, driving round the sweeping corner towards Stonehaven, the sun in the space of several seconds, drew a brilliant fine line on the horizon using a fine-point silver and gold pen borrowed from a generous Creator. Just where sky and North Sea meet, the line became stronger in colour, broader in reflected brilliance. That was the rear view. In front of me a sky that was blue, long broad brushed clouds that were contrasting grey softened by projected, but out of place pink, except that it didn't seem at all out of place – it was beautifully apt, mixed on the palette of an expert in light, who knew how to suffuse greyness with glory, and how to draw a new day's dawn with pencil line precision.

And today at College I read some of that beautiful, wise book by the late Michael Mayne, This Sunrise of Wonder. The title comes from words of G K Chesterton, quoted on page 7:

At the back of our brains, so to speak, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.

Now and then broad brush grey clouds all but cover our sky. Reflected glory, grey suffused with hope, this sunrise of wonder – this masterpiece of embroidered light and shadow, pink and gold and grey and blue, is God's intimation that as sure as day follows day, so new every morning are the blessings of God.   .

Was reminded of words I noted from Rebecca Elson, written at a hinge point in her life, a brief epiphany of her own self, her worth and her self-worth, while sitting on a train pulling out of Paris. Seemed to me then, and seems to me now, she had captured a sense of life's precious possibilities, glimpsed the adventure and the cost of living as well as we can with the circumstances that we make, and that make us – the things that happen and that often happen to us.

Reading it I am aware of the blessings that seep unnoticed into the soil out of which we grow, the friendships and gifts that irrigate and prevent us becoming arid, the changes and challenges that push us on an outward journey we might not have chosen, but which is our journey, and the sense that we are made for more than we know, and capable because graced and toucched by the mighty love of God, of what medieval theologians called God-given capax dei, the capacity for God. Elson hesitated about how we think of God – she was a brilliant astro-physicist whose insight into the nature of matter, the universe, its origins and its majestic mystery, left her intellectually humbled and agnostic – but never closed to the possibility of the God whose love moves the sun and other stars.

"So much to look forward to, so many
possibilities, places, people. The thing is to accept that life is an
adventure, and any adventure has difficult moments….Be gentle, be attentive,
be understanding. Make life easy for yourself. There is a kind of joy of
movement, a moment almost like flying inside yourself, soaring with the sun and
the music, and the train moving out of Paris. Leaving behind something so good, so solid to return to…a very beautiful moment on the train leaving Paris, of that energy which propels you through life. Places with fresh air, and sunshine, and the sea, and Spiring on its way."  (Rebecca Elson, Responsibility to Awe, [ precise reference is – in the book somewhere in a box somewhere in the spare bedroom!])

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Living Wittily is coming back to normal – not quite there yet as I'm still accessing through the slow dongle! Moderated comments will stay on till I have regular and easy access to moderate myself. Meantime activity here is recovering at the same pace as I am recovering 🙂

Apologies to recent commenters – I forgot I'd set the moderation of comments mode. All comments now uploaded and thanks for the many helpful and some unhelpful suggestions about what to do with books that don't fit into a modest study. Talking to someone yesterday about something very different from books, but about how the constraints of smallness struggle to incorporate large demands, I suggested it was like trying to put a king size duvet in a single bed size duvet cover.

This Holy week I have been immersed in the stuff that needs to be done to recover a semblance of life that is liveable. Much progress made and now going home to have a week's holiday. I have missed doing the daily blog post, especially during Holy week, but now and again it finally dawns on me that energy, time and inclinations have limits. Which I've decided to accede to. Still waiting the broadband at home which will take another 2 to 3 weeks. Don't ask – just pray for those of us whose gift is not patience, and who pray impatiently for more of it.

Just about to drive home to Westhill, Aberdeen. I have some CD's I will use to air condition my brain, and touch my heart alive again, and an emergency supply of chocolate just in case there are any threatening snowflakes on this mostly clear frosty day! First snowflake I see is deemed an immediate emergency.

This joyful Eastertide
away with sin and sorrow
My Lord, the crucified
has sprung to life this morrow

Quite so!

My experience of the Vadafone mobile broadband is mixed. It gets the job done, but only if you are patient. It takes a couple of minutes to load the typepad to this page – after which it works OK. It will do, but only if i allow it to double as a patience tutor,

The hiatus between
moving out of our previous home, and moving in a week later (this Wednesday) has been good as a rest, as reflection, but it does
nothing to reassure that this move will work, or even that we will like the
house we will now have to live in! We havn't seen it since we viewed it!!

So walking by faith isn’t so much a choice,
as an inevitable result of previous choices. Perhaps taking up tapestry again
is a way of creating new patterns as I work out from my own mind the
intricacies and colours of the next stage of life. There is something
sacramental in the slow, precise working of canvas, the choice and blending of
colour, the subtle shaping of form using only 45 degree cross stitch, angles
and tones, canvas grids and colours, intersecting in the woven texture of
created work whose unity is dependent on the mind that brings them together.

So at times of major
life change, and when my own life circumstances need significant attention, I
revert to a Reflective Journal. My inner world has, as long as I remember, made
most sense when I use words. So at times of significant change I use words to
redescribe the world, to weave together images that help make sense of
experiences that are confusing and disorienting. That's why this morning I was reflecting
on my taking up tapestry again – I've never completely let it go, but I was
wondering why it is now something I have returned to with a sense of relief,
even urgency. And so the image of weaving and tapestry, combined with the
weaving of words, becomes a way of paying attention to who and where I am.
Stitches precisely pointed, words crafted to context, images growing on canvas
and paper – the creative spirit reconfiguring colour and words, shaping the
outer world as a way of reconfiguring an inner world in transition. 

For me words are amongst the most precious gifts we have. To be cherished, crafted, used with integrity and ethical wisdom, offered as gifts of care and communion, the fabric of conversation and truth-seeking, a palette of expressions to be mixed into meaning in the construal of inner worlds and the shaping of outer worlds. If all that sounds over-rhetorical, a tad overstated, I'm not arguing. But those are images that help me describe the importance of words in my own approach to God, the world and that inner reality that is me!

Time I was moved into the new house and with more to do than wax eloquent about weaving, whether tapestry, words or worldview.

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Like Geoff I am now road testing one of those dongle things that give internet access from wherever I happen to be. Which at the moment is Crail. Beautiful. Windy. Yesterday sunny, today cloudy.

Our removal was carried out with great efficiency – one late afternoon, then one half morning, and nearly all our worldly possessions carted off to Aberdeen. We don't get entry to our new house till next Wednesday, so we are legally homeless, but actually living in a really nice house, regenerating our bodies and spirits. By which I mean, well, cooked breakfasts, foot spa baths, ice cream eaten in gale conditions on St Andrews front – complete with sand!- dark chocolate gingers from Thornton's, and various other compensations for a life currently in transition.

Started doing a celtic tapestry I designed a while ago – a kind of trinitarian them woven into a cruciform shape, and using the liturgical colours – in bright stranded cottons, and with no real idea what it will eventually look like. Therapy – the tighter you are pulling the threads, the more stressed out – I call it the strangled stitch test, and you can tell by the way the canvas is being pulled.

Not sure how often I can post over the next week or so – but we are both well, looking forward to completion of the move, and if anything bloggable occurs you'll be the first to know……

Forget money, credit cards, cheque-books, rolex watches (aye, plural), credit busting electronic gadgets. The things that go in the small box in my car are more to be treasured than such vulgar cash-value idols. I do icons, not idols. Not only the painted variety, but those objects that slowly accumulate through a lifetime, and can be gathered into a small box of graced gifts, not so much objets d'art as objets d'amis.

Like the holding cross placed in my hand by a friend several years ago when life threatened to come clattering in on top of me.

Like the two beautiful calligraphy sheets, on which Alistair Beattie wrote two poems one that cuts like plough blades into my soul: The Musician, by R S Thomas, and the other that says all I ever want to about prayer, Prayer II by George Herbert.

Like the cast steel paperweight in the ahpe of a dove, engraved with the text "Live by the Spirit", a gift from a close friend with whom I've shared coffee, tears and laughter.

Like the caithness glass limited edition paperweight, chosen by me from a fine collection that belonged to one with whom I'd walked a furlong or two of his hard journey.

Like the beech wood bowl, a gift from the staff and children of Beechwood School who were sorry to see me leave Aberdeen, and who I hope will be happy to see me back again!

Like several special cards from birthdays past, that happened to say things I needed to read, or said things I just liked having said about me – yes, affirmation does change the way the world looks, and these cards are hard evidence of kindness.

Like the fountain pen presented to me (at my request) by the Aberdeen congregation I served for 17 years, and with whom Sheila and Iwill soon resume our journey.

Like the leather folder Sheila bought for me in 1975 – sized A5, tooled simply, and now coloured in a deep matured brown leather, the beauty of the object providing a place for important words written and spoken.

My old rotary wind up watch, – old because bought for my 21st Birthday – condemned by the watchmaker as unfixable, but following some uneducated taps and shakes, has since gone in its old reliable way.

These and a number of other personal treasures don't go on any lorry. They are occasional sacraments, memories held in the hand, gentle nudges in the direction of gratitude. And on arrival at our new house, and when the study is set up, they will each resume their place, and their role as God's love through created things. 

This is the week of the flitting. Now that all is said and all is nearly done, and the papers signed and the removal van booked for Thursday, we are just about packed up and ready to head for Westhill, Aberdeen. A previous post explained what we were about and why. You can read it over here in the February 10 blog post. 

You do these things with mixed feelings, maybe more so because in my first 15 years I was in 13 houses and the school count also hit double figures. Since leaving home I've lived in Scotstoun, High Blantyre, Stirling, Partick, Paisley, Aberdeen (2 houses) and Paisley again and about to be Aberdeen again. By my count that means I've lived in 21 houses and am moving to my 22nd. The reasons for my identity crisis, inferiority complex, manifest insecurity, reserved and retiring nature, competitive disposition and general readiness to adapt to chronic change as life's norm, are surely not unrelated to such habits of migration.

I now sit in a dismantled study, boxes of books towering both sides of me; bubble wrapped pictures stacked against the walls now bare; the computer still connected but only for a couple more days. Then this blog is going to experience a first – a lengthy hiatus interrupted only by those occasions when I can get access to the internet. So those who are regular callers, you need to be patient, understanding and supportive, and normal service will return. For now sporadic updates, harrowing cries de coeur, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth alternating with whoops of delight, discovery or relief, will have to suffice to let you know I is still alive.

The worrying thing is, the boxes of books represent less than half my library – my College study has the same again and more, but they are staying put for a long while yet. Biblical stuff and some of the hefty theology / dogmatics, along with most of the poetry, biography and literature go up the road. Church history, theology, pastoral studies, philosophy, ethics, spirituality and other miscellanea are in the College study. The inevitable frustration will be wanting the books that always seem to be in the other place just when you want them. Mind you, these are my idiosyncratic worries – Sheila is much more to the point  and wants to know where the pictures will be safe, where to put the kitchen stuff so it will be easily accessible at the other end, could I check I know how to plumb in the washing machine, and could I make sure the removers bring mobile wardrobes to transport clothes to the other end where they will still be wearable. Right enough – who needs the Church Dogmatics when you can't find the kettle, or the washing machine is spraying the walls, or the clothes are a fankled mess of tortured textile? Well… all I can say is if the washing machine does spray the walls, I want to know the whereabouts of my set of Barth to make sure it isn't remotely within range. And as for the kettle, no need for either/or choices, however much attracted to dialectics – find the blessed thing, make the coffee and settle down with CD IV.1 and enjoy the mountain scenery of theology on an alpine scale.