pansies with attitude!

these pansies have some serious attitude… if you can’t quite see what I mean, squint as you look at the photo! should I feel safe with these in the garden?!!

doughnut miracle

If you’ve ever travelled on the London Underground (’tube’) you’ll know there’s an unwritten, unbreakable rule that one does not, under any circumstances, smile or acknowledge other passengers.                      

 You may offer another passenger your seat, or help with luggage, but not strike up conversations or smile at strangers. It’s just how it is.

 As I am generally just on the tube for the day (i.e. not a regular commuter), I often play a game to push this rule to the limits - I give a smile to another passenger and see what happens (usually nothing - btw, it’s a polite, British ‘acknowledging’ smile, you understand, not a huge grin!).

Imagine my joy yesterday then, when on the Central Line I glanced along the row of seated passengers and saw a young woman looking guiltily at a sugary doughnut she was holding. In a moment of miracle, we ‘caught each others eyes’ and both laughed! She took her first bite and looked back to me again, and we laughed again.

So that was my doughnut miracle… little moments of human connection and shared joy…even on the tube!

‘I am what I am’!

Today a ‘helpful’ friend who’s staying a while decided that being helpful meant picking up my precious piles of paper and ‘bits’ and wouldn’t stop despite polite entreaties.

I ‘have a system’ and rarely lose things. Why oh why should someone who visits my home feel the need or feel they have the right to insist on moving my things around, even throwing things away. (I will now have to go through bin bags - oh what fun.)

I felt mean and horrible when I had to ask for the third time ‘please stop, I won’t be able to find things if you move them around’. She meant so well and so intended to be so helpful.

No doubt I have character flaws, and perhaps needing to have my stuff left alone - even if it does look untidy - is one of them. I also procrastinate - I don’t enjoy the untidy bits, but I just don’t get around to clearing it up sometimes - other things, like friends and work, are much more important to me so that’s where my energy goes. I don’t share the house, so it doesn’t inconvenience anyone else if my stuff is in a pile somewhere.

Maybe someone else would have been delighted. I really, really wasn’t.

I may be alone in this thought, but seriously - being untidy does not have any moral high ground! It doesn’t actually make someone a ‘better’ person! This may sound obvious, but if you’re naturally tidy, have a think about it.

If you’re a tidiness freak, here’s a little message for ya!  - the untidy people in your life may be quite happy and not at all inferior for being untidy. It’s fine if you’re tidy - go for it, enjoy it, alphabetise your CD’s and iron your socks - enjoy! But we’re not all the same. I have so many other flaws to work on that really - being untidy is the least of my worres and trust me, when it comes to the end of the line, my big regrets in life aren’t going to be ‘I wish I did more housework’, or ’I wish I’d been tidier’ !

I’ve stopped apologising now. I’ve realised it’s time to ’come out of the closet’ (as it were) - I’m untidy and at least in my own home, that’s just how it is - I am what I am!

smell the roses…

Generally, in every day life, I’m pretty darned good at ’smelling the roses’ - I notice little beauties of life and even literally stop to smell the roses when I’m walking through a neighbourhood and plants overhang the pavement/walkway.

What i’m being reminded of just recently is that I need to do that in my whole life too.

I have things i want to happen in my life - and i get impatient. I try not to ‘go on’ to God, but I kind of end up being just a tad repetitive in my requests (sorry God!).

What’s so easy to miss though, is the love and blessedness in my life now.

To be looking forward impatiently to a future i dream of, and miss the fact that my life right now (though not untouched by pains) is actually blessed beyond my imaginings. In fact, I’m ridiculously over-blessed.

For my future hopes, I have felt God tell me so many times, ‘It’s all in hand’, yet I find it so hard to ‘leave it there’ and get on with today.

 

                                          

I want to be better at ’smelling the roses’ in my friendships, enjoy and savour every moment of joy that comes my way, to abandon myself to God in the ‘now’, to learn the lessons God is teaching me directly and through my amazing, beautiful friendships right now.

I mustn’t waste the lessons of now, or miss the fun of now, by only waiting impatiently for hoped-for future joys.