Multi cultural joy/’My Britain’

This is my Britain…. (at it’s best)….

Today I sat reading my beautiful poetry book in Trafalgar Square. Children in school uniform chatted happily whilst sitting on the sides of the fountain. Suddenly there was a commotion and at least 40 children whooped with the joy of recognition and shouted a name.

A woman with a lovely smile was beseiged by these lively children. As they rushed towards her – children who are Black, White (blond, brunette), Asian (hair flowing, hair covered) – their joy was united.

How much I loved Britain in that moment – this place where we can enjoy, respect, accept, and certainly expect differences, and yet learn to share our joys and sorrows regardless – not because the differences don’t matter (they do, they’re part of who we each are), but because as we share life together.

I believe it was Moltmann who was among the first to write that effective Interfaith work needed to be undertaken for shared causes and actions, not just for it’s own sake (not ‘we must get on together’, but ‘let’s do this/solve this (whatever) together’); and it was C.S. Lewis who wrote that Friendship had to be ‘about something’ (“…even if it is shared enthusiasm for white mice…”).

It is in sharing life, that we find points of unity, common feeling, connection, purpose…

…and when we share life with each other, we can get to move on to being people who, In the words of Paul McCartney, ‘side by side, hand in hand, we all stand together’.

So thanks to the children and the popular teacher in Trafalgar Square this afternoon – you did my heart good!

(I just re-found this – wrote it in November! so here it is…finally!)

the winner takes it all

The temptation to react to other people can be so strong.

I am most myself when I decide to be who I am, regardless of how other people decide to be.

so when someone is mean to me, unkind, tells lies, I still decide to be who I am.

So I responded calmly. 

I do not raise my voice when they shout and wave their arms around. It’s not my way.

I challenged the lie. I state that I found a particular thing unkind.

But I don’t ‘get even’.

or maybe I do? because maybe getting even, or even winning, is not letting that person control who I am, how I behave, or who I become.

all you need is love?

I think maybe it’s true – all you need to get through is love… love that helps us to think of the other person’s view when we’re annoyed with them; love that makes us try to take account of other people’s needs; love that gives us strength to keep going when we feel like chucking it all in; love that makes us share so everyone has enough and no-one is isolated or hurt.

Why is it worth going on?

because being loved – deeply loved and known and understood – by God transforms everything… and when God blesses us with people who just ‘get’ us, love us, try to see our point of view even when we’re being annoying… that’s icing on the cake. and if we’ve even had a glimpse of that good stuff, it’s worth plodding on.

maybe it’s just too easy to write about love? despite a fair bit of crappy stuff going on in some aspects of life at the mo, I’m aware of being overblessed… there’s always the cake… and at the moment, there’s even icing on it! 

  (click to open window for this to play!)

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 tidy 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.

 

The Monastic Way

“When we look at the world around us we see

the earth,

the sky,

the water,

the plants,

the trees,

the animals

and people.

But what we have to do is look behind all these phenomena

and discover their hidden source.

Most people stop with the phenomena:

they appreciate the earth or sky or flowers

or the sun or stars,

they admire the beauty

but they do not try to find the hidden source of the sky and flowers,

of every single thing.

We see beyond only when we look with the eyes of the heart.”

– Bede Griffiths, OSB  

 

excellent investments…

Yesterday and today I’ve had the joy of spending time with one of my favourite 4 year olds (and his lovely parents!).

As a result, I’ve discussed dinosaur bones over dinner, filmed his ‘dancing’ (on request) and his air-guitar to Bob Dylan songs (where did he learn about air-guitar?!), been told I buy THE coolest presents ever (I scored mega with a £2 transformer toy I took for him!), and have pretended I couldn’t see him countless times today when he was ‘hiding’ in a garden (he giggles too much to be a good hider!).

Since his birth, he’s been one of the most healing presences in my world – there’s something about connecting with his wild world that completely ‘takes me out of myself’ and helps me to see a different perspective.

I thank God for that ‘little bundle’, who’s growing into a ‘big boy’…(or if he had his way, growing into a ‘Power Ranger’!). He gives so much love, and is like a literal tonic – everything seems better after a few hours with him! :0) 

I love his parents, and was quite settled that I’d love their child when ‘it’ arrived, whoever he/she turned out to be – I don’t think I ever realised I’d gain quite so much back. Good returns eh! Better than any other kind of bank I know!

 

weeds?!

of all the lovely things in the garden, I confess I have quite a soft spot for some of the alleged weeds…

     

Eleanor Blakely Dickinson’s poem, ‘Forget me not’ ends with these words:

….Like thoughts of home in climes afar;
Like evening’s still returning star;
Like tears which fall when the heart is sad,
Almost as sweet as that heart were glad;
Like friendship found where we sought it not;
In bower and garden, in field and grot,
Spring thy fair flowers, Forget me not.

 

It’s not an original thought to wonder who decides which things are weeds, and who decides what ‘the right place’ for them to grow is anyway… maybe something beautiful always finds itself in the right place?

 

new life in old twigs

i literally jumped for joy when i saw that the tree outside my window was starting to leaf and showing tiny signs of blossom!

i love this time of the year when things are ‘coming alive’ or ‘waking’ again. it’s wonderful… and nature’s parable re-enacted: that the cold barren days, the waiting in darkness, the dry brittle twigs weren’t really signs of all-is-lost, but of things waiting for their time (their ‘kairos’).

this is the kind of thing i meant before (over easter) when i wrote about death and resurrection – the experiences in the ‘here and now’ which feel like endings and loss, the cold/lonely/barren times that feel like wasted time, that are sometimes actually just the gateway to something new. not always what we expected, or what we think we’d want, but somehow blessings of new life.