Thinking Self and Observing Self

The book I'm reading makes a distinction between the thinking self and the observing self.  I find it quite a good distinction - the thinking self is all the thoughts, feelings, urges and sensations we have about life - all our judgements and thoughts fit are part of that self.  The observing self, however, is the part of us that observes what is happening and monitors and notices.  Our thinking self is just that - thinking - not good or bad, and certainly not the controller of what is.  Most of the time thought we act, I certainly act, as if it is.  I think this, therefore it is.  I feel this, therefore I need to pay attention to that.  Not necessary untrue, but not necessarily helpful either.  And that's the key question of this book - does this thing the thinking self is telling us (thought, feeling, urge, sensation) help us live in the direction of our values?  If yes - let it propel us in that direction.  If no, don't try and struggle with it, do things to "let it be" and keep living in the direction of our values.  This is profoundly different as well to much previous work I've done around psych stuff - rather than trying to change our unhelpful thoughts and feelings, we are encouraged to let them be and make space for them, but not let them dictate what we do.  There is place for lots of these different perspectives - but this is certainly the time and place for the ACT perspective that I'm exploring for me ... It's amazing how it's transforming my thinking and my life.  It gives me shivers regularly - and aligns so well with so much of my theology.

This morning I thought of another thing it changes for me.  With friends, colleagues and people who I am walking alongside in life, I often say "what are you thinking" as I can tell they are processing something.  This perspective puts new light on that - if I'm encouraging myself to not pay as much attention to every thought/feeling that comes into my brain (notice, make space for it, but not let fuse with it), how do I use that to influence how I relate and work with others?  I suspect that sometimes that will mean continuing to ask the question (making space for it) and sometimes not (not helping the person/us be fused with their unhelpful thoughts).  It'll be interesting to observe this and learn as I practice it.

Another helpful analogy with all this stuff that has been helpful for me is that our brains are like all the emails that are sent to us - without any filters.  As we get more filters on our emails we can trust more what goes into our junk mail and we might scan it quickly but we don't pay much attention to it - but those emails still come in, its just we don't get consumed by them.  That's been helpful for me.

If you can't tell - I'm excited by it all.

Negativity

So a new challenge that feels like a real invitation to life: to rid my life of negativity.

Not to rid my life of speaking the truth when that is a statement that might be negative.  But to rid my life of an attitude of negativity.

That includes conversations and thoughts, words I speak, conversations I encourage by my interest, attention I give to my thoughts and many other things.

Right now I'm in the process of noticing the extent to which negativity is present in my life.  It feels harsh and painful but gentle, good and full of peace.  It has all the hallmarks of the spirit of truth at work.  

Great quote

A great quote that Anj has on her blog today:

"Regardless of how a compulsion appears externally, underneath it is always robbing us of our freedom.  We act not because we have chosen to, but because we have to.  We cling to things, people, beliefs, and behaviors not because we love them, but because we are terrified of losing them.

The Dark Night of the Soul - Gerald G. May

ACT therapy

I've been learning about ACT therapy and loving what I'm discovering and what I'm starting to action in my life.  The popular book on this called The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is well worth a read and is quite readable.

Footwashing

I'm in the process of an essay on John 13:5-15.  It's the footwashing passage in John - only recorded in John, the book the doesn't include the institution of the Lord's supper.  I'm enjoying immensely although my brain is getting fried!  It's a greek exegesis essay so I'm needing to wrestle with questions around the specifics of the text - what does this word mean, what is the emphasis and should it actual be there at all anyway.  

But some of the questions I've been pondering are why we celebrate communion but we don't have footwashing as a ritual.  I think I've got some answers around that question.  

Another question raised by many scholars is whether there is a reference to baptism in the passage - I don't think there is.

However, one of the things that's hit me deeply has been Jesus' reaction to Simon Peter - in this passage and at other times (we looked at John 21 last week at church).  Jesus' firmness and his grace has hit me again - in his reaction to Simon Peter and to me.

Farewell to Box Hill forever

Tonight I went out to Box Hill - the place that we have owned for 21 years of my 32 years of life.  Currently too it is representative of all our family homes - so it is farewell to the place that we have owned, where I have lived, to family homes in general and to mum's home.  It was great to "be" in the house - to sit, draw, walk around, reflect and pray.  A friend's song came to mind - she wrote about going back to the family home also before it was sold; she wrote about how "she was formed here" and how "my family grew into me, I grew into them".  That was so real for me tonight - the ways in which my family grew into me in good and bad ways.  But more than ever there was an acceptance of it all and an ability to let it be and move on, knowing that it is, in a sense, forever mine.

Settlement is in a couple of weeks.

So much to blog

There are so many things that I could blog - and the specific thoughts I might try and blog separately - this will be a more general post.

Life has been full and right now life is very very good.  I feel more content and settled than I think I pretty much ever have.  Life is good and I am good.

It hasn't been that the whole of the last month - in fact quite the opposite.  I got very much to the end of my tether about 2 weeks ago which has encouraged a deep considered look at my life with deep considered decisions and 2 weeks later life is very different.  

I am very conscious of the amazingness of the many great people in my life - of all kinds.  I'm particularly thankful right now for many people who I have deep friendships with.

More than that though I'm very thankful for the deep connection I have with the creator and life-source of the universe - I seriously have no idea how I'd do life without that.

Yourself or your real self?

'Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in’.

CS Lewis

Thanks Hamo for the quote :)

Alone

I've been feeling my aloneness quite profoundly over these days/week. It's not loneliness - there are lots of ace people in my life. But as always, a holiday season has prompted in me a profound sense that I am at base alone i the world. At some levels it's a sense that is deepened by Mum's death but really it's been like this for a long time ... some of it is just that my family is REALLY small. And now it's just dad and me in our nuclear family and even in my next level out extended family just 4 people ... and we are spread over the country and dad is not in Melbourne during most holiday seasons. So aloneness at a deep level.

It's been good to cry out to God in the midst of that and to know his presence but for it not to take the realness of the aloneness away - and that is good, as much as I just wanted it taken away, I know that life only comes through facing truth and facing the death that truth speaks .. it's only then that new life will somehow, sometime emerge.

One of the things I wrestle with in all that is what does it mean to not indulge myself in these feelings but also to not allow busyness or anything else to cover over them ... I think I'm learning more about that balence than I ever have before. A friend had a spiritual director who met her for the first time the other day ask her if her depression was an indulgence - the words made her ponder, and they have made me ponder too.

I'm in a hard spot but in that feel I am doing well ... though it is agony.

Control or Resurrection life

I want to control
But that's what Good Friday is about
- the world (the darkness in the world) having the final say,
those who want to maintain control putting Jesus to death.

But the Resurrection shatters our illusions of control,
Shatters our illusions that we can control God,
that we can control the force of life in the world.

Even when we tried, and try, to control him and his force of life,
He shatters those illusions ...
and comes and walks alongside
inviting us into his path of life.

But we need to let go of control,
for the heart that wants to control,
will refuse to see the truth of the resurrection,
will refuse to acknowledge who it is alongside.

But for those who choose to embrace truth,
who allow God to be God,
they, we, are invited into life with the one who surprises us,
who walks alongside,
and invites us into his resurrrection life.

Holy Saturday Reflection

(Written to be read after reading Luke 23:50-56)

Emptiness
Grief
Guilt
Confusion
Shock
Pain

He died yesterday.
They prepared the spices for his body,
No doubt in the midst of all sorts of questions and feelings.
But the ability to do something was good.

Now they are constrained by the Sabbath.
Or maybe more accurately – maybe they are freed by the Sabbath.
Constrained in what they do.
Freed to feel what they feel,
To truly experience,
The emptiness, grief, guilt, confusion, shock and pain.

I imagine it was a bit like the emptiness of the funeral night in our society,
That time where all the busy-ness has been done and there is no more to do,
Where the tiredness can come crashing in,
Where we are frightingly alone with all that we feel.

And alone with our thoughts and feelings,
Some things become clearer – there are stunning moments of clarity,
But much is blurred by the many emotions that we feel,
And we wonder why,
wonder if we could have done anything to prevent it,
Wonder if we missed the hints,
Wonder if we were mistaken in loving,
Pretend that it doesn’t matter,
And at the bottom of all that,
When the raging somehow quietly stills,
Emptiness alone.

So on that Sabbath,
The one after Jesus died,
I imagine his followers had so many feelings that raged around.
I imagine that they had moments of clarity in the midst of the storm,
Times of piecing together Jesus’ words,
running through every interaction, picking up his hints about dying,
even in those moments of clarity,
still not understanding all that he said,
not understanding all that is to come.

But mostly I imagine they feel empty,
I imagine they feel alone,
I imagine they wonder what life is now that Jesus has gone,
I imagine they wonder if they were stupid to give their love and devotion to this one who is now no more.
I imagine they wonder if they could have stopped it.
I imagine they try just to do what they normally would have on the Sabbath before this all began.
I imagine they wonder if they could do anything to change it.
I imagine that questions and accusations abound,
That the raging torrent of grief is strong,
And beneath all that,
Emptiness abounds.

Embracing the emptiness,
The raging torrent of questions and emotions,
That is the place this day in the story invites us into.

From our place, we know new life will come,
But let us experience the emptiness,
The guilt, the grief, the confusion, the shock, the pain.
It’s as we experience that fully,
That strangely a new life we never thought would come,
Meets us powerfully in ways we never thought imaginable.

Betrayal

Tonight was our Tennaebrae service. It is often a special reflective time for me and tonight was no different. I was discussing various things with my Alexander teacher today - including a passing comment from her about my tendency to abandon myself. It struck me because they are words that Anj has used at various points so it was in my head for the rest of the day following my lesson.

Tonight during the service the words betrayal struck me afresh and I was conscious of needing to stay with that. As I stayed with that, the conversation from earlier in the day came back ... and they came together powerfully - my tendency to betray the body of Christ in the way that I abandon myself. And also my tendency to betray the body of Christ in the way I treat others in the body of Christ (often through the process of abandoning myself - my deep true self, my alive to God self).

It was an amazing centring time to mostly stay in silence as I helped pack up (i might become a quaker yet!; certainly time for some more silent retreats for me), very much staying in the place of not abandoning myself.

Also amazing was the lack of condemnation I felt as I had this realisation - a level of sadness, yes; but condemnation, no; more a sure knowledge of the invitation to life that the realisation is: an invitation to not betray the body of Christ but to choose life not death for the true, alive to God self in me and others.

Snippets of Life

Life is very full at the moment, here are some snippets that give you a window into the whole:

- Walking home yesterday, bumped into someone I know through the op shop, got my car from home and helped jump start their car (Gosh I love Fairfield and more and more being a part of this place in all sorts of ways)

- Walked around the Fairfield Village SPACE building (St Paul's Anglican Church building) with the architects and consultants who we have working on a feasibility study for our renovations and making the space into a family wellness and childrens and families learning and play cantre.

- Sold a house: now that made me feel like an adult! Argued with the real estate agent about the price of the reserve ... and got a good, solid price, I am pleased.

- Have experienced more of a mystery illness, that bizarrely while it's absolutely annoying physically I'm not stressed about on some other levels.

- Having some more Alexander Technique lessons

- Having a week of trusting God about a range of things in consistently deeper ways.

- Being more grounded in myself (and God) than ever before and being able to see that through some quite concrete responses.

- Translating John 1 and getting translations in on time.

Life is very, very full; but quite good as well.

A Bit of an Update

It feels like ages aince I posted on here - each day is so full and goes so fast at the moment, but with quite significant things happening as well as just mundane things of life.

Last week I started back at college after a couple of years not studying. It's going to be a stretch for my Greek (I'm doing John's gospel - Greek text). It was also good to see how in general my confidence is so different and I am so much more able to be my true self than I've ever been in an academic setting - so that's fun. But I was in culture shock at how far I've been out of the "evangelical" church environment - I came away from two days at college last week saying "if I hear the words gospel ministry or evangelical ministry again I'll shoot someone". Well I wouldn't go that far - but I did notice strongly the assumptions about what everyone in the class/stream would think and the strong bias towards a particular theological stance - one that would be different to many of my baseline beliefs now. So that's all interesting.

On Saturday friends got married - and I mostly married them (everything but the legal signature bits - 'cause I can't do those bits yet!). So that was fun but exhausting ... and the bride also stayed at my house the night before so yes it was quite a couple of days!

In the Op Shop we are having a Kids market on Monday week (10th March) so yesterday we were sorting kids clothes all afternoon - fun with people I love hanging with.

Saturday (1st March) was my first day officially in my new role as Fairfield SPACE Presence, Manager and Liason (we are still looking for a better name! - various people are voting for SPACE Cadet!). It's a bit wierd at some levels because much of my new role I've either been doing as a volunteer or in my paid role but the ace thing is that it all enables me to focus on it more - and with the things I've been doing as a volunteer at the fore (which is much more the stuff that excites me etc). I'm still finishing off stuff from my old role and it seems a bit like I'm the only person in the system noticing that these few days are a new start (to be honest only a couple of us really know!). Talking to a good friend today - we spoke about how to mark it for myself - this is part of that but she is also coming across and we will have a drink at lunchtime!

And in the midst of all that I have had some significant periods of grief over the last few weeks as we head up to the Auction of mum's house next weekend.

Mmmm ... okay it's no wonder I'm exhausted!!!!

Selling the Family Home

mmmm .... selling the family home is a wierd thing. The house is on the market and at one level I so want it all over with. But another I really don't want the house to go - its been the "base" I have known for many years and that will be no more. In many ways it's the final confirmation of mum's death - sounds funny, but in some ways that is some of what she was / offered; that base.

It will be nice to all be finished but it is a process of grief as well as celebration as well as "it just is" along the way.

Lent

During Lent this year I am reducing/not drinking caffeinated coffee. I dropped down from my usual three cups of coffee a day to two for the first week - no real deal. As of Thursday, I've been down to one - now that's been a bigger deal but not in the way I would expect. On Thursday, I realised that I had just drunk my one coffee for the day as I finished the coffee. Today was a crazy day which involved being up early to do work for a 9am meeting. I had my first coffee at 7am. When I was in a cafe for my meeting it didn't occur to me in the slightest that I was doing anything strange ordering my normal coffee. In fact it took me until about 1pm to realise that I'd just had two coffees. I was not stressed about it - but it lead me on some interesting journeys of thoughts - how easy do we fall into things which we choose not to do/how easy is it to not live the life we have chosen and lots of other thoughts. The process of choosing to give up caffeinated coffee for Lent has been as interesting as anything else - the "decision" just happening "in" me. It's like it was something I "just knew" to do. And it isn't so much about what I'm giving up on this occasion nor even about not depending on something - it's much more about choosing life and choosing to remove something from my life that is not good for me. It's also been interesting that just as strongly as my decision to not have caffeinated coffee, was my decision to keep having decaf - the rituals of coffee in my life are ones I love and think are very healthy, so I've kept the healthy aspect and am choosing against the unhealthy. It's with all that in mind I read this post from Maggi Dawn about Lent - words which I've read before but are much more poignant right now as God does significant work in me around relaxing in him and in myself being human and as God calls me away from the idol that self-improvement has been in my life and continues to call me and lead me more into a life that is lived and on about his kingdom - now that's a life worth living.

It's a common misconception that Lent is about self-improvement. Somehow a
half-remembered custom of giving things up has been mixed in with our society's
obsession with self-help and self-improvement, so that we've blurred the true
meaning of the fast into a rather individualistic concept, more like a New Year
Resolution to detox or de-clutter.
Lent is not about giving up luxuries, not about losing weight or gaining other benefits, not about food per se, not about de-cluttering or Feng Shui or about any other kind of feel-good, de-toxifying exercise. In the end, it's about denying yourself some of the essentials of everyday life in order to focus on the reality that we depend upon God for life itself; about re-aligning ourselves with God and his purposes in our world;
about reminding ourselves that all we have is a gift from God in any
case.
And neither is Lent about achievement. We cannot earn God's love, nor
save ourselves. If our Lenten Fast is understood well, it will relieve us of the
need to try harder, achieve more, feel worthy. It will ground us in the firm and
unshakeable knowledge that we are human - we are but dust, and to dust we shall
return - but that to be human is enough, under the loving gaze of God.

Nourished by those around me

I've been really conscious recently just how thankful I am for the people around me. It's not so much "wow I have unreal friends around" - although that I do :) It's been more the sense of who is around me (in terms of the character of those people) and the things that they give themselves to and the impact on me of that. I am nourished by them.

Some of the times I've been conscious of recently:

- an amazing conversation over lunch with 3 other Solace people: real, deep, able to challenge, most excellent. I came away from that conversation refreshed in a way I rarely experience. I've thought long and hard aboutwhat made it what it was - and I do believe that largely it was the character and longings for real conversation of the 4 of us around that table.

- the loving to engage with the Bible and respond to it of the people who are part of our 5pm time at Fairfield SPACE

- a friend who last night in the midst of me stating how life is and some struggles doesn't particularly comment on those but speaks hugely of the character that the wrestle I was talking about in me shows and how much she loves that character. Man, that's the best thing she could have done to nourish that character in me.

- a friend who gave the day yesterday to do a range of tasks off my to do list

- an ex boss who as she was signing me up for my library card to return to study made sure she asked about how the process of grief had been and about where we were up to in selling the house

- the joy and embracing of life of the 2 yr old twins I am friends with

- a friend who is wrestling with what it means to be a presence of life in her local community and speaking with me about it ... it continues to challenge me at every turn about what the things we are talking about mean for my life - all very well to be able to help someone journey with it (which is important) but it's excellent that as I do that it calls me to evaluate how I am living too

That's just a smattering of the occasions that nourish me - for which I'm thankful.

House is on the market

So the family home is having an open for inspection for the first time today. It's wierd being able to look up your family home on the internet and see it listed amongst the other properties for sale. It's an empty house now, clean and with the garden done - now just a few things in the cupboard and a few things left in the garage for dad and I to deal with. The Auction is in 4 weeks (presuming we don't sell beforehand). In so many ways, it's the end of an era. Even though mum and dad were separated for 10 years and in a sense I left home at 13 (when I went to boarding school) and all sorts of other things - there really has been a strong family unit sense in many ways. It's bizarre but the actual selling of the family home is in many ways for me the end of that family unit. Mum's death was, but in so many ways this is more so for me. It really is a symbol of the family unit as such being finished. There continues to be dad and I - and my commitment to him is higher than ever - however, there is a sense in which that is two adults who are profoundly connected, rather than in the sense of a family unit - it's hard to put this stuff into words often.

However I word it - something profound is ending for me in the selling of this house. It's not selling mum's house, it's selling our house and in the selling of "our" house, "our" is no longer. It's not a bad thing - in fact I think quite good and healthy, however, real and as an ending, grief is involved. We have owned this house for 20 years - of those years I personally only lived in it for 5 years and even then in much of that time I was hardly there (while I was at uni I spent much time at friends houses). However, those 5 years were over 3 different times of living there and for 16 of those years at least mum has lived there. Also, much of my stuff has been in and out of there numerous times and it's only now over recent months that my last stuff has left the house. There is a sense in which it has still been "my" house and that will end with the sale and subsequent settlement.

"Our" family homes have always been important to me and apart from this one there is only one which I can in any way get to in any normal way - and that's the one from the first 3 years of my life in Richmond NSW - it is still there (or was last time I visited it and the street anyway!). However, the base family home from my primary school years has units on the property now (Westmead, NSW) and our two houses 2 doors apart on Groote Eylandt are a little hard to get to on a regular basis (although I do plan to go there this year).

There is a sense in which this is all the end of "our" family unit. Profound, real, grief-filled yet good, freeing and a real ability to move on all mixed together.

It just is

Had a lovely day yesterday - driving down to Anglesea with a friend. We had lunch in one of my all time favourite cafe's just on the other side of Anglesea.

It was a day of wide ranging mostly unfocused conversation - lovely and relaxing. One of the things that came up only really in passing a couple of times was me being an only child. It came up in connection to me being a CODA and it also came up in connection with mum's estate and the dealing with that.

As I think about it - I can't actually conceptualise what it would be like to have siblings, it's just not the way my life has worked. Really at quite a deep and fundamental level, I'm not sure if I can really picture a family with more than one child - that is all I have known in my own direct experience. For me, nuclear family equals parents and one child. I know other things in my head but the more I think about it, the more I realise how much my mental picture of "family" comes from my own direct experience.

And, as always, I'm aware how much my being an only child shapes who I am - in ways that I'm aware of and in ways that go way beyond what I am conscious of. I can't imagine sharing the journey of what life has and is in my family with another person - it's just not how life has ever been, or ever will be. Am I sad about that? Not really. It's more a realisation that the concept of a sibling is really a foreign concept.

The experience of being a CODA - isolating and unheard

I don't talk about it very much - but I am very aware that being a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) impacts me greatly. A discussion today about how I learnt to speak - sent me into a self-reflective mood around my life as a CODA tonight. Often CODA's feel isolated. However, I think the thing that I find hardest is being a CODA of deaf parents who don't sign. It really feels like the world that I "belong" to is very small - I'm not part of the deaf community, in many ways I'm not part of the "normal hearing" community, but neither am I really part of the CODA community because the "norm" is signing families. There are a few of us CODA's from non-signing families but we are very few and far between. It's an isolating experience.

Over the last year or so a person who has worked with me for a number of years has realised that for me to say that I don't feel "heard" is not simply "I don't think you have taken in what I am saying", rather it is "I don't feel like my existence is being acknowledged" which we both realise comes from very early childhood experiences, particularly stemming from not being "heard" by my parents. As I have been around young children in recent years I can't imagine what it was like for me as a baby/toddler to not be "heard" by my parents and the number of times I felt like I was ignored and just plain treated as a non person. One of my responses to this has been to desperately seek out being "heard"/"acknowledged". The reality is that my parents did all they could to "hear" me (my sense is within what they could control were over-protective) - but the limitations were so huge and given the circumstances there is no way around the fact that there would have been many times where I was in want or need and was not responded to. I am still coming to terms with how this has effected me.

Dwelling in places where people dwell in darkness

It's interesting to watch what is happening in me as I make decisions to give myself to the area I live and where our church building is in an even deeper way, and as I choose to give myself more deeply to my calling of working with God in helping shape people for mission in the world and as I choose to give myself to the final preparations I have to do before I am ordained.

The words of "the world conspiring with you" seems to fit my experience now - like at many other times. The universe is such that when you choose life and the things that "fit" the world both works with you (and profoundly against you too).

Right now I'm seeing the working with.

Last nights reading was Matthew 4 which we looked at through doing a Lectio and some words that leapt out at me had me looking at my Greek - in essence it seems that the call for me is "just as Jesus dwelt in the midst of the people who were dwelling in darkness, that is the call for you" and then I read a blog post this morning that also had the words that call of priethood is to "know how to stand in the dark places and to find resurrection".

It's also fun watching things in me that have been a bit dormant for a couple of years gain space, room and energy.

Consequences of Grief

A good friend and I were talking about grief the other day and one of the things we agreed was that a key consequence of grief is "expect some of your key relationships to fail". As we both said we are not sure that you can know this during and not sure how much it's helpful to say it to people in the midst of the intensity of early stages of grief but we both reckon it's a profoundly true statement, as we have watched others and experienced significant grief ourselves. Certainly for us it helps us to just relax a bit at least looking back - and to be easier on ourselves than we otherwise might.

As I think about it, I reckon it's broader than just grief - I'd say that in any big thing in your life, whether good or bad, that's one of the things I'd say "expect some of your key relationships to fail". Not sure I like the word "fail" - but you get the gist of what I mean - "not be able to cope with it". That's certainly been my experience of all sorts of stage in my life.

6 months last week

Well - last week it was 6 months from the date of mum's death - or to be more exact 6 months since we found her and the date on everything official. Ironically, it was the same date I received the probate paperwork in my mailbox.

I've been feeling it profoundly in a way that I can't my finger on really. When some people have asked me recently how it is some words of used are "it just is", "it seems to be at a point of acceptance". But now it seems to be more the place of sadness - again not mostly sadness for the person who was Lyn being in the world (although a little of that at her best) but rather sadness for my mum not being in the world.

I haven't been out to the rose garden where we buried her ashes by myself yet - and due to the above I'm thinking it's time - so I'm going to do that today. Never know I might also make it to one of the places my good friends ashes were scattered as well - we shall see what I need to do once I've trecked out to Lilydale.

Focus

I've been thinking about the statement (wherever it is from) that "the good is the enemy of the best". It's led me to think a few other things "the many is the enemy of the one" and especially for me at the moment "the fact that you can do something is the enemy of the things you are called to do". I've been thinking lots about the many things I can do - many of which I enjoy, many of which just seem to need to be done by someone and I'm able - and how they distract from "the" things that whatever words you want to put around it I am called to do, the things I'm uniquely made for, the things that in this phase it is right for me to be giving myself to. It's hard when there are many things you can do to give yourself wholehearted to the things you are called to today. But that is faithfulness and it is the call to life.

Iceblock melt

My 2 year old friends currently are coming to terms with the fact that "iceblocks melt and balloons pop". Iceblocks and balloons are two of their favourite things at the moment and coming to terms with the fact that they melt and pop - that you can't control that - is very hard. Their mum prayed for us on Sunday morning with our versions of iceblocks and balloons. What are the iceblocks that melt and frustrate you as you desperately try to hold onto them? And what are the balloons that pop and frighten you, make you angry?
It describes so many things over my life - I'm now going to call the iceblock or balloon moments.

Call to Discipleship

Christ, whose insistent call
disturbs our settled lives:
give us discernment to hear your word,
grace to relinquish our tasks,
and courage to follow empty-handed
wherever you may lead,
so that the voice of your gospel
may reach to the ends of the earth, Amen

(A Prayer Book For Australia)

Accountability vs. Edit-ability

For many years accountability was big for me. It's also big in many Christian circles. A good friend started questioning the concept a few years ago and over time his questioning has won me over. I now think that it's quite an unhelpful concept. I've recently been reading (or more like skimming) a good book called Organic Community and that also questions the "accountability" concept.

It puts into words what my friend and i have discussed over several years and has a useful table camparing accountability relationships (AR) and edit-ability relationships (ER). A couple of the comparisons which speak some of what we have thought about are:
AR are built on the understanding that people are primarily bad and sinful, whereas ER are built on the understanding that people are good, made in the image of God.
In AR the partner tries to ehlp by creating more structure, rules and regulations whereas in an ER the "Editor" makes suggestions but leaves the major reworking with the individual.

Within the chapter it talks about what I think is the major issue though - who is responsible for our actions and for holding us responsible for our actions ... under God that is each of our responsibility. Often this becomes merged unhelpfully in AR and rather than taking responsibility for our own actions and growth we give that power - or at least the power to hold us responsible for that - to someone else.

It really comes down to who is responsible for our life - and before God that is each of us. Thankfully, God does put others around us to journey with us and to be involved in helping us be more the people he longs for us to be but the responsibility for that lands squarely with each of us. I think AR, very differently from what they would aim to do, keep people from embracing their potential maturity, whereas ER helps people to embrace it. (Now on the other hand the concentrating on AR has taken many people into some good relationships where they have shared in ways like no other so don't hear me saying it's all bad; however, for me there are points at which it has often just reinforced some of my own broken behaviours and patterns.)

Now I'm off out of the oven that is my house at the moment to an air conditioned house and a walk in the evening air with one who is very much a fellow journeyer on this life adventure - and who definately encourages me to take responsibility for my life before God and who i do the same for her - I wonder what of life we will enjoy together this evening, ponder this evening, challenge each other on?!

Venting

Over the last 6-12 months I've increasingly been thinking about whether venting or talking stuff through in that kind of way is actually helpful. Most of my life I have believed that it's how I work and process and others have reinforced this belief. But for a range of reasons I've started questioning whether it's actually helpful.

The seed of this thought realisation (worded like that because I know myself well enough to know that most significant things are simmering in me for a long time before they come to even this point) started almost out of the blue one day several months ago. I think it had been a stressful situation and for some reason I just thought "I'm not going to vent or talk to anyone about this at least until I am no longer worked up about it". This is the opposite to my automatic response. It was certainly a good path.

Since then several other things have happened - and I certainly have made decisions to vent to a more specific range of people - mostly people who won't just let me vent actually, partly chosen because of that.

During the past week I rang a friend to "vent" (I think actually used that word!) and he was happy to hear that but was in no mood or space to just allow a vent so we did good work on what was behind it.

Then this morning I read The Chief Happiness Blog which sometimes has quite interesting things on it, a link to a page about how bad venting is for you - I reckon it's so true.

Mmm .... very long term patterns I'm changing here so it will take time and I'm well and truly already on the path and it's already significantly changing relationships but will continue to. I do think that it's something God is really significantly doing in my life and a real invitation to live life more in the ways he desires ... an increase of life in abundance.

(Now most but not all of the people I vent to in some way read this blog - do feel very free to respond to this information how you feel best and how you are able - from doing nothing with this information to asking me the question of "do you really think talking about it in this way and at this time is the helpful thing" to a stronger boundary around hearing a vent)

The Work of Christmas

There are some people who are life-bringers in your life even though you have never met them - and have only occasionally directly exchanged words - Stephanie is one of those for me. On numerous occasions she has been part of "the right words at the right time" for me in ways that have been deeply nourishing. These words came via Mike Todd's blog but were words sent by Stephanie. Again they are nourishing words for me today.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among brothers,
to make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman - The Work of Christmas
A Grateful Heart p 74

Christmas without Mum

Well to be honest the hardest thing about Christmas has been the guilt about the relief of mum not being here - and how pleasant and nice it was without her. A lovely, relaxed, very little stress day without mum. No need to work around whether she will be there or not, no need to worry about her being jealous because I'm talking to someone else. It was pleasant.

I realised this was how it was leading up to Christmas - and to be honest, for me the hardest thing was coming to terms with that and also of course therefore the various comments about "I'll be thinking of you today without Lyn" etc have been quite hard to deal with. Don't get me wrong - I appreciate the places the comments come from but frankly unless people have been clear that they mean "in the mixed picture that it is", those words spoken in care have been unhelpful rather than helpful. They have just added to the guilt that I've already been wrestling with.

But this is how it is in much bigger ways than just Christmas - it is my reality. While I am really thankful for so much of mum's role in my world - I wouldn't be here without her and that's pretty profound and what much of my grief has been about (think back to the way I talked about my grief as the "breaking of the umbilical cord"), life is easier and less complex than if she was around. And I'm sure that is true for her. As I said in my eulogy - her pain is now gone ... and that includes the pain she caused others (and the pain that then caused for herself).

So hesitantly I say I'm at peace with her not being around ... and growing in peace with my thankfulness for that. She knows peace she's never known before - why should I feel guilty about loving that fact and the consequences of that for me?!

Being Abused

It's been an interesting week in the shop and church building. Lots of people in quite hard spots really and some hard stuff to deal with. One of our hardest situations involves stuff being stolen - sigh. Mobile phone, money from our money jar near our coffee, our staff members lunch from the fridge (that had her name on it) ... Bizarrely the one we had proof of who it was, was the lunch (she had been the only person in the space). So today I spoke to her about it - or tried. She denied it and walked off initially and then later on came and interrupted a conversation I was in and said that she knew "I wanted to talk to her and that she wasn't impressed". I calmly said I would talk to her about it on tomorrow as she walked off (that was all around our morning church gathering). This afternoon someone else was praying in the space and this woman came in and we expect she took some more stuff. As I was sitting just before our evening service she came up to me and said "I know you want to talk tomorrow but I can't talk then but I can talk now" and then left the building. I sat for a minute, prayed and then went out - going I have to take that as an invitation for a conversation. I went out and calmly walked up to the woman and said her name starting a conversation. She then lashed out at me, yelling at me and saying various things that didn't make sense - a huge amount of aggression.
It's hard stuff - at the time I was able to sigh but it is hard stuff and I'm angry and processing it all.
It is the hard end of the presence we want to be - and sometimes the hardest thing is holding the line and loving people well enough to truly love them and not just let stuff go.

Love or abuse

Just reading through a sheet of quotes a friend gave me while I was away. This one really called for my attention:

The act of love is to say "I want you to be who you are." The act of abuse is to say "I want you to be who I want you to be." It is that simple.
James D. Gill

expectancy vs. expectation

Great post on having expectancy rather than expectation:
http://tallmonasticguy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/expectancy-with.html

Thanks Wes for the heads up.

Inward shaped spirituality

A quote from Simon Holt's blog - I so agree:

As a teacher in spirituality, I am well aware that much that goes under the name is almost entirely introspective—an invitation to hunker down and contemplate one’s spiritual navel. At its worst, this spirituality is self-obsessed, chronically disconnected from the world and its needs, promising much but demanding nothing.

It's in losing your life you find it

I've been thinking lots about what it means to lose your life, and in the losing of your life to find it. Alongside that I've been thinking about how you can't get "something" by seeking it - it's just by and large not how the paradox of life works; especially not the paradox of the kingdom (which I think is all of life in it's fullness anyway). But it IS most definately a paradox because it's not that we shouldn't seek and work hard at things but it is that generally the things that matter the most come as bi-products in a sense, but certainly can't be "achieved" by striving for them and them being our end goal. I guess in many ways because the things that matter the most are external focused, not in a way that we don't matter or that it isn't to be cherished but that it's not "for it's own sake".

I've also been thinking of the various "tools" we use in life and how they can help or hinder us in this process. One tool that I have been using this year a bit which I do think has significant value in lots of cases, The Artists Way, I reckon for me this year has unfortunately rather than helped me walk on a journey of losing my life and in losing my life finding it, put me more in a place of seeking my life. Let me reiterate I don't think it's the tool in itself - but I do think a combination of factors has meant that for me this year this tool has been something that rather than helping me live more fully has helped me focus on myself unhelpfully.
It reminds me of needing to carefully choose the tools we need, the spiritual disciplines we need, and to continue ensuring they are things that take us in the direction we are wanting to go, ensuring that mixed with what else is happening for us they are helping us really become more shaped in the paradox of the kingdom.

Williamstown beach - how nice!

Spent a lovely afternoon at Williamstown beach - lovely gorgeous Melbourne day. I was there with the 22 month old twins who I am friends with (and their mum!) - and was very fun. Were joined later in the time by a few others for fish and chips at the beach - all lovely, relaxing and muchly refreshing.

I've been thinking lots about how big self-help/self-actualisation/self-improvement is in our society, including our Christian world - and especially about how much I have given into this culture over the years. It's so easy to start seeing it as if it's the work of the spirit. It is in some ways a fine line - although in others it just is so different that there is no way the two could be confused. I think God does use stuff from these fields to help people be more whole but the question for me is what's the driving force behind it - being caught up with ourselves or being caught up with God.

I was asked the other night what it would mean for me to find my life by losing it, particularly in relation to this stuff, and I really do think that it is one of the key questions of our time, particularly for some personailities. What does it mean to give up on our path of self-improvement, look to God and let him shape and mould us. What does it mean to truly seek first his kingdom and not our own?

The outward stuff might look the same - eg. you might explore personaility types but it would be out of response to God rather than to further yourself. One such time for me recently was feeling strongly that it was good to buy a book about losing a parent when I was in New Jersey - this led to reading this book on the place between New York and Seattle and to one of the biggest life defining decisions of my life and has profoundly reshaped my relationship with God - yep that has the hall marks of a God led reading of that kind of book.

But my life is not about me - it's about God; and everything in my life needs to be shaped around that; that is where I believe true life is.

First time I've ever been called blazze, I reckon!

Point proved - I can't even spell it!!!! (how do you spell blazze?)

First real day back at work on Monday - I have energy, more than I've had for years, and I'm relaxed as anything. A good friend who I work with commented "I love your energy and your blazzeness". As I was telling another friend about it last night - she said "since when have you ever been blazze" - that's about right.

Something is very different. It's a Barb I know, and who a few people know, but not many. and that's who I feel like is the main Barb at the moment - I like it. I hope that Barb can stay. She cares passionately, but is also realistic about life, is extremely able to flex, loves life, throws herself into life, is able to relax fully. But do watch out world, while that Barb parties harder than ever, the energy in that Barb also means much can happen!

Stay around that Barb!

Advent Calendar

Inspired by some stuff we did at Solace Sunday stuff last week I have just done the content and activities of an Advent calendar for some kids I'm close to - and I've had a ball! May well expand it for some others - and maybe adults as well.

Strength in Vulnerability

We had vestry tonight. We do believe we have the best vestry on the planet! My fellow warden keeps me quite happy with cadbury mint chocolate of some variety - but that's not the only reason why vestry is so good! There are many but even that's not what I wanted to write about.

Tonight as we were praying I had what is becoming a fairly normal experience for me. But it is now happening very regularly as opposed to what it has been over the last few years - on some occasions during more "ritualistic, liturgical" communion. Now it's happening most times I pray - especially in a "set aside" way, by myself or with others. The experience is hard to describe. Certainly on the verge of tears starts the description. Immense tenderness also helps the description along. Deep vulnerability that sees all of me and embraces me speaks towards it. I've been known to describe it as being in the same realm as the knownness and vulnerability of sex. Deep knownness and knowingness - that's getting close. It's an amazing experience that leaves me very tender everytime. It was my experience tonight, and last night during communion too - a special, very intimate time that leaves me feeling very raw, tender and vulnerable and loved, embraced, challenged and held.

Life is good

It just is :) Said with a very satisfied, content smil.

Being away and being home

It's been lovely to get back and be able to choose what to do for the first few days and not need to run back into life ... and recover from jet lag at the same time! On Wednesday I had lunch with a good friend and went for a long walk and talk with her. A good friend and the topic of conversation was something that does fit into a "work" category for me - but the relaxedness and shared excitement about what God's up to in her made it so refreshing for me too. It was a gift for us to have that time which we rarely get in that kind of way (even though we speak extremely regularly!). Yesterday in many ways was a whilwind of people - but loads of fun (and proves to me that I'm in a different place to wehre I have been for months, if not longer). After a morning of being on the net and at home (up from 6am due to jet lag), I went to mum's place and sorted through some business and stuff with dad - we got a fair way which was excellent, bathroom all cleaned out now, it's amazing what excitement comes as each next thing i done, and it does feel like we are on the home straight now. Good time together and productive. Then I dropped in at my old workplace and talked a bit about my trip - very fun. Then coffee with another close friend - touching base on our last few weeks; most excellent. Then off to Carlton for a mentoring time with someone - again a great special time. Then home for a while, space and a few phone calls and then across the road for dinner and to catch up with another good friend before she heads off for a week or so. I'm so conscious of the richness of my life in so many ways and the ace people in it: people here and people along way away.

Friday in the air

Last Friday I flew from New York to Calgary via Seattle. If you look on a map or you know your geography - that means I flew over the Rockies twice in one day; another amazing experience. It was a gorgeous, clear day and I couldn't believe just how flat it was and then these sudden huge rises ... an amazing sight. And the snow on the mountains too was beautiful.

Amazing colours

North-east America/South-east Canada in the Fall is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The scolours while I was there were just stunning. Tracy, my friend who got married on 20th October, has always wanted an Autumn wedding ... as someone who grew up in Bright the colours of trees in Autumn have always been special for her. She couldn't have asked for the trees to be more beautiful than they were at the cottage where they got married. The reds and goldens were just amazing ... As we were up at the cottage in the week leading up to the wedding preparing for the day we watched the trees turn even more over those few days - so that they were just spectacular on the day of the wedding. It was a risk to have a wedding at a cottage in Canada on 20th October but a risk that you couldn't have asked for a better return on! As well as experiencing these colours there - I drove with tracy's parents down to Syracuse in the States and then got the bus from there down to New York - the colours of the trees and the beauty of the landscape that you see off the Interstate 81 is amazing - and I'm told that's boring compared to what you see off the major road. Simply breath-taking stuff.

Willingness??

I spent an amazing time in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. God and I wrestled long and hard - and surprise, surprise he won! I was telling the story of this wrestle to the person I was staying with - and the subsequent consequences that led to a further invitation from God that I was struggling with and she said some words that stopped me in my tracks and had me wrestle some more for the next 24 hours - "it sounds like you are in a place of willfulness rather than willingness; willfulness being the complete opposite to the surrender of willingness". Ouch but so true. God worked some more in me and in the silence around the dinner table the next night worked in me to bring me to a place of willingness.

Home now

So it's Thursday 1st November and I got home from Canada/America on Tuesday. It was a great time away and great to get some perspective on life and just have a break from normal life ... and amazing to see more of the world ... and great to spend some time with close friends ... and of course as is normal on these kind of things some quite significant moments.

I'll write some separate blog entries on different aspects of the trip over the coming days.

Great quote

Here's a quote I just read by someone who I'd never heard of before April and now seems to pop up everywhere!

Wendell Berry: "The significance (and ultimately the quality) of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part."

Canada

So I'm sitting at a computer in Kingston, Canada. Yesterday was officially the longest day of my life - left Melbourne at 11am (home at 8am) and got into Ottawa at midnight - after being in transit for 27 hours. But it was a good day. Late out of Melbourne and then substantially late out of Sydney, which meant that I missed my connection in LA. So I got put on a later flight to Chicago but still had to go straight to it after going through immigration and customs in order to make it. Then I was on the later flight to Ottawa from Chicago which meant that I got in at midnight rather than 10pm. All good really and I wasn't at all stressed about the delay - except a little about contacting the person who was picking me up. It was all good and quite a fun day really, although long.

I'm not sure that I can put words to what it was but I did a feel a little culture shock at American airports. I guess some words would be much rougher than Australia, service much more abrupt and just a generally different feel. Having said that though people were helpful and lovely.

I read on the plane a fair bit - mostly Hugh Mackay's new book "Advance Australia Where". Interesting to be reading about Australia as you are flying to two new countries.

Arrived in Ottawa at midnight and then the person who picked me up drove me around Ottawa for a while which was great. Then bed ... sleep ... in a bed!

This morning I got up and then was dropped at the bus to Kingston - 2 and a half hours. Arrived and went to Tim Horton's for lunch (had to have cultural introduction!) then back to the house I'm staying at, then down the street in Kingston to get a few things for the wedding I'm here for.

But sleep is calling very soon ... will write more.

It is NOT rocketscience!!!!

Just having one of those moments where life is clear - and it's not about me (although it's a place I thrive), it is about the kingdom ... and so much that often bugs me and matters just doesn't - it's a good place for which I'm thankful! Shalom, peace, grace are all real right now.

Friends

Have been talking with a good friend about the different definitions we all have of "friends" and how different friendships are profoundly different and take different forms. Good conversations. But I was amused at one of her comments:
"If I relied on you to text our friendship would be over, if I have a need for a text I text x (her other close friend)"! So so true!
Given my posts a little while ago about texting I thought some readers would get a chuckle :)

Appreciating what is NOW

For a whole range of reasons I've been thinking lots about how I expect that if someone is there for one thing, I expect/want them to be there for the whole journey with something. So if someone is around for the joy of getting a new pet, for example, I expect/want them to be around for the journey with that pet - the learning to train it, the dilemmas about how to get it looked after when I'm away and eventually it's death. There are so many examples of this in my life - and I reckon one key area of my life where I haven't left people free and have placed unhelpful expectations on people. Worse still it has often meant that I haven't been open to the amazing gifts that God is wanting to offer me today - the resources, people and other things that God is offering me today that are quite different to those of yesterday, even within the same journey/issues/experiences. It's also meant that I expect that of myself with how I walk alongside other people - if I was there for something in particular then I feel the need to walk the whole journey alongside someone about that thing - so I don't leave myself free to be how/who/where God's calling me to be today. Again I'm conscious that's not the best way of loving the person or being a co-creator with God in the world. Mmmm ... powerful stuff.

Swimming

A couple of months ago at Solace Sunday stuff we writing prayers of the everyday and I wrote a prayer about swimming, which I'm aiming to do way more than I currently am! Here it is:

Creator of the water
Help me sink into the rhythm of the pool
To let myself be as I swim
To submit to the rhythm
And as I sink into the rhythm of the pool
As I let myself be and submit to that rhythm
Work deep within me to help me further submit to your rhythm of life.

Colossians 3

We've been going through Colossians at 5pm. The other week the person leading it got us to write something for ourselves that she then sent a couple of days into the week. Here's what I wrote to myself coming out of a gospel reflection on the beginning of Colossians 3.

Transformation
and
Change

It's a mystery
It's a paradox

You can't make it happen
But you can trust that it has happened
It is happening
It will happen

Your life is hid with Christ in God
Be true to that life

Much of your life is not in line with that reality

Live in your new reality
Put on your new self
Which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Continuing the Grief Processing

In many ways I do feel like I'm moving into a different place in the grief zone. I've certianly got more energy and the fog/blur is lifting. But there is still so much to process. And over the last couple of weeks I've been processing the cause of mum's death and autopsy report. They have said the cause of death was a stroke in a lady who had very high levels of alcohol in her system and that a secondary cause of death was high blood pressure.

It's been interesting to process that and more specifically the autopsy report. I wasn't surprised to find that she had significant alcohol in her system - I'd suspected that some of the strange behaviour from her was connected with alcohol, so in some ways it's all confirmation of what I thought - that's nice in a strange way. But the amount was and is shocking - .28 in her blood, and that's probably a lower amount than was actually there at the time of her death. There is also evidence of numerous strokes of different ages and dad now thinks he saw some of those. There is also evidence of some pulminory stuff either as a result of the stroke or the alcohol. And now that I have a sense of how much she was drinking, I certainly don't think this situation was in any way a one off.

So how do I feel? Sad, vindicated, angry, at peace, like truth is known.
But it's wierd to think that these are the actions mum had ended up in.
It so makes me want to choose widely different paths with the things that are struggles for me.

This is what life is about :)

Such a small but big experience happened for me yesterday. In the op shop/church building/community space where I work there was a person out having a coffee in the more community/lounge space of the building. This person is someone who can be quite demanding about things and often will not engage, she's definately up the higher needs end of the people around our area. Lately she's been around alot, we are not really sure how she started coming but since she started coming the space has become a very regular space for her.

A guy who was in a wheelchair was being assisted in buying some trousers by another guy who I think was a personal care assistant and they needed more space than our change rooms in the op shop would allow, so I pointed them through to the toilet up the back of the church property. As they walked through the community/lounge type space, this lady who was having a coffee asked if they wanted a coffee and offered to make it for them - which she proceeded to do while they were trying on the trousers. As they came back she gave them the coffee ... and then left.

It was an amazing experience to listen to - a glimpse of the kingdom and one of those times when I deeply know that what I am involved in is worth it.

Unworded grief

One of the things about grief is that it often has no words. What am I feeling? Not even sure that feeling isn't too tangible a word for the experience of grief I have right now ... it just is. It's the blur, it's the state of being, it's just a place. It's not empty, it's not horrible (although I look forward to it not being a place that is a frequent experience), it's not exciting, it just is. Bring on the other side of it - but for the moment ... grey is the colour - dull old grey. (this is in contrast to Clare's song where she writes about black being the colour cause it has no end - my experience today is that it's grey, black is way too intense, I can handle in some ways black better than the dullness of grey!)

Engaged in Life

Been processing a bit about the kind of situations I prefer to be in and ones that I don't - and there seems to be something about choice of what you engage with and also actually being engaged. For ages I've known that I hate lectures/classes ... and I hate tutes just as much, so it's not just about being talked "at". There is something about being told what to engage with when that doesn't work for me (and it's not just about being told what to do!!!). It all feels quite unnatural or something - and doesn't work for my brain somehow. Thinking about it has taken me back to school days and the best ways I worked - which was being way ahead so that when I was in class I was just working in my own space. Interestingly for an extrovert (although I did one of those tests yesterday and came up as an introvert), I prefer to work on things alone, but normally have ideas initiated in conversation with others and like to take things back to others too. So I guess tutes where I'd done the reading and we really were coming for a free form conversation around the reading would be brilliant. And while I do in many ways process externally, it's processing what is already beginning to be processed in me not what the situation I'm in is telling me that's what I need to talk about. So ideally I like to be in situations where we are talking about stuff I have come prepared to talk about - but where the conversation has permission to go wherever it goes. For that to work well though I need to ensure I have done the "pre-work/thinking".
Not only that though - I hate situations by and large where I am not actively involved. I get bored if I am not participating strongly and I just don't want to be in the situation. However, there is another side to that - I also enjoy actively watching! So one of my favourite things to do in a group situation is sit and contentedly let the social situation occur. What I hate however is being asked to be involved in the conversation/activity but not in a way that is fully engaging all of me. And so much of life in our normal ways of interacting asks that of us!

The Truth will set you free

Truth is spoken,
Truth spoken in season,
Truth that is ready to be heard,
Truth that reveals brokenness and darkness,
Truth that is stark reality,
Truth that brings actions into the Light.

The Truth will set you free.

SMS - exceptions

And just a note - there are a few people who I do not have exceptionally regular contact with but who are people who sms me to show interest, connection, share information etc on occasions ... who are overseas or interstate ... who are exceptionally close friends ... and who read this blog - your sms's are just fine and lovely!!!! You'll know who you are :)

SMS and how we use it

I've had various reasons over recent days - and the last years - to think about how different people use different technology and especially how different people use texting. A friend and I have often commented on how differently I use texting to others. And we've never been able to pin down exactly what it is - but know that I use it quite differently. Most people who know me well know that texting is fine - but don't rely on a response - I will see it but i won't necessarily respond, particularly if it seems like it's to a group. And I confuse people about my approach to texting because i do use it as a communication method. However, for me it's a fairly intimate communication method - or a very basic communication tool. So it's basically reserved for "I'm running late" or for communication with people who I have very regular contact with and this is just an enhancing mode of contact. Either way it is adjacent to other contact not as a main way of connecting - and I've been thinking about how it can often feel to me as a way of avoiding contact - even though I know for most people it's a way of not intruding (I just say to that - I have voicemail!).

And what's wierd is that lots of other people would feel like that about blogs, facebook, email, even phone - all things I feel very comfortable with ... and feel like it's "real connecting" even when there is not signifiant other contact but sms I don't - bizarre! I don't pretend to get myself - so don't feel obliged to either!!!!!

Inspiring conversations

Had a great time this morning with a Solace board member talking about some of my work. Not sure where what we talked about will lead - in fact it raised more questions than answers but I am starting to learn that the best things come from those places. The trick is to enjoy the questions and to let them lead somewhere but not force them there. The skill in that is an extreme balence - but as natural as breathing if we let it, but one we rarely let happen. It's an active waiting, an engaged emerging process ... one that trusts answers to come and continues to journey with the questions while not forcing the answers - but also not backing away from answers.

The Realisation

Yesterday dad had a procedure at the dental hospital. He is in the process of getting dentures so they removed the rest of his top teeth (2). Being the independant creature he is, he went in by public transport but I was on stand-by in case he needed me to pick him up. Last time he had work done he had gone into shock from the pain of the injection, which caused him to have breathing problems (he has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) - they called a code blue and of course called me urgently. On that occasion I went and picked him up, took him to his GP and then took him to mum's to be cared for for the next 24 hours. That was just 2 weeks before mum died (ironically I got the phone call in the same part of the week/day as I got the call about mum - during Tuesday morning staff time). So yesterday, I was on stand-by and got a message saying that they wouldn't let him go home alone because of the anesthetic. So I got into the car and drove in to the hospital. He was sitting waiting. We started walking to the car and he had blood running down his face; obviously we went back. Most people were at lunch but they found someone to look at him, who placed some stuff in to help the bleeding stop. We went to the car again; dad looked shocking, mixture of just how he is in general (not well), grief, pain and just sick of it all. I brought dad back to my place for a while and then took him home (he purchased a unit a couple of suburbs away from me a few years ago for these exact reasons). As we were driving from the hospital to my place, it hit me afresh - essentially I am the only person dad has. The weight of that hit me in a way it never has before. I acknowledged it and then moved away from it - conscious that it was important not to go there right then. But went back to it last night. While 3 months ago I dealt with the acute stuff and then sropped him at mum's to do the recovery - there is no one else now.

A Sad Fact of Life

I am sitting here drinking instant coffee. After years of basically saying I don't drink instant coffee, since i ran out of plunger a few days ago I have been drinking the instant that is stored in my cupboard just in case people want it. Sad!

Being people of the cup half full

A month or two ago at Solace Sunday stuff we were rewriting Psalm 1 together. The thng that has stayed with me from that is "being people of the cup half full". There's lots of ways in the time between then and now that I haven't lived as that kind of person but I definately know that is the invitation and who I long to be.

People only know what one tells them

mmm ... a thought I've been pondering!

Homage to Young Men

Just found this song on a blog. Again words that speak something deep of my current journey - particularly the need for the second stage for the third stage.

Homage To Young Men
Lyric by Luke Concannon
Verses Alastair McIntosh
Chorus Luke Concannon
Music John Parker

I want to talk to the young men out there. It’s for the women too, but especially the men, cos it’s tough to be a young man in this world. You have to face so much heartbreak and loss. In love and career and life. It’s easy to forget the meaning and give up. To burn up or sell out to addictions, despair or greed. Easy to forget that life’s a journey with a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s about navigating the future, your future. It’s about learning to become a man who’s real, and able to love.

Chorus:
Are you waiting for me? Are your hands down in the dirt? We belong together. I’ve been longing since my birth to be arms around you to be true to who we are, to let all our pain out to be playing in your heart.

So let’s talk about the first stage of life. The departure, when your boat is pushed out on the river. Most of who you are is still your small self. The you your family has made you, your schooling and your friends. You’ve still not found your deep self, your Great Self, cos that’s what the journey’s for. So you set out, full of hope, but with a heavy load. All the baggage of your upbringing. All the love, yes, but the fuckedupness too. Maybe the absent father, or the smothering mother, or the cold indifference of those around you. It’s no wonder you’ve a rough ride coming. It’s gonna get tough and it’s got to. So you can find yourself. So you can become a real man.

Chorus

And that’s when you hit the second stage of life. The initiation in the rapids and the storms. That’s when you find the pain of brokenheartedness. Love affairs that fail, failures in career and all your hopes for what the world might have been. Plenty young men founder grazed on such jagged rocks as these. Bruised and angry in a storm of violence towards self and others. But it doesn’t have to stay like that. No, my friends, not if you push on and open to the inner grace that will bring you courage. The courage to face reality as it is, without lies. The courage to know your wound but to insist on beauty and outgrow it. The courage to open your heart, to hold fast to truth, and to stand each step in your dignity.

Chorus

And that’s the courage that brings your boat to the third stage of life. To see how your small self is held in a greater Self. And that you’re fit to be an elder in your community, able to share the gifts and the blessings. Able to support and inspire what gives life among your people. And to love your beloved; to love and be loved by the Beloved no less, my friends. Because we’re talking here of love in all its meanings. And you can only love with a deepening heart. And that is why you had to grow courage on this journey to the ocean. That’s what your battle wounds on the field of life were all about. That, my dear friends, is what qualifies you to be a man in your community. Capable of loving and able to be loved…. Capable of loving and able to be loved…. Capable of loving and able to be loved

Another quote on vocation

Just catching up on some blogs I look at and foudn this great quote from Thomas Merton on the Moot blog - interesting after posting the other ones this morning - it speaks so strongly of so mmuch that is happening in me at the moment and the stuff I'm being invited to as a co-creator with God in the universe and especially in my own life:

"Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and children of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creatingthe truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run, the cost and sorrow come very high. To work out our identity in God, which the Bible calls "working out our salvation," is a labour that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God, as God reveals Godsself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation."

Callings and Vocations and more

I love this quote which Anj read to me on the phone this morning and then also put on her blog:

The core and essence of a sustained calling in the ministry is this: to learn more and more to listen, pray, live, and act on behalf of the life of God where it is at work and where it is imprisoned in your fellow human beings.
On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry, Brain Drayton, Quaker Press 2006, page 27.

It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes of Westerhoff which a number of years ago was so central to everything I thought about - and certainly still is a foundation for me and which I've rediscovered recently:
"Our vocation is to live the life of a lover, dreamer and visionary who sees miracles on mountain tops and in slums; to live day by day in the conscious awareness of the merciful judgement of God; to be aware of God's active presence in our lives and history; to strive to discern God's will and to act with God as a sign and witness to the coming of God's Kingdom. We are called to join God in embracing and enlivening each other's faith, to help seek out experiences through which divine revelation may be made known to us, and to aid each other in the realization of our vocation."

I pray that I would live more and more in line with those quotes!

Cause of Death

1. Cerebrovascular accident in a lady with acute alcohol toxicity
2. Hypertension

A Helpful Website

For those who are interested: I came across this site the other day and reckon it's a helpful comparison between the penal substitution and Christus Victor view of the cross. It's from a personal persepctive but does rigorous theological work; is heavy as the topic is that but also I found readable and helpful.

Relaxing/Time out

Mmm ... interesting, I was at my old work place yesterday and commented to someone that I was on compassionate leave and they commented "that'd be hard for you". My thought was - "actually no".

But it's got me thinking - I reckon lots of people do think something down those lines about me. And I so know it's not true. Giving myself permission is hard, but once I've given myself permission it's as easy as anything. And it's interesting, loads of people who are quite close to me wouldn't see that but I can think of some of the closest few who know it well ... and some others. But I reckon most of the world would think the same as that ex-colleague.

Doesn't really matter what others think - although I do get a bit tired of that perception of who I am - but it did 'cause me some food for thought.

A Simple Hatred in Life

As I was getting a spoon for my porridge I thought of one of my hatreds in life that I felt inclined to share:
eating dessert/cereal etc with a soup spoon or eating soup with a dessert spoon.

Be warned of such hatred :)

Changing my name

So it's decided - I'm changing my name back to Totterdell, from Daws.

If you don't know - Daws is my married name and for a host of reasons I didn't change my name when we separated almost 8 years ago or when we got divorced 6 years ago. It has seemed good and natural to continue on with Daws until now. Now however, in these weeks following mum's death there has come a desire in me to go back to using Totterdell, my birth name. Not sure that I can really explain why - it's something very deep in me that's decided to do it. And not sure that I can explain the timing either. But I'm conscious I don't need to - I just need to be sure in myself - and that I am ... so here goes. Happy to talk about it if you'd like - but not sure that I have heaps to say about it other than - it just seems good to do and good to do now.

But as well as that (and I'm sure deeply connected) I've been thinking lots about what it means to "be true" to who we are created to be. We are reading Colossians at 5pm at the moment and the phrase that hit me during the gospel reflection on Sunday was "your life is hid with Christ in God". So what does it mean to be true to our primary identities - that of being children of God, co-creators with God, people who have the breath of the life of God in us etc ... rather than our false selves - the ones that came later, the ones that deny life. I long to be true to my primary identity and there is something in this name change that is representative of that too. (Not at all implying that changing my name or keeping my name as Daws for this long has been bad - just the symbolism is all quite timely and deep)

Holy Play quote

"To a large extent, coming into your own in every dimension of your life is a matter of learning to embrace and engage your power. Your ability to do so will determine your capacity to engage and not feel threatened by the power of others."

Holy Play by Kirk Byron Jones

George MacDonald Quote

"For to deny God in my own being is to cease to behold him in any. God and man can meet only by the man's becoming that which God meant him to be. Then he enters into the house of life, which is greater than the house of fame."

Birth, Dreaming, Death (The Schoolmasters Story)

Something I should learn to NEVER say

Just chatting with a good friend about something I'm thinking about and she commented that I'd said "I'd never do that". As we agreed, one thing life has taught us to NEVER say that! It keeps proving us wrong!

Time out for Adults

So in my processing of what being an adult means and in my thinking through the fact that the way I've lived for years is not sustainable, I've thought lots about time out. I have on and off for years - often making judgement calls either in myself or to the person concerned (!) that what they are engaging in isn't very "adult like". So where did I get these pictures and understandings?

As I've thought about it a bit over the last couple of days I've thought about my family as I was growing up - stuff has changed radically since then but that's what I was shaped by. My dad worked long hours, generally working overtime and often weekends. He gave pretty much everything to that and then some time to me. However, my memory is him working long hours but coming home and collapsing - either in front of the tv or reading a book or newspaper. So the lesson from him - blokes (or adults) work long hours that takes everything from them and then collapse. My mum was a stay at home mum all my life. Her hobbies were much more down the sewing, knitting end but of course because they were part of "homemaking", I haven't separated those off from the rest of her "work". So in what I took in she just kept going in much more low key ways but still the message that I have internalised is "women just keep doing stuff that needs to be done". An exception to this for mum was tennis - which she played lots of ... so again the message for me: to have time off it has to be something out of the house.

Combine all this with a parenting style that said clearly that art and anything of that nature was useless and that what mattered was english, maths, science etc. Also combine that with engaging actively with my faith and church at the age of 13 in ways that engaged me fully from then on. Also combine that with a personality that is very focused on others, often to the detriment of self. Also combine it with messages that reinforce that "biblically".

It's not surprising that this is a recipe for an engaged, fairly driven life that hasn't had much time for time out. In fact, I reckon looking at all that it's only really the grace of God that means it's not been more that! It's also the grace of God that I'm relooking at it and making definate choices to live differently at 32 and not older.

The lovely thing that has been true and that continues to be very true is that it only takes a choice to have time out and it's fairly easy for me - again gracious of God. But the message that has been incorporated into me is "time out is a waste of time and only to be had when you really need it".

And because of who I am and lots about my upbringing too (only child of deaf parents says most of it) really the main time out I can have at this time is by myself - quite limiting really.

Anyway - I'm pretty excited about where all this is going ... and certainly don't hear me blaming my parents in any way (they were just living life as they knew how). For me it's just about understanding where my messages, understandings and habits come from and then choosing what I want to do with them.

And what I want to do is - choose time out well and regularly ... and not just when I really need it.

What does being an adult mean?

For years now on and off I have been processing in all sorts of ways what being an adult means. And I reckon it's so different to what I believed it was when I turned 18 ... beliefs which have shaped me so deeply and impacted myself and others profoundly. There are certainly different points over the last 14 years where I've thought about and experienced this question more deeply than others but it's impact has been continuous.

And what does it mean to age? Not the kind of aging that happens at 70 or so (although that is just on a continuum anyway) - what does it mean that at 32 you can't do what you could at 22. But that you have wisdom and life that you didn't have then whihc means you can work more productively and where we choose to live more fulfillingly.

As I process life particularly following mum's death, these are some glimpses into questions I'm asking and things I'm processing. Within the first week following mum's death, my key statement was "if I wasn't an adult before now, I am now" - so what does that mean?

Nothing I have to do

It's a lovely Melbourne day. I've just been for a walk in the sun, and the blue sky. I didn't wake at 4am which has been my norm of late (and often when there is lots going on in life). I did wake at 8.30am, got up and had lovely talk with a friend and my cable internet has been connected. Then went for a walk and ended up seeing various people I know which was all good (it's hard to know what being on leave means when you are such a community minded person and when going to the local shops means seeing people from all aspects of your normal life).

But the key statement of the day is - there is nothing I have to do, nowhere I must be. That is so my definition of true rest.

And how I long to be more in that place internally: there is nothing I have to do, sounds like grace to me. I'm glad of what I do know of it & I long to know more ... and am very thankful for what I'm learning about it.

What word would you use?

Two separate people who I was talking to today, who don't know each, said at different points in my day today that the journey they are reading of on here is ... rich. What word would you use?

Embraced and Held

A vestry meeting tonight made me more conscious of something that's happening in me. I'm knowing that I'm embraced as I am, where I am more than I've ever known before ... for weeks I've been thinking lots about how there is nothing I need to do and that's just intensifying - that not only is there nothing I need to do, I am embraced, delighted in, in my lostness, darkness and brokenness, in the stuff that is going on in me that is way beyond anything I could describe or even comprehend for myself, I am delighted in.
Now that's deeply a place of healing, transformation and change but in a way far more beautiful, mysterious and precious than I've ever known. Words don't cut it to describe the beauty of what is happening in me.

More words from Clare

Some other parts of Clare's "The Thing about Grief" that are making me smile in a knowing way today:
"It makes no sense but it's interesting in its own way"
"The about grief is that it gets kind've boring for the people who don't yet know"

Some clarity on my betrayal

A couple of posts ago I hinted at having committed a mortal sin I'm sure for some readers of this blog - it seems I was way too cryptic! What I refering to was that I had joined the "Melbourne is better than Sydney" Facebook group. So Trish no you shouldn't be horrified by that action (unless you are a closet Sydney lover and I don't know it) but I am sure others will be.

The thing about grief

Clare Bowditch sings "the thing about grief is that the i comes before the e and it's hard to give away because it's the last thing you gave to me". I don't know about the rest of it but "The thing about grief" has gone through my mind much over recent days. Here's my "Things about grief" as they come to mind:

The thing about grief is ...
that it is unpredictable
that it can give so much energy
that it can take so much energy
that it gives a new purpose
that it takes away your sense of purpose
that it is not understood
that others don't know how to respond
that it can be overwhelming
that it is consuming
that it amplifies everything else
that there are ways in which it is delightful
that it drains you of everything you've got
that it is a place on the edge of chaos
that it is a place where you can know God like never before
that it blurs your head
that it gives you fresh clarity
that it is intense
that it helps you enjoy the simple things in life
that it is isolating
that it is a place of abundance
that it is a place of deep solitude
that it is a place of huge aloneness

The thing about grief is that it's the process of life and death colliding.

I'm asking for it!!!!!!

I'm feeling a bit cheeky ... and just did something that's likely to get me in a little bit of trouble - potentially with some readers of this blog ... I wonder whether you can work out what it is? hehe. Let me just say it's my honest opinion ... and to do with another computer hobby (?) of mine. That should be enough.

And to help you some more I could say that in recent years I've been converted to AFL - well at least led to have mixed allegiences ... and I am very happy that Richmond one on Friday night (going out with a mad Richmond supporter last year had that effect on me!).

Although I suspect that some of you agree with me - or at least secretly do even if you may not say it publically ...

okay I reckon I've given myself away to many of you ... (and others won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about!)

Bring it on if you want to - I'm up for some discussion!

The Journey of Grief

I'm sure some of you are asking: I wonder how Barb's doing? Complex answer really and one that would get quite a different answer if asked in a different hour of any given day. The rollercoaster of grief really is right - I know that so well but the difference of this particular rollercoaster of losing mum has taken me a little by surprise I must say. Even though I have experienced much death in my life for my 32 years, and some of it remarkably close, nothing has really prepared me for the experience of the last few weeks. From sometime the weekend before last I have really been struggling. Don't get me wrong - that's not the whole story - sometimes I can be more "with it" than I've ever been in my life ... but I can also be fatigued, tearful, forgetful, irritable, intrigued, more than ever. In pondering what is going on some words that I have come up with are "the tearing of the umbilical cord" - that seems to come closest to what I am experiencing ... deep grief of tearing, parting, ending, separation, grief that is not as much about closeness or loss of the person mum currently was but rather the grief of the death of the person who brought me into the world. Whatever it is, it's very deep and profound. There is also the other end of that - the energy that has come, the real sense of "life is so worth it", the sense of getting on with it. Currently, that is all so frustrated by the other end of it and being so exhausted from that. However, I know that this intense period of grief will pass and allow some more space for the energy side of it to be fulfilled and actioned. For now, I allow what will come to come and live the journey faithfully, trying hard to live the journey in a way that honours all.

As I've come to terms with the "tearing of the umbilical cord" type side of the grief I'm experiencing, I've also had a really special experience. This tearing I'm experiencing from the person who gave me birth in a physical sense I will never experience with God, the one who ultimately has given me life. In the midst of knowing that separation so deeply, it's huge to experience that so deeply and profoundly too. I'm also struck by the choice Jesus made to enter into that separation. It's profound beyond words, but something I know at a much greater level now than I ever have before and am overflowing with amazement and thanks for.

Breathing easily

Today is a good day. Woke up feeling good about the world and feeling like life was good. I'm so glad at the moment for what I know intellectually and in a lived way about grief and life and health. Being where you are at any point certainly allows for much more life to emerge and after a somberish day yesterday and letting myself be in that place, today emerged with much life. It's a bright day in lots of senses - awoke and felt like I was breathing easily physically and otherwise, great energy this morning at a workshop thing I was at, the sun was shining as we finished that ... and I've just made some headway on some work. But mostly, I'm feeling good and life is feeling good.

Which Death am I Grieving today?

I've been quite subdued today. It's 10 days following finding mum dead (probably 16 from when she actually died), and 3 years since Paul, a good friend, died. Very conscious of both of these people and events today.

Food is one of the key ways I am grieving for mum ... looking for Spicy Fruit Rolls in the supermarket, desperately trying to find her Neenish Tart recipe, being reminded by a friend of my story of mum bringing me ice cream and ice magic as I was watching tv as a kid and teenager.

This morning as I opened a packet of porridge I grieved for Paul - food again. Think I might have a glass of port in Paul's memory tonight.

Thoughts are also with others for whom this anniversary is significant.

Mum's funeral tomorrow

The night before the funeral day.
Wierd feeling.
Not bad.
Just wierd.

Not sure what the day will bring.
How to be true to self
But be loving to others.
Not sure where self will be.

Tonight I am thankful,
for where God has me.
For deep peace,
and a sense of wholeness.

The Day I Learned my Mum was Dead

What a wierd day ...
One that you are never prepared for,
one you would never dream of,
One though where you know deep peace.

The bizarreness of the phonecall,
The pondering what exactly was coming,
The sense of what can happen in a brief time,
where you are having coffee and your phone is in your bag.

8 missed calls,
two urgent messages from my dad,
a phone call from the police,
a drive two suburbs; still unknown.

The walk to the house,
the being told that she had died,
the walking in and her body being on the floor,
And deeply embracing my dad.

And the pondering of how,
And the pondering of when,
Still surreal but oh so real,
My mum is dead.

The police, the coroner,
Questions about her medical history,
And then she's gone, their gone,
It's dad and me.

The reality sinks in (at some level anyway)
The phone calls begin,
The next week begins,
The rest of life begins.

I am sad,
I know the journey will be hard and long,
But I'm also relieved for her,
That her struggle is over.

I'm grateful, for the peace I have,
for the friends I have,
for the special time alone with her
The chance to say goodbye.

More phone calls,
Funeral plans,
All sorts of emotions,
Are what await me on this day.

But she is at peace,
Shalom she has never known,
Healing and wholeness is now,
Hers in abundance.

I feel so blessed,
surrounded by many,
Cared for and held in so many ways,
From Melbourne to Sydney to Canada.

Deep peace I know.

(On Tuesday 17th July 2007 I discovered that my mum was dead)

Grrr ... computers!

Just wrote a long post that was quite involved and lost it - will probably re-write tomorrow ... for now it's a note of frustration from me!

A Place of Holy Mystery

Just reading bits of The Message and saw these words in a way I've never seen them before (from Luke 7):

They all realized they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them.

Create Your Own Prayer That Speaks Your Soul

On a semi-retreat this week and this is what I'm centring around:

It would be wonderful to create your own prayer
Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul.

Listen to the voices of longing in your soul.
Listen to your hungers.
Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life.
Listen to your memory and the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost.

Out of all that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul;
tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability;
that has enough healing to gain the oinment of divine forgiveness for your wounds;
enough truth and vigour to challenge your blindness and complacency;
enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty.

Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.

Eternal Echoes - Exploring our Hunger to Belong
John O'Donahue