Groove On

Here I am after three months, with a diagnosis under my belt, so I can begin to look forward to the grooves of my life opening out into wider circles again. Of course knowing what's wrong doesn't take away the fact of having to get "better", so there's a bit more r and r to go yet but things look good.

Glad to say that the pain and general feeling of illness is apparently down to a very common or garden diverticular disease, with some infection. I will have to learn to be circumspect about what I eat and may emerge a slimmer and more healthy self so that's good.

During all this the feeling of the family closing in for a "cwtch", (Welsh for a really good hug), that goes beyond the physical thing has been tremendous.
Knowing myself prayed for by the church family.
Having a laugh with friends when I needed it.
The unexpectedly warm and caring consultant surgeon, and radiographers.
So many truly lovely people.
As always so much to be grateful for.

I know I'm re-iterating what I say so often, and what I was saying in my last Blog too, but I've just come across the most beautifully written blog that has a "Gratitude Community" amongst it's pages and I recommend you take a look at /www.aholyexperience.com/ and check it out for yourself.
It could open up a whole new way of life for you.

The new "positive psychologies" are based on the simple old belief that counting your blessings actually does make for good mental health, and in a world which seems set on skewing every bit of news towards the negative, we probably need to practice it now more than ever.

One of the many lovely gratitude-making moments for me recently was to watch my great grand son painting in the studio.

Yes, I know that he's special to me because he's my great grand-son, but his innocent absorption seems to me to be is at the heart of what gratitude and blessing is about.






How often are we simply open to the moment: lost in it,
so that
we find a deeper place
within ourselves?


"Unless you become as a little child"... Matt.18:3

God Bless

Coping with the Narrow Confines of Life

The photo is to show you post-vinyl music fans what I mean when I say that I feel as if, yet again, the needle has settled into a tight inside groove in the record of my life. At present life has shrunk to a fairly small circle, where comings and goings are circumscribed by health issues, but with a lot of lovely ordinary things holding it all together.

Like many another my life has followed a pattern of moving back from time to time into the "narrow" times of illness, and can I say for the record that this is something I don't think anybody ever gets used to. I say this because even my mother who had been there through a lot of thick and thin with me, once stunned me by commenting when I'd rung her to say that I was going into hospital , " Well, you're used to it."

No I never am, never will be, 'cos it's not something I will ever settle for, and a large part of me always thinks somehow this is all a great big mistake, and any minute reality will kick in and it'll all be o.k.

All that said I don't want you to think that my life has been all illness. I've had a life far more wide and varied than you would expect if you saw my medical history written down. I still chuckle when I think of the time I took my daughter to see a consultant and the referring doctor had obviously put my medical history in the introductory letter because when he had read it this chap leaned over his desk and asked me sympathetically "Where is the mother now?"
The look on his face when I said "Well I'm the mother", was really satisfying.

So. yes, there have been wide lovely grooves to my life as well as tight ones.

Unexpected journeys of discovery, miracles of healing, (literally), and amazing richness, if not by the world's standards then by mine.

I can't say at times I haven't resented the comparative narrowness of my life, or envied others their wider horizons. For the longest time my biggest regret was that I didn't fulfill my academic ambitions or even finish school properly, but I've packed in as much as I could in later years, and will never lose the thirst to learn while the little grey cells keep firing, so that's o.k.

The gift, and the trial, of the times in life where one is pushed back into narrow confines is the forced leisure to reflect. In all honesty I have to confess that for me there have been times of what seemed like utter despair and loneliness, yet looking back I see that there always was just enough light in what seemed like deepest darkness.

For me as a Christian, that light has been the presence of a God who has touched every area of suffering, and is in this with me, but it hasn't always felt like that by any means. It's not uncommon to find that things are not what we feel they are though is it?

So I'd say the tight circles in life can become deep wells where we can learn a lot about ourselves; about the immense inner reserves of strength that are inherent in being human, and about the astounding fact that nothing viewed up close, is at all ordinary.

The tighter the circle the more beautiful and meaningful do the very small things in life become. Only last week I read about a young man who, when in good health, had extracted the promise from his father that should he ever be dependent on life support, his was to be allowed to die.

Somehow what he had feared came about, and he was on full life support, completely paralyzed and about to have his wishes fulfilled and his life support cut off, when he responded to being asked should he be allowed to live, with an infinitely small movement of his eyes. This perfectly ordinary automatic reflex which in the wider context of normal life goes unremarked became his means to signal, not once but repeatedly, that he did indeed want to live. In the face of what he most dreaded he had found there was still something worthwhile in inhabiting his severely restricted body.

You may be flying in a really wide and beautiful groove just now, or you may be chafing in the narrow confines of your mind or body, but whichever it is do take the time to home in on something, maybe something small and mundane, and open yourself to see it in a new way.

It is rare indeed that there is no small scrap of comfort or of beauty to lift our spirit. Perhaps there is something near at hand that you've been missing.

Be Blessed

The Secret Garden

This is a picture of the gateway to the walled garden in the park, taken from inside to share the glorious canopy of wisteria with you. Sorry the sweet fragrance of the moment is lost to you.

I guess everybody loves a walled garden. Not just for the micro climate it creates, nor solely for the wonderful opportunities for the gardener this presents, but for the delicious sense of a secret, sheltered, place. A sanctuary of sorts.

There was a walled garden on my uncle's farm. It had none of the red bricked splendour that curtains the gardens of the wealthy estates. Rather it was enclosed by a somewhat tumble down dry stone wall, (what else would you expect on a Welsh hill farm), perhaps reaching to the height of an average man's shoulder. Trees had planted themselves along the top so long ago, and grew so thickly, that in summer the height of the screen around us was increased by some ten or twelve feet.

In the centre of the garden was an old cherry tree which made a great castle, or tall ship, when climbed into, as well as a delicious source of sweet, chin-dribbling juiciness at the right time of year. It's leafy layered branches provided an extra veil of secrecy in as much as it hid us from all except the sharpest eyes if we could only keep quiet long enough.

In my memory there was also rich golden globes of soft-haired gooseberries too, hanging like miniature chinese lanterns on the undersides of the low bushes. I remember lying underneath them while we idled the time away absently feeding ourselves as we did so. Whether this treasure was in the walled garden, or the other larger, mainly neglected kitchen garden I'm not sure, but I do know that the rich, pulpily soft, Victoria plums belonged in that larger place.

I do remember that the grass grew long and full of seedheads around us in both places. There was always too much work and too few hands to be sure, and the television-perfect gardens, and the idea of the designers "outside rooms" of the future would have been met with total incomprehension. But oh the joy of rolling in that grass, with it's eyeball contact with the insects, and the deep scent of summer earth. To be sure the itch of the seed heads in ones clothes, and the bites of some of the insects was not so welcome, but a small enough price to pay for getting so close to the common clay from which we all spring.

And all the while there was the sense of being safely held in these secret places, for even as children, (and how much more we realise this now), there is the need for a safe place where adults cannot come, and our dreams can remain unbroken.

Perhaps you have a memory of some safe place that sustains you even now. Would that everybody had.

God Bless

A Touch of Love

I couldn't resist taking a snap of these dock leaves which grow in such abundance in the park.
They take me straight back to my childhood, when I had a positive talent for falling into nettles.

I used to spend a lot of time on my uncle's' farm, and because of my inbuilt radar for finding them, I seemed intimately aquainted with every patch of nettles which grew there. As I could never get anywhere without running or jumping I usually found myself in the middle of the nettle patch before I knew it, and not for nothing are they called stinging nettles.

In the twinkling of an eye I would be covered in the characteristic raised lumps and reddened patches which were painful fires not just on , but under, my skin.

Invariably I would present myself to my Aunty Gwyneth who would call my cousin to bring some dock leaves because "she's done it again".

The thing was that although my aunty was familiar with the folk remedy (which is scentifically proven to work), of applying dock leaves to relieve the symptoms of the sting caused by the hairs of the nettle, she only used to wrap the sting in the leaves, holding them in position for a moment or so before throwing them aside. To work, the leaves of the dock have to be crushed so that the juice is released and then rubbed into the sting.

Because Aunty Gwyneth's way of applying the dock leaves never brought me relief I grew up believing that the old wives tale was not true. Still, that never stopped me going to her to have the treatment repeated, and I never once let on that the sting burned just as much after her ministrations as it had done before.

In the first instance, even to my young mind, it would have been rude to have gone on complaining when she had done all that she could; but above all it was her readiness to stop whatever she was doing to help, (even mistakenly) , which brought me back to her time after time.

After all these years it seems to me that Aunty Gwyneth may have been soothing a greater
itch for me than purely the nettle rash when, if only for a little time, she put me at the centre of her loving attention.

Remembering her encourages me to feel that I do not need to have all the answers before I offer my help. Having the willingness to wholeheartedly put somebody else before myself, even for a very little while might be enough to begin with.

God Bless

Come to the Park?

I promised some posts back to take a walk around the park with my camera so as to give a taste of where I live in Coventry, at the very heart of England.
Until recently Coventry was a centre of automotive production where great names in the car industry grew and flourished. Indeed my hubby came here to work in the Jaguar Car factory which was only minutes from where we live, but like so many other factories it is now gone.In the midst of what was so much engineering, and factory territory it's wonderful to me that this county of Warwickshire, and especially this corner of Coventry, should still be so green. Here I am only a few miles from the city centre yet as you can see so much is still unspoilt.
Being from Wales where my home ground is a place of wide open hill tops, deep valleys , winding rutted lanes, and the sound of streams pouring down the hills, I need green space. The park is a breath of life to me.
I only have to walk to the top of my street and a few minutes from our home I turn right to get the first view of the park, which is gently draped over the slopes on the other side of the hill I've just climbed. We begin at the top of the park with a view towards the village of Allesley, which is a mix of picture postcard old houses, and urban renewal, lying on the other side of the curve of the valley.

This is the original "stately home" of Allesley Hall which was bequeathed to the city by it's last private owner. You can find out more about the general history of the park and it's beginnings in the 13th century on www.denspages.co.uk/park.








This is one of the delightful spots that have just the right blend of
landscaped trees and shrubs alongside the natural look to make me happy.

In the small photo you might just be able to see the golfers enjoying the course that brings them to the park, and hopefully makes them happy too.
If they were playing behind me they would be far from happy unless "play through" was the order of the day. Sad to say I have no ball skills what soever.


Continuing the "happy" theme the other small photo is a teeny corner of the children,s play area showing the "rocket" as my great grandson calls it.

He is somewhat disgruntled because access to this large slide is designed to keep littlies off and he can't understand why, though he's very happy with the one in the kiddy corner as well.






For me the suggestions of a country corner here and there is what makes an half hour stroll here a real escape. Don't you think these paths invites you to feel you are away from everything?I know it's as yet it's only a brief glimpse of this green oasis but you must already understand why I often think of the words of
Ps. 16 :6 as I walk here,

"The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance!"

I'll show you some more of my favourite corners and the walled garden in the park another time.


Even if you it can only be resting your eyes on a spot of green in your workplace, or a patch of sky through a window;
even if you have to create it or seek it out,
may you find some corner that soothes and refreshes you today.

God Bless

Never too late...

Sorry that there have been so few posts over the last week or so

 due to the fact that I've had to rest up a bit again.

After my last post I felt I'd come to a watershed and wondered if I should carry on with the blog,

 and if so just where it should go.

  My ponderings have lead to the decision to carry on with my day to day meanderings of life and thought on this blog,

 whilst using a second blog to express more in-depth explorations of Christian spirituality and praxis.

  I mentioned the possibility of this way back on the blog titled "Treasures of Darkness",

 and now seems a good time to start.

If you are interested in exploring Christian spirituality with me my other site is:- http://mypathofthewind.blogspot.com/

The title of "Treading the Path of the Wind"comes partly from Ecclesiastes 11:5,

"Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby

 growing in its mother's womb,

 so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things."

I chose this because it always speaks to me of the unexpectedness of walking with God,

 not just in the apparent blessings but also through the trials and trouble of life

 we would so much like to do without.

When people talk about faith by calling it a crutch,

  I think "Well if this is a crutch it's a pretty challenging one!"

  because I know that following the "path of the wind" since I was sixteen

 has led me into places and things that would never have been possible otherwise.

  Certainly I would have been too much of a coward to have even attempted most of them.

   It has definitely never been boring!

   Well you get the idea.

  In the blog I talk about what is the real nittygritty for me.

Now to catch up with this blog,

 I've been having real fun with my great grandson who at two and a half

 has been really getting excited about drawing.

Just last week he'd started on the large circle,

 with small circle eyes and a wobbly line for the mouth that signifies "Mummy", "Daddy", etc.

  Over the ensuing days stick arms and legs have been added sprouting from the "face",

 along with many sorts of "noses".

   Then the circular eyes got little circles inside them

and low and behold the pupil was born.

 Somewhere along the way "shoes" got added to the feet

and sometimes there are sort of mittens on the ends of the "arms".

It is apparent that to him these entities are real people,

 (we've all had a portrait done),

 because he stops in the middle of drawing to trot to an invisible bottle

 to get the "sticky" to make the hair that he then proceeds to draw stand on end

, as he sees Mama doing in real life,

 and as the hairdresser does when he gets his own hair cut.

In a short time at the table on Sunday he evolved the single line mouth

by adding another line which he solemnly told me were "lips",

which in a later drawing became a large circle which he filled with jagged lines

 that were the "teeth", accompanied with a suitable very vocal roar.

  There was much deliberation about the brown for the other new developments

 which were the eyebrows.

 Goodness knows what he's up to by now.

What struck me so forcibly was the sheer speed of the development of ideas,

 and their implementation.

  Truly the rate of learning,

 and the desire to learn, is phenomenal at this age.

Of course these early years are exceptional,

 and the pace inevitably lessens but whilst mental faculties remain

 there's no need to ever give up.

  The world is full of fascinating things:

  ideas, people, places...

 Even if we haven't had the chances we would have liked,

or some of our dreams may have been broken or somewhat dented,

 who knows what wondrous new thing waits to claim our attention and spur us on.

Today I came upon this lovely verse by Antonio Machado, (translation by Robert Bly)

Last night I dreamed
-blessed illusion-
that I had a beehive here
in my heart
and that
the golden bees were making
white combs and sweet honey
from my old failures.

God Bless

A walk in the Park

Very unusually we missed church this morning due to over sleeping so we decided to get out into the world by taking a walk around the park.

The morning was warm and sunny so there were families out with their children and it had one of those "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world" feelings about it but sadly the lie was given to this by a woman weeping bitterly as she sat alone on a bench.

Hubby approached gently and asked if she was alright and if there was anything we could do. She assured us twice that there was nothing, and that she was alright, so we passed on,

Grief or pain of any sort is such a private thing in our culture. I guess that I sometimes ere on the side of not wanting to intrude in case of causing greater hurt by that very intrusion, yet it always seems right to give the opportunity for that grief or pain to be shared, whether any practical help can be given or not.

Yesterday we were looking for a new washing machine and the woman attending us began to tell me about the weekend she had in front of her, and the fact of her father's long battle with Alzheimer's before his death last week.

Leaning on the top of one of the machines in the store she talked about prayer and the difficulty of faith in the face of suffering, as well as her straightforward relationship with God. She told me, as people in this country so often do, that she is a believer but sees no need of the church to re-enforce her faith, and that she can pray anywhere, which of course she can.

Thinking of that conversation, during which I mainly listened and prayed, I recalled other conversations, some in shops, pubs, wherever, when prayer and belief in God were talked about. Some of the time I was part of the talk, some of it I merely overheard. Often the fact of suffering is brought up. Sometimes the church is mentioned, but often as a peripheral thing to the general understanding, and of course not always in a complimentary why.

It makes me sad, because as imperfect as the church is, and as much as I too have suffered at the hands of the imperfect people (like me!) who make up the church, I have also found it a place rich in love, healing, and acceptance.

Perhaps because I came to faith outside the church structure myself, my on-going quarrel with the church is this strange sense to be found within it's folds that it somehow owns God, and is therefore the sole dispenser of grace. My own experience and theological studies have only served to convince me that God is alive, active, and not solely dependent on the offices of the church as some seem to believe.

But what about the vexed question of where is God when we hurt, and just how can the notion of a loving God be squared with the deep suffering all around us in this beautiful and terrifying world?

For me the image of the Christ who enters our suffering to the depths of his being, transforming it by rising to new life beyond it, is the only sense I can make of it. Such a God, in my experience can understand, and meet me in my own place of pain whatever that may be, and transformation can happen for me too.

If such a notion is alien to you, I offer the picture from a tree in the park. As the sap of the tree crystallizes on the cone it seems to be weeping, yet the tree continues to flourish and grow.

Should pain or weariness of spirit be part of your life at present, may you be strengthened to grow through and beyond it, to new healing and peace.

God Bless

P.S Writing this blog has made me realise afresh what a privilege it is to live in this part of England and how you might like to know something about what it's like to live in Shakespeare's own county today. Amazingly there is more left of the green and pleasant land of Elizabethan England than you might think. We tend to take it for granted, but writing about it will serve to make me appreciate it and explore more than I might have done. Look forward to you joining me.

Taking a Better Look

I've had few hectic days so no blog, and today's is just a brief thought to keep the kettle boiling. (This must be where the saying "pot boiler" comes from. Oh, um!)

Wandering around the garden as usual, I couldn't help thinking how unprepossessing this flower head looks.


Nothing very eye-catching at all. Even the
colour is somewhat dull

There's a sense that this umbrella form, (whose name I can't remember)
is hanging it's head and not full-filling it's potential.

I almost want to give it a pep talk !

As it turns out it is the plant that has something to say to me, rather than the other way around

Evidently to see the beauty of the flowers you have to bend down and look up at it.
Not very comfortable, but I hope you agree that the effort is worth while.

I wonder how many people I tend to look down on, pass over,
or dismiss as not really worth wasting my time on.

It is possible that if I make a radical adjustment in my attitude,
maybe even going so far as to bend, or even metaphorically kneel down and take a better look,
I might find some hidden beauty that I'll never see any other way.

God Bless

.

A Pig of a Challenge

You may remember my post "Feeling Silly" was prompted by a card sent me with the photo of a pretty little piglet on the front. Today another card has turned up with an equally appealing piggie (this time minus pink pom poms), who is winking an eye and suggesting saucily that,

"The best way to behave is to

misbehave"

with the challenge to blog just how I'm prone to misbehave myself.

Well, in the words of the song,

"Ain't misbehavin' "

Or, in the words of Eliza Dolittle to Professor Higgins in the film "My Fair Lady" , (and for the best effect you have to imagine Audrey Hepburn's yowling cockney accent here),

"Oi'm a good girl Oi am!"

Having only recently watched "Mary Poppins" I could add for good measure, (and spoken in that impossibly crisp and crimped English elocution-ridden voice that reminds me of somebody who has recently been sucking lemons, that IS Julie Andrews),

"You could say that I am practically perfect in every way"

The draw-back to all this is that I am known to the sender of the card to be neither good nor perfect, and my misbehaviour of the mundanely dull variety.

Imagine! Caught out as the most boring person on earth, - and by a piglet!

God Bless

A Whimsy of Wild Flowers and Weeds.

In his poem "To Daisies, not to shut too soon",
Robert Herrick asked that daisies should,

"Shine like a spangle here",

and they certainly do shine in a halo around this tree in the park

which is some five minutes walk from our home.

But if daisies are the stars,

in a wild bit of the park these

common dandelion are a

cluster of small moons

which I think are rather beautiful.


They remind me strangely of the mother of pearl discs
one of my jumior school teachers brought in for us
use in an art class.


I never knew what these lovely things were
until I saw some on Antiques Road Show
and learned that they are Chinese silk winders.

Wouldn't you have loved to be the lucky lady who had these in her work box? 

Isn't it odd the connections our minds we make?

In the instant of looking at dandelion clocks

my mind had accessed the teacher and schoolroom

of so many years back;

the cool feel of the mother of pearl between my fingers;

the mystery and appreciation of these unknown articles at the time;

and discovering what they were from the television.

All brought to mind in a nanosecond.

If only I could access the files,

and bring up the information I need at any particular time 

as easily as my synapses can put together those random connections

how much more organised I would be!

God Bless

P.S. Perhaps you would like to take a walk around the park with me in the next post?