Shadows

Oh dear. So, to clarify, I got to Scotland (where it was really very cold!) and got back, and ended up covering for our sixth form study supervisor for two weeks which annoyed my Head of Department, and war broke out in Europe? And Lent started.

I opened my Bible randomly this week because I was feeling so adrift. Joel 2 with its startlingly modern description of an army moving with devastation through a land. But also with its startlingly Lenten call to return. My boys have me signed up to the YouVersion Bible app that sends me a verse a day, and today it was from Joel 2 too. So, I'm going to sit in Joel 2 for a while longer, with fasting (from black tea) and weeping and mourning.

I've had John Donne's words in my head all these awful days. I've shared them before, and I hope he wouldn't mind if I borrow them again.

No Man Is an Island

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent, 

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

https://allpoetry.com/No-man-is-an-island

Patrick the self-isolater (and Lent #3)

 Happy St Patrick's Day! He didn't get any mad parades and green Guinness either. And no, he didn't have a government telling him to stay in for a few months, but he did have Irish slave traders who grabbed him and sold him to Miliucc who condemned him to six long, cold, lonely years on a very rocky and uncomfortable bump of a hill not too far from here.

It's interesting to us in these days especially, I think, to imagine how Patrick chose to spend his time. He would have been entirely dependant on God and presumably others to feed him. He would have been devoid of all stimulation and entertainment. He records later that what he did was pray, all day and all night. One hundred times in daytime. One hundred times at night. We worked this out at our little Scripture Union in school last week: that's one pray every seven minutes.

Prayer is definitely becoming my theme for Lent. And Lent seems to be becoming C-time for us all. I often complain to myself, make excuses to myself, that I haven't time to read my Bible, or sit for a decent time meditating on that reading, listening to the God who loves me extravagantly. Well, aren't we getting more time than we've ever had? I sincerely hope that we won't have six years to combat loneliness and deprivation, but I do also sincerely pray that we'll look back on these weeks of self-isolation with recognition of how they brought us closer to God.

I even think that these weeks will bring us closer to others as well. We can, as so many are saying now, use our multitudinous communication technologies to communicate with each other. So, a very happy St Patrick's day to you all. I wish you lots of prayer time! We'll be reading this book, and praying these words of Patrick's too,

I bind unto myself today

The power of God to hold and lead,

His eye to watch, his might to stay,

His ear to hearken to my need.

The wisdom of my God to teach,

His hand to guide, His shield to ward,

The word of God to give me speech,

His heavenly host to be my guard.

Lent #2

(Another wonderful image from the wonderful Mackesy book that will be first in my March books!)

The storms continue Outside. but there has been blessed relief this week Inside. (I refuse to class C whatsit as a storm just yet, despite the fact that I anticipate half of my grocery order not arriving tomorrow afternoon because of C whatsit panic.)

So, I seem to have set myself the target of this over Lent: pray without ceasing, thank without flinching, and remember without doubting. That's easier to do when storms abate, undoubtedly.

I read an interesting thing about prayer yesterday. Gretchen Joanna and I sort of met when she and I were both skirting around the idea of reading Kierkegaard most of ten years ago. (Really, GJ? Really most of ten years ago?!) So we have finally started, and are joint reading The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air. This week we're both aiming to share what we have made of it all thus far.

Suffice to say at this point, that the First Discourse has led me on in an interesting way from last Sunday's aspiration.

He became silent... He had thought that to pray was to talk; he learned that to pray is not only to keep silent, but to listen.

As I pray, thank, remember this Lent, there must also be silence and listening. First of all I'll only hear the stormy wind. And I might hear the lamentations once more of men. If I don't avoid social media I'll hear panic and fear. These storms will pass: And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Another lesson I'm taking from the lily and the bird is not to worry about toilet roll, Calpol and paracetamol. The Lord provides. And there are still tulips.

Lent #1

Ang is hosting Lenten thinkers again this year. A few Lents ago I really felt, even after years of professing faith, that I didn't have any true understanding of Easter. Outside of the story and the theology, I mean. I wanted it to be real to me. What was it about? By Easter I knew that it was about me. About you. About all of us. Laying it all down at that horrific cross, because that's where our love and life start.

I think that year was the one after That was the same year I did Outside Tea in Lent where I drank a cup of tea outside (nearly) every day in Lent and spent Easter on strong antibiotics against an absolutely miserable chest infection!

Then there was the Lent of Rend music. That was a good one.

So: I have been wondering about Lent this year. I always love reading Dormouse's challenges, and I'm trying to keep abreast of those through her. But I'm grateful for Ang's words too this year, the "benefit of Lent is that it gives a person time to reflect on their lifestyle, and consider what changes would be good and right for them. For 40 days - or maybe for ever after."

You know me; Ebenezers are the thing. The big stone raised up by Samuel to remember that, "Thus far the Lord has helped us". So I'm raising Ebenezers, because the stormy weather here shows no sign of abating and neither do the storms of Life with Boys and the rest, so I want to pray my way through Lent, pray without ceasing, thank without flinching, and remember without doubting. That's what I would like to do for 40 days, and maybe for ever after.

I'm also going to eat lots of hot cross buns, and buy lots of tulips. Because those are my two favourite things at this time of year. And you can still do those when Outside and Inside are blowing a gale. Here's hoping that March really will come in like a lion and out like a (paschal) lamb.

Lenten blessings be yours (with hot cross buns and tulips) x

Outside Tea in Lent

 Well, there's the end of another Lent. I hope yours was full of insight, and warmer than ours here in the Frozen North! I think I did learn a few things along the way...

  If you drink tea outside every most days in Lent, you may catch cold. This cold could last forty days and forty nights plus their associated Sundays. You may well end up on a very strong antibiotic! Falling asleep outside, see below, will not bode well! If you do all this in the Frozen North, be not deceived by short moments of sunshine. And most of all, climbing Northern Ireland's third highest mountain with said levels of congestion will not be a happy experience, at least on the way up!

 Secondly, there is a distinct contrast between the earlier and the later days. At the start it was all about taking time out, literally, to be more disciplined about listening to God. Then the idea took over, to the exclusion of the reflection. This has happened to me before, and is for me, I think, quite linked to the whole social media thing. So in the days before Pentecost I am going to be much less on farcebook, and much more locked in the metaphorical upper room, before the invention of WiFi! Waiting for the Spirit, rather than the likes. This is a shameful admission for a woman of nearly fifty! I do have a greater desire to seek God now than I did forty pictures ago.

What strikes me very much about the pictures is that the vast majority of them are taken in our garden. The meadowplace is predominantly where I live and move and have my being, but there needs to be a bit of an effort now to have open doors, an open life as our sermon encouraged today. There are a few opportunities that I have ignored for weeks, but I am saying yes to them now. Very scary in all three instances, but small steps!

 And lastly the Cross. My main intention was to appreciate, not just understand, the importance of the cross. This has been a very humbling journey. Right through the denial of Judas, and predicted denials of Peter, in John 13. It was my sin, my daily denial, that held him there. And yet, immediately after John 13, in 14:1-4, Jesus promises a room for me, prepared, with safe passage guaranteed.You know the way to the place where I am going!

 It does tickle me that I ended up with forty pictures- admittedly they are not all outside! I thought I would be able to pick a favourite, but now I'm not so sure. My top four might be mountain tea, soon-moving-to-Glasgow-Catherine tea and the silly black and white ones: there's a trend among the wittiest of folk-from-church-on-farcebook to be witty in grayscale. I don't quite cut it, but it was fun to have a go!

So, cheers! A kind, and incidentally hilarious, colleague of Prince Charming's sent me at one point an envelope full of delicious tea sachets to help me along the way, and I have two left. Leave a comment and I'll pull a name out of the hat, and send them on. But if you're going to be drinking outside tea- do wrap up well!

Outside Tea

 I laughed painfully when I read this quote about the narrator's ineffective mother at the start of "The Third Policeman". This sums up perfectly what I do now, with only two days teaching in the week and the whole house crying out for attention! It was also an unwittingly ironic precursor to the routine into which my Lent has fallen.

It started when I told the Wondrous Catherine that I was going to sit outside every day in March and drink a cup of tea, zealously intending to escape the domestic madness within and spend a few precious moments listening to the birds, now returned from warmer winter climes. Which sort of became a notion that it could be a Lent thing, and maybe the listening could be to God as well. Tea and Lent- they are, after all, two of my favourite things!

And thus was Outside Tea in Lent born! A farcebook friend decided she would do something different with chocolate (apart from giving it up) every day in Lent, and this is why you maybe see lots of pictures of mugs and dessert dishes on my daily feed! After that people started asking questions- what was it for, what was the idea, could they drink Outside Tea with me?

Today I did meet someone for Outside Tea. Today the wind is groaning down the chimney and the rain is lashing the daffodils into horizontal submission. Today we didn't even sit in the semi-al fresco shelter of the doggy porch- we sat inside wallowing in the central heating and watching the puddles rise up to meet the misty lough!

Last week, also on farcebook, which I might add I find mostly very useful, Our Daily Bread posted this picture:

And this is what Outside Tea in Lent is about. I might get to a late point in the day and think- oh good, I haven't had my Outside Tea today. I wrap myself up and sally forth. Sometimes I do read and pray and think. Sometimes I just listen to the soundtrack of my life: the birds, the husband, the boys, the friend. I'm hoping that by the end of Lent it will have forged a habit that gets to a late point in the day and thinks- oh good, I haven't had my great big dose of God's love and voice today. I'll wrap myself up and sally forth. I'd recommend it! And if you're within Outside Tea distance, pm me on farcebook!

The weekend, a pause in Lent and a pause in life

We had a glorious weekend. The sun shone, and we realised that we were fully out in the world of Spring, fully out of hibernation! On Saturday we finally made it back to Castle Espie, lured by the prospect of a Lego Trail.

Castle Espie lies on the banks of Strangford Lough, and is managed by the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, who keep safe an important stretch of land for the migrating flocks who refuel here in Northern Ireland every year.

 However, for high octane suns, the Secret Swamp with its fairy doors, wishing tree, mud submerged tightrope, and indeed zipline were the icing on the Lego cake.

There were huge Lego birds and creatures in abundance, at strategically distanced points around the domaine, and there was music in the woods..

 .. but we did actually stop to admire the live things as well! 

Then on Sunday we had an evangelist from an Irish organisation called Crown Jesus Ministries who came to speak in church. His passage was II Corinthians 2:14 - 3:6. It was an interesting time. In work we are feeling a strong call to a clear witness, and there was much in the talk to inspire and challenge. But, in the context of a super few days with all my men, and with lots of friends who passed through the house as well, I thought about our domestic spheres and about the legacy we leave in the hearts of those we know. I thought about our suns, and hoped that I might be able one day to say,

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of human hearts.

I say this in gratitude to those who nurtured me. Despite all the ridiculously awful things that I have done, and that are heavy on my mind this week, I can be sure of grace and hope. So I hope that despite all the ridiculously awful things my boys tell me they have done, and that are heavy on my mind every week!, they will one day be a letter of Jesus to their spheres.

The last time I looked down and couldn't see my feet I was pregnant with a boy. This time I am not pregnant. I am a middle-aged, biscuit guzzling mother of two boys and daughter of two parents who works five days a week- school hours and term-time only- and who is hungry all the time. The disappearing feet were nonetheless a disconcerting discovery one morning this week in the shower.

For a few Lents I have deactivated my Facebook account. This is very easy and very, very effective. That is time you can tangibly retrieve and put to prayer or Bible reading. For another few Lents I have tried to deactivate my gorging on junk food to get me through the next chunk of the day. This has never been successful! I suppose endeavouring to put a spiritual slant on the fact that your clothes don't fit anymore is just not the right motivation.

I wish it was though. Those of us born into first world places and kind families push through into our earthly life with all good things on our side. And what do I end up doing? Bemoaning the first world problem that too much food in my belly means that none of the many clothes hanging in my wardrobe hang on me quite as roomily as they did two years ago. Clearly the fact that I now drive everywhere around my five square miles existence burning significantly more fossil fuels than I do bodily energy is not helping.

Before I went back to working five days I walked to and from their school with the boys, and cycled or walked to my evening library job. I did a little bit of housework everyday instead of collapsing onto the sofa at any given opportunity. I did spend some mornings praying and Bible reading too. I used to say that I didn't believe in exercise, but in an active lifestyle. It all seems very halcyon now!

I clearly need to practise some self-discipline. It makes me think of the verse in Hebrews, which I'd only ever considered as a rebuke to children or wrong-doers:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

I think that the way I'm living now is a form of wrong-doing. I am not respecting the body God has given me; I am not respecting the privileged position I am in with first world abundance of food and fuel. I think that if I lived more gratitude and generosity I certainly wouldn't eat my way through the biscuit tin every afternoon after school, and I would get us out of the car a bit more. 

I just think that I'd manage that if I was more worried about the world, than about my girth. And I'm not sure I'd deserve any righteousness and peace that came out of dropping a dress size!

I like Lent. It's not much of a part of my Presbyterian heritage, and I'm not sure how I came to be such an admirer. I think I was in Belfast's big Christian bookshop one year wondering about Lent and picking up Delia's Feast for Lent, and there I was. Lentenised!

Six years in Anglicanism while Prince Charming led worship there helped, and now we do try in our own very small way to follow Jesus through forty days and forty nights of God. Certainly it has always been my experience that I have but to stop and find God rush to meet me. Father hurrying down the lane to take back the prodigal before words are even formed on lips.

It's half-term here this week, and I was struck yesterday morning by my reading of Jesus Himself getting up early or withdrawing to lonely places to pray. This time two years ago, on half-term, we had sold our house, discovered that the house we thought we were buying had been strangely sold to someone else, and were potentially homeless! There was nothing else on the market in the area that we could afford. Uncharacteristically, instead of weeping and wailing, I decided that I would get up early every morning of half-term and throw ourselves at God. Every morning that week I read about the importance of not worrying, of the birds of the air, read in Psalm 37,

³ Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
⁴ Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

By Tuesday afternoon the local godly estate agent rang me and told me to view a house that night. He told me that it was the answer to my prayers. It was. And six weeks later we were here. God moves. (He moves houses.) He moves mightily and every Lent reminds me of the great, good things He still does for us. 

This year on Shrove Tuesday Jo and I stood beside the book stall in our church halls. It happens to be outside the kitchen, and we were waiting to go in and judge the BB pancake-making competition. On impulse I took this booklet home:

This is our Lent time with Jesus this year. For just five minutes over dinner we read the passage and all have a little pray- out loud or not. And do you know, God has come rushing down the lane to meet us. This week the reading are all from Acts- the disciples about to go out and preach but first waiting for the Holy Spirit and His tongues of fire. I am thinking about work and our need to be overt in our witness there, Mattman is thinking about all the new languages he's learning at school this year, and all around us we have passages from Acts in church and even on the billboard opposite our GP yesterday. Jo asked why Acts was everywhere suddenly and I said that God had lots to tell us from Acts just now.

God speaks, and loudly, but it is very often in Lent for me, when I find Him rushing down the lane.

Pause in Lent, at Corrymeela

This is a short section of a queue of over one hundred people queuing for their Sunday lunch at the weekend! To the left of the shot is the dining room and to the right is the entrance to Corrymeela, Ballycastle. Prince Charming, the strawberries and I first went to Corrymeela with just such a group as this- a church family enjoying time away together, three generations all catered for and enjoying blissfully fabulous weather.

I was there as a Community member, on Cover Duty for the weekend. I usually go on Presence Duty, as this mostly involves giving people tours, drinking lots of tea with them, having interesting conversations with people from all over the world and all over its opinions, and then getting out your crochet.

This weekend, however, I: sorted out two heating issues, made tea and coffee and juice and biscuits for 168 people inside the space of an hour, helped an older lady who was feeling poorly, discovered in the process that the wheelchair is in the lift and thus the code for the lift, filled in many, many accident report forms, gave out many, many ice-packs and comforted many, many children (not necessarily in that order), did one tour, explained the community to everyone who asked, and thankfully avoided sorting the fire alarm because Night Cover had taken over, though I did have to rouse two impossible to rouse strawberries and get us all out of the building!

You can imagine, then, that as I arrived to lead Evening Worship on Saturday night I hadn't had much time to prepare! Earlier in the day the wonderful Barbara, half of the centre's resource couple had lent me a copy of the centre's Evening Liturgies. It now became clear to me why I hadn't been able to read past this sentence in the second paragraph of the first page:

All words are inadequate; we use them tentatively.

Corrymeela is not summed up in words. It is summed up in the resident volunteer who saw the cover person flop down at her dinner table, populated entirely by children , two of whom were hers, all stoked on Lemon Fanta procured at the vending machine on the proceeds of coins counted from their mothers' purses. This volunteer saw that there was no jug of water on the table before the exhausted cover person realised this herself. By the time the cover person had dragged herself back off her bench, negotiated three bins and a room full of 102 Baptists and got to the tap on the other side of the dining room, this volunteer had a jug of water ready and set it into the cover person's hands with a kind and knowing smile.

Preach the Gospel. Use words if you must!

Pause in Lent

I didn't blog my Pause last week. I couldn't actually blog my Pause last week, and I don't have Angela's good excuse of an injured wrist. I have really no excuse at all. Except the slightly messy story that I am going to try to tease out of my messy head just now!

I have been able to keep up all Delia's readings so far. The passages in the book have come on amazingly apt days, covering car disasters and a wobbly time of illness.And then it happened. I got to the weeks on repentance and on listening to God's word. One of the last passages was from Hebrews 4: For the word of God... penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

A while ago I bought a new paring knife. It was very, very sharp. I was chopping onions for my brother's birthday lunch later in the day and was thinking how very, very sharp the knife was, and how fabulous it was to be chopping onions with my new, very, very sharp knife, when yes, you knew, I realised that the top of my thumb was also beautifully sliced. But what I couldn't understand was how little pain I felt. Admittedly when the nurse had lifted it all up to check for onion residue, that was not pleasant. Afterwards though I was able to get to Sunday School on time, finish making the birthday lunch, and even spend the evening at the Summer Madness festival. I'm still slightly afraid of the knife.

This feeling, however, of having my soul and spirit sliced by words sharper than a double edged sword, than a Marks and Spencer paring knife. This feeling hurts. This rooting around in the grumpy sin of my life is not comfortable, not happy, not easy, not meek and mild; this is Jesus in the desert requiring obedience.

The annoying thing is that the part of my life that needs sorted isn't even spectacularly significant to anybody else. I keep wondering how much more God would have to say to me about spectacularly significant things if He didn't have to waste time on my grumpy messiness. But He has been pointing out to me for two whole weeks now that my attitude is wrong. Thankfully He hasn't gone away! The problem is that I keep skim reading through the difficult bits, virtually holding the book at arm's length to maintain safe distance. Although that last bit might be somewhat explained by middle-aged eyes...

There were two whole days on the Prodigal Son. Help me. A whole day on the grumpy brother. I'm about to get out my notebook and lay it all out on a page. I don't want to harden my heart, but my heart is hard.

I hope you're all much braver than me! These last readings started with Isaiah 30: Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! Delia's translation has the last line as: Happy are all who hope in him.

I'm off to do some hoping!

Pause in Lent

We have had a fairly amazing time this week with Lent readings. (The red lentils are part of a different Lent anecdote that you can read here, if you really have absolutely nothing better to do.) It's been a week to make me flick back through my Lent notebook and check that God is actually doing what I think He is doing. And He is!

Back in 2010 I was overwhelmed by the sense that, on sitting down at all to reflect on Him in Lent, He was already there. He was already there for me. I remembered that last Thursday when Delia quoted Jeremiah 29,

When you seek me, you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart; I will let you find me.

One day into Lent in 2010 I had an enormous bill to pay for a catalogue of disasters with my car. Needless to say it was all sorted. Painfully! But sorted. On Monday of last week, Prince Charming realised he would have an enormous bill to pay for a car disaster. Delia quoted Isaiah 55,

Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty; though you have no money, come!

On Tuesday of this week, health issues in the house. Delia quoted Isaiah 43,

Do not be afraid for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the sea, I will be with you; or through rivers, they will not swallow you up.

Interestingly our minister has just sent this very same passage home for PC to look up.

So what I think God is doing is waiting for us to come to Him, because he has Delia and ministers and friends, and His Word all ready and waiting. Many, many instruments of encouragement and instruction and reassurance. He will let us find Him. In His desert, regardless of setbacks and worries, we can come home.

Pause in Lent

I love Lent. I love it more and more with every year that goes by in its whirl. Suddenly the boys are one year bigger, I am one year older, and we have survived another chunk of chaotic family life. Suddenly, just as Winter threatens never to release the hard earth from its cold grip, there remains light in the sky at dinner time, I'm not pulling on a hat as soon as soon I have to go outside, and I don't phone my parents to make sure they're not venturing outside on slippy pavements.

Then suddenly too I can open my Feast for Lent and come home. That's the overwhelming sense I have this Lent. A great joy at the prospect of being back in the desert for forty days and forty nights with Jesus, just Jesus. I don't have to put up a tree for this festival, evergreen or with egg-decked branches. I don't have to write shopping lists for presents and food. I don't have to roast a beast or present a gasp inducing dessert. My children are not saying with their mouths that it's all about Jesus while salivating in their minds over presents and chocolate eggs.

Lent is still in its right place! I know that it's obviously very common for all and sundry to give up smoking, wine, chocolate digestives and facebook, but there's no materialism involved in that decision. It springs from some understanding that these weeks before Easter are about overcoming temptation and being better people. I do annoyingly persist in asking such friends if they are using the time they save, or the urges they experience, to think more about God.

Delia says, "Let us approach our Lenten acts of self-denial with the right sort of attitude, an attitude which will allow the Lord into some of our problem areas, to rescue us and save us. As we prepare to celebrate the Lord's triumph over sin and death in the Resurrection, let us understand that this can happen in each and every one of our lives, whoever we are, whatever kinds of problems we have."

Lest this reads as sanctimonious sermonising I will say that I have deactivated my own facebook account and can now get real things done! I will state that I am determined to get through all the readings this year- and that will be a first in the many, many years since I bought Feast! I will confess that part of the comfort in being back in the desert is to look at the Lent notebook that I keep with the book and see that many of the same worries that I have are addressed year after year and graciously and generously and with the great compassionate love of our God that Delia dwells on so beautifully throughout.

Happy Lent x

A Happy McPhee Easter weekend

There has been much God activity in the house, as would be only right and proper. But please let me just show you McPhee!  All her squares are joined up, and I am now sewing in lots of ends and starting to work the edging.

Prince Charming facilitated the final stages with breakfast in bed and photo shoot.

McPhee might just as well be called the Polyfilla Blanket, so great has been the need for improvising blocks and joins!

This was the final chunk, joining the penultimate square to the last custom-sized trio, referred to affectionately as the shamrock set.

And here for those of you who like the Strawberry Scale of |Measurement are those for whom I really must tear myself away and hide eggs...

Have a super rest of your Easter weekend. I would highly recommend a Lenten blanket project for the quiet perusal of important things. Especially if it happens to be the coldest Lent in many years!

A Feast in Lent

We live in East Antrim. This means that we seem to avoid the worst excesses of harsh winter weather. We are close to the sea, and our snow melts quickly; we are not too high, so we have not been cut off; we have thankfully hitherto been spared all power cuts; everything we need is within plodding distance.

We've just been watching the News and it's a bleak world out there for our farmers, and our elderly (my parents remain housebound on the top of their hill), and our businesses. So I hesitate to tell you what I am thinking increasingly this week, on my journey to Easter.

What doesn't quite manage to loosen its grip is a glimmer of joy, unashamed and unabashed, that has been growing here. It's the experience of letting go within the momentum of a great and sure hope. It's all the Feasts that we've been thinking about this year. Feasting like gluttons, devouring. Gobbling up all these good things that we can learn now in Lent and beyond.

I can't remember the last time I have enjoyed anything as much as the puzzle piecing of McPhee. I love it. I absolutely adore it with a passion. It's wholly tasteless, and will mean nothing to anyone who looks at it, unless they're us, but it fills me with chuckling delight. I thought about that yesterday in church. All that joy at seeing Jesus arrive in Jerusalem; joy that would sour. I thought how it would be to welcome Jesus everyday into here, and not have it sour. To feast wholly on Him, and fast from all that would interrupt the gluttony. To enjoy and savour and live, live, live!

A Pause in Lent

 

We spent St Patrick's weekend in Wexford with the wonderful Steven. It made me wonder which of the Lenten fasts and feasts would apply on a societal level as well as a personal one. It's interesting that Gretchen's celebration of Forgiveness Sunday coincided with St Patrick's day this year.

 

Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light. 

 

 

It's certainly a whole different thing being in the South at such a time. There's none of the political demonry hanging about the colours and the images.

 

Fast from the shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of serenity.

 

We were all looking forward to the Parade yesterday afternoon. Jo decided they needed hats. We explained that, given the flags situation at home, we wouldn't be buying anything with flag colours as we couldn't really wear them back in the North (without placing ourselves firmly on one side of the fence we're trying in our small way to work down).

Fast from hostility; feast on non-resistance.

 



What I loved about the Parade was that it was an unbridled celebration of all the ways in which community was working together in the town and beyond. All the clubs and sports folk and businesses and schools and charities were represented. It was a very long parade! Even with the rain pouring down the strawberries stood and jigged and clapped and waved, and then drove happily home to the Frozen North!

 



 

Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.

A Pause in Lent



Fast from judging others; Feast on the Christ dwelling within them.

Fast from anger; Feast on patience.

Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer.

Fast from lethargy; Feast on enthusiasm.

I'm nipping onto the keyboard between all sorts of jobs, and before going upstairs to see if we can still squeeze in a story. Matt goes on his first ever away-from-home-without-us -for-two-nights school trip on Wednesday and Icannot find any of his vests, and Jo has clearly lost 66.6% of his school sweatshirts. I wanted to grab as relevant a handful of these wonderful Lenten lines as I could while it's still today, but actually I'm going upstairs now with the last one ringing in my head like a gong.  It's good to be joining Floss' Pauses in Lent.

A blanket pause in Lent

My goodness, I have no idea how I managed to get this circular triptych of photos to group, but it suitably reflects the jagged arrangement of how Lenten thoughts are falling for me this week! Bear with me. This could be obscure! Maybe you should go read someone else instead?

Brave choice... Do you know the Nanny McPhee movies? If so, you remember the point near the start of each one where you get the voices all whispering: The person you need is Nanny McPhee? Well, right now and for the rest of Lent, the blanket I need is Nanny McPhee. I am hoping to blog about this more clearly later in the week! The point for today, however, is that I appear to be crocheting granny squares for Lent.

And they are becoming increasingly bright and sunny as the weather here finally follows the same pattern. It's a slow little process of making small things (Ooooh, look at the little smaaaaall things- another favourite McPhee line) that will hopefully come together into a colourful big thing that bursts into the outdoors and revels in air and adventure. Like the yellow, yellow, yellow scarf that Queen Niqi generously gave me today. Hope. It's all about hope, I think. Small steps building hope. In Lent.

Before Christmas I realised that the suns were showing enough interest in spiritual things to be doing proper devotions, but felt wholly inadequate for the task. I discussed this with some Christian friends, and dragged out a book that the strawberries had bought at last summer's Bible Club. Now we're about half-way through and instead of me reading it to them, they are reading the story and looking up the Bible verse continuations for themselves. I am very encouraged by this. God is speaking to them and drawing them to him and I just watch and learn. Small steps building hope in Strawberry land this Lent x