Time stands still

 Hello! Sending you all lots of love from Northern Ireland, where nothing much changes just as everything changes, as usual. Time has stood still here, in the Land of the Kitchen. I had noticed that the battery in the clock had died, but I decided to do absolutely nothing about it, and haven't let anyone do anything about it either.

A quarter to four is such a lovely time in the afternoon - just in from school, too early to make dinner, the potential of evening aspirations ahead (even though they generally come to nothing). I'm quite happy to stop the clock right there!

I suppose, post-Covid and mid-war and (unknown prefix) Protocol, I've tried to stop the clock too. Life still just boils down, as far as possible, to school, home, and a wee swim. And thankfully at the bottom of the hill, if you catch the tide, it's always Lough o'clock.

So, dear bloggers, on your gentle path into summer, may it always be a quarter to four, or _____ * o'clock.

Mags x

* blank for your own joy

2/2/22

 Last Friday in work, one of our English teachers was telling me about an article she'd recently read in the Guardian. You have to read it; it's so good. It declares that after two years of the last two years, we all need some 'funtervention', and it's up to us to decide what that means. Connecting, limiting the good things before they enslave us (which speaks directly into this house's current obsession with episodes of Grey's Anatomy), picking up a dusty guitar - whatever it takes to help us through the times when "the void within yourself becomes manifest". 

The thing that had captured HR's imagination was the concept of The Daily Delight. Catherine Price, the author of the article, said we needed to find something fun, something light-hearted every day to make us smile. Something to spark a bit of joy - something deliberately sought and carefully cherished.

Now, I thought this was all very lovely, but I didn't really take it much on board, until I was driving to work on Monday morning. There on the footpath, pedalling along at a purposeful speed was a man on a bike on the footpath. I think it was a man. It was hard to tell because his whole upper body was completely encased in the hugest, fluffiest, plumpest teddy bear that you could possibly be thinking of right now. I could not wait to get into work to tell HR!

Then, on Tuesday morning, when I dropped Jo off at the side entrance to the university, all the daffodils had come out overnight. They were definitely not there the morning before.

And today, well! Today, numerically but without the zeros, today was 2/2/22. Fabulous!

And it really is quite nice having a daily delight! 

Another nice thing that has been happening to me over the last month is the appearance of very interesting words. Some I've known; some I've had to look up. I started making a list. Then, because I have a writer friend in Scotland who is very inspiring and also kind, I was told decided that I would try to write something about one of my words every day for this month. It has been quite fun thus far!

If you'd like to see my words, I'm putting them into a facebook page for my friend. If you're on facebook, you just search for Margaret Elizabeth, and maybe there they'll be! And here's today's x

Ritual

 I read Gretchen's wonderful post about on rituals late late on Saturday night, but I was so pleased to have her words still echoing in my head as we were gathering for sofa church - we're still attending church virtually for the time being.

Gretchen quotes Sergei Fudel's idea that we lay our rituals before God as expressions of our love. Gretchen, you gave me such encouragement on Sunday morning as I was setting up the room where we do church. We have our usual seats (and get a bit grumpy if someone else gets there first)! We sing, we pray, we listen. But we have our own little additions too, and one of those is having something special to eat. It's usually croissants, but I'd forgotten to order those last week, so (in a fit of generally unexpected energy) I got up in time to make scones. Now, I'm not a great scone maker! But it was a bit of labour of love: for the men here, for the set-apartness that we try to maintain for church.

Over Lockdowns I tried to make a big thing of Sunday lunch as well - there always had to be a proper dessert. I've never had an enormous repertoire there, so I did lots of experimenting with the cook books that are here but seldom used! Now that I'm back at school, there's definitely less culinary organisation but there was a Mary Berry Sticky Toffee Pudding on Sunday. And I was still thinking about all the routines that we can have that make such a difference, no matter how menial or mundane they might be.

I know that there are times of great, obvious and overwhelming blessing, but isn't there such joy too in the things that you need to look for, and carefully appreciate, and be surprised by? I love those moments too. Ways to offer up a small life in small ways to a big God who enlarges us just where we are. Wishing you all lots of beautiful rituals this week - may they bless you, bless your worlds, and please the One who answers us x

Lockdown lunches

 

I have never really listened to lots of music. In the car and at home I like to listen to Radio 4 and I suppose if I'm at a loose end I'll crochet if I'm in the living room with anybody else or read if I'm by myself. I've always preferred words to anything else - I've enjoyed the first act of any ballets I've been to, but then I just get a bit hungry for dialogue! This time last year, however, we very quickly got into the habit of switching Radio 2 on when it was lunchtime in Home School! The first and the best online purchases I made in Lockdown were my little digital radio* and this chromebook*. The three men of the house had every device in full use, two of them with their own Google log-in for school email and Google Classroom, so I decided to spend my saved petrol money on some technology of my own!

In the first Lockdown we took lunch at 12.30 which was just after the start of the Jeremy Vine show - lots of upbeat music that would totally lift the mood. It's been a bit of a revelation to me how powerful music can be in changing the tone of the day. So at 12.45 this Lockdown I still switch the radio on and turn the volume up so that everybody knows they can step away from their keyboards and gather.

I keep thinking I should email the Jeremy Vine show and thank them all for the very real role they've had in encouraging us through all These Strange Times.* What we love about Vine is "The Rant of the Day". Maybe I've talked about this already? We tune in with glee to hear the day's topic and shout back at the radio. Interesting family perspectives come to light. I'm imagining that today will be all about Prince Harry and Meghan's interview, which aired for us last night. I am going to state categorical disagreement with the Ginge and Whinge brigade. Anyone who has watched appalled as The Crown pours contempt on the establishment's treatment of Margaret and Diana shouldn't walk into this greenhouse with stones. I think. They have said what they think. They have done what they thought best. And who out of any of us has made right decisions every time there has been a decision to make? And ultimately, who owns the truth?

Anyway, I know I'll miss these lunchtimes we've been given together as a family. This year has given me a whole year with two boys who have over the last twelve months become men. It's time for which I am very grateful*. And when my two fly this nest and make all sorts of decisions for themselves, I hope we'll always be able to gather round a table somewhere and eat together without too much bitterness or regret. That's what I hope for H&M (also a clothes shop... ) Especially given the situation with Prince Philip.

This was my reading this morning. I have been appalling at reading my Bible recently. So much for Lent. Isn't it wonderful that God still draws us near and shows us things*, even when we've been lying about all over the place, watching Netflix and eating rubbish? Obviously I'm speaking to myself here. But this passage has given me such hope today. I have been hiding myself away in the safe pasture of our meadowplace for a year, quite contentedly. So it is of great comfort to me to think that we will be shepherded out of our Lockdown, rather than herded, by a gentle God of great provision*. And wonders? Wouldn't it be a fabulous thing to see wonders On the Other Side? Even if we continue in a desert of trials.

Wonders.

edit: Let me apologise profusely. I see now that I blogged about our beloved Jeremy Vine on only 19th January. How repetitive. You see how small my world is now!

*879-884 out 1000 to be grateful for!

Nollaig na mBan

I suppose that it's only over my married life that I've gradually discovered the rich tapestry of the church year in different traditions. I grew up in a very evangelical Presbyterian sub-culture at a time in Northern Ireland's Troubled history when looking out of your sub-culture was by no means the norm. So even Advent and Lent weren't part of my first spiritual language.

Epiphany is something I haven't quite known what to do with at all. For years I had already been collecting santons on many trips and holiday camp stints in France, and I adore the idea of ordinary folk in all their professions making their way to the creche alongside the shepherds and the angels and the kings.

Because Prince Charming now works for a French company, I did make a galette des rois last year and sent it in with him for his French colleagues. There was no point in making another one this year, with opportunities to share food together so much a thing of the near but still so distant past!

I think it was just last year as well that I first learned about Nollaig na mBan - celebrated in Ireland on 6th January. In her brilliant RTE article, Marion McGarry explains, "As a reward for their hard work over the Christmas season, it was a day off from all house work for women and traditional roles were supposed to be reversed in the home: men did the women’s work in the house while women rested and gathered together informally."

 "The custom was that women made social calls to the homes of their friends and neighbours and enjoyed tea and the last of the Christmas cake". Photo: George Marks/Getty Images

Epiphany obviously fell on a Wednesday this year, and we are never slow to celebrate anything at Hookery, and indeed what better way to rest and gather as women during a Pandemic than at your weekly crochet (and knitting) Zoom?! In a further stroke of serendipity there were only two small slices of my Christmas cake left, and it did feel nicely symbolic to be polishing those off on the last day of Christmas!

Now, it did turn out to be a significantly more exciting night than we had planned. We gather at 7.30pm, and this was pretty much the time at which the news from the Capitol started to filter through our virtual clouds. Two of our women are absolute news fiends and they were popping in and out with updates from Sky News and CNN. I ran down to the boys, the oldest of whom had just logged in to our church prayer meeting Zoom. 

So there we all were, some of us on this side of the Atlantic celebrating female friends and resting after turkeys and tinsel, some of us on the other side of the Atlantic no doubt even more riveted to your news channels. 

I have absolutely no right whatsoever to comment and won't. I just feel that we are all, political persuasions and all, connected intrinsically. Here in Northern Ireland it baffles me utterly that this is rejected. We are all connected in good times and Covid times and all ages. We have had a very difficult week of school announcements this week, that do not help us at all, and the one thing in my head is gratitude for a God of the ages, all ages.

So, in the "Ordinary" Time starting now after Epiphany, Twelfth Night, Women's Christmas, Little Christmas, and as we all move forward into whatever else this wide world will endure in the year ahead, here's John Donne, with his 1624 devotion on an emergent occasion.

'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 any manner of thy friends 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. Olde English Version No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne

OWS

So apparently OWS doesn't stand for the little noises I have started making when I walk down the slipway over the last week. It stands for open-water swimming and it is a huge phenomenon here since Lockdown. I like swimming, with my feeble breast stroke, and I do prefer swimming in the sea, though I have only ever done that in summer and have usually had a wetsuit on in Irish waters.
 

Swimming was the only thing I started to miss a lot in Lockdown, so as soon as we were allowed to travel beyond our locality I would always take my swimming stuff. I had a few swims in the sea up on our north coast and one in the spectacular Blue Lough in our Mourne Mountains, but in August as lady from church invited me along to her swimming group, and I have been swimming with them as much as work allows ever since.

The main group is actually huge, and they swim in all sorts of places in our county, but I just swim with the local ladies who swim from an old slipway just beyond the park at the bottom of our hill. I park there and walk along with my little rucksack, my insulated mug of tea, and my very reassuring float. 

Everyone has asked from the start if it's cold. Honestly, the water has only started to feel cold this last week. Up until now, even if it wasn't a beautifully sunny day like this one at the start of the month, the water was very comfortable. This is Belfast Lough, on the east coast of Northern Ireland, at the end of a gloriously sunny Spring and Summer. I had swim shoes already, because I hate the feel of silt and plant life, but the recommended gloves help too. I suppose you're protecting the extremities. Since October folk are swimming with their hats on as well, but not wetsuits. This group swims in skins! So yes, now it's cold!

If it's not too rough, and if I know the tide is coming in, I'm confident to swim out to the big metal pole. When the tide is high the water gets deep quite quickly, but on low days we can mostly walk out to here. I'm a very careful swimmer, always needing to know I have the strength to get back!

And that's it. There is only one hard part - the getting out of bed for the early swims to catch the tide. After that, when you're all booked in to check that the number is below social distancing requirements for space available on the slipway to get changed, it becomes automatic. When people visit and we go to the beach I've always said that once you start walking towards the water you don't stop. So that's what I do, I just walk in until the water comes to my waist and then I swim. No hesitation, no thinking, just swimming. If the Lough is very calm, and again if I know the tide is coming in, I will swim back along the wall with the stronger swimmers. I've only braved it to the end and back once!

I have lived along this shoreline my whole life. I bussed along it to school. I walked this park with an aunt who lived in the area long before I moved here from the city. I ambled through it with two boyfriends, and with the one I married. I have beach-combed here with small sons, cycled here with bigger sons, and sat here often when I was getting over the very little very successful cancer procedure I had last year. It is a wonderful thing to me that at a time when the world seems so constrained and constricted I can do something new, meet people new and get a wholly new physical perspective on a landscape I thought I knew intimately. I know that these are difficult times with unprecedented challenges for our lifetimes, but I do firmly believe that we can make the most of them for ourselves and our families. This may well have the potential to be a terrible winter of our discontent, but I am thankful that God can still come in to our houses and our lives, and stay with us with no distance, no sanitising, no mask. Thus far has the Lord helped us x

(Thanks to PC for coming with me one afternoon when the sun was shining and there were no organised after-school swims! He took the photos and kept an eye on me - cold water swimming is not one of his many, many, many interests!)

Home in a time of Covid

I'm trying to work out how many months I'd need to go back to get to a time when I wouldn't believe that I'd come home from school one day to pick up the mask cut-outs and get them all sewn up, like some bizarre pandemic version of the Elves and the Shoemaker. Except that there's only me, as presumably the elves would be not very good at self-isolating. This time last year I was also thinking about The Elves and the Shoemaker, but we're definitely into Grimm days now, and not the Ladybird book version. I think it would be only three or four months ago. Back when I thought hoped that Lockdown could last forever! 

I'm using the rest of the Black Watch material to make more masks. My father was very pleased with his yesterday, although he's unlikely to be going anywhere to need it! The fabric looks quite light in today's afternoon sun, but it's actually extremely dark and thus acceptable to the men of my house. Aren't we all very particular about the masks we'll wear, or indeed not wear? They really do seem to be this year's latest fashion accessory. Fat quarters are taking on a whole new role!

Having the big table turned into a mask production line made me think about what home is like now, especially with three of us back in our two schools. Shoes and blazers stay strictly at the front door where we're greeted by a little tomte of hope that a friend made for my birthday in the summer. He tries to be a cheerful little soul. I wonder what conversations he has with the plague doctor though. Do they argue? I do hope not. I bought the little mask many many years ago in Venice. I was on a three city tour of Italy with my brother, zipping between destinations in first class train carriages and glorious heat. It all seems so long ago, not just because it was in fact decades ago, but also it seems now something from The Olden Days when people got on planes and went places! 

Admittedly we did enjoy five days canoeing on and swimming in Lough Erne, in Northern's Ireland's lake county of Fermanagh, in July; and a week walking and climbing in our Mourne mountains in August. So, there are no complaints here about staying home. It is just interesting, isn't it, how quickly life, and our expectations of it, have changed? I know we'll all have either subtly or even dramatically different opinions about that, but here in the Meadowplace, we're happy to keep it small.

I follow a local potter on farcebook - Rachel Julca. During Lockdown she made batches of these pendants. I bought a few for friends who had Lockdown birthdays and for the women with whom I was, and still am, messaging and calling to extend mutual love and support. Two of us were saying just this week, as we discussed whether or not we'd be going physically back to church this month, that we have never once felt devoid of teaching or fellowship over the last six months, and that indeed we have felt more a part of the body of the church in these last few months than in these last few years. I think we have made more of an effort to cleave to each other, as we have cleaved to the faithful loving kindness of God. I'm keeping my pendant up in the kitchen until the Christmas tree goes up, and then it can hang there with all the other keepsake memories that come out to tell their stories at each year's end. 

And really, apart from these few things, inside the house there's not much changed. It is wonderful to come home from school in the afternoon to decontaminate and decompress. Maybe that's the biggest difference now: school clothes come off, masks go into the washing machine, everyone gets scrubbed, and we gather round a table for tea and tales. We are definitely taking more deliberate time to be together and breathe - breathe easily and breathe healthily. I do most sincerely hope that we will all be able to do the same through the next months of These Strange Times, esteemed blogging friends. Thus far has the Lord helped us, Blogland; thus far x

Stables and trees

 

I've been thinking about books this morning. This is a fairly common diversionary tactic for me, but now more than ever is there need for good books! I was listing in my head, as I ate my porridge, the books that were precious to me. I was thinking about Wendy Erskine's Sweet Home with all its illustrations of East Belfast life that manage to be illustrations of lots of life. She signed my copy at the book launch. And she used to be my head of department when I worked in her school. So lots of precious between the covers of that one.

And then I thought of Jostein Gaardner's not quite yet seasonal A Christmas Mystery. Definitely a book I'd want to throw in a bag of books to be saved in the event of a house disaster but obviously after my children (and Prince Charming) were safely out! I was trying to remember the end, and don't read on if it will be a spoiler, but Elisabet wonders what she'll do when all the others' roles are fulfilled and she decides that she'll bow her head under the lintel of the stable door, and she goes in to meet the Christ-child for herself. (Doesn't she?)

It strikes me today how very easy it was for Elisabet and the shepherds and the kings and the everybody to meet Jesus. They didn't have to book their place in advance, worry about how many of them would be inside or about how many households they represented, make sure everybody had a mask, that all hands were sanitised, and that there was enough ventilation. I'm very confident there was enough ventilation.

And what I think about all that is that today it is still very easy to meet Jesus. In fact, God is all over the Internet in these days of online church. Our local church is taking a return to the building very slowly and carefully, but my goodness, what an array of creativity has emerged. From services to a reading of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and amazing resources for all age groups. Prince Charming's Live Worship is there too from our mostly tidy book room! Have a look here, if you have any more time in the day!

We are less than two weeks from the return of schools here in Northern Ireland, and plans are still coming through from our Department of Education. One leading city school has this just this morning announced that face masks will be mandatory to protect staff. We'll all have different opinions of this, but I'll confess this house reassured by any strategies that acknowledge the need to manage fear as much as the virus.

I'm so grateful in These Strange Times that it is still easy to meet God. Easy to lift up His Name. Easy to call on His Name. And so worthwhile, since I do fully believe that history, even covid history, hinges exactly there.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

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.

The silence of snow

 I am yearning, groaning, longing for the silence of snow! It's the end of our half-term break and I am, for the first time ever, relieved. We have had incessant storms all week, making the very idea of leaving the house abhorrent. Every day had been full of noisy, noisy weather: boom banging of the house all night long for days with Storms Ciara and Dennis, then lashings of torrents of rain on every window and roof tile. Hibernation continues here at the Meadowplace!

I think though that we have no chance of snow this year at all now. There has been sleet and hail, hard, hammering hail, but no gentle, enveloping, silent snow. I t would be lovely to have a blanket of white to make all things new, for a while! I was amazed to find snowdrops in the garden earlier in the week. It seemed inconceivable that anything would have survived the storms, but there they were. Brave and resilient despite being so small.

I've been thinking about Elijah on his runaway mountain. Hiding in his cave from all the pounding elements, and waiting for the still, small voice of God. It has been good today to read Ang's prayer response about Jesus stilling the storms; and to read of the importance and beauty of stormy days over at Gretchen Joanna's.

We'll just have to keep going with the brave and resilient for another while.

Not the darkest day

 

Last week many of my friends, Prince Charming, included, changed their facebook profile picture to black #darkest day. I didn't. Not because I disagreed with them: just the night before the boys and I had discussed the imminent new marriage and abortion Northern Ireland legislation and the impact it would have on our little society. Or perhaps on Christians in our little society. My perspective was that not often are you aware that the fabric of society is changing, but last Tuesday was a milestone.

The reason I didn't change my picture, and I did think about it, was because my reading the night before had been from Psalm 118:24, "This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it". I'm working through Warren Wiersbe's Prayer, Praise and Promises book, and this is what he writes, "The psalmist was going through battles and difficulties, yet he was able to say, 'If God put this day together, I'm going to rejoice...'" And so I felt that, like Corrie Ten Boom in her lice-infested bed, I should give thanks and strive after faith. I told the boys that in this new chapter my plan was to live a life of hospitality and sacrifice. I wasn't entirely sure what I meant myself! I wondered if the sacrifice would be putting aside what others thought of me in this brave new world.

It's finally half-term, and today I am slightly hysterical with joy! I have bronze toes and a new sofa in the sunny spot and plans plans plans to embrace all things orange and to breathe deep deep deep of this gorgeous season. The year is slowing down, and in the cosy darkening we can burrow slow down into what sustains us. Now and through the wintry times.

What I think the Bible says about knitting (and the emotive subject of the womb)

I think that knitting is hard. I have to think very hard, and count very carefully and take lots of time. What does God think about knitting?  I've been looking it up this week. Knitting is mentioned twelve times in the New International Version of the Bible which is the translation I mostly read.

Nine of those references to knitting all come in the same chapter. It's chapter 13 of that weird and wonderful book of Leviticus. That catalogue of what to do in every circumstance of life when you're living as part of a nomadic, camping community of thousands of people in the desert a very long time ago.

This rule book for desert roaming has just dealt with the problem of containing leprosy and has now moved on to mildew. Knitted clothing is mentioned nine times, along with leather and woven materials. If the mildew is spreading the article is destroyed. If it washes out, great, wash it again; if cutting out the rotting piece stops the spread, great. The commentary I read on this passage talked about trying to protect the property of the community, but also about mitigating the cost to poorer members of the community. The needs of the people were considered.

But ultimately if this thing, made presumably mostly by women, is diseased, it should be destroyed in the interests of the greater good. So the conclusion I draw is that a knitted, inanimate object is disposable if it is going to rot anyway. That's all there is about literal knitting.

However, knitting is used as a metaphor for something else in three other places. Two of them are in the book that tells the story of a long-suffering, disease-ridden, family tragedy-afflicted man called Job. He's been arguing with God, and his friends, about the cruelties he faces without having done anything to merit them. At the end of the book God finally speaks back. It's worth the read. God describes a creature that apparently could be the hippo:

Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit... He ranks first among the works of God, yet his maker can approach him with his sword.  

This time we've got a living, grown creature instead of an inanimate object. The knitting metaphor reinforces the author's desire to communicate great pride in the deliberate, careful creation of a marvellous animal. The implication of the wider passage is that, even though God could destroy the beast if He wanted, Job could do nothing against the might of a hippo. In the same way he can certainly do nothing about the moral decisions that the God of the big picture takes. The knitting is God's craft, not poor Job's. The design and its carrying out, all God's.

Job has ironically acknowledged this himself much earlier in his narrative, when he begins to plead with God about his condition:

Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you moulded me like clay. Will you turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.

We have a  person being created in this extract. It is a reference to the womb. The knitting is again a metaphor for careful, deliberate creation and my commentary talks about the lavishing of painstaking care as the unborn Job is poured out, curdled, but put together by God. There's life, and kindness, and watching over.

Finally, there's the same reference to what happens in the womb in Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb; I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 

 There's the same wonder and the same implication that the unborn child is precious. Again in the wider context the question is what will God not do for the child he has put together with every intention of watching over.

Now I suppose this is where we divide. Because we know that life goes badly wrong. We know that God can be read as the cruel afflicter, like at the start (and indeed middle) of Job's story. We know too as feminists that a woman's body is precious and her own, and is not the political terrain of men. I'm going to state clearly my opinion that women must have recourse to legal abortion in certain carefully considered circumstances. I in no way advocate a return to back street abortions and the deaths they caused.

It's just that I believe too that, like knitting, babies are stitched together carefully by a God who also mourns this state of potential sickness in which we all live, who detests crimes committed against the women he carefully crafted, but who retains the right, as the God of the big picture, to be the one who gives life and takes it away.

Knitting is hard. My knitting is far from perfect. But I believe in knitting. Psalms again, "He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea. Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord."

My in fact very old commentary is Inter-Varsity Fellowship's New Bible Commentary. I was reading Leviticus 13:47-59, Job 40:15-19, Job 10:8-12, Psalm 139:13-14, and  Psalm 102:17-18. Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright c 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Things I think about the DUP

I'm not even going to Google pictures of these people. If you live outside the UK, don't at all bother to worry about this post. You have quite enough ridiculous politicians of your own. Every now and again I just fret slightly over a sense of shame when Northern Irish folk appear in national Parliament on national news, spouting their views and flaunting their Theresa May-given position on national issues. This is what I think*:


The Democratic Unionist Party holds a dubious claim to democratic mandate.
Here in Northern Ireland, lots of people do not vote, They claim, not without grounds, that there is no-one to vote for. When folk do vote they seem to vote according to what the candidates are not rather than what they are: loyalist voters will vote for loyalist candidates, regardless of how (in)effective they are and republican voters ditto. Thus the DUP and Sinn Fein become our main parties electorally. In June 2017, the DUP secured 36% of votes and Sinn Fein 29.4%. 65.6% of our eligible electorate turned out to vote. What is a third of two-thirds? Two-ninths?


Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU.
I'd like the rest of the UK to remember this when DUP MPs stand in the House of Commons, recorded by the BBC, and stand there in the way of all recent attempts to sort Brexit. I didn't vote for them. Most of us didn't vote for them. They are not voicing representative views.


DUP MLAs have not worked in more than two years.
We vote for three levels of government. We have local council elections coming up soon, and thankfully the local councillors are all working. Then, because of our devolved government aka Stormont, we vote for MLAs (Member of Local Assembly). They have not worked in more than two years. Apparently both sides (DUP and Sinn Fein) are ready to be back in the Assembly tomorrow, are ready to have talks, and are not the problem. Karen Bradley docked their pay slightly recently. Finally we vote for our Westminster MPs. They are in Westminster, blocking Brexit proposals.


It seems we don't care how corrupt they are.
We don't care abut the millions they made for themselves, from our taxes, on the loop-holes that they knew about in the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme. We don't care that Ian Paisley Junior enjoyed a questionable relationship with the Sri Lankan government who funded his family holidays. We don't ask about the money given to Northern Ireland by Theresa May to form a coalition government which meant that they had to back her in Brexit proposals. We don't care about any of this because we know that we would vote them all straight back in, as we are about to do in local council elections; none of this matters as much as the important fact that they are not green. Indeed Ian Paisley Jnr was suspended from the House of Commons for his corruption but was ultimately backed by his local party.


Ironically, should a border poll come about, it will have been largely influenced by the position of this loyalist party.
If the DUP stands ideologically on its hard Irish border, flying its "Leave" flag for Britain, how would folk vote in a choice between non-EU Britain and EU Ireland? A population of less than two million people who voted predominantly "Remain". On holiday in the border county of Fermanagh two years ago I took a wrong turn out of a National Trust property and crossed the border four times in the twenty minutes it took me to drive the back road to the holiday house.


Sorry, Britain (and you, if you're still here- I promise there'll be a nice picture next time).


*Obviously this is all and entirely wholly my own personal opinion and this is the Internet and all of life is here. Including me.

the important things

i used to be quite fascinated with e e cummings. what I should really do now is dive into the vast and deep waves of internet information and remind myself of even one of his poems. but this is the post-truth world so i'll plough on regardless.


i lay in bed last night wondering what it would be like to write a blog post without capital letters. I decided that the capital letter could probably fall out without too much confusion but that I really wouldn't want to do without punctuation. I came to the conclusion that a full stop really is necessary to show that you think that what you have just said makes sense. maybe that's why so many of our politicians don't seem to draw much breath. I listened to boris on the today programme this morning. goodness, i'll miss john humphries.


the apostrophe however or the comma. they do seem elusive to more than gcse english students. I have long thought that in a decade or so the apostrophe will be lost entirely to pedantry.


its probably good to reflect now and then on the important things as long as sanity isnt sacrificed. thats where we are here on the whole brexit thing. will we be british by the end of it or will our nearly arbitrary 1916 border become so soft that that is erased from the next chapter of this small island's turbulent history altogether?


question marks. do we need question marks. we probably need questions. answers would be nice too... (ellipsis. im keeping ellipsis.)

September: free (and nearly free) stuff

 

A while ago I drove into the city, to a church that is old and beautiful and large, and took away one of their lecterns. They are closed now, closed for good, like so many other churches, large and small, across the city. Across the country, I suppose. They were giving away all sorts of things, polished with use and glowing with faith.

We did, with Kipper, go ablackberrying, across the fields at the back, and came back sticky and stuck with berries and brambles! We served them up that night to the same friends who gave us bag upon bag of apples from their garden.

 So, of course we made pie with our free apples and sprinkled over our free berries, and marvelled at this time of year, when even dedicated suburb-dwellers can smell the earth from which it all came forth.

Free pepper and chilli from the same, very horticultural, family. I am extremely grateful for the prowess and hard work of many, many kind folk around me!

One of whom brought me a bag of incredibly reduced lunch box rolls to prove that a trip past a certain food purveyor, at a certain time in the late afternoon, will produce a harvest of its own.

 And so the month would seem to be ending! So fast, so pumpkin-time surely? Over my last few years, autumn has been swamped by back-to-school issues and busyness, and maybe just bad weather sometimes means the colours and the smells and the beauty of it all do go diminished by stress and strain. So, I'm here beside our first fire of the season, thinking how beautiful it is to have friends and food and firewood from our storm-culled trees.


I'd like to talk too about free grace. That's the other thing that has poured over me this month with the orange glow of autumn. It's all by grace, isn't it? The waking, the working, the harvesting, the whole weird whoosh that is the diurnal turn. In my Year of the Tome (which I'd also like to tell you about some time) I've got to David and the relevant psalms as the narrative progresses. I can't at all grasp the scale of the Psalms! I want to hold on to all their words, but they are too many! Here are some from 86:"You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you."


And it's all (not nearly, but completely) free!

Third, fourth and Merry Christmas!

 We're having a relatively balmy Christmas this week, as opposed to just a while ago when these pictures were taken! How we loved our first heavy snowfall in this house. Earth really did stand hard as iron after a two day freeze, and the snowman stood as high as the boys for quite some time after.

 A prayer from one of my reflections last week said, "Pour down, oh heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness." I smiled as I listened, and replaced rain with snow- let the skies snow down righteousness. This struck me as beautifully apt, standing only because I know that God sees me clothed in Jesus, as bright and shining as my muddy garden clothed in pure snow.

This morning I was reading the end of Romans 16, marvelling at a terrestrial night when the celestial mystery of Jesus could break through. Merry Christmas, bloggistes, and a mysterious one too x



Ubi sunt?

 We went to see a specially commissioned Game of Thrones tapestry at the Museum just before Hallowe'en. It stands in tribute to the contribution made by the series to the Northern Ireland economy! From the Stones and Thrones-like bus tours to the Dark Hedges and Giant's Causeway to Castle Ward's becloaked archers, this little country has made a serious amount of money from books and TV far too graphic for me to encounter beyond marvelling at the gory tapestry scenes! Right now though, it's not so much that winter is coming, because winter is well and truly here. Cold!

 It was on one level quite the usual autumn here in the Meadowplace. Pumpkins, berries, cosy times. Finding that someone had raised an Ebenezer long ago in their home, as I endeavour badly to do here! There have been exceptional moments too- the small matter of a little hurricane for one. On that other level of things outside the norm, I was so glad to read MK's recent post about how the reality behind Blogland can bely its pictures. It's been a tough season here in many respects. When I walk out of our friends' new house to see that old Ebenezer sign it does me good to remember that thus far God has indeed helped us. I pray that He is helping you too x

 I finished an anthology of Emily Dickinson last week. My! That is a hard read. Possibly one of my hardest. I did, however, love the idea of ubi sunt literature. Writing that voices our questions over where the values of the past are, where the things that we have lost are. This articulated for me all my approaching fifty angst- where are the things that I had/did/aspired to/achieved? Then, thankfully, I had a little Epiphany.  What if I asked not,"Where are?" but, "What now?" What if I did do not very much with my education, my thin body, my opportunities to do this, that and the other? What now? What next?

Yesterday Mattman and I climbed one of our local hills. He wanted to keep on going and walk down the other side. I think he could have walked all day. My forward-facing teenage man and a clear, cold November dusk-coming sky. Not so much ubi sunt, as ubi ergo!

What I did in my summer holidays

We are doing all the back-to-school things. Uniforms are ironed and hanging in the airing cupboard. Have I ever shown you a picture of my airing cupboard/hot press? It is genuinely exciting, to me. Lunches are packed and in the fridge. School bags are packed and in the hall. It is raining.

So here are a few sunny summer memories from home and away, just to remind me of blue skies! We got to the blissful middle of nowhere in France with friends, the always delightful Surrey with family, and had a wistful farewell trip with our big, blue, old, cathedral of a tent in Fermanagh.

Thank you to all you kind folk who still read and comment here, even though I've been a very absent friend for years maybe now. Working more than I did a decade ago, and having parents to look after now as well as boys, and just trying to live a life, I suppose, dictate less self-indulgence at the keyboard! I have Psalm 37 open here, and saw this in verses 25 and 26:

I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.

I'm struck by a double layer of meaning for me this weekend. Last night Prince Charming and I were delighted to get to one of Rend's Hometown Gigs. At more recent gigs of theirs that we've been to, they have promoted the work of World Vision, and we're hoping to talk to somebody soon about sponsorship. It seems to cost £26 a month, which is less than my gym membership. It would certainly be money put to better use. I must tell you someday why I joined a gym, the most boring place on earth.

Happy September!