In the Woodshed

Hiatus

2011-06-09T08:30:00.001+01:00

If you haven't figured it out by now, my current blog is over at bishkekdiary.blogspot.com. You should check it out if you haven't already! Till soon. x

Binge Reading

2011-04-26T13:48:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything, although I have been reading an awful lot, in a fit of what I suppose Ben Myers would categorise as Binge Reading: to be precise, N.T. Wright (or Tom Wright, in his 'everyman' manifestation) and Rowan Williams. There's an irony here, because I had every opportunity to indulge this reading inclination in Australia. But, in a typically laissez-faire approach to broadening my horizons, I just sort of waited for the right moment. As it turns out, the right moment has happened here in Kyrgyzstan, where I've become friends with an ex-Ridley lecturer who happens to have a whole shelf of N.T/Tom Wright, including most of his commentaries on the New Testament, plus all of his denser theological works. I've made my way through some of the commentaries, and I have great plans to tackle his New Perspectives on Paul, but I must confess that the work that's impacted me most is Simply Christian. His writing is beautiful, precise, academic and refreshing, and unlike many Christian writers of a certain persuasion, he clearly relishes dialogue. Try this, for instance:

There are three basic ways of explaining this sense of the echo of a voice, the call to justice, the dream of a world (and all of us within it) put to rights.

We can say, if we like, that it is indeed only a dream, a projection of childish fantasies, and that we have to get used to living in the world the way it is. Down that road we find Machiavelli and Nietzsche, the world of naked power and grabbing what you can get, the world where the only sin is to be caught.

Or we can say, if we like, that the dream is of a different world altogether, a world where we really belong, where everything is indeed put to rights, a world into which we can escape in our dreams in the present and hope to escape one day for good - but a world which has little purchase on the present world except that people who live in this one sometimes find themselves dreaming of that one. That leaves us with the unscrupulous bullies running this world, but it consoles us with the thought that things will be better somewhere, sometimes, even if there's not very much we can do about it here and now.

Or we can say, if we like, that the reason we have these dreams, the reason we have a sense of a memory of the echo of a voice, is that there is someone there speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear, someone who cares very much about this present world, and our present selves, and who has made us, and it, for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being rescued at last.

Three of the great religious traditions have taken this last option, and not surprisingly, they are related; they are, as it were, second cousins. Judaism speaks of a God who made the world and built into it the passion for justice because it was his own passion. Christianity speaks of this same God having brought that passion into play (indeed, 'passion plays' in various senses are a characteristic feature of Christianity) in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Islam draws on some Jewish and some Christian stories and ideas and creates a new synthesis in which the revelation of God's will in the Koran is the ideal which would put the world to rights, if only it were obeyed. There are many differences between these three traditions, but at this point they are agreed, over against other philosophies and religions: the reason we think we have heard a voice is because we have.

Simply Christian, pp8-9

So that's N.T. Wright, a truly great writer and a good man. I've also been listening to some of the innumerable lectures of his that you can find online. And then there's Rowan Williams: I mention this, because I'm desperately hoping that someone who reads this post will find it within herself or himself to buy his poetry and send it to me. In the meantime, I've been reading lots of his essays and publications online, and enjoying the outworking of his mammoth brain immensely.

I've also been reading the following: John Goldingay's commentaries on Joshua, Judges and Ruth, Gulliver's Travels, and a bucketload of Shakespeare. Someone promised me the new Jasper Fforde, and I'm hoping they deliver soon! In the meantime, lashes of QI are sufficing.

I Know What I Have Longed For

2011-04-06T15:36:00.004+01:00

A stunningly beautiful Welsh poem by Ann Griffiths, translated by Rowan Williams. I like to think of this young farmer's wife, with her dreaming eyes and worn hands, surrounded by ancient land and sea, composing her lovely vision. She died in childbirth in the early nineteenth century, barely older than me, and I am quite sure that she woke on a bright morning to meet her friend.

I Saw him Standing

Under the dark trees, there he stands,
there he stands; shall he not draw my eyes?
I thought I knew a little
how he compels, beyond all things, but now
he stands there in the shadows. It will be
Oh, such a daybreak, such bright morning,
when I shall wake to see him
as he is.
He is called Rose of Sharon, for his skin
is clear, his skin is flushed with blood,
his body lovely and exact; how he compels
beyond ten thousand rivals. There he stands,
my friend, the friend of guilt and helplessness,
to steer my hollow body
over the sea.
The earth is full of masks and fetishes,
what is there here for me? are these like him?
Keep company with him and you will know:
no kin, no likeness to those empty eyes.
He is a stranger to them all, great Jesus.
What is there here for me? I know
what I have longed for. Him to hold
me always.

From the Welsh of Ann Griffiths (translated by Rowan Williams)

How to Care for Introverts

2011-03-31T05:23:00.001+01:00

Your Love Is Strong

2011-03-30T17:58:00.002+01:00

The footpath is a threshing floor, strewn with the seed husks that people chew like gum. Marshrutkas wobble to and fro on their frosty routes. Taxis drivers stomp their feet and blow on their fingers as they wait for the next customer. I'm walking home from a friend's apartment after sharing a meal and prayer. I'm thankful to God for this blessing. It's a new friendship that is growing and ministering to us both. But I'm also exhausted at the end of a long day, and I'm aware of a soreness in my heart - an aching, a longing for better relationships, for more wisdom and less anxiety. A longing for perfection, which is sharpened by the scruffy ribs of street dogs and the ghostly presence of working girls in alleyways. A fierce and impatient prayer rises in me, for the kingdom of God to rip through this fear and dirt and insufficiency and make all things new. How long, O Lord?

Then, suddenly, my iPod shuffles and has a providential fit. This song starts to play, and it is a tonic that floods and soothes my soul with truth. The ache is replaced with joy - of the 'unspeakable and full of glory' variety.

And now I'm sharing the song with you. Be blessed.

Some Stitches in Time

2011-03-29T11:39:00.001+01:00

Three timely articles on the tripartite troubles of a single sister mulling over missions:

If the apostle Paul knew fatigue, anger and anxiety in his ministry, what makes us think we can avoid them in ours? After all, To Serve is to Suffer.

A refreshing look at the modern work/life paradigm: The old and honorable idea of “vocation” is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted. Implicit in this idea is the evidently startling possibility that we might work willingly, and that there is no necessary contradiction between work and happiness or satisfaction.
Read more of Wendell Berry on Work.

And finally, why sex tell you nothing about what it means to be human: why Christians should take friendship more seriously.

Dubstep Dance France

2011-03-21T12:46:00.002Z

This post is out of character, I know, but this dance took my breath (and words) away...I'm about to become desperately enslaved in fandom to French dubstep...

A Theme Song & a Prayer

2011-03-13T15:13:00.004Z

I watch CNN some evenings. It's the only English language channel and I like the feeling of being connected to the rest of the world in my own language. Since I've been here, there have been floods and fires in Australia, uprisings in the Arab world, an earthquake in Christchurch, and the horror of earthquake and tsunami and nuclear accident combined in Japan. I've watched all these events on CNN and have become increasingly disturbed by the nature of their news cycle; every disaster has its own theme music - haunting, emotional riffs played over floating close-ups of iconic images. Every news reader has the same mannerisms. Particularly gripping footage is repeated over and over again until it loses its grip on the viewer, and the same set of immaculate reporters file the same stories every hour, using the same set of adjectives. CNN, it seems to me, should be reprimanded for dramatising human suffering - for giving it the Hollywood gloss and orchestral music, for seeking to entertain over educating. (I should mention that as part of this agenda, devilishly attractive weathermen-and-women do front up to the camera on a regular basis, so it's not all bad.) On the whole, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be connected; I just wish they wouldn't treat us like idiots in the process.

Of course, CNN provides a comic aspect, in the form of some of the senior anchors; Becky Anderson and Richard Quest, for instance. Becky, who has a way of frowning deeply with one eyebrow and pressing her fingertips together just so, and Richard, who is a parody of a British twat with exaggerated gestures and a rasping voice. And if anyone's familiar with A Current Affair in Australia, you'll be pleased to know that Anna Coren, queen of the painful segway and butt of many Chaser parodies, has found her niche reporting from the Asia-Pacific region to a worldwide audience.

I don't know how to pray for Japan. I really don't. So I'm grateful for people like John Piper who can remind us how to pray at times like these:

Father in heaven, you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth, the rising of the sea, and the raging of the waves. We tremble at your power and bow before your unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways. We cover our faces and kiss your omnipotent hand. We fall helpless to the floor in prayer and feel how fragile the very ground is beneath our knees.

O God, we humble ourselves under your holy majesty and repent. In a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—we too could be swept away. We are not more deserving of firm ground than our fellowmen in Japan. We too are flesh. We have bodies and homes and cars and family and precious places. We know that if we were treated according to our sins, who could stand? All of it would be gone in a moment. So in this dark hour we turn against our sins, not against you.

And we cry for mercy for Japan. Mercy, Father. Not for what they or we deserve. But mercy.

Have you not encouraged us in this? Have we not heard a hundred times in your Word the riches of your kindness, forbearance, and patience? Do you not a thousand times withhold your judgments, leading your rebellious world toward repentance? Yes, Lord. For your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts.

Grant, O God, that the wicked will forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Grant us, your sinful creatures, to return to you, that you may have compassion. For surely you will abundantly pardon. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, your beloved Son, will be saved.

May every heart-breaking loss—millions upon millions of losses—be healed by the wounded hands of the risen Christ. You are not unacquainted with your creatures' pain. You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.

In Jesus you tasted loss. In Jesus you shared the overwhelming flood of our sorrows and suffering. In Jesus you are a sympathetic Priest in the midst of our pain.

Deal tenderly now, Father, with this fragile people. Woo them. Win them. Save them.

And may the floods they so much dread make blessings break upon their head.

O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace. And so behind this providence, soon find a smiling face.

In Jesus’ merciful name, Amen.

from www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-prayer-for-japan

Description of an Idea

2011-03-07T17:33:00.003Z

Living in a country that is piecing itself together in the ragged aftermath of the Soviet idea, you can't really be apathetic about politics and religion. Love God or not, He's an idea with life-altering consequences in this place. And politics can consume the lives of people, particularly young people, as happened last year. The power of an idea is nowhere as evident as where the outcome of it could mean either life or death. All of which is to say - I like Bruce Dawe. A lot.

Description of an Idea

You can nail it to a cross

and it will rise again after three days.

You can put it in the arena with wild beasts

and it will survive its own dismemberment.

You can tie it to a stake and light faggots under it

and the crackling of the flames will speak volumes.

You can exile it to Siberia

and it will still cry out with the voice of Ivan Denisovich.

You can beat it to a bloody pulp in a public square in Peking

and it will still think of freedom.

You can turn the Star Chamber and the SS

and the KGB and the Savak

and the State Security Bureau

loose on it

and someone somewhere will still think it

and someone somewhere will still die for it

and someone somewhere will give it new life.

For an idea is an organism more mysterious in its action

than the miracidium.

... You can declare an idea anathema to 999,999,999 people

and the billionth will reach for a dictionary...

Bruce Dawe

Brief Remarks on Isobel Archer

2011-02-22T14:28:00.003Z

(for Erika)

Henry James wrote The Portrait of a Lady as an American in Paris, about an American in Europe - thus, there is rich appreciation and experience of European culture in his novel; and there never was a character more suited to the purpose than Isobel Archer.

It's a sublime novel - the writing is unfailingly exquisite, the characters finely drawn, the conclusion a masterpiece of dramatic tension. Indeed, I don't believe that real people can be as finely drawn as Henry James's Isobel; she is altogether too whimsical for this prosaic world that I know. She excites passions in everyone she meets. To know her is to love her. Proud men want to marry her - wealthy women want to make her their protege - and she is above it all, not swayed by wealth or fame but by some esoteric high ideal. I've known people like that, but once I know them well enough they appear like other people, with flaws and quirks and private habits. Isobel Archer, unlike her readers and even her author, doesn't become coarser on acquaintance; she is consistently, constantly, vividly herself, inhabiting some rarified plane of aesthetic thought and experience. Thus, you might be perfectly right - we wouldn't like her at all. This is my problem with Henry James, his women have no crudities. And that's why I propose that she was never afflicted with diarrhoea. The end.

Huh, the 'Grammys'? To What Do You Refer?

2011-02-22T01:39:00.001Z

Mumford, Avett Brothers & Bob Dylan: WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME? I only found this by accident...

The Details of Discipleship

2011-02-20T16:34:00.003Z

The best challenge of the week (amidst an array of not inconsiderable challenges) has been a call to consider my petitions to God. Specifically, a call to consider petitioning God for opportunities to disciple others which came from my reading of Mark 4:26-29. I'll be honest; I intentionally avoid praying for this, because I know from experience that He'll give it to me, and it scares me witless.

I've been a Christian for some time. I've walked in valleys and been in battles, and emerged wounded but joyful, with Jesus Christ as my delight. But frankly, after ten years of being a Christian, I still lack the confidence to mentor and encourage newer Christians. I lack confidence in my communication skills, in my inter-personal skills, in my sensitivity and likability and in my ability to be compassionate. This is because I do a lot of unproductive navel-gazing, rather than gazing on Christ, in whom all my confidence should be lodged. I only share this uncomfortable, humbling information because I suspect we're all the same to a lesser or greater extent, and also because Mark 4:22 reminds me that what is hidden should be brought out into the open, which is a good start on the road to being a mentor.

This is what Mark 4:26-29 says: The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the ear, then the full kernel in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he puts a sickle to it, because the harvest has come.

To the farmer in this parable, the manner in which his wheat grows is a mystery; he plants a seed in the ground, goes to sleep, and in the morning it's grown a little, and it keeps growing to ripeness and fruition. He harvests it in wonder. Jesus reminds us in this story that discipleship is a mystery; who among us has what it takes to be a good Christian? Not one of us; certainly not me. And yet - all it takes to encourage spiritual growth in someone a few steps behind is a small action. A word, a deed. And lo - a miracle! The word or deed sprouts. It grows roots and leaves and becomes something living and beautiful - the kingdom of God coming ever nearer - as the Holy Spirit works in hearts and lives. What a profound mistake, to think that this is a human work; what hubris, to think that it's up to me, and me alone, to effect this change in another's life!

Gulp. Here is what I'll pray for myself this week; that God will humble me and provide me the opportunity to wisely disciple/mentor one other person.

5 Propositions About Literary Heroines

2011-02-03T08:20:00.002Z

1. Elizabeth Bennet never got lost in her life, because she always knew which way was North. No wrestling with maps on street corners for half an hour for Lizzie.

2. Isobel Archer never had an illness that didn't add to her ethereal appeal. For instance, I'm pretty sure she never had diarrhoea.

3. Jane Eyre never put on five kilos in two weeks because she ate herself silly on carbohydrates, and had to fight desperately to lose it so that she could fit into her favourite dress.

4. Elinor Dashwood would never enter into a romantic relationship with any man who wasn't of the highest moral character and feeling.

5. Clarissa Dalloway never entertained guests by serving them rice dishes under a single dim lightbulb.

The Blessing of all Natural Graces...

2011-01-29T10:26:00.001Z

The morning I arrived, I literally crashed onto a couch and had a beautiful, deep, profound sleep. I woke all muddled, but rested, after about six hours.

That was the last unbroken sleep I had. There are a couple of problems: the heating in all apartments is externally controlled, and mine gets appallingly overheated at night. That naturally leads to some tossing and turning. Secondly, if you open the windows, you get lungfuls of night air, which is composed largely of smoke, and eventually you get the sensation that you've been standing around a coal-fuelled bonfire for too long. And I guess there's all the mental stuff - culture shock, the stress of a new and unfamiliar environment, the pressures of teaching new curriculum. You know how that goes. Life seems to flow from how rested I am. If I'm not getting enough sleep, the rest of life suffers - you know how that goes, too.

I want to have energy to form relationships with students, colleagues, friends. I want to have energy to be excited about being here and exploring far and wide. I want to have energy to pour myself whole-heartedly into this new endeavour.

Schleep...I wants it.

The Lesson - Don Linehan

2011-01-24T14:55:00.001Z

Any teacher, I think, will identify with this poem. I found it in an anthology, while cobbling together a poetry unit for my new Year Eights.

The Lesson

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain
and gathering them around him he taught them
saying
blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
blessed are the meek
blessed are they that mourn
blessed are the merciful
blessed are they who thirst for justice
blessed are all the concerned
blessed are you when persecuted
blessed are you when you suffer
be glad and rejoice for your reward is great in heaven
try to remember what I am telling you

Then Simon Peter said

will this count?

and Andrew said

will we have a test on it?

and James said

when do we have to know it for?

and Phillip said

how many words?

and Bartholomew said

will I have to stand up in front of the others?

and John said

the other disciples didn't have to learn this

and Matthew said

how many marks do we get for it?

And Judas said

what is it worth?

and the other disciples likewise.

Then one of the Pharisees who was present
asked to see Jesus' lesson plan
and inquired of Jesus
his terminal objectives in the cognitive domain

and Jesus wept.

Don Linehan

For Want of a Teapot

2011-01-23T15:10:00.001Z

I've just had the perfectest cup of tea in a fortnight, and the fact is sufficiently noteworthy to be recorded. It was the culmination of gradual steps; using filtered water in the kettle for the first time, finding some Earl Grey teabags of dubious origin but surprisingly good flavour, and adding a spot of low-fat moloko (the only milk that keeps). There was one mug here when I moved in, and I haven't found any others despite scouring bazaars for them. It has a dreadful artless picture of a dalmatian chasing butterflies on it, but it's the right size and shape for tea-drinking. I understand that a teapot is in transit, which I await with dreadful anticipation, for it is a brave undertaking, to send such a precious thing from Australia to Kyrgyzstan.

I asked an older Scottish lady today whether she felt that teaching was her God-given vocation. I asked, because despite coming here in that capacity, I still don't feel particularly gifted or called to it. She's been a teacher for nearly thirty years, both in Scotland and in Bishkek; but she said, No: she said, My vocation is simply to be, wherever I am - to form relationships, to love and serve people, to grow in the knowledge and love of God. I sat there in her kitchen, three stories high, overlooking a snow-covered playground, eating chops, and understood that this was my heart's calling, too, and that teaching was not that end, but merely a means of achieving it.

The sermon this morning was on Mark 2:1-12 - Jesus forgiving and healing a paralysed man. It was a very good sermon, and in amongst many good points was this child's truth: when Jesus died for sins, it was once and for all. One time, for all sins.

I struggle with this. Guilt is the monkey on my back (or one of them; he jostles with his brother, Pride). I'm gifted at guilt; I'd have made a good Catholic, atoning eternally for my imperfections. Pebbles in my shoe, hairshirt on my back, six hours at confession. Luther at Erfert.

It's a child's truth and it's the grandest truth in the universe: I am forgiven, once and for all. The sinful thoughts, words and deeds of last week are confessed; if God flung them as far away as the east is from the west - which, having travelled extensively in recent weeks, I know to be some distance - I can rest easy. There is no guilt and no condemnation in Jesus, who knows my heart better than I, and still loves me more perfectly than I can comprehend.

Monkey, begone. What have I to do with thee? I belong to my Redeemer. And I've just had a very nice cup of tea.

Blood & Stones

2011-01-17T14:19:00.000Z

I've been here a week and it feels like an eternity. The days are crammed with challenges and I'm exhausted at the end of them; small challenges, like slippery ice, lack of school resources, finding interesting ways to cook pumpkin, taking the wrong marshrutka - and huge challenges, like fluctuating loneliness and homesickness for people, fears about my ability to teach unfamiliar curriculum, trying to form new friendships and hold on to old ones, being culturally sensitive, fighting the urge to comfort-eat. (Here's a confession: over the course of the week I ate a whole tub of Nutella with a spoon. I found a store that sells it but have since vowed not to buy any more.)

I got a parcel today - books from Adelaide (below), by an author I don't know, but I read a few pages of the first one and it's rather good. I trust the sender's taste and look forward to reading them! There's something magical about parcels with big blue Airmail stickers on them. That is something more than a hint: mail will make my day, if you'd care to make it. I can't guarantee prompt reciprocation, but I promise to try.

Happy Mahogany & a Prayer.

2010-12-31T18:31:00.003Z

Recently overheard: a little girl, when asked if she knew what 'mahogany' was, confidently replied that it was the last day of the year. So I say to you, Happy Mahogany! (Naturally, you are too kind to correct me by pointing out that I mean Hogmanay, which demonstrates what a fine human being you are, and why I like you so much.)

This is my prayer on December 31, as I peer through the mysterious fog that always shrouds a new year. I perceive shapes moving about within it, as in a dark glass. Some of those shapes are known, some unknown. I am expectant; I wait, and am glad that I know the One who holds the future.

Come, Lord Jesus! Tear my heart asunder; take it to pieces like a washerwoman and clean each piece upon a rock and make it new; remake it with perfect stitches once the sin and sadness ingrained upon each thread are washed into the sea; and let that sea be endless; and let it create a right spirit within me. Come quickly, Lord, and make the world anew. I say again, come quickly, Lord Jesus! Speedily, as thou hast said. Amen.

'Urricanes in 'Ampshire

2010-12-30T19:01:00.005Z

Look, I know you probably don't want to hear more descriptions of my brief travels in England: others have been before and done it so much better. Bill Bryson and H.V. Morton spring to mind. However, I had such a perfectly satisfying and memorable day in Hampshire that it must be recorded for posterity. I beg your indulgence, and I promise that all this flowery descriptive writing won't last much longer. I'll try to tone down the superlatives.

Hampshire is a county known for its 'urricanes (which 'ardly hever 'appen), apple cider and watercress. There were no hurricanes today, only a lot of fog which sat in a picturesque manner about and atop the clumps of oaks, elms, beeches and hedgerows. Our first destination was Waverley Abbey, which was the inspiration for the Sir Walter Scott novel, Waverley. Founded in 1128, it was the first Cistercian monastery in England and now sits in gothic ruins in the countryside. Despite its weatherbeaten age, it was prettier than the eighteenth century manor across the river, the colour scheme of which brought to mind the worst excesses of 1960's architecture. The Abbey itself, however, was remarkably preserved and suitably scenic, as the small section below attests.

We started out late, so stopped at the Selborne Arms for lunch before anything else, which, I fear, I am compelled describe for you. (The lunch, not the anything else.)

To begin with, it's a sweet old pub with those ancient doors you have to stoop through to enter. We got a table close to both the bar and the fireplace, and the feasting began. Starter: Welsh rarebit, with some kind of good strong cheese and vinegar and chutney. Main: half a Roasted Pheasant with a perfect roasted potato and buttery soft brussel sprouts. I was extremely pleased to discover buckshot buried in the flesh of my pheasant, as I proudly reiterated later: "there was shot in my peasant!" At this point I went to the bar and ordered a locally-made apple cider, which came in an enormous bottle and was scrumptious. Then, dessert: Steamed Sponge with Jam and Custard, in the manner of a roly-poly. It may sound unprepossessing, but I can assure you that it was heavenly. After a decent espresso, we heaved ourselves out the door and into the car, beaming foolishly at the goodness of the meal.

Not far down the road from Selborne lies the exquisitely preserved village of Chawton, where Jane Austen wrote most of her novels. Her house has been made into a good museum, which avoids being tacky by virtue of being lovingly restored and not having too many tea towels with Jane Austen's face on them in the gift shop. There was a beautiful early nineteenth century piano in the drawing room, which Emily sat down and played; I went and sat on a windowsill in the next room and listened, and grew misty-eyed at the thought of our beloved Jane playing the piano and walking these floorboards and tending the garden and dreaming up Emma and Elizabeth and Eleanor and Anne. I much preferred this museum to the one in Bath, which was overstocked with the tea towels and oil paintings of Colin Firth. I purchased a light volume of the collected letters of Jane Austen which will just fit into my luggage. (To the right: the desk on which she wrote.)

Afterwards, we walked a couple of miles through fields, got our boots muddy in the manner of Elizabeth Bennet - "my dear, almost positively medieval!" - and drove home to Morden in the dark: tired, well-fed and sated on good things.

As I write, Emily is making pasta with roasted vegetables - time to leave off the computer and pick up a book and listen to some piano music.

Things Look Better in the Morning

2010-12-29T09:18:00.006Z

We visited Cambridge yesterday, for several reasons; Roy spent many years there (at King's and then at Jesus College) and wanted to catch up with friends, Emily had some other friends to meet with, in a cathedral choir that was passing through, while I simply wanted to adore Cambridge. Which I did, thoroughly, although it was greyer and wetter than the last time I paid homage there.

Selected highlights:

- the view from the cafe across the road from King's College.

- the unexpectedly good collection of art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, including a Renoir I'd never seen, a couple of Canalettos, and an obscure corner of pre-Raphaelites.

- a similarly unexpectedly good Thai restaurant.

- the purchase of two new pairs of shoes; a pair of leather/gore-tex boots to replace my old ones (which were rapidly filling with holes) and a pair of long wool-lined brown boots, which I had budgeted for and which are extremely beautiful.

- cream tea at Fitzbillies.

- the frozen river Cam.

- the company.

Even though it was a splendid day, I didn't sleep well; I had one of those nights filled with irrational anxieties and woke up pretty neatly on every hour after 3am. In the spirit of dot points, here are the silly what-ifs that plagued me:

- What if I/my agency haven't budgeted properly and I run out of money?

- What if my friends forget about me because I'm not around?

- What if I annoy my friends and family by writing too much, and being needy? (I told you these were irrational)

- What if it turns out I'm crappy at this job?

- What if I haven't filled in the proper paperwork and my life turns into a sort of Dante's inferno at the airport?

- What if all this is a fit of hubris and not God's will at all? (Yes, I see the theological idiocies in that now)

Those are selected highlights: there were even sillier things. Now, since none of those anxieties exist in the broad light of a London morning, I'm going to cast it all off and have poached eggs on toast, for reasons that this hymn, sung by Leigh Nash and stuck stubbornly in my head for days, makes clear:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No, I was found of Thee.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm vexed sea.
’Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee!
For Thou were long beforehand with my soul,
Always Thou lovest me.

Christmas & Boxing Day 2010

2010-12-26T18:45:00.003Z

I hardly need say that Christmas was exceedingly lovely. There was a late-morning pot of tea to start with, and a breakfast of cinnamon porridge and phone calls to relatives. Presents were exchanged as follows: I gave Emily Moab is My Washpot and a pair of Brora socks. (Brora is a particularly snooty brand of Scottish cashmere - a nice cardigan will cost several hundred pounds, so socks were about all I could manage, even though I would love to drape myself in the stuff.) To Roy, I gave Jan Morris's Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere and Brora socks also. Then, to both, a collection of DVDs to be watched when Roy goes into hospital, including some Sofia Coppola films and Cranford. They gave me a very beautiful woollen rug from The National Trust and some good tea from Whittard's and some pretty pictures to decorate the walls of my imminent Soviet-era apartment.

Then the parade of sumptuous food began. Emily, being a superb and intuitive cook, made several delicious dishes for lunch: roasted beetroots, baby carrots and sweet potatoes with good olive oil and herby yoghurt; new potatoes with Neal's Yard goat's cheese, salmon, capers and rocket on the side, all with a nice McLaren Vale wine. After, there were goodies from Paris, including a very lovely nougat with olives in it, and chocolate from Marks & Spencer's. Also, some lovely frothy coffee.

To justify this delicious meal, and the one to follow it, we decided to go to Richmond Park, the largest of the Royal Parks in London. The stunning vistas were enhanced by the snow that still sat everywhere and the red deer that grazed undisturbed. It was a perfect white Christmas; we crunched for miles through the snow, marvelling at the frozen lakes and the soft-hued winter sky that hung in muted shades of pink and grey. We drove home through Richmond as the sun was going down, and there was a remarkable moment as we came to the Thames where soft pink and orange light suffused (diffused? defracted?) the sky and reflected in the river and caused the world to be impossibly beautiful for several minutes. On cue, a flock of geese flew low to the water in perfect sleek formation, and signets passed classically under an arched bridge with their parents. After this rather exquisite moment, we went home immediately to gorge ourselves again.

This time, there were three courses, precluded by very, very good Champagne. The first, a bruschetta that Emily recreated from one she'd had in Italy. Olive ciabatta bread, toasted with garlicky olive oil and a semi-hard French cheese, topped with lemony steamed cale. A thing of beauty it was not, but thoroughly delicious. Following this, Emily made a pasta from scratch, a kind of tagliatelle, tossed it with chanterelle mushrooms and creme fraiche - gorgeous. And finally, pears poached in wine, with custard. Before dessert, however, and to be kind to our stomachs, we watched some Jacques Tati.

In a fit of eponymity, today (being Boxing Day) we drove out to Box Hill in Surrey and went for a woodland walk. Again, the snow was still thick up there and the view from the Folly at the top of the hill was the British landscape at its best. We walked for miles and miles, discovered real holly leaves growing on real holly trees, through fields and over hills and stiles. Apart from the hole in my hiking boot which began to leak melted snow, it was really perfect. Then, we had a picnic in the car which consisted of a leftovers salad of potato and salmon and egg and beetroot and goat's cheese; masses of French cheeses on biscuits; clementines and nougat.

So it's home again, home again, jiggity jig, and I've only just thawed out sufficiently to be sure of not babbling.

Rowan Williams on Advent

2010-12-24T21:59:00.007Z

Bruegel: Census at Bethlehem
(like so many of Bruegel's paintings, the trick is to find the extraordinary event among the ordinary daily bustle: Mary and Joseph are here, if you care to look for them.)

Advent Calendar
by Rowan Williams

He will come like last leaf’s fall.

One night when the November wind

has flayed trees to bone, and earth

wakes choking on the mould,

the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.

One morning when the shrinking earth

opens on mist, to find itself

arrested in the net

of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.

One evening when the bursting red

December sun draws up the sheet

and penny-masks its eye to yield

the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,

will come like crying in the night,

like blood, like breaking,

as the earth writhes to toss him free.

He will come like child.

And also, this: (if you don't mind irreverence, done reverently) - Christmas clerihews.

A Few Cold Words

2010-12-23T13:46:00.001Z

Went for a wander around Morden Hall Park this morning. It was built by the oddly-spelled Hatfeild family in the late eighteenth century, who, quaintly, made their money from a snuff mill. It hasn't snowed for a few days so the ground has a patchy look, but I thought this picture accurately captured the feeling of the place! It felt like I had acres and acres to myself in the biting cold. After a while my ears and fingers started burning, despite being well covered, so I went to the ubiquitous National Trust shop and had the ubiquitous cup of tea. I've come to the conclusion that National Trust shops and cafes are exclusively run by round, middle-aged, slightly-inept-but-good-natured women. I had some nice conversations with the tea ladies and got called 'luvvy', which made me happy.

I'm learning that this variety of cold is both painful and dangerous: painful, because your fingers swell and if you don't have on enough layers of clothing your body aches, and dangerous, because snow on pathways quickly turns icy and it doesn't do to walk jauntily all over them. (I've nearly landed on my backside a couple of times, and it's difficult to recover gracefully.) And it's only -2! I'm told that it will be at least -15 when I arrive in Central Asia, which I can't quite grasp.

For the Want of a Teacup

2010-12-20T20:33:00.002Z

London is not notable for its gastronomic pleasures. In Melbourne, if you're out walking or shopping or whatever and you feel like a nice cup of tea and a sit down, there's usually a decent cafe nearby ready to oblige. In London, unless you really know your way around, which I don't particularly, you either have to settle for Starbucks or walk for miles. And then, when you find it, it serves you teabags. In a mug. A gloomy mood ensues, in which the drinker contemplates the bygone glories of the British Empire and makes unfavourable comparisons between it and other countries. In the teeny-tiny suburb of Seddon, Melbourne, just as a completely random example, there are half a dozen cafes, each of them offering endless varieties of teas served in teapots and excellent coffee. And none of them play Sugababes for their customers. Just sayin'.

It was exceptionally cold today. I don't think it got above -2. I wore thermals and my duck-down jacket and was stoic. It's snowing heavily right now, and it's lovely and mesmerising to watch but I feel no strong desire to be in it. When you see the thing of mud and sludge it becomes on London streets, it loses some of its appeal. I'm glad of it, though, because it's all excellent preparation for Bishkek. I was intimidated by the prospect of this cold, but now I believe it's manageable.

Read lots today while on Tube. Emily has masses of Georgette Heyers lying about. This is a pleasing circumstance; given my jetlag, I'm in no mood for taxing reading. So I read The Grand Sophy today and more of Bill Bryson's At Home. I've also been listening to Sufjan Steven's The Age of Adz, which IS taxing and difficult and compelling and deserves to be written about, lots. If I find the energy, I shall do so tomorrow. Less taxing is this album which I'm growing to love, and recommend if you're looking for new music.

The Next Day

2010-12-19T16:47:00.010Z

It was a peculiar night. I slept the dreamy sleep of the very-jetlagged from 7pm till 2am and woke, extremely hungry. Warmed up some good soup and a bagel and ate ravenously, then went back to bed and found that I was wide awake. Annoyed at this silly mismanagement of jetlag, I extracted Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life from the mountain of books next to the bed and read as far as 'The Drawing Room' before dozing again. I intend to be much more sensible tonight, although my eyelids already feel like lead.

One of the things I was absolutely set on doing while in London was to visit St Helen's Bishopsgate, the church I attended irregularly last time I was here. So, after a hearty meal of porridge, I checked the Transport for London website to make sure that the Northern Line was running (it's all a bit hit-and-miss with the snow, and others things which I shall mention shortly. Oh, and that was a dreadful pun just now - keep reading and you'll know why -). It was, and so I made my way to Liverpool St Station without mishap, and to church on the dot of 10:30. And, glory be, it was a Carols service! Not just any Carols service: a pipe organ, trumpets, and a choir of sopranos in the loft. Incidentally, the church building dates back to 1210 and has all the requisite bits added on over centuries, fabulous timber arches and ancient plaques on walls, that sort of thing; so it was a thoroughly stunning experience. There were four Oxbridge types standing behind me, marked by the colours in their scarves, and I was thrilled when they started singing in pleasant baritone harmonies - not in a showy manner, but for their own enjoyment. I stopped singing altogether at that point because I couldn't take in that and the richness of the soaring sopranos too. Also, I learned a new song, the lyrics of which I shall write out presently.

You'd think that was enough, and indeed I thought I was sated, but then the Rev. Paul Clarke stood up to deliver a sermon, and by golly, it was a stunner. He chose Isaiah 9:1-7 as his text and his theme was Jesus as Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. I rejoiced in it and wanted to laugh and cry all at once because it was so beautifully illustrated; the glorious kingship of Christ, established and upheld with justice and righteousness forevermore.

I stuck around afterwards to investigate the bookshop, restrained myself admirably from buying Don Carson's commentary on 1 Corinthians, drank of the mulled beverages, and then took off. I was really hoping to strike up conversations, so that was disappointing, but it didn't dim the wonder of the service.

I thought I'd tramp around for a bit in the sludgy-yet-treacherous snow, and ended up at St Paul's Cathedral; you can't go in on Sundays because of all the services, but (and this trick I learned five years ago) you can enter the subterranean gift shop and hear the magnificent choir from above, which I did. Rejecting the offerings of the gift shop as too popish for my reformed low-church sensibilities, I crossed the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern and paid my homage there, more out of duty than delight. I find one needs to be in a colourful peasanty mood to really appreciate the surrealists, and my mood was an elevated one, not at all suited to the vagaries of modern installations. So I tramped on out of there and around the Thames for a while, and then home. Not before taking this picture of the Tate on my iPhone, however, which for some reason reminded me of a Bruegel:

Predictably, by this time the Northern Line was out of action, not because of the snow, but because of "a body on the tracks." This was announced in such a matter-of-fact way that I was sure I'd misheard it; but no, there it was, "body on the tracks" (hence the earlier pun, cue wincing). With some nifty recalculations, I found a way home, snuggled up on the couch to listen to Rosie Thomas and finish Bill Bryson, and did my best not to fall asleep.

I haven't decided what tomorrow holds. Maybe the National Gallery, Covent Garden, that sort of thing. I also want to visit Spitalfields market, and maybe have a Brick Lane curry. Who knows? It's all very whimmy.

Here are the lyrics to the carol I didn't know, but loved:

Lord, you were rich beyond all splendour,
yet, for love's sake, became so poor:
leaving your throne in glad surrender,
sapphire-paved courts for stable floor:
Lord, you were rich beyond all splendour,
yet, for love's sake, became so poor.

You are our God beyond all praising,
yet, for love's sake, became a man;
stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heav'n-wards, by your eternal plan:
you are our God beyond all praising,
yet, for love's sake, became a man.

Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship you;
Immanuel, within us dwelling,
make us and keep us pure and true:
Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship you.

Frank Houghton (1894-1972)

Day 1

2010-12-18T09:27:00.004Z

There's a Tube depot not far from where I write, and from time to time you can hear a prim 'thwoot' emerging from its yard, which reminds one of nothing so much as Thomas the Tank Engine. No doubt the Fat Controller is directing things over there, and if Ringo Starr should suddenly start narrating as I sit at the kitchen table, I shouldn't be at all surprised.

From the mild summery aspect of Melbourne to the bitter cold of snowy London, it took about thirty hours, with a stopover in weirdly humid KL. Everything went smoothly (although I didn't sleep), and I dumped my thirty-five kilograms of luggage gladly at Emily and Roy's doorstep in Morden just before 8am on Friday, having learnt in the previous twenty minutes the complete and utter insanity of walking London streets without appropriate gloves. If I'd had to do it any longer, I wouldn't be writing this because I'd be suffering from frostbite instead. Anyway, they were still in their pyjamas, which made me feel less conspicuously plane-ridden, and they fed me cups of tea and poached eggs and after a long, hot shower I was quite human again.

I was feeling energetic, so Emily and I decided to explore neighbouring Wimbledon and its attendant Common (where the Wombles live, apparently). We took the bus (I may have emitted a small 'squee!' when I saw it, which didn't help my plan to exude quiet, practised sophistication at all times: I did, after all, live in London for twelve months. But it was a RED DOUBLE-DECKER BUS! They never get unexciting) and on the way back it started to snow; itty-bitty flakes at first, and then whirling bigger bits, and by the time we got home there was a thick layer of the stuff. This was extremely pleasing to me, but less so for E&R who had plans to catch the Eurostar to Paris that evening. Actually, I should explain why - they were off to a Christmas party in the Loire Valley, thrown by the now-retired British Ambassador to India and his wife. On a related note, I also learned that Roy's naturopath treats the Queen. I include this ticklish trivia for your edification. Anyway, snow plays havoc with the trains around here, but less so the buses. They made it, however, so I have their charming apartment to myself for five days, and this was the view that greeted me this morning:

I haven't ventured out yet, but I plan to visit Westminster today, because it would be so pretty, and also because I want to visit the Abbey. I thought I'd start my London time with some pompous gorgeousness. Also, St James' Park is not far away. The only thing that stops me from leaving immediately is that I'm not quite psychologically prepared for the cold - have to do mental warmups first - and also I haven't had a cup of tea yet.

Till tomorrow!

(ed: the other thing that stops me is the EXTREMELY HEAVY SNOW that has just started falling!)

'Tis a Season of some Sort

2010-12-03T04:36:00.001Z

I'm writing on an unfamiliar computer with sticky keys, surrounded by the dusty geography books of a bygone era. This is because I finally vacated my work desk today; I binned the last of uncollected student work, filed the useful resources, gave away all my stationery, and wiped the whole thing clean with a vile-smelling spray. I’m employed for another week yet, but the senior school students finished yesterday at 3:30 after the adrenaline of the choral competition, in the middle of a truly magnificent, bucketing thunderstorm. After three days of student-led choir rehearsal and one day of intense performance, exhilaration was tempered by exhaustion; amidst the smell of wet woollen jumpers in homerooms and the squelch of sodden socks, there was much joyful affection, some of it aimed at me. Girls gave me sweetly-phrased cards and hugs and pretty rain-soaked presents to say farewell; a couple of the boys dashed through the rain to say their goodbyes and thankyous; and I felt a great deal of affection for these tender-hearted teenagers.

Others keep asking me – will I miss them? – to which my reply is, yes, but not yet. Soon enough I will notice their absence, but for now there is too much to think about, too much to do; I haven't got room for sentiment, and probably won't till I'm on the plane. Right now, I dread the week to come; all the hours I'll need to fill, riding out these last days at this ancient computer.

Thirteen days until this new chapter in my life commences, and I don't know what I feel; maybe there's no name for this odd and complex sensation of yearning, loneliness, excitement, hope, wistfulness, joy; all of it mixed up together in such a way that I can't distinguish one from the other.

In Time of War: XVI

2010-11-17T07:21:00.002Z

For one reason or another, Auden has been in the air lately. A friend at school showed me this poem today and it clung on to me like a limpet, as so many of Auden's poems do. In English, I'm teaching on the film Omagh, which is about the 1998 bombing by the RIRA; I think I shall use this poem tomorrow.

Here war is simple like a monument:
A telephone is speaking to a man;
Flags on a map assert that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan

For living men in terror of their lives,
Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon,
And can be lost and are, and miss their wives,
And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.

But ideas can be true though men die,
And we can watch a thousand faces
Made active by one lie:

And maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now:
Nanking; Dachau.

How to Treat a Sister Like She'll be Missed

2010-11-14T10:10:00.002Z

1. Tell her to set a whole weekend aside for unspecified hijinks.

2. Arrive at her doorstep on said weekend in a car full of sister, sister-in-law, brothers, brother's girlfriend, and refuse to tell her anything about the next 36 hours, even if she pleads in a pitiful manner.

3. Drive a little way, find a pleasant Italian restaurant, and order a delicious meal.

4. Drive a little further, make her close her eyes, and walk her into this dayspa, where a foot massage, back massage and facial awaits.

5. Walk her out, dazed and happy, take her for coffee, and then embark on a trek through to the Buong National Park to arrive at this thoroughly charming cottage.

6. After inspecting the vineyard out the back, ensconce her cosily with slippers and wineglass and good music and proceed to cook dinner for her (as below), consisting of perfectly cooked spiced lamb, asparagus, spinach and haloumi, followed by the crumbliest of good apple crumbles and sloshings of wine.

7. Talk lots and then settle down to watch silly funny film, e.g. Clueless.

8. Put her to sleep in a four poster bed with thousand-thread-count sheets.

9. After an early morning walk in the mist to visit the neighbouring piglet, llamas and cows, pack the car and set off to Healesville, making sure to detour on the way for wine tasting and antique browsing (yes, here is the extent of your self-sacrifice: antiques, maybe even bookshops will be involved).

10. Head off to your booking at The Innocent Bystander, that foodie mecca, and spend the next couple of hours in hedonistic consumption. (For it IS possible to get drunk on good food.)

11. Drive back to Yarraville, tip her out of the car and roll her back into the house in the manner of Veruca Salt (mid-blueberry). Leave her there to contemplate her ridiculous blessings.

Prayer for Today

2010-11-11T02:24:00.002Z

All-patient Father, Gracious Spirit, Merciful Son, it is hard to wait:

to wait for things which seem to be good and right and glorifying to you;

to wait for wants and to wait for needs.

Sometimes it seems that You are silent.

Teach us, Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer,

to trust that when You seem silent, You are not inactive;

that when you seem silent, we are still a part of Your wonderful plan of redemption;

that when You seem silent, we can still trust You over and above everything else.

Deepen our trust in You.

Give us calm assurance in You.

Give us rest in You.

Prompt us to be more jubilant in hope,

and more patient in times of trouble, worry, and want.

Urge us—even burden us—

with a desire to go to You always in prayer with the confidence, persistence and hope of a beloved child.

Teach us, Lord, to wait with faith and expectancy.

And by this, grow us, fulfill, us change us, encourage us, and challenge us.

Give us this grace,

so that we might trust in and follow You alone.

We pray this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

via Practical Theology for Women

'Fessing Up

2010-11-06T01:43:00.001Z

It's Saturday morning, that hallowed time of week where I can lay in bed a little. Having risen, I find myself in the following situation: there's jasmine on the breeze, a silky smooth latte from Le Chien before me, and two thirds of The Age crossword completed, for which praise is due. (I was particularly pleased that I knew the Temple of Artemis had been in Ephesus. Oh, alright, I knew because of playing Civilization IV, but that doesn't make my knowledge any less laudable.) It is altogether a goodly beginning to the day; made particularly pleasant because of the hectic week that's been, which included, but was not limited to, report writing, exam marking, curriculum planning, vet visiting, dentist visiting, vaccinations, and General Deadly Tiredness.

The major consequence of General Deadly Tiredness is that I stop actively participating in my own life. My bedroom enters a chaotic state, my diet becomes limited to whatever's in the freezer, I don't write, I don't pray, and my connection with friends and family suffer because conversations become fraught with effort. Sometimes it seems that General Deadly Tiredness and depression have a kind of symbiotic relationship which is stronger than my relationship with God, and it takes a sweetly scented Saturday morning, like this one, where I have space and time, to work at restoring myself to mental and spiritual health. This restoration is done primarily through the act of confession, which is why I often find myself writing in my diary or on my blog at such times (in case you were ever wondering why many of my updates are on Saturday mornings, well, now you know!)

Which leads me to thinking about the central importance of confession in Christian life. Not just the confession of sins: the repeated confession of faith through worship, witness and prayer. The Apostle James said that faith without works is dead. It is equally true, at least for myself, that faith without words is dead. My faith hungers for expression. When I am tired, I stop expressing myself to God and to those around me; ergo, my faith becomes weak.

Perhaps that's one reason why I like to participate in liturgy; it gives me good words when I am struggling for them. But even better than that, I have the Psalms.

Advice, Please!

2010-10-28T09:12:00.002+01:00

I filled half a Visy box today with old notepads and files and photocopies and past exam papers. Dust flew in the face of my industry. I gave no quarter to ancient textbooks, nor stopped to have pity on last century's transparencies. Colleagues marvelled at my wrath. When it came to taking down the blu-tacked pictures and poems on the wall, however, I quailed a bit. My Auden, my Donne, my Christina, my Blake, my Dante, my pretty postcards from exotic galleries! So I didn't. I might leave them up till the last, a brightly plastered bit of beauty in that dim and cloistered staff room.

It feels like an ending, but it's not, yet. I still have half a stack of exams to mark, a whole set of reports to write, and four weeks of what, for want of a better description, is going to be relief teaching; filling gaps until new teachers arrive next year. (To explain - our school has an 'Early Start' program: the 2011 academic year begins for us in November after exams, so Year 10s become Year 11s, etc.) I've been given everything from Year 12 English to Year 8 Geography, which is a peculiar way to end my time here - a sort of twiddling of the thumbs. Of course, the days will be extremely full, but I will be relieved of much responsibility. Also, the days will be summer days, which casts a sunny glow of happiness on everything.

I quite like the idea of sending a box of books to myself, and am beginning to think about its contents. The Traveller's Guide to Good Health has been stipulated as necessary material, to which I reluctantly acquiesce. A couple of books on missiology and practice are also required reading. Still, there is plenty of space for other volumes; but the task of deciding which of my four-bookshelves-worth-of-books deserves an adventure in Central Asia is utterly overwhelming.

So...what books I should take? What would you take?

(It's kind of like that question - if you were stranded on a desert island...)

The Rose They Called a Book

2010-10-26T10:30:00.012+01:00

The Year 11 English exam contained a question on slavery and prejudice in The Longest Memory by Fred D'Aguiar; marking it today, I grew increasingly disturbed at the careless inanities and rank euphemisms within the responses. To whit, a couple of minutes ago I came across the word 'prejudism', at which I threw down my pen, appealed to the heavens, and made a cup of tea.

To begin, I laugh. (Tee hee, prejudism, very amusing.) But then, I mourn, and the sadness is the part that sticks around. Because these are not isolated incidences. In every batch of essays I've seen this year, there are enough abuses of the English language to make Dr Johnson shudder in his grave. Obvious abuses, like they're/their/there; and who among us has not erred in this way? But when I find whole nonsensical paragraphs that say nothing, and say it badly (for I can forgive them saying nothing, if it is said well) I am afear'd. Here is a generation's worth of young minds captivated by the vacuous twitterings of social media, instead of Tolkien; salacious pop lyrics, instead of John Donne; narcissism, and not the Oscar Wilde variety, which has the saving graces of irony and wit. Rather, these teenagers are pining away for their own image in a pool of water, deaf to the echoes of the masters who have gone before and call them to something better. This world calls them to spurn everything that is not immediately gratifying; and Shakespeare and Auden and Austen are not immediately gratifying. They require the reader to work a little - to consider new perspectives, to broaden horizons, and that is really too much to ask the self-obsessed hipsters in our classrooms.

Here's an irony: one of the thematic concerns of The Longest Memory is the literacy that was denied slaves on Virginian plantations in the nineteenth century. Chapel, the main character, a slave who risks his life by learning to read, talks about a volume of Shakespeare in tender terms - to him, it is a rose, its pages are petals, and its contents beyond price. In the end, he dies for the wondrous beauty of words, whipped to death for pursuing the bookish dream of Paradise. It seems to me that our students are willing to die for much less.

On the Gift of a Book to a Child - Hilaire Belloc

Child! do not throw this book about!

Refrain from the unholy pleasure

Of cutting all the pictures out!

Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.

Child, have you never heard it said

That you are heir to all the ages?

Why, then, your hands were never made

To tear these beautiful thick pages!

......

Three (More) Mid-Week Things

2010-10-20T08:52:00.002+01:00

The days are passing so quickly, and in such a deed-laden manner, that it's Wednesday again. Who'd have thought it? All my profundity was used up in farewelling the Year Twelves, so I'm simply going to post some edifying tidbits again and hope for something original next week. (Because I find one needs leisure to be original.)

1. The follow-up article to last week: reading novels as a theological act of worship, in reaction to the progress of modern society.

2. The Waking - Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

3. It's a little old now, but I love Megan Washington's How to Tame Lions.

Three Mid-Week Things

2010-10-13T11:26:00.001+01:00

1. There's a blog I think you should read sometime: Ben Myer's Faith and Theology. And here's a spectacularly good post to get you started.

2. George Herbert's poem Prayer (I)

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,
   God's breath in man returning to his birth,
   The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth
Engine again th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,
   Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
   The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
   Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
   Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
   Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
   The land of spices; something understood.

3.In Year Ten History, we have been revising Renaissance and Northern art for the exams next week. Here is an early example from the famous Ghent Altarpiece by Van Eyck, The Adoration of the Lamb.

I love my job.

The Wisdom of Gilbert

2010-10-09T06:59:00.005+01:00

There are two ways of getting home, said Chesterton; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we get to the same place.

If you read Gilbert Keith Chesterton for too long in a sitting, you are apt to start speaking in paradoxes, which is why I limit myself to one Father Brown story, or one short essay at a time. Today, because my car is being serviced and I'm limited to the house and quite sick, I started with The Everlasting Man. After several pages, my head was spinning; a surfeit of paradox and a mild fever are an ugly combination. Instead, I found myself returning to the first page, and the quotation above. Chesterton is referring to the defence of Christianity that he is about to undertake, but the idea of journeying in order return home has other applications. I refer, of course, to my own circumstances, because I'm egocentric like that. Also, I'm sick, so indulge me.

A while back, I wrote about the concept of home, and how my heart hasn't settled on one. Broadly speaking, Australia is home, and always will be; but the smaller picture is cloudier. I don't feel tied to the place; I don't think I'll feel particularly homesick when I leave it (I'll feel peoplesick, but not homesick). Perhaps it's because I don't, in fact, own a home and haven't got my own family. However, unlike in the past, when I've complained, lengthily and drearily, about my lack of ties, I'm now at a point where I find this fantastically liberating. It means I can go to the farthest ends of the earth, unencumbered, and have adventures and learn about God's beautiful providence in new ways. So, I will; I'll leave the home that I know, which is a home I hold lightly, in order to walk round the whole world, or as much of it as I can, and return with a richer sense of what it means to be at home.

And as I walk and wander, learn and serve, I hope that my ideas about home might be shaped into a solid thing; and I hope that I may come to realise what it meant when the Son of God said that he had no place to lay his head. I think people who live a life of service in needy countries understand best what he meant. They give up lives of comfort and security to participate in the grand adventure of worldwide service; they offer up their lives, bodies, families, in a refining fire of sacrifice, to be continually changed and molded into the image of the nomadic Son of God. Thomas Merton (who I also dabbled in today) observed the following: a man is a free being who is always changing into himself. A more recent wordsmith, Marcus Mumford, encourages us to be more like the man you were made to be. For me, the best place to change into myself, to be more like the person I was made to be, is to be homeless. Because amongst the comforts of this place I call home, I find myself unchanging; or at least, changing more slowly than I would like.

So, when I return to Australia, I hope that I will have learned a little better how to be content, whatsoever the circumstances, like the apostle Paul. Perhaps that is what it means to be 'at home'; to find contentment no matter where or how you live in any given week, month, or year.

Anyway, that's all very self-indulgent. Forgive me. Did I mention that I'm sick?

Whingy

2010-10-08T08:01:00.005+01:00

Apparently, surprisingly, thankfully, I'm okay at public speaking. At least, I'm getting better. I've presented thrice in the last few weeks, and received really good responses each time. The sweaty palms and pounding heart are evident only to myself, it seems. Phew.

After presenting about my trip to the senior school assembly on Wednesday, students came rushing up to me afterwards, wanting to show that they could spell Kyrgyzstan, and asking to be put on my mailing list. Maybe I'm imagining it - but now that they know I'm going to a country where there's ethnic violence, where the national game involves a headless goat (as does the national cuisine), and where the government opens fire on its citizens occasionally, they seem to be treating me with a little...tenderness, maybe? As though they're respectful of my decision and fearful for my safety and admiring of my courage (which isn't actually courage at all, but full joy at the prospect of this new thing). I'm not sure how to describe the change in how they're relating to me, but it's really quite lovely. And most likely short-lived.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now; am thoroughly, unpleasantly tired and sick with a putrid sore throat and chest. Took yesterday off. The examination period has nearly begun, the year twelves are on my mind constantly, parent/teacher interviews are next week, and the pile of papers that need grading never seems to grow less. And on top of a very full work load, I have to raise a gazillion dollars, book a number of flights, get a medical, get insurance, get winter clothing, go on a four-day cultural communication training session, find a way to communicate and catch up with friends before I go, organise storage for my stuff, sell my car; and all in less than ten weeks. The only way it all seems remotely manageable is if I break it down into small tasks: tomorrow, Saturday, is one of those rare days with nothing planned, so I will make the phone calls, book the appointments, construct to-do lists, send off paperwork.

All of which is to say that I would like to be writing more, and maybe shall in the near future!

On Prayer

2010-09-28T08:11:00.001+01:00

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Prayer by Carol Ann Duffy

Do Whatever He Tells You

2010-09-27T07:24:00.007+01:00

Tarrawarra Abbey is about fifteen minutes out of Healesville. If you're the type to frequent The Innocent Bystander or Healesville Sanctuary, you've probably driven past the gate without noticing, which is easy to do since the sign is mounted on concrete blocks in small letters, and the only excess decoration is a blue PAX. There's a rattling cattle grid to begin with, so it looks like just another dairy property; and then a long and winding farm road into the heart of the Abbey. These are Cistercian monks of a Trappist variety, under the Rule of St Benedict, who have taken a vow of hospitality, of which we gladly and thankfully took our fill.

I think I unintentionally got the nicest room. Sorry Benj. Yours had the best view, but mine had a bay window overlooking the church and the tops of the gum trees; sparse and clean and warm. And quiet, except for the intermittent chanting and song that began every morning at 4 am. There were three icons on the white walls of my room: a Byzantine Madonna, disproportionate and dressed severely in black and holding her freakishly wrinkled old baby; and two saints painted on gold backgrounds in brilliant colours. A pleasant room, designed to be a place for reflection and rest, despite the peculiar folk peering down from the walls. I slept a lot. In fact, I slept so much that I missed Vespers this morning, to which I was rather looking forward.

After breakfast, the morning was grey and wintry, with a wind that rushed and roared like a sea through the gums. I went for a walk, hooded and hunched, and came across a shrine to Mary, bedecked with flowers and rosaries and this rather fetching rock (right).

The whole time at the Abbey, and partly because my room was high over the church, I had the peculiar sensation of sitting in an ivory tower of sola scriptura. The Catholic emphasis on human experience and tradition just doesn't sit well with me. I even experienced a modest little Protestant dry-retch last night at the end of Compline; after a lovely, simple service of prayer and Scripture in the soft-lit church, the monks stood and turned as one to face the illuminated portrait of a pale-skinned, young Madonna holding a prayer book and a rosary, and proceeded to sing the Salve Regina; this, I understand, is a prayer for protection until the morning. It was beautiful and reverent, and as a rule I am drawn to beautiful and reverent things - except when the reverence seems more like idolatry. I'm the first to admit that I don't understand Maryology, and I don't want to undermine the weight and glory of the monastic life; but it is very difficult to find a rational, let alone Scriptural basis for reverencing the fully human and fully flawed mother of Jesus.

On the way home, we stopped at The Innocent Bystander, which Jess and Alex and JoyLee have frequently gushed over in my hearing. As a through-and-through foodie, then, I leapt at the chance to visit, and it didn't disappoint. If I start writing about that food I won't stop, so perhaps I should write an exclusively 'Foodie' post later, to do it justice! We came away with several bottles of somethings, including the Muscato, and a chocolate tart.

What is my lasting impression of Tarrawarra Abbey? Mostly, the example of obedience and service presented by those monks. In some ways, they take the commands of Jesus very simply and literally, which is how He intended they be taken. I may disagree with many fundamentals of Catholic practice, but in this instance I cannot but aspire to the single-minded purpose and daily devotion of the monks. Would that I could heed that uncomplicated command with such uncomplicated commitment: do whatever He tells you.

Over My Shoulder

2010-09-20T02:26:00.006+01:00

I've been reading Naomi Reed's Over My Shoulder, which was recommended to me recently. Naomi explores different personality types using the Myer Briggs Type Indictator (MBTI) as her measure; specifically, how each type tends to deal differently with the challenges of cross-cultural communication on the mission field.

I highly recommend taking the MBTI test. (I took this one, because it was the first that came up in my Google search, but there's a lot out there). It's illuminating and fun and well regarded.

Basically, there are 16 MBTI personalities. As Naomi explains, the theory is that all people have innate preferences in the way that we direct our energy, receive information, make decisions and orient ourselves to the outer world. Our preferences in each of these categories becomes the four-letter name that describes our type. The dichotomies are as follows:

Extraversion/Introversion (E/I)

Sensing/Intuitive (S/N)

Thinking/Feeling (T/F)

Judging/Perceiving (J/P)

According to the test, I am an ISFP type; strongly Introverted (surprise surprise), slightly Sensing (borderline S/N), distinctively Feeling, and moderately Perceiving. The descriptors for this personality type resonate strongly with me - here's a couple.

ISFPs:

- are quickly frustrated if their strong people-oriented principles aren't upheld by those in leadership.

- are the first to 'hear a different drummer'.

- have a tendency not to express themselves verbally, but through an art form (such as writing).

- if they don't find a medium of non-verbal communication, their quietness leaves their character all but invisible and seeming aloof.

- are easily frustrated by rules for the sake of rules.

- are very adaptable and spontaneous

- have high ideals

- are sensitive to pain and suffering, and empathise freely with sufferers

This is what Naomi Reed says about ISFPs on the mission field:

In summary, ISFPs are most likely to thrive cross-culturally when they are using their gifts to serve people in practical ways. As well as meetings the needs of the community, they also enjoy their own space as well as a flexible, people-orientated approach to life. Over time, they value the ability to form close relationships in the new culture and participate in the community. Language learning occurs best when they are engaged in practical tasks with genuine friends and having real conversations. Many ISFPs talk about the growth that they have experienced as they have worked on the balance between their ideals, their time alone and their participation in the new culture.

Lots of good food for thinking through what my unique and particular challenges might be next year. I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Herr Jung!

I think the Myer Briggs test is an authentic measure of personality and I encourage you to have a shot at it if you haven't already. You might learn something about yourself, or be validated in some of the things you've always suspected. It's a valuable tool for life, not just the mission field. So what type are you? How do you know?

Spring Has Sprung (In Yarraville)

2010-09-19T07:07:00.011+01:00

I know I've described Yarraville before, and how I love it so. Today was another of those beautiful afternoons. Here's how it went.

In the first place, the blossoms are out. I don't know what kinds. Emily could tell me all their seasonal habits and scents and climes, no doubt, and Erica could tell me their horticultural classifications in Latin, but all I know is that they come in variations of pink and white and that they make the world a better place. Many years ago some bright, aesthetically inclined town planner decided to line Yarraville's streets with these trees that blossom in the Spring, and we are grateful to him, even if the blossoms are only out for a short time and do deck our cars with confetti.

In the second place, PT's sermon today was a challenge to model Christ to others, and when I got home I decided that I needed to go for a walk and let the truth of what was preached sink in. As is so often the case, my walk led me down to the Yarraville village, whereupon I ensconced myself at a bench in The Corner Shop and ate a good lunch and drank a good coffee and wrote a little bit in my journal. (I couldn't find any of my regular journals so I hunted out an old one with blank pages from 2006, which was when I was overseas, and entertained my current self with my old self for a while. I really was a much better writer when I was in Europe. But I digress).

In the third place, Cousin Em rang (she of the green thumb) as I was walking and we talked a good while. 'Twas lovely. (I'm so excited to spend time with you in wintry London and Paris, Em! Hurrah!)

To return to this morning's sermon for a minute - I think what really impacted me was the fact that when Jesus calls us to be disciples, he expects us to disciple others, too; but not in our own strength. He gives us what we need to do it. He doesn't say, go and be fishers of men - he says, come, and I will make you fishers of men (Mark 1:15). He doesn't expect us to partake in ministry in our own strength - he equips us with the skills and strengths that we require for the task (Ephesians 4:11-12). It seems simple - the kind of stuff you learn in Sunday School. But I realised that lately I've been worrying about whether I'm really equipped to be useful for the tasks that I've been given - for instance, how can I possibly be a mentor and an advisor and a teacher to these 'third culture' kids in Bishkek, when I've got so many hang-ups of my own? But the beautiful and simple truth is that the Spirit helps me in my weakness (Romans 8:26), and causes fruit to grow where there was none before. God has called me and He will give me what I need - emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally - to do His work in that place. It's as simple as that. There's nothing I can do to halt or hinder His will in this matter, and that is a cause for great joy.

So, in fact, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to skip about in a most undignified fashion, with a heart full of gratitude and love for the faithful One who embraces me and calls me back to Himself time and again. There's no god like my God.

Going Private

2010-09-15T11:51:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone,

For various reasons (1. security concerns once I'm in Kyrgyzstan - yes, I'm going to be that hardcore - and 2. personal privacy concerns, which I've had for a while), I've decided to make this blog private, which means that you need to be invited to view it. Of course, I still want all my friends and contacts to be able to access my blog in Australia. So...could you please send an email, or synonymous message, if that's you?

I'll leave this post up for a couple of days, and then I'll lock it down. That's right, people. Lock. It. Down.

Coordinating and Conflict

2010-09-08T11:25:00.004+01:00

I've learned a lot in my new role as Year Ten Coordinator this term. Keeping tabs on eighty sixteen-year-olds means negotiating with all sorts of personalities; dealing with insolence and deceits and laziness, but also rewarding and being rewarded by unexpected pleasantness; and spending half an hour every morning in a flurry of paperwork. For approximately $20 extra a week and 5 lessons a fortnight off (out of 55), it's a perpetual wonder to me that anyone chooses to do this job. It makes it difficult to maintain good relationships with students and it drains you of time and emotion. On the upside, I get to go to meetings where the big, interesting decisions that affect the whole school are made. I get to interact with the other coordinators, who are experienced and much wiser than me, and who act as my 'big brothers' (all older, male, and fraternal) and get me out of scrapes when I act hastily.

Top 3 moments as coordinator:

1. Once, I got very angry at two cheeky boys for their rudeness towards me; the next week, they presented me with a stool they'd made in woodwork as an unspoken gesture of goodwill. Now, they're still cheeky, but endearingly so, and less rude.

2. A girl came to me with the news of her parents' separation, and I was able to support her in that by negotiating with her teachers and her counsellor and putting procedures in place for her, which was humbling. We have a unique and special relationship now.

3. Taking homeroom devotions to cover for another teacher (which is, staggeringly, another duty that coordinators take on several times a week) and doing an impromptu devotion on Psalm 46, which the students responded to warmly.

Worst 3 moments as coordinator:

1. Knowing that a girl has an eating disorder, among other problems such as disinterested and probably abusive parents, and not being in a position to do anything about it besides recommend her to counselling (which she probably won't go to).

2. Confronting several girls about their too-short skirts, and then overhearing a conversation later - "she was so nice last term, and now she's completely changed. Bitch."

3. Giving a devotion at Year Ten assembly, and losing my notes, so that a carefully planned and hopefully memorable lesson about David and Goliath became a two-minute farce. I think I covered my mistake, but it was a lost opportunity.

Biggest lesson learned as coordinator:

I hate conflict. It stirs up my very soul. I will go miles out of my way to avoid a situation in which I have to make myself unpopular. I drew a girl out of class today and trying to diffuse an ongoing argument, and had to fight tears on the way back to my office; not because I'd done badly, but because conflict hurts. Knowing that someone, even for a short period of time, probably hates my guts, is quite confronting, because goodwill with students (and everyone) is important to me. If I want to be a coordinator again sometime, learning to handle conflict will be my greatest challenge.

Sunday Best

2010-09-06T08:57:00.001+01:00

Love this! Such fun.

Blood on the Keyboard

2010-09-04T09:33:00.015+01:00

Inhale. Exhale. And begin.

In the early nineteenth century, the British and the French were fond of bloodletting; physicians used it to cure all manner of ills, from the common cold to tuberculosis. The theory was that by letting 'diseased' blood flow from the veins, inflammation and fever would be relieved. While the medical reasoning behind that is (thankfully) disproven as bollocks, bloodletting remains a pleasing metaphor and one which I will now employ, in the sense that spilling a little blood on my blog (in the time-honour'd tradition of bloggers everywhere) may relieve the hurt of my heart.

I cried for the first time in months today, and I don't think the crying is done. A painful paradox became clear to me as I was having coffee and conversation with a friend in The Gravy Train, and it runs something like this:

God is clearly calling me to an overseas mission field, one for which He has equipped and excited me. However, it is undeniably a place that is teeming with single women. I met lots of them last weekend at IGWA - young and old, beautiful and plain - compassionate, strong, intelligent, funny women. And I realised: I'm about to be one of them (though not with all, or any, of those attributes). And by committing myself, in my late twenties, to a country and a task in which I'm unlikely to meet my future husband, I'm committing myself to singleness. And yet - God has also clearly filled me with the yearning for wifedom/motherdom. There's no doubt about it. I've known it for years. The desires of my heart are bound up in that. What more can I say?

I can't find words to contain the pain of this contradiction; that my calling and my heart's desire are as divergent as two roads in the wood. Like Frost, I see them dimly through tear-clouded eyes and a burdened heart, gazing longingly down that road where I can see so many of my friends journeying in the distance. Yet at this time, I'm called to the road less travelled.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.

Thus, poetry sops up blood and transmutes a fiery pain into a gentle ache. Hot blood turns into soft tears and heart's order is restored.

Thoughts From Fabs

2010-08-31T10:17:00.002+01:00

All single Christian women should read this blog. Seriously convicting and true words.

Imagining! With William Blake

2010-08-30T10:14:00.009+01:00

In Literature today, we finally looked at Blake's Milton - and did those feet in ancient time...and I was struck anew by the immensity of his creative vision. He really believed that he could reform the ills of society - the dark Satanic mills, the slavery, the child chimney-sweepers, the mind-forg'd manacles - through his pen and paintbrush. A self-appointed visionary and peculiar prophet, he became a kind of Old Testament pariah, riding through the skies in a chariot of fire, shooting arrows into the heart of industrial corruption, and heralding the coming of New Jerusalem. Come with me! He shouted. Would that you were all prophets and could see what I see! He fervently believed that God had spoken to him through this vision and was restless to see it fulfilled.

I'm not sure that Blake was a Christian, given the way he mashed together myths and theology to create his brilliantly twisted worldview, but he certainly believed in the divinity of his own imagination.

Like Blake, I'm convinced that I've occasionally written things that are not of myself; when I'm sure that some muse has inhabited my mind and pen to create something wonderful. (Not for quite a while, though). I do believe that creative expression and imagination are of God, like Blake does; a spiritual gift! Unlike Blake, however, I don't think that imagination makes us Godly. I think it makes us God-like, insofar as we are created in His image. Creating marvellous works of imagination shouldn't exalt us - and Blake, unfortunately, does exalt his own vision to the exclusion of everything else - but rather, it should humble us and cause us to reflect on the ultimate Creator. And who is this Creator whom we resemble?

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words,

whose voice is not heard.

Their measuring line goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,

which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,

and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.

Psalm 19: 1-5

Ah Blakey, Blakey. If only you knew this God, who has the whole world in his hands, in whom you might rest! The ills of this world are not for you and you alone to fix. The chimney-sweeper - the little black slave boy - the maimed factory worker - the soldier dying in his own blood - these are his. You, William Blake, are not alone in perceiving oppression, and your imagination will not save the oppressed. The world is already saved by the Lamb, of whom you write so often.

Fundamentalism Pt. 2

2010-08-29T07:58:00.004+01:00

As a teenager, when I used the word, I meant something approximate to what the original term meant: that I subscribed to the truth of the Bible and the teachings of the Church. However, I also intended it to imply that I took the Bible absolutely literally and that the earth was 6000 years old and all the baggage which that entails. After all, you have to remember that I came from a cultish school which administered a home schooling system based on Southern Baptist curriculum from the seventies, and a less than intellectually rigorous church background. So to me at the time, to be a 'fundamentalist' was to be the right kind of Christian - the non-liberal kind. Such was my upbringing.

I doubt very much that the person I was speaking to had any idea what I meant. I didn't really, myself.

I understand that the word today has had its meaning misappropriated. Nevertheless, it is a very loaded term and I think most people have an instinctive understanding of what it implies, helped along by the vocal far right Christians in the US and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. I guess today it implies a literal reading and application of texts: a tendency to retreat into dogma when confronted: vociferous and 'militant' reaction to opposing views: perhaps also a tendency to lack intellectual rigour and an unwillingness to consider alternative points of view.

I agree absolutely that the original meaning of the term, as an objective definition involving the 'fundamentals' of orthodox Christian faith, has been distorted over time, but it does mean something different now, something subjective; it is a cultural term used by Christians and non-Christians alike, loaded with the meaning that I describe above. I guess that's what I was trying to address. If I were using the term in a purely theological discussion, I'd use it differently; but here I'm using it in a cultural sense, the kind that, for instance, journalists might use...

Thoughts?

And Lucidus Said:

2010-08-29T07:52:00.003+01:00

(Lucidus posted the following comment about fundamentalism, except it was too long for the comment box so I'm reposting it here):

"I'd be interested to know exactly do you mean by "fundamentalism"? You don't set out what you meant by it, when you used it as a 17 year old. I infer from your writing that what you yourself meant by it, was different by what the person you were speaking to, understood by it? And I take it, that either your understanding of the word has changed over a decade, or that your definition of the word has remained more or less the same, but you no longer hold onto that definition as your definition of a Christian?

My frustration is that these sort of words have lost all objectively designated meaning. 'Fundamentalism' as a term was coined in mere reaction of the modern controversy - between orthodoxy and liberal Christians - and a bunch of Christians wrote a series of books/pamphlets entitled "Fundamentals", outlining what they saw as the central tenets of Christian belief, derived from the Bible and according to the Creeds of the Church. The word itself had no loaded meaning, simply beyond stating that a person subscribed to the basic orthodox teachings of the church.

In some Christian circles (tho' rarer and rarer nowadays), I think this word is still used in that sense. Essentially a proud and unashamed declaration of Orthodoxy.

Those who use it are often unaware or defiant of the fact that in general parlance, 'fundamentalism' is a loaded term - so full of prejudice, ambiguity and anger - that it's essentially lost all sense of objective definition' it's become an emotional umbrella term for all manner of evil.

My point is this: one needs, I think, to understand the nature and position of the word in the world and be prepared to mediate between those who use it as a subjective definition and as an objective definition.

As a Christian, I don't think there is need to take on the emotional burden of the word, nor be embarrassed by it. *Of course* Christianity isn't on about all the terrible things people ascribe to the word 'fundamentalism.'

Distinguish between what you're talking about and move on.

But an additional suggestion would be to ditch the word altogether, placing it with other unfortunately words in our language that have lost its semantic value.

JI Packer wrote a book in 1958 suggesting that we remove the word from our vocabulary because it's impossible to be used without a long-winded explanation as to what you do NOT mean by it. Which means it's , entirely unhelpful as a word, and as a way to open discussion - unless you want to cause controversy and engage in a discussion stemming from it - which is not entirely without merit if you're in the right crowd."

Fundamentalism and Other Dirty Words

2010-08-29T04:50:00.004+01:00

Describing oneself as a 'fundamentalist Christian' is a dubious exercise in nomenclature. Unfortunately (and this admission is costing me), I did so once, as a seventeen year old undergraduate at Melbourne Uni, to a new-found friend. The memory makes me wince, and only by the grace of God did that new-found friend remain my friend. Ten years later, and I'm convinced that if a person truly wants to follow Christ - God's radical, cosmic instrument of deliverance - he who was called a drunkard and a madman - fundamentalism is not an option. (Except perhaps to excitable first-year uni students who aren't quite sure what they believe in but know it's important to somehow be identified as a Christian. *ahem*)

Obviously, the term 'fundamentalism' isn't just applicable to Christian worldviews. Anyone who doesn't tolerate dissent, whether they be Muslim, scientist, atheist, communist, is a fundamentalist. When the jihadist cries out "Allah Akbah!"; when some far right, pre-millenial American church prevents a devoted Christian doctor from serving needy people in Nepal because he holds the wrong eschatological views; when Richard Dawkins labels all religious people "know-nothings"; when Mao declares that all enemies of communism should be systematically crushed - they are expressing their fundamentalist positions.

Disregarding the other examples for the moment: Christian fundamentalist expressions of belief in the 21st century are a fear reaction to the challenges of the global, pluralistic society we live in. It is an instinctive position in which, ultimately, no one else is allowed to exist. It is about the need to be right. It destroys humility, a cornerstone of our faith, and encourages conflict. It takes away the right of the individual to choose. And yet - God created a world in which choice is present and necessary. Human beings may make choices against God - cf. the Garden of Eden - and those choices may have consequences - exclusion from the Garden - but God still cares for them! Look at His steadfast love, mercy, patience, forgiveness, grace to all people throughout the whole Bible. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us and reconciled us to the Father, despite the fact that we continue to make choices against Him.

And did Christ our redeemer teach fundamentalism to his disciples? By no means: his response to the people who opposed him was self-sacrifice. He taught his disciples to love their enemies, those Roman boots on their necks. In the face of provocation, oppression, rebellion - love and patience is the answer. That is the story of God through the ages. That is the great mystery of being a Christian; and fundamentalism leaves no room for mystery.

I hope and pray that my life might be a courageous challenge to the enemy - that I might be loving and humble when it is hardest. There is nothing pious, or soft, or submissive about loving the enemy. It is a battle that is there for the Christian to win; and it is the farthest thing from fundamentalism that exists.

(Other dirty words: premillenialism! antidisestablishmentarianism! mormonism! prism!)

Two Weddings

2010-08-21T01:13:00.002+01:00

Two weddings in a week and I'm a wee bit wobbly on my feet.

Wedding #1: Emily & Roy.

I believe I can make the claim that I was there in Paris when it all began, four years ago, and I remember, later, walking with Em through the Jewish Quarter in Venice, and sitting on a stone seat in the main square, and thrashing through the potential of that relationship together. Happily, it proved to have lots of potential and the wedding last Sunday was memorable for its colour, gaiety, good food and song. It was held in the backyard of the family home in Adelaide with a short civil service, a home cooked three course meal interspersed with lots of fun music - cabaret, piano duets, cello, and a specially composed piece for the newlyweds. Emily taught me about flower arranging on Saturday, and it was great good fun to create posies and vases full of beautiful flowers to be arranged around the house. In fact, the whole wedding was a very 'Emily' day; relaxed, with a focus on enjoying everyone's company and the children and the wonderful feast and the gifted musicians. The ceremony was very short, but simple and loving. Her dear father got a bit teared up, which meant that everyone else did too, and her dear mother did most of the cooking in splendid fashion. I'm trying to think of the right adjective - continental/pastoral, perhaps? (Insofar as one can create a continentally pastoral mood in suburban Adelaide).

(As far as I'm aware, the honeymoon consisted of continued writing and researching their book in the living room. But then, their whole lifestyle is a honeymoon - flitting between London and Paris, playing on cruise ships, being given sums of money to travel about and research French piano music in exotic places. Le Sigh.)

Wedding #2: Lauren and Travis.

Apart from being held at 3pm on a Friday, this was a much more traditional wedding, and a very nice one. It was held at Poet's Lane in Sherbrooke, near Sassafras, and the very names of the places are an indication of the great beauty (and winter cold) of the place. Lauren wore a gorgeous white gown with a train - not many people do that, these days. They were married by a friend from their church who is also a celebrant, and again, the ceremony was short and simple. Lauren comes from a Dutch family, and my friend Jess and I played 'spot the relative' during the service (they had quite distinct features). While the photos were being taken Jess and I found the cutest little restaurant up the road, and had coffee and pancakes by the fire, and talked about church and our lives in the six years since we'd seen each other. Then, at the reception (big round tables, white tablecloths and silverware, the works) I found another old friend, Heidi, and it was fun to rediscover our friendship over a delicious three course meal.

Honeymoon - Bali. Enough said. Le Sigh, again.

I realised, also, that Emily and Lauren are my two oldest friends in the world (though they don't know each other) and they got married within six days of each other. In the modest scheme of ironies in my life, I think that's one, although I can't put my finger on the exact nature of the irony. Anyway, I am glad of the opportunity to wear two pretty dresses in the space of six days and to rejoice with my friends. But oh, how I'm tired!

The Only Food the Universe Grows

2010-08-10T11:23:00.011+01:00

A lawyerly friend of mine agreed to speak to my Legal Studies class this morning, and he did so in an honest and articulate fashion. One of the things he addressed was the astonishing rate of depression and breakdowns in the legal profession. Did you know that lawyers are the most likely professionals to experience depression in Australia? Over one third of all Australian lawyers will suffer depression at some point in their careers. Imagine if that were true of teachers, or doctors, or builders. Lawyers seem to be a particularly anxious and restless breed of people in an unforgiving industry.

I started to imagine the life of a lawyer; this was easy, because it was as dark and rainy a morning as you've ever seen. I conceived of striving intensity; constant adversity; endless hours of labour interspersed with rare rewards; papers and tomes of law heaped high; stiff upper lips (and collars), ceaseless competition, large amounts of money that one is too busy to spend. For this kind of sacrifice and hard work, I'm sure the rewards are correspondingly high. Lawyers must have moments of incredible job satisfaction. But the price of getting there - I couldn't. Adversarial situations make me anxious and tired. I don't have the stamina and I don't have the brains or the will to confront when confrontation is needed. It was easy to imagine getting depressed as a lawyer. But then, it's just as easy to imagine getting depressed as a teacher, a student, and a Christian - because I have been. So what's the difference?

Well, there isn't a difference, not really. It's just as hard being a teacher, and it's just as isolating being a student. But - as a Christian, there's another dimension to the anguish of depression. Actually, as a Christian, a better word for my depression is my hopelessness. Not that the object of my hope is defective, but pain and pressures and dashed desires are fiery darts in the heart and they cloud the clarity of the great and only hope I have in Jesus Christ. It's as if the truth is on a pedestal behind the depressive veil, and my hope is in that shrouded shape. On days when the veil lifts, life is glorious because it's lived in the full, energising glory of that truth. Oh, that the veil were lifted for good!

And what is that truth, and my hope?

Romans 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, not angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depths, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Perhaps, after all, it doesn't matter what my profession is; in the end, the only remedy for depression is the truth, and the truth is no harder to distinguish as a lawyer than as a teacher.

That Green and Pleasant Land

2010-08-09T09:28:00.009+01:00

William Blake: Death on a Pale Horse

I thought there was going to be a nuclear war just now (even though I trust implicitly in Sir Humphrey Appleby's assurance that Britain's Trident is the answer to world peace, because, in relation to nuclear attack, "even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that, although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would." You can't argue with that kind of logic). Somewhere on Williamstown Road, this frightfully eerie siren started up, just as I was eating my dinner. It had the frantic pitch of a submarine about to dive, a pitch most certainly not used by the security systems of small businesses, the kind generally employed in apocalyptic films to indicate calamity and so forth. Having been indoctrinated by the Hollywood sound effect industry over the years, my first thought was of bomb shelters. But strangely enough, this thought didn't drag me from my curry, and just as well because it's now stopped. Whether that's because the people at the helm of the siren are now slumped over their desks from radiation poison remains to be seen, but again, I don't seem to be as concerned as I could be. Also, on second thought, germ warfare seems more likely these days than nuclear attack. (Should I be worried that my understanding of modern warfare is largely influenced by Yes Prime Minister?)

As I'm about to start teaching Blake, it's fitting to linger on the theme of apocalypses, because he was so very preoccupied with them. Blake is new and slightly foreign to me, but I look forward to writing more about him as I learn. Here, look at the wonderful stuff I get to teach:

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

Love This City

2010-08-06T08:38:00.005+01:00

After a week of wearisome days, a debating excursion to the city has proved a pleasant distraction. I shepherded four students by train on a proverbial Melbourne morning - grey and drizzly - and received an unwelcome reminder of the miseries plaguing our public transport system. Squished up against a misty door for forty minutes, on a train that didn't even take the City Loop, with my face in the armpit of another unhappy commuter, I became increasingly bitter with Metro, and then with bureaucracy, and then with the world at large. My students, however, didn't seem to mind, and shouted merrily over the greying heads of businessmen about the economy of Russia and the refugee situation in Turkey. We made it to Old Treasury eventually - I delivered them to the steps, the sky turned blue, and suddenly, I had three hours to myself in a city full of charms. Coffee and bookshops ensued.

The morning reminded me of that old Whitlams song: you gotta love this city, love this city, you gotta love this city. I hummed it (accidentally out loud) while waiting at the marble benchtop for my Brunetti's coffee, watching the four-seasonal rain and the Carlton set. I wandered through the old haunts - Ishka, Readings, Book Affair, Old Law Quad. I'll always love that corner of Melbourne, but things change, and I'm glad they change. My life is more expansive than ever before, richer and happier, because I moved to the burbs. And not just any burb, but Werribee, which is the burbiest of all burbs. Five years ago, I couldn't dream up anything worse, and now I realise that it couldn't have been better. God knew what he was about when he displaced me - out of city life and into everyday life. And then he gave me Yarraville, a compromise, a gift in anticipation of the time that my life will be flung even further afield, without comforts or beauty.

As a postscript, I'm also grateful for these students of mine, a collection of personalities and hairstyles and quirks and questions. I suspect I'm an inadequate role model, and I'm often at a loss how to support/encourage/inspire them, especially at times when their minds are leaps and bounds ahead of mine; but I'm really glad to be a small part of their lives. Sometimes I wonder how they'll remember me - for good, bad or in between? The reward of teaching is so often retrospective.

On the train home, one of them asked me if I see myself living in Melbourne in five years, and I instinctively said no - but it was a wistful no.

Heart and Happenstance

2010-08-03T11:52:00.010+01:00

My unfortunate tendency towards cynicism is always exercised when I hear stories from people who claim to have discovered, with unmitigated certainty and occasional smugness, God's definite will for them in a given situation. 'The door just opened', they'd say, trillfully echoing Maria in The Sound of Music. Or 'I just knew in my heart', or 'God spoke to me in a dream/vision/the faint whiff of jasmine on the wind'. Well, thanks a bunch, and all the best with that, but unless you can explain the circumstances of your sure and certain knowledge with reference to something more concrete, I reserve the right to question your powers of discernment. That said, however, I'm experiencing a deep-seated confidence in God's direction for my life next year, which you may find frightfully annoying - I probably would. The origins of this confidence are twofold and I'll try to explain them.

The first part is about my heart, that esoteric region in which may be found a variety of yearnings and passions. Empathy and love for my students; a tremendous desire for travel and adventure; a longing to see people in material and spiritual poverty transformed by the love of Jesus Christ; and above all, the hope of bring glory and honour to His name by allowing Him to transform me. These are not all the things I want in life, of course, I'm not as high-minded as that, and I'm not one to talk at length about the things that I long for - but these are the relevant ones in a nutshell. So a wonderful thing about committing to teach at a school in a far-off land is that these desires converge on each other; I can work alongside people at something I really enjoy while offering myself up in a refining fire of sacrifice and privation (tempered by the joy and excitement of grand adventure).

The second part is circumstantial, I suppose. The perfect timing of a series of meetings, conversations and emails with unconnected people (Valerie; Interserve; my boss; my pastor) have made it clear as day that God intends me to leave this place and go to Kyrgyzstan. The last three and a half years of rigorous teaching experience and (often unwanted) responsibility have prepared me for it, as did a year at Bible College all those years ago and my past experiences of working overseas. On paper, I am a perfect candidate for this position. In my heart, I am prepped and ready.

Could I be wrong? Could my powers of discernment be in question? Well, perhaps. I certainly haven't had a vision in a thunderstorm, or an inspired dream, or seen a butterfly at a crucial moment as confirmation. I have, however, been impacted by reading God's Word, by the desires of my heart, by the wise counsel of others and by my circumstances, and made a judgement based on these factors. God gave me a good mind and the ability to make decisions, and I am exercising this in the confidence that He is faithful. Even if I am making a huge mistake, He will use it for good - that's what He promises, and that's what He will do.

The fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

Thomas Merton

Apocalypse Dreamtime

2010-08-01T12:05:00.003+01:00

You never remember the beginnings of dreams. The main character of Inception said so, and when he did I realised it was true. Here's my dream:

I am standing with a child in a grey valley among charred tree stumps. Something is wrong - something threatens us. The clouds are dark and low and we have to run because this ominous something approaches over the ridge of a hill. Then, without much exertion, we are at the top of a hill on the opposite side of the valley. There's an empty white weatherboard house here, with a swing and a sandpit out the front. We can see clearly for the first time, and what we see is terrible. In the black and white world of this dream, the flames that consume the landscape are brilliant orange. They make a perfect circle around our hilltop. Clearly, I have to protect the child, although by this point it doesn't have a face or even much of a body; it's become a ghostly thing. I bury it deep in the sandpit so the flames won't touch it, then I go into the house. And that's the end of the dream.

I started back on Diazepam (Valium, for stress-related anxiety) this week, so I may not be dreaming much for a while, but the flip side is that I am sleeping better. Dreams are a small price to pay for sleep.

Exhaustion

2010-07-29T09:56:00.003+01:00

The highly unimaginative title I just gave to this blog post is the sure sign of a thoroughly buggered brain. I've been tapping new depths of tiredness this week, which is why I've been struggling to maintain the frenetic pace of posting (by my past standards) that was set earlier this month. At work this morning, I literally couldn't get out of my chair after briefing; I sat there in a daze, staring at the wall, probably drooling a little. I really struggled to put sentences together; my Literature students laughed gently at my efforts to explain Austen's characterisation of Mr Elton; my Legal Studies students breathed a sigh of relief when I gestured wordlessly at the computers, indicating in our shared sign language that they could do research; my History students giggled audibly when I substituted "Marvin Gaye" for "Martin Luther" (I may have made that last one up). Too many late nights (thank you Mumford and Sons, My Friend the Chocolate Cake, assorted housewarmings and dinners) and a very substantial work load are propelling me into a physical and mental black hole.

What I want: 12 hours of deep sleep; a long, long massage; more sleep; a secretary; some sunshine; some soothingly alcoholic beverages; a clean room; a hug. What I've got: 7 weeks of school term; diminished brain cells; a complaining body; a workload that will never get smaller; and a very generous helping of self-pity.

This blog will return to regular scheduling as soon as possible. In the meantime, here's a poem to make up for my lack of coherence. In a couple of weeks, I start teaching William Blake's poems (and no doubt you will hear a lot about them from me). Here's one: beautiful, non?

The Shepherd

How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb's innocent call,
And he hears the ewe's tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

Prof of Profs

2010-07-25T14:26:00.004+01:00

I just have to share this poem, because it tickled me to my bones. Every English teacher has experienced a moment like this - I was explaining my love of Renaissance art to a Year Ten class recently, and at a very profound moment in the middle of my lecture I happened to glance out the window and saw a rabbit making a mad dash for under the classroom. "Ooo look, a bunny rabbit," said I, mid-sentence, and immediately all my students collapsed in stitches. I believe that moment has entered folklore; I have since seen those very words inscribed at least once on a pencil case.

PROF OF PROFS

By Geoffrey Brock

I was a math major—fond of all things rational.
It was the first day of my first poetry class.
The prof, with the air of a priest at Latin mass,
told us that we could “make great poetry personal,”

could own it, since poetry we memorize sings
inside us always. By way of illustration
he began reciting Shelley with real passion,
but stopped at “Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”—
because, with that last plosive, his top denture
popped from his mouth and bounced off an empty chair.

He blinked, then offered, as postscript to his lecture,
a promise so splendid it made me give up math:
“More thingth like that will happen in thith clath.”

Throwing the First Stone

2010-07-25T07:13:00.005+01:00

There's not a cloud in the sky; birds are conversing cheerily in the lemon tree; the sun is drying my clothes in a very efficient manner - and yet I still can't feel my toes. Such is the lot of we few, we poorly circulated few. Several weeks of properly regulated sunshine are required for my circulatory system to get up to speed. In the meantime, I treat my toes with care through the wearing of sheepskin slippers. Actually, I'm thinking of making an OH&S submission that says I should be allowed to wear moccasins at work, too; my office is like nothing so much as an ice-age cave - I keep expecting to be hit over the head and thrown to a woolly mammoth. That's not a reflection on my colleagues in the office, but it is so dim and cold that for all we know there COULD be an caveman-like individual hunkering in the gloom, besides the sink, biding his time. (Actually, there were documented sightings of one, last year).*

It was brought to my attention this week that I am a very, very impatient person. That is, I know I am, but I tend to forget it - it might be better to say that I was reminded of the fact. When I want something, I want it now; I never was one to wait until a civilised hour on Christmas day to open my presents. When I have a bright idea, it has to be implemented now - not tomorrow, not next week. But mostly, my impatient streak comes out when confronted by silly people. Or, not even that; people who aren't as quick to understand a concept as me (and I am not all that quick myself), or people who won't put effort into something, or people who are just plain blind to their faults. I am as flawed as the next person, but at least I am keenly aware of the fact and seek to address it; that's my rationale, anyway, and it suits me.

Hmm. It's very easy to justify impatience. I do it all the time. But my housemate has indirectly challenged me about this. She's the kind of person who makes excuses for other people - she graciously extends empathy and forgiveness to people with whom I struggle to make civil conversation. In fact, if she says something mildly accusatory or negative about someone, she'll spend the next ten minutes extolling their virtues and explaining why they are the way they are. This is a trait that I admire immensely, and should like to aspire to, if I can find the humility for it.

This, 'Erin's moral lesson of the week', was furthered by some verses that I came across. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 was a good example: We urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Oh dear. And then:

Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive those who offend you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. (Colossians 3:13)

Well, I'm screwed. I'll go to Kyrgyzstan, I'll make sacrifices gladly in God's service, but I can't for the life of me forgive stupid people for being stupid? What's that about? This little vice (or not so little - it was a student who pointed it out, which means that my impatience must be communicated to my students, which is unacceptable by anyone's standards) requires a miracle change, so I'm going to start praying for one. After all, if Jesus loved me - an irascible, proud, lazy, deceitful, selfish sinner - enough to die for me, then it's not too much to ask that I try to love the people around me too, maybe even have a civil conversation with an asinine person once in a while. If God forgives me for my treachery towards him, as he does, then is it such a stretch for him to expect me to forgive others for being a little bit silly?

*That's a little mean and I apologise. But it's also kind of funny, so it stays, and hang the consequences.

Zip the Lip, Dude

2010-07-22T01:54:00.004+01:00

Older Christians, who have been married a while, sometimes make hurtful assumptions about single Christians. They don't mean to be cruel, but the very carelessness of it can be painful. I encountered a prime example this morning and it was like a punch to the heart (or to my pride; the distinction may become clearer tomorrow – for there is a great deal of pride, and injury to it, in the life of single Christian women. This one, anyway).

The devotion at work this morning was given by an older married man. He spoke broadly about the need to be intentional followers of Christ in daily life. He is a splendid man, with a great deal of compassion. I have a lot of regard for him, but he did say something extraordinarily thoughtless; something to the effect that life during the day, at school, is incredibly busy, followed by this rather startling statement: and of course, if you are married, as so many of you are, you have children and a life outside of work.

The implication, naturally, being that single people’s lives outside of work don’t count, don’t matter. They must just sit around, waiting for their lives to start.

Perhaps I am exceptionally sensitive and grumpy today. Perhaps on a sunny day, if I were well-rested, it would wash over me without injury. But today it literally took my breath away, because in that one fell swoop he divested me of worth and dignity. Tomorrow I may look at it differently - for now, I need to nurse my bruise.

Tea with Jam and Bread

2010-07-17T11:04:00.007+01:00

...yes, but jam in tea?? As I learned today, that's how Kyrgyz people drink it. I have a growing suspicion about the cuisine of Central Asia. It seems to consist of strange foodstuffs as strange bedfellows. This isn't altogether terrible; at least it means that I'm unlikely to commit the sin of gluttony.

Gluttony is mentioned in the Bible, by the way, so it's not just a Catholic invention of a sin, like contraception. Honestly, I never thought about it until quite recently. My housemate and I watched Jamie Oliver's new show last night, the one where he goes into a fatty-mcfat-fat American town to teach them about nutrition and cooking and the general goodness of fresh food. It was sad and terrible to see whole families of morbidly obese parents and children who had never tasted fresh salad in their lives. It reminded me of PT's stories about Southern Baptist preachers in the seventies, who would tirade against rock n' roll and alcohol and girls in pants, while the rolls of fat spilled over their belts and collars, fixated on the imagined behavioural problems of others and sadly blind to their own real problems. (Not that I mean to perpetuate stereotypes, I'm sure there were some Southern Baptist preachers of the Jack Sprat variety).

Thomas Aquinas lists six ways to commit gluttony:

Praepropere - eating too soon

Laute - eating too expensively

Nimis - eating too much

Ardenter - eating too eagerly

Studiose - eating too daintily

Forente - eating wildly

I'm not sure what the last one means - eating like a hyena, perhaps? I can certainly identify with the rest of those categories, for what they're worth. Today, for instance, I came home famished. I had the ingredients to make a delicious minestrone (take note of this incredibly good recipe) but I was too hungry to wait; so I ate some yogurt and crackers, both too much and too soon, not to mention too eagerly. However, I take umbrage at Aquinas's suggestion that this is somehow sinful. Not helpful, my friend.

Actually, gluttony is symptomatic of something far more important - a lack of self-control. To call it sinful and categorise it into six parts, like Aquinas, is simplistic and unhelpful, when the root of the problem is more profound. The fruits of the Spirit - the attributes that should be visible in the life of the believer - are love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. Overeating, undereating, abusing your body with food, holding food too lightly or not lightly enough - these are all symptoms of a life not quite under control.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

I've been putting on weight lately because I'm eating badly and not exercising. In the school term ahead, I intend to lose it, and in so doing, regain a healthy relationship with my food and a more self-controlled approach to eating. I will use my gym membership more, cook actual meals instead of take-away, avoid seconds and enjoy things that aren't chocolate. I will, I will! I hate feeling unhealthy and overweight. It makes life topsy-turvy, ever so slightly off-balance, and definitely, most definitely, uncontrolled.

Alone

2010-07-14T06:54:00.004+01:00

Autism has been in the air lately; I've encountered a couple of students with clear Asperger's, and had conversations about the infamous spectrum onto which we all somehow fall. I don't know enough about autism to talk intelligently about it, but I came across this poem today and it seemed to me the very picture of an autistic childhood. I'm not suggesting Edgar Allan Poe had such a childhood, but the isolated passions in the first half, and the heightened senses of the second, suggest aspects of the autistic experience. And then the black-clouded demon of impending turmoil. And even if you disagree with me - after all, I'm pretty clueless about the disorder - it's still beautiful.

ALONE

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Edgar Allen Poe

Sunday Postscript

2010-07-11T13:58:00.002+01:00

Despite the fact that you so rarely comment* on my posts, dear ones, I know that you read them. You write me emails and tell me so, or drop the fact into conversation weeks later. Thus, I suspect that there's some interest (out there, in the ether) in my Kyrgyzstan plans. So I'd like to let you know about an event next Saturday. My friend, Valerie, is back in the country for a few weeks. I'll be working with her at Hope Academy when I get there. She's doing a presentation and afternoon tea this Saturday, 17th July, 2-4pm, at St Jude's on Lygon Street, talking about her work, and life in general, in the geographical and cultural vortex that is Central Asia. If you're interested, you're very welcome to come along and get a sense of what I might be doing.

That is all. Good night.

*Comments are dandy. Just sayin'.

The Folly of Lists

2010-07-11T05:14:00.005+01:00

Many of us, somewhere about our person, have got a list of qualities we need or want in a partner. Sometimes the list is written down on paper, but mostly it's an internal list that changes from time to time, based on growth, experience, fluctuating values, circumstance. Five years ago, my list of requirements was miles long. When unfurled, it fluttered in the wind and caused all sorts of meteorological phenomena, like hurricanes in Panama. I won't bore you with the full contents, but to summarise, briefly: he had to be a missionary man. A bit like Jesus, really. But, you know, handsome. And funny. And really smart. I didn't give much thought to the kind of woman that such a man would be likely to find attractive; I just figured I'd be it when the time came.

I have a lot of married/partnered and engaged friends. I mean, a lot. More than the average, I'd like to suggest. I know that many of them had lists beforehand that equalled mine for detail and specificity. I also know that many, if not all of them, had to seriously revise The List on meeting their partner. In fact, it generally had to be pared down to minimum; male...shared values...full set of teeth...and yet - the whole thing worked out beautifully for many of my friends, and continues beautifully too, despite the disparity between The Man and The List.

I abandoned my list some time ago, which sounds a little bit tragic, but it's really not. The basic requirements in a partner are unshakable: a Christian, mission-minded man of integrity. But the partner himself - he's not foundational to my future happiness. At least, that's the point that I'm working towards. Being single will never be easy, and I don't think it ever has been, especially for women. But my perspective is changing. I can do whatever I want, go wherever I choose, for whatever period of time pleases me, and pursue grand goals with single-minded commitment, without a missionary man to help. In fact, I don't need the help of any man. It would be nice - but it's not essential. I have a God who knew and loved me before the foundations of the earth were laid; close supportive friends and family; a good education and a job that can take me absolutely anywhere. Anything else is a bonus. Right?

A list leads to disappointment. If you build hopes and dreams around the lofty idea of a person you've never met, you are bound to come crashing down to earth from a high place, and thus grind your bones and heart into a powder. That kind of hope is wildly misplaced. It is far safer and wiser to hope in Jesus, the ultimate man, so beautiful, strong, good and true. And far realer than a man composed of parts on a piece of paper.

Those brides of Christ - they weren't far wrong.

Sunday in the Park with George

2010-07-11T03:33:00.009+01:00

(Well, if I had a George, I would spend Sundays in the Park with him. Although, to be brutally realistic, it would probably be either Saturday in the Park with George, or Sunday at Church with George, or Weeknights on the Couch with George. Poor George, lugged about like so much baggage. Perhaps it's better I don't have a George.)

This Sunday morning is without end; it has crept along at a neolithic pace. I have been absorbed in The Age puzzle page, as always, and this absorption has a somewhat predictable quality. I pick apart the crossword with growing heart palpitations for about twenty minutes; it asks questions like "what is the largest seaport in Crete?" and "what is the Chinese name for the Greater Khingan Range?" If I can answer more than ten of these frightful posers, I feel very proud of myself indeed. (The Saturday crossword is so much easier, and it's kinder to an ego that is in constant need of affirmation, even from a broadsheet). The next step; I throw down my pen and make a cup of tea, and maybe some buttery toast. I stare at the paper from afar for a few minutes, come back with the tea, and have a stab at the Target Word. This is probably my favourite section of the puzzle page; I usually aim to get enough words to earn the admiring praise of The Age puzzle writer; a very good or even an excellent. The nine letter word comes to me sooner or later; after which, I relax. The day's big challenges are complete. I fill in the Sudoku at my leisure and read the rest of the paper in bits throughout the course of the day.

A kindly sun is beaming gently on my back, waiting for me to make the big move from dressing gown to jeans, from kitchen table to cafe down the road, so I had better not disappoint. This is the last day of school holidays and it feels like a mourning period, where I transition from regular life (crosswords, jeans, cafes and so on) to school life (early drives in the frost, stockings, meals from the freezer, and so on, and so forth).

I met a really wonderful couple yesterday. He was in his sixties, with a white handlebar moustache and a ye-old-worlde manner of conversation. He spent the last sixteen years in Kyrgyzstan, teaching at a university. Three years ago, he met a doctor from Sydney, in her late thirties. She was also in Kyrgyzstan, doctoring people and training teachers in theology. They decided to get married; not long after that, they decided to adopt some Kyrgyz children - two boys, now aged eleven. One has a misshapen face, the other has a cleft palate. The family moved back to Australia and bought a house in Geelong, several months ago, so that the boys could go to school. Bright spirits pervaded the house, and love for each other, and love for people in need, and hospitality to a perfect stranger (me) who rocked up on their doorstep with very little warning and asked impertinent questions about Kyrgyz food and culture and lifestyle and travel and religion and family. They reminded me of something but I couldn't think what. You know that feeling? But it came to me when driving back to Melbourne, a Bible passage that encapsulated what I'd felt and experienced in their home. Theology in action.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27

and also this:

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8.

To Do List

2010-07-06T03:16:00.005+01:00

After a couple of meetings and emails, it looks like Kyrgyzstan is a reality! I say so cautiously but optimistically. So here's what's probably going to happen (complete with useful links and plentiful exclamation marks):

I'll be teaching at Hope Academy in Bishkek (the capital) from January 2011 until at least August 2012. (You can look them up here). The school uses an international curriculum and has about 120 students from Kindergarten to Year Twelve. Most of these are the children of expatriate volunteer workers in Kyrgyzstan. All classes are taught in English, although there are about a dozen different nationalities within the school, and a large majority of Koreans.

The school has its own application process, but I'll be supported by a mission agency called Interserve. The application process is quite rigorous, and these are the things I have to do immediately:

Police Check
Working With Children Check
On-line application form
Bible and Mission Questionnaire
5 written references
Attend a four day training program: MIST
Miscellaneous interviews
Write a CV (which I haven't had to do for about four years, yoicks)

And THEN I have to think about raising enough funds for 18 months. A generous estimate of the amount needed is about $24 000. I will supply some of that myself, and my parents will contribute generously, but I need to consider raising support through my church and my school. That's the really scary bit about all this; asking people for money so that I can go and have a wonderful adventure (albeit going where God's called me to go).

That might mean you, gentle reader. Apologies in advance.

As for Kyrgyzstan itself, Lonely Planet has a really great overview of the country if you should choose to look it up online. It's often referred to as the Switzerland of Asia, and there's great trekking to be had, when it's not unbearably cold and impassable. It's bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China, plagued by some political and ethnic unrest (but not the kind that's dangerous to pretty young westerners like myself) and has a post-Soviet pall hanging over it.

Finally, my good friend Valerie has been teaching at Hope for some time. She'll be there for the first six months that I'm there, which is just wonderful. She has a great blog full of descriptions and photos which you can find in my links over to the right. It's called Blogging in Bishkek. I highly recommend it if you want to get a sense of life in Bishkek.

Right, well, I'm off to download about three thousand paper forms and stop my mother from passing out. (She was so excited/nervous when she found out my news that she went out immediately and bought me a hat. It's kind of cool in a Central Asia sort of way, or at least that's how I imagine it. My mother's a good sort, really.)

More info anon!!

The Inestimable Blessing and Bother

2010-07-02T14:18:00.008+01:00

Poets write about it; artists paint it; when we don't have it, we yearn for it; and yet when we are young, we long to be otherwise. I wonder if there was ever a boy who revelled entirely in his youngness, or an elderly woman who did not at least once long for her youth.

I spent time with a beautiful baby today. His name is Asher Bear and he is about ten weeks old. He beams at the world in perpetual and toothless wonder, gazes at his mum as his source of light and life, and does his best to reply politely when you speak babble at him. It was a delight to be around this little person and to speculate about the very large personality that is at present contained in a very small bundle of kicks and drool and smiles. He has two siblings with extravagant personalities so it stands to reason he'll have one too.

"It sometimes happens, even in the best of families, that a baby is born. This is not necessarily cause for alarm. The important thing is to keep your wits about you and borrow some money." Enough of my friends have babies that I hold few illusions about them. For instance, I'm quite sure that people who say they've slept like a baby have never had one of their own. When a new mother says she is tired, what she really means is that exhaustion has seeped into the very marrow of her bones and entangled with her heart and soul. I do understand this, but I also understand that you get what you pay for, and in the case of a baby the reward is incalculable.

Babies trust you because they don't know the alternative, which is distrust. That seems to me the very core of innocence, and it's why Jesus told us to have faith like a child; because only a child can trust fully, without reservation, without fear. Asher Bear's whole being is entrusted to his mother. If only I could render up my whole being to the everlasting arms of my Father! A baby is a lesson in faith, and thus I am apprenticed to it.

A Twenty-First Century Heroine

2010-06-30T12:04:00.005+01:00

I have a friend who stepped straight out of an Anthony Trollope novel and into the hands of the midwife, twenty nine years ago. She is neat, composed, demure, and would probably wear a bonnet if she could. She has keen wit and conservative views on religion, class and manners; reads widely whilst seated on a chaise longue; sternly condemns slovenly men, and sponsors an orphan in Africa. She curates a nineteenth century collection in a regional museum and has a cat. In another life, in an English parish, she'd have married an absent-minded clergyman and cared vigorously for the sick all her days. And then I have another friend who is, in fact, a modern-day parson. He preaches sermons of a high moral calibre in a small country church. He reads Calvin in an oak-lined study, writes learned articles for a journal, rides a bicycle around ministering to his elderly flock. He really ought to have fourteen children and live humbly on one hundred pounds a year, but instead he lives solitarily and quite prosperously - against his will, I suspect.

If I were to put all my acquaintances into a list, I suspect I should be able to find a pigeonhole for most of them in a Victorian novel. For myself, I'm a Jane Eyre type - except I would have married St. John and gone to India. Sadly, in this century, such scenes are rare, so I have been forced to create a romantic, mysterious interlude in my life without the assistance of a missionary man. I hereby declare that in 2011, I shall be the quintessential twenty first century heroine; three parts me, one part Jane Eyre, a dollop of modern prosaicism, and veritable lashings of Victorian romanticism.*

*This declaration is influenced by a holiday diet of Dickens, Trollope and Gaskell, and is therefore subject to fluctuation.

Them Pesky Israelites

2010-06-27T04:49:00.003+01:00

So far today, I have had several inspired moments. The first involved a latte from The Gravy Train, ingested in the crisp morning air while walking down a street full of autumn leaves, clad in leather boots and gloves, with Regina Spektor on my iPod. I also had rather good hair this morning, so you can imagine my satisfaction with the whole scenario.

The other took place during a seriously good sermon at City on a Hill, given by Guy Mason. He's delivering a series called Freedom, based on the book of Exodus. You can find the free podcasts here. Guy is a consistently challenging, insightful, practical preacher, and I always find something that is enduringly true in his sermons.

Today, he used the story of the Israelites in the wilderness (all forty years of it) to encourage us. Here are a couple of notes that I want to share, and the inspired moment comes at the end of them!

1. Who led them into the wilderness?

Why, it was the Lord their God, of course, in pillars of cloud and fire, who led them into the desert. Paradoxically, it was also the Lord who brought them from Egypt, out of slavery and oppression, who sent plagues and parted the waters and destroyed their enemies. Yet after a couple of days in the desert, the Israelites started grumbling to Moses: "Would that we had died!" It reminds me of that story about Holocaust survivors, liberated by the Americans one day, and complaining the next day because they got tomato soup instead of chicken soup. The problem was that their hearts were still enslaved to Pharaoh, the principle being that you can get the people out of slavery, but you can't get the slavery out of the people. At least, not without a long, loving process. Israel failed to see that they were free, but their hearts and minds were still in bondage to the oppressor. Years later, Moses reminded the people that God had led them into the desert "to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart." They were legally free - but they didn't know the God who set them free. That was God's purpose in leading them through the desert: to take them from being justified (a legal position) to being sanctified (which is a process of transformation). The process of sanctification, of growth, takes a loooong time and generally some suffering. THAT'S what God wanted to achieve in His people. If He had transplanted them directly into the good ole' Promised Land, they wouldn't have been given the chance to grow and know the Lord their God. They needed forty years to learn reliance, trust, dependence. I find the metaphor of the wilderness pleasingly apt and the application obvious.

2. Where did the process of transformation (sanctification) take place?

Why, it was in the wilderness, of course, where there was no food or water other than what the Lord their God provided for them. Here, God desires to train, equip, empower them. The New Testament frequently reminds us that all believers live in the wilderness, that we wait for "a city that is not here", that "this present suffering is preparing us for an eternal way of glory." Guy talked about the biblical concept of Glory in an interesting way: in the Hebrew, 'glory' carries a heaviness, a substance; it is a weighty concept. Thus, through suffering, God gives us depth of character - glory. For this reason, "we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Through adversity, God creates character. He is all about transforming us. There's no quick fix (which seems counter-intuitive in our world) because acquiring that depth, that glory, is a long process; therefore, we should be thankful for adversity. And anyway, "our sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will (eventually) be revealed in us."

I have a friend who is a wise, compassionate, avowed atheist, and she said something beautiful along these lines once, after my life had been shipwrecked by a bad, bad man: she said to me - "right now, you're like a small sapling that's been badly damaged in a storm, but there's much more growing to do yet, and one day we're all going to be beautiful strong oaks, spreading our lofty boughs and sheltering others." I don't know how pleased she'd be to have her words compared to a Bible story, but the storm and the wilderness are two metaphors for the same suffering. The strong oak tree with lofty boughs - that's the process of sanctification, of being made glorious, right there.

The whole sermon was inspired, really, but the particular point of inspiration for me was this:

I know the wilderness; whether it be depression or singleness or anxiety, it is the same sandy ground and I have spent many years wandering upon it. But here's the thing - I'm thankful that I have known adversity. I rejoice that God teaches me to depend on Him, to fill the empty places in my life with praise. He is faithful to the faithless. I will probably continue to question His teaching methods, but only because I (along with most of us) am an inept pupil. One day, I will be an oak tree and I will be glorious, and only through the wilderness will that be made possible.

And I can say truly, that this song is also my prayer, even though I can't sing it without tears:

Blessed be Your Name!

Would That I Were

2010-06-21T07:35:00.003+01:00

This football game called soccer is grand; beautiful men playing a beautiful game as the world watches. It draws the dormant love for king and country out of us. New Zealand's little victory that wasn't a victory has made up for the injustices wrought on our poor Australians, for whom I understand there may yet be hope. I find that this particular brand of football is a little happy-maker. (The concept of a little happy-maker was introduced to me by my German friend Sabrina, whose heart was more expansive than her English vocabulary. I daresay she's watching the football too, with equal measures of joy and pain, like us.)

Watching the world game gives one ample opportunity to think upon the stage on which it's played and one's place on it. At present, God's direction for my life in this world is a mystery, and I want to find it out. Kyrgyzstan hovers in front of my eyes at all times, but my vision of it vacillates between 8 months, 18 months, 2 and a half years, indefinitely; between work in the capital, or work in rural areas; between giving up the idea entirely for the known comforts of home, or taking it a step further. I'm petrified by fear and buoyed by excitement, which isn't a restful state to be in. In fact, when at school, I walk about in a nervous hum.

C.S. Lewis observed that God cannot give us a happiness and a peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing, he said. People sometimes remark that I seem like a peaceful person, which is a perfectly satisfactory thing to be thought, except that it isn't often true. I wish I could say with the sweet mystic Julian in her cell, that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well; or speak with Paul about the peace of God that passes all understanding (and I have known that peace in my life); but I am not a mystic, and I am not an apostle (unless you call me Thomas). My devotional life is patchy and piecemeal and the outworking of my faith is often choked by indecision. I want single-minded devotion, but I'm not single-minded or purposeful about attaining it. I want to want Kyrgyzstan with all my heart but I am brought low by the thought of losing the security that I have. I am left to sing the words of my favourite hymn as a prayer, because I have no words left of my own in this matter:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Beautiful Things

2010-06-07T08:22:00.003+01:00

Sitting in La Chien with the paper and a raspberry muffin, revelling in the cloudy goodness of the day, I overhear several conversations. The first is a serious discussion on single-origin coffee, and how the speaker, in all conscience, can't drink anything else. The second contains the improbable but memorable phrase "I don't do butter"; and the third involves a group of thirty-somethings who manage to sustain a conversation about house prices for as long as it takes me to do the crossword. Everyone is wearing pea coats and there are several designer prams scattered about, not to mention the designer dogs tied up outside.

A mother next to me explains to her friends that she is only dressing her child in organic materials "until at least eighteen months". The refined experiences of these Yarraville aesthetes! The privileged assumptions they make about food, houses, children, clothes!

I haven't worked out what I feel about this lifestyle. I love good, beautiful things; I love these wide autumnal streets, these gleaming cottages with wrought-iron trimmings, the impossibly fabulous food and coffee everywhere, the communal feel created by the sausage sizzle outside the butcher's (no ordinary sausage sizzle, mind you, but cheese-laden kranskies with caramelised onions and chutney. I had one and nearly died of a heart attack laced with gastronomical joy). I love the Makers' Market around the corner, the handmade brooches in every second shop window. There is a film of gorgeousness wrapped around everything.

On closer inspection, it would appear that I love most of the same things as the people in the cafe. But am I an aesthete? I don't think so, because that suggests a conscious pursuit and collection of refined experiences. My origins are at once countrified, bogan-y, and suburbanised; and yet my tastes are my own, arrived at independently. I don't believe I ever once liked a thing because my mother did, or because my friends did. The art, music, books that I love, I love because they are beautiful and speak the language of my heart, even though in the beginning I may not have known who made them, or when, or where. For instance: I remember the first time I ever heard Enya's Watermark. I was in Grade Six and getting a lift home with a family friend. They had the tape playing, and I heard Enya for the first time, and I cried. I was sitting in the back seat with some other kids, and while they were talking I had my ear pressed to the speaker, trying desperately to listen to the strains of Orinoco Flow. At eleven, I'd never listened to the radio or been exposed to popular culture, but I knew, without knowing anything else, that I loved that music. I use this horribly embarrassing example to demonstrate my belief that my tastes are largely uninfluenced by other people. Other, less embarrassing examples: hearing My Friend the Chocolate Cake for the first time at my cousin's house in Adelaide at the age of thirteen; discovering a book of pre-Raphaelite art in the local library at fourteen; reading George MacDonald's Phantastes at about the same age.

I dunno. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I question the motives of some people in chasing after this beautiful lifestyle. Do they truly love the beauty, or are they in it for the show? Yet, before judging (which anyone who knows me knows I do far too often and too well) I had better be careful that I, too, value things in proportion as I ought.

This Place Where I Live

2010-05-11T12:03:00.004+01:00

Driving home tonight, the air was clear and icy like a diamond. My face swelled and froze in the cold but it didn't matter, because the rays of the setting sun refracted onto the cityscape in such a way that the whole of Melbourne glowed in warm, heavenly oranges and yellows. I turned onto Williamstown Road and felt a sudden, enveloping joy at the thought that this was my home. I think I have never felt as much at home as here in the midst of it. This city is my city, its people my neighbours, its streets my driveways. My enjoyment of the cold weather lately is a bit out of character, but it could have something to do with the clothes I get to wear during the day - my lovely Camper boots, heavy skirts, velvet jackets and brooches, elegant hats and gorgeous scarves, leather gloves. When I arrive home, I turn the dial on our gas heater and the house is warm in minutes. I change into trackies and uggies, browse the internet for a bit, consider the possibilities for dinner. That's on the nights where I don't have after-school meetings, debating or tutoring, of course. I was a bit late tonight because I lingered guiltily in a bookshop - I haven't bought a book for many weeks now, and there was a fortuitous gift voucher burning a hole in my handbag. I ended up with Adam Gopnik - 'Through the Children's Gate' - a series of essays on living in New York, which if they bear any resemblance to his beautiful 'Paris to the Moon' will be delicious. I also purchased Rohinton Mistry's 'A Fine Balance' which I have been staring at for years and wanting desperately to read.

Given the prospect of a good dinner (in which fried eggplant plays a significant part), good new books, and also, for the first time in weeks, no backlog of essays to mark, I am ever so slightly excited about the evening ahead...

La Dolce Vita

2010-05-08T13:34:00.004+01:00

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soo-oop of the e-e-evening,

Beau-ootiful soup! Beau-ootiful soup!

So sang the Mock Turtle, and so say I at the business end of a rather good minestrone soup. It was that kind of Saturday, really. Fresh air, superb coffee, pretty stationery, folk music. Thanks to the Foxtel subscription that I'm benefiting from and a housemate with a by-no-means damnable obsession with Gilmore Girls, I recently overheard Lorelei explaining to Rory how Saturday should be a day of pre-rest, so that you're actually rested enough to enjoy your rest day. This is how I've always felt about Saturdays, deep down: you must allow them to wash over you with as little exertion as possible.

The aforesaid new housemate has a book on her shelf, Eat Pray Love, which despite getting the Oprah treatment a while back I've been wanting to read, so I did, today. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote it after experiencing a traumatic divorce and severe depression. She spent the subsequent year in Italy, India and Indonesia, variously learning to love life again through eating good food, getting spiritually enhanced by a Yogi, and, er, finding physical rebirth with a Brazilian hunk. I dunno, it was a good read; she's a bit potty but she can write. Anyway, there were lots of honest reflections in it about singleness, and getting older, and lacking clear direction in life, and I found myself relating closely with her, particularly in the first chapter about Italy, where she gives in to the gastronomic and cultural delights of that beautiful land. She starts her life over by living la dolce vita; the sweet life.

This year, it feels like I've been waiting intently for la dolce vita. When I am going to find that perfect balance between working hard and enjoying good things? When am I going to stop killing myself over what people think of me and step out in confidence? When am I going to find that one, handsome, strong yet sensitive, intelligent yet practical man who will, you know, make everything better? Not that I voice these questions to myself - but reading this book, they sort of bubbled to the surface.

I would love to travel; to meet the right man; to be better at my job; a thousand things. Not terrible desires, in themselves. But I am reminded of Philippians 4:12-13. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. The reason we are ever able to live with unmet desires is because Christ enables us to do so. He supplies from himself what we lack. Paul clearly says he learned contentment; it didn't just descend on him like a dove, and he didn't walk around with a beatific smile on his face once the scales fell from his eyes. In times of hunger and need, he practised the art of contentment. Elizabeth Gilbert threw off her life entirely and adopted a new one to find some kind of detente, an uneasy truce with living; I would rather lay down the yoke I have made for myself and look to Christ, the author and perfector of my faith. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

With God's help.

...East Coker

2010-04-21T05:01:00.005+01:00

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

~ T.S. Eliot ~ [from Four Quartets]

Home is where the treasure is

2010-04-06T12:11:00.006+01:00

Where is home? Not long ago, I had this conversation with a friend who questioned my concept of "home"; I made the mistake of saying that I felt homeless at the moment, because I gave up the keys to my cottage in January and haven't found a new house yet. This friend is a tenacious logician who wouldn't let me be until I explained what I meant by Home.

So I appealed to cliches; home is where the heart is, there's no place like home, you can never go home again. But really, I don't believe that stuff. Without a family of your own, home isn't where your heart is (unless you have an unhealthy attachment to your stuff) and there are plenty of places I'd rather be than at home (like, oh, I don't know, permanently drifting through Europe). The cliches don't cut it.

And then I remembered this post from last year and it occurred to me that perhaps the homes we have on Earth are but Platonic forms of the home we have never seen. But that's a little esoteric and an insufficient explanation for my friend.

Which brings me to today, and a visit I paid to Interserve offices in Bayswater. Yes, the truth gets aired here and now; I am seriously considering short-term mission next year. I have been contemplating a mission trip for a few years, and visiting Interserve is my (long-procrastinated) way of getting serious about it. I don't know what country, or even what continent yet (although they were keen to know my thoughts about the Middle East) but the very thought of serving God and people in a place where I am needed fills me with joy and excitement. If you pray, pray about that. I long to serve in this way. My heart is full with it and always has been. Next year may be too soon, but the wheels are in motion, at least.

Anyway, talking about mission with the wise folk at Interserve opened my eyes to my circumstances. God is teaching me about home. Home is not here. I don't know where it is, but it's not here. My stuff has been in a garage for three months now and I don't miss it any more - so that means that my stuff doesn't make a place my home. I'm staying with truly kind friends in their comfortable home, but it's their home, full of their long-term plans and dreams and comforts. I feel 'at home' but it's not mine. The ties that bind do not bind me - I have no children or husband, I have no mortgage, I have no obligations to anyone but to my Saviour. And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8) As the Walrus said, the time has come.

Where is my heart? Looking for a home.

Paen to Catherine Deveny

2010-03-22T08:00:00.003Z

Catherine, my love, there is no poetry or sentiment in you; you are inane in the very crevasses of your soul. You are an ungracious and ungentle individual, and you bare this to all of Melbourne several times a week. Unfortunately, you have many like-souled readers, to whom your crassness strikes a deep and resounding chord. They like to champion you over their lattes, little realising that you are of all people the most narrow-minded, bigoted, hurtful and hateful, even while you hurl poison arrows at bishops and politicians and Christians and Western suburb bogans and right-wingers and anyone who shops at a shopping complex, accusing them of the same. Barney Schwartz is worth ten times your sorry tail, although you probably think he's a fusty fuddy-duddy; he's a Presbyterian (GASP!) and leans right (HELL NO!) and is a white middle-class male (BOO!).

I have time for anyone with an opinion, Catherine, but you have rods of iron prejudice in your blood which make me sick, because you purport to be a tremendous free-thinker. But then, hypocrisy always makes me look for the nearest bucket.

A Blog of One's Own

2010-03-13T03:59:00.008Z

I think the general idea of crowding up cyberspace with a blog is that one has thoughts and writes about them in the faint hope that they may prove profitable; not money-wise, but other-wise. Mine doesn't appear to be fulfilling this function, for which I apologise heartily and repent.

Aldous Huxley once wrote a short essay about music appreciation. He said in it that we are grateful to the artist, especially to the musician, for 'saying clearly what we have always felt, but never been able to express.' I went to an MSO concert last weekend, where the program included Debussy and Faure, and most wonderfully Rachmaninov's The Bells, which adapts Poe's onamatopoeic poem. As I shed a few quiet tears of clarity over those bells - crystal winter sleigh bells, warm golden summer wedding bells, terrified frantic brass church bells, sobbing death knells - Huxley's words came to mind. Why was I crying over violins and timpani? Because they expressed what my heart couldn't - and the heart is healed through expression. And those tears were tears of healing and new knowledge; the bells spoke profoundly about human experiences - beauty and horror, joy and terror, peace and fear - and reminded me that there is nothing new under the sun. There is nothing I think and feel which hasn't been thunk and felt by others, and by my saviour, and defeated wholly. There is hope in that.

In the week that's just been, I decided to immerse myself in a band, at least for the few hours that I wasn't running around like a headless chook. I've known for months that I would potentially have a love affair with Mumford & Sons, but I haven't had the gall to jump in. New music, after all, is a lifetime relationship, and requires lots of head and heart investment and I haven't been feeling up to the task lately. Having undertaken said immersion, however, I have no regrets, except for not plunging into the surf earlier. Marcus Mumford, I think I love you. If Sufjan Stevens doesn't bend the knee soon, then you can marry me. Okay?

(I mean, seriously, Marcus, if you will write songs about the beauty of love as it was meant to be, you have to expect hearts in droves).

Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you

It will set you free

Be more like the man you were meant to be.

Sheesh.

Last night, I woke up many times after dreams. The ocean at night featured in each one. I had a shadowy conversation with a faceless spy under a pier; drove my car into the sea to hide it from a past boyfriend; buried myself in the sand; and the last time I woke with rubbery, old sand in my mouth. I've been trying all morning to be rid of the taste.

Words, Words, Words

2010-02-23T13:57:00.010Z

Oyez, oyez, it's one o'clock and all's well, as the town crier cries on the moonlit streets, and so it is, except that I can't sleep for the tide of caffeine coursing through my veins. I only had two coffees today, but that's two more than usual and the last one was after dinner, which is enough to poison my blood and keep me awake at this witching hour. My poor innards are accustomed to small, regular doses of caffeine in the forms of tea and chocolate, not to concentrated hits of the stuff. After lying in bed, whispering 'Must. Not. Drink. Coffee. Ever. Again' and reliving the day in exceptionally vivid detail, I turn to my laptop for relief and diversion.

In pursuit of said diversion, I shall now endeavor to reflect (briefly, and in a not very soggy and introspective manner) on a recent discovery, which is this: words are important to me. That may not seem a particularly revelatory statement, but it increasingly bears all the hallmarks of a revolutionary one. Here's how.

A large part of my depression is linked to feelings and thoughts of inadequacy. But, until several days ago, if you asked me how or why I feel inadequate, I couldn't cobble together a coherent response. I might pull a few monkey faces, scuff my shoes in an annoyingly self-deprecating fashion, and eventually skive off the question altogether. Now, though, I think I could answer you better.

God, in His wisdom and generosity, gives each of us a unique set of gifts, to exercise as we will. He gave me, among other things, words; the gift of expression. It is not a very glamorous or ostentatious gift, but it is beautiful and it is mine. Much of my identity and self-worth is bound up in it. For this reason, when I write, I feel satisfied. When I find ways to articulate myself, I am content because I have made myself known. However, I rarely experience this in everyday speech. The smallest exchange of words - Hello, Thank You, Yes - the kind that most people forget in a minute - can cause me exquisite agony. It is vitally important to me to express the truth of a moment, a feeling, an experience, but at the same time my mind is slow to formulate ideas. That's why writing is so wonderful; I can conjure phrases, metaphors, images, manipulate words until I'm satisfied that what I've written is an accurate expression of myself, without the constraints that conversation imposes on language. The conventions of human interaction don't allow more than a few seconds to tack words into sentences, and my mind cogitates slower than most. Thus, I am usually dissatisfied with my spoken words - and as I said before, words are hugely important to me.

There. That's why I beat myself up daily - hourly - as a no-good nothing. Does it seem nonsensical? Does it seem idiotic? That's because it is! Laugh with me, as I laugh at myself; I'm depressed because I'm a human being in a temporal, fallen world - I'm depressed because I'm imperfect. Articulation will always be important to me - and having articulated this, finally, I intend to throw off my hair-shirt and start forgiving myself for my fallibility. Rejoice with me!

Cap'n Jack and the Seven Seas

2010-02-16T07:01:00.010Z

For several weeks now, I've been living by the beach with a budgerigar named Captain Jack and the smell of the salt sea. The only sounds are birdcalls and the distant roar of wind and surf; the only place to buy anything is The Shop, which sells a motley assortment of canned goods, dishwashing liquid and fish and chips, and which closes at 6:30 pm. There's a cricket club and a volunteer life guard's shack, and that's about where the local entertainment ends. I couldn't ask for a better respite from suburbia; I feel more rested than I have for months, despite a full teaching timetable that has been incrementally supplemented by debating teams, netball teams, chess teams, and now a student Bible study...my days have never felt so loaded, but for the first time in three years as a teacher, I'm not drowning. Quite the opposite; I'm buoyed and ready. I have energy! I have initiative!

Once again, however, I'm living alone, and I've been living alone for eight months out of the last twelve. It's unnatural, is what it is, and I've come to the conclusion that it's to be avoided in the future. Hold me to it, will you? I have many habits now, mostly anti-social ones, that are borne out of prolonged solitude. It's possible they are irreversible habits, although it will take an extended period of time living with another person again to determine that.

For now, I am enjoying a simple life, where I can pour chocolate sauce onto Connoisseur cookie ice cream and eat it straight from the tub without grossing anyone out; listen to too, too many heartbreaking hours of Nina Simone; talk self-deprecatingly and at some length to myself in the mirror; leave seven half-read books strewn across the bathroom; write half-arsed meandering blog posts in my underwear.

(while some of those behaviours, although definitely odd, are negotiable in the right company, my Alice cat is absolutely the only one who will ever get to see me do white-wannabe-Brooklynite dancing to My Brightest Diamond remixes turned way up loud).

Ecclesiastes 3:1

2010-02-07T05:41:00.006Z

Antidepressants are a strange idea; to think that sadness should be so easily suppressed! And yet the sadness (the grief, the paralysis, the depression) is not gone from me. I sense it there, even while the drugs continue to act like a heavy cloak of marzipan and icing on a brandy fruitcake, to be preserved indefinitely in a glass cabinet. I sense it in the way my hands tremble, almost imperceptibly but constantly. I sense it in the hesitancy with which I step out the front door (with which I make any decision at all), and in the torpor which hangs from my eyelids. No, my age-old companion is not gone, but hibernating for a season.

Yet I am grateful for this season, short that it may be. I may not be feeling very much, or living very energetically, or shining a brilliant light before all people, but I am not sad. And when have I not been sad? And who is to say, when it's time to lift this pleasantly stupefying marzipan blanket, that things will not be different underneath?

Lord, let me be made new. Let me be born again, again.

A Not Exhaustive But Jolly Fun List

2010-01-13T19:22:00.002Z

It’s frightfully early in the morning but I’m awake due the fact of having heard the distant rumblings of the garbage truck and then making a mad mercy dash with my rubbish bin. What with the pounding of my heart and the fearful annoyance of having lost a few hours certain sleep, the synapses of my brain are firing slightly, sparking away in the recesses somewhere, and I thought I’d better make the most of this unusual but welcome phenomenon with a very short writing exercise, before I roll over and eke out a few hours sleep.

Ten Writers I’d have at my Dinner Party (Dead or Alive. But Mostly Dead.)

(You could have ten of anyone but it’s generally writers who are nearest to my heart. So, in no particular order, and it’s a terribly westernised list, but, well, I’m of the west:)

Dorothy L. Sayers

She’s a bit old-fashioned in her sturdy shoes and Oxford-donnish glasses, but she could hold her own in any company. With plays such as The Man Born To Be King, she's an accomplished playwright; with the characters of Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, she's mastered both exquisite romance and detective writing; with essays such as Creed or Chaos? she's a profound Christian thinker and apologist; and with her popular translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, I don't think anyone could argue her credentials as a witty, wise and experienced dinner guest. But mostly, I'd want to talk to her about how she negotiated being a woman in a man's Oxford; how she coped with the socially problematic existence of her illegitimate son; who Peter Wimsey was modelled on; and I'd really like to give her a hug.

Flannery O’Connor

I don't understand Flannery all that well, yet. She's a recent inclusion on this list. Her short stories leave you gasping for breath. They are stark and even grotesque, and yet their mysteries are profound. There's a beautiful Southern grace in them, and a great deal of suffering, and Catholic penance. A Good Man is Hard to Find was a revelation to me. She died at 39, unmarried, and she must have had an outstanding character. I want to get to know her.

C.S. Lewis

The stalwart of Christian life and experience. Not always a first-rate writer but always a gentleman, always at the heart of the matter. A classy dinner guest. Either I write an essay about him or not at all, so I will desist. This man I look forward to meeting.

Hal Porter

The only Australian writer on this list, but not a token one. The Watcher on the Cast Iron Balcony, his memoir of childhood and early adulthood, is the reason for his inclusion. He has explored the Australian, nay, the Victorian psyche in a way that resounds deeply with me. He understands Australian identity better than any other writer, so I'd like him to explain it to me, because I don't.

G.K. Chesterton

The master. There are not enough superlatives in the world for this man. The supreme dinner guest and creator of Father Brown.

Jane Austen

Ah, Jane. It has recently been borne in upon me how extraordinary she was. I think she understood deeply the way that women love and desire to be loved. I think she suffered greatly for her writing. I think her personal life was both admirable and tragic. I want to thank her for giving us Eleanor and Elizabeth and Emma and Anne, because they've enriched my life. I think she would liven up this dinner party no end with wit and vim.

George MacDonald

This absent-minded minister is seated at this table because he is a mystic genius and a gentleman. He wrote Victorian sentiment, not always very well, but with great beauty and largesse of imagination. I've always loved Phantastes and The Princess and the Goblin and I think many, many writers of fantasy today owe their art to George MacDonald. Lewis and Tolkien certainly did. I want to meet him very much.

Christina Rossetti

Do you think she might be a bit depressing? I'm worried about that, but I want to talk to her so much that I'll chance it. On one hand, her life is tragic, a perpetual winter of loss and profound sadness, particularly in regards to health and romance; on the other hand, her faith is magnificent. For hope, patience and stoicism she has no equal. I admire her tremendously. I often say that she is my favourite poet.

P.G. Wodehouse

For sheer joy, I include the inestimable Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and Wooster and the embodiment of all that is great and good about English humour.

John Donne

On the days when Christina isn't my favourite poet, John Donne is, for his fierce brilliance and his exquisite metaphors. He traversed more human emotion and Christian experience than most writers. I would have liked to hear him preach.

Shortlist:
Sylvia Plath: I adore her, but a bit of a downer.

Oscar Wilde: naturally, I would have dearest Oscar but he'd monopolise the conversation most awfully. Also, he had terrible teeth.

John Keats: the wrong sort of poet to ask to dinner - too young and preoccupied with Beauty. Maybe if he'd gotten to be a little older.

(I don’t think it was the garbage truck that I heard. Arse and blast.)

Courage, Dear Heart

2010-01-07T04:09:00.002Z

In the absence of any words of my own, I present to you some better ones.

...

Drinian's hand shook on the tiller and a line of cold sweat ran down his face. The same idea was occurring to everyone on board. "We shall never get out, never get out," moaned the rowers. "He's steering us wrong. We're going round and round in circles. We shall never get out." The stranger, who had been lying in a huddled heap on the deck, sat up and burst into a horrible screaming laugh.

"Never get out!" he yelled. "That's it. Of course. We shall never get out. What a fool I was to have thought they would let me go as easily as that. No, no, we shall never get out."

Lucy leant her head on the edge of the fighting top and whispered, "Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now." The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little - a very, very little - better. "After all, nothing has happened to us yet," she thought.

"Look!" Cried Rynelf's voice hoarsely from the bows. There was tiny speck of light ahead, and while they watched a broad beam of light fell from it upon the ship. In did not alter the surrounding darkness, but the whole ship was lit up as if by searchlight. Caspian blinked, stared round, saw the faces of his companions all with wild, fixed expressions. Everyone was staring in the same direction: behind everyone lay his black, sharply-edged shadow.

Lucy looked along the beam and presently saw something in it. At first it looked like a cross, then it looked like an aeroplane, then it looked like a kite, and at last with a whirring of wings it was right overhead and it was an albatross. It circled three times round the mast and then perched for an instant on the crest of the gilded dragon at the prow. It called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words although no one understood them. After that it spread its wings, rose, and began to fly slowly ahead, bearing a little to starboard. Drinian steered after it not doubting that it offered good guidance. But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart", and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.

...

"I would have despaired unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord."

Psalm 27:13-14

Plain Words

2010-01-01T13:22:00.009Z

As Elizabeth commented on my last post, depression is fuel for gutsy writing. Indeed, I think it would be challenging to find a great writer, artist, or similarly creative individual who hasn't lived through many dark nights of the soul. At the moment, reading and writing are really beyond my ken, but I thought I might take to recording some things in plain words. I'm happy to do this on my blog because firstly, it's the only way at the moment that I'll write about it, let alone write at all, and secondly, it makes an interesting record for posterity. I am happy to share my experiences because I think they are more common than we know.

I've never had a great memory. I don't have vivid pictures of my childhood. I can't recite passages from books or films regardless of how often I read or watch them. However, my already dodgy memory is noticeably in decline. Dates, experiences, facts and figures, words - more of them are falling through the cracks day by day. People have commented on this. I played Scattergories tonight and was a struck by how difficult it was to retrieve information. I'm not stupid - I'm well educated, well read - but you wouldn't know it lately. This is symptomatic of depression. I don't know if it's a lasting effect, but at the moment it is undermining my confidence in social situations. I never know if I have recalled a thing correctly, and my short-term memory is extremely poor. I honestly don't remember if I have had the same conversation with the same person the week before. This leads to fits and starts and uncertainty in speech. I cannot speak with confidence.

No doubt there are clinical reasons for this, but my surmise, a wild one, is that so much of mental and emotional energy is inwardly and negatively focused that there is none left over for memory storage and retrieval. I'm constantly reminded of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar - I'm living underneath it. There are so many good metaphors for the experience of depression. I'd like to read more about the memory loss, particularly, but I can't be bothered, which leads me to the next thing, which is, for want of a better word, listlessness.

During the teaching term, I am necessarily motivated to do my job as well as I can, because the alternative is letting my students and colleagues down and that's inconceivable. I still care what people think of me. However, without my structured workplace, the place where I am needed and busy, my motivation has collapsed. In the last few weeks I've cancelled appointments, turned down invitations, and flat out lied to people about what I'm doing, because I can't bring myself to do any of it. I just can't. Quite literally, I get out of bed in the morning - feed the cat - stand in the kitchen for about ten minutes, trying to bring myself to start the day - and go back to bed, because I can't face what follows. I count getting dressed an achievement. Getting the mail is a feat worthy of epic poetry. Maybe one day I will compose some sort of Homeric hymn about it.

There are a few purely physical things to note. I am acutely aware that my head is bowed over as I walk. My posture is suffering badly. I am grinding my teeth a lot - I wake up with my jaw clenched. My heart is always racing, particularly around other people. I wring my hands unconsciously. I am putting on weight - not a lot, but enough that some jeans don't fit any more. I'm sleeping alright, but my dreams are vivid and strange and I'm beginning to sleep walk. The other night, I got up at 3am because I was convinced there was a doctor in the laundry who was waiting for my house to be clean before she would speak with me. So I cleaned. A few nights before that, I found myself on the front lawn, pulling up grass.

Those are the most obvious physical effects that I have noticed.

I know that you read this, friends. I want you to know these things because it helps me that you know. I am thankful to be able to write and hopefully find clarity through the writing. I am thankful that you care for me enough to read it. If I cancel on you - if I evade conversations - if I curl into the foetal position mid sentence - perhaps you will understand a little better. Perhaps one day soon when the Bell Jar has lifted, we can have some quality time.

Incidentally, while I'm pissing around in the pits like this, the best thing you can do is direct my eye to the sky by giving me either the hard word or gentle encouragement. Both methods seem to work equally well.

Apologia

2009-12-24T12:47:00.003Z

I'm on holidays and it's difficult to write.

You'd think, with the sudden windfall of time, that I'd have written reams by now. But it's difficult to read, even. Picking up a book takes initiative, and I don't have that. I don't have the initiative for breakfast, let alone expression. Sentences are complex structures that are beyond me. Words are evasive, their meanings slippery. Conversations - like trying to understand and be understood in a foreign country.

If I look at you blankly, or say something that I said five minutes before, or fail to engage with what you are telling me - I apologise. It's the black dog - the blue devil - monikers for the same malady; a warm, suffocating blanket. It smothers the will into won’t , and the can into can’t. It protects the soul from the bitterness of promise, concealing one from life while the non-sequitur of truth admonishes hope for hoping. I battle hourly for the truth - though I'm not sure I'll recognise it when I see it.

Until soon.

A Small Offering

2009-11-18T08:20:00.002Z

I'm posting a few things I've been interested in lately: Nina Simone, Shara Worden, John Piper. You may love as you wish or hate as you will, but this is what's doing it for me on this fine evening in the middle of November.

Be My Husband

2009-11-18T08:17:00.001Z

No, Mr President

2009-11-18T08:06:00.001Z

John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel

2009-11-18T08:03:00.000Z

for a while.

2009-11-18T07:54:00.000Z

Where is the Grace?

2009-11-15T10:15:00.006Z

"Why do you criticise and pass judgement on your brother?" Romans 14:10

Listening to the words of criticism tumbling from my mouth today, laced as they were with genuine scorn, I wanted to eat them, shovel them back in my mouth and sew it up. A critical spirit is a burdensome thing; not only does it prevent its owner from seeing all the possible good in a person or an idea, but it affects the people who spend time with it, especially if those people are sensitive to conflict.

I don't think I'm ruled by my tendency to criticism; I don't think I'm an unusually negative person (although I freely admit that I lack perspicacity of self-perception and therefore could be completely mistaken) but when I am negative about something, the whole world needs to know it. If there's foolishness, a fault, a flaw, a problem, then nothing will do but to make it known, and not just to one person but to anyone who's unfortunate enough to cross my path.

As someone who struggles to examine her actions and their consequences as she ought, I can honestly say that I invite constructive criticism. I relish it when my friends tell me, with love in their hearts, that my thinking or my choices are wrong. If they don't tell me, I'll never know, and how can I change otherwise? However, what I forget is that not everyone is like this. Not everyone is as thick-skinned and blind to themselves as I am. Also, I forget that to be critical without love and discernment in my heart is to fall into grave sin.

When is the last time I was brought to tears of repentance by my own sin? When I am as lazy, selfish, deceitful as any human ever was, why don't I spent as many hours in bitter self-reproach as I spend on reproaching others in my mind? Ah, I think I know; because a) it is far easier and more natural to look for the speck in other's eyes and b) because to face up to the depth and breadth of the log in my own will take a lifetime of hard work, and I'm skirting around it.

I may have serious concerns and genuine criticisms, but I must voice them with love, and only when strictly necessary. There needs to be mercy in my words and temperance in my conversation. God is powerfully, miraculously, secretly at work in other people's lives, not just my own, and I pray that my eyes might be opened to that. Indeed, if I were to pray in the midst of my critical spells, the outcome might be very different; oh, that my words might bless and build up, rather than tear down as they do!

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

Wash your hands, you sinners, and let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and sincere grief. James 4:8