Nuance is important…

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Kath

Nuance is a good word. It’s a word that probably needs to be in our lives and vocabulary a little bit more. It’s one of those words that helps us not live for too long in the land of black and white.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against certainty, it’s the certain stuff that holds me to this earth, that holds me to the reality of God in a world that screams loudly in my face that I’m an idiot for doing so.

What I’ve been pondering recently is that those kinds of certainty are a fairly small circle compared to the vast amount of stuff we just don’t know or can’t be fully sure about.  The problem comes when we confuse certainty in some areas with absolute certainty in every area of life. There are a vast swathe of issues, life experiences and knowledge where we need nuance, where we need to see that there are many angles on an argument, many differing responses to circumstances and where there is a need for holding onto the space inbetween.

I guess I’m thinking about this in reference to the main thing going on in my world at the moment, the land of pregnancy. I’m looking for a middle way of responding to all that is going on with my body at the moment. It’s all too easy to grumble and complain when I am tired and sore and just want to sleep all the time. I want to run from those ways of responding as I know I’m in an incredibly fortunate position, that we chose this path in life etc. I am genuinely thankful for what I’ve been given.  I don’t however want to head down the other path of over optimism (as if I could anyway) and pretend life is shiny and joy filled when it’s hard and weary at times.

Somewhere between the land of complaining and over optimism lies the great truth of reality. How we deal with the circumstances of our lives matters – we can complain, we can gloss over things or we can hold onto reality in the mess.  We can search for a honest deep response to what is going on which honours our Maker and walks his ways through it. This is not a way of despair or pretending all is fine but of treading the tension line between them. It’s about finding a way of being real about the struggles. Bringing them to him, asking for help, being thankful and allowing him to hold onto us. Being honest about the joys. Delighting in the wonder of this world.

A life lived in these two states will walk well with the tension of pain and sorrow, joy and wonder. That’s where the nuances come in. There are very few black and whites in the circumstances of our lives, we might look at each others lives and decide we know how each other should be reacting to our circumstances but we need to take the time to understand, dwell in each others lands and live out the nuances together.

Some questions…

Where do you need to live with the nuances of life?
How can we help each other live and walk in the inbetween lands of being real about the struggles and honestly calling out to our maker in the midst of them?
How can we understand each others circumstances without deciding how we think they should be responding to them?

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The first day…

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Kath

Some of life for the next few weeks 🙂

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Which if you think about it is true for all of us, so no news there then.

What I mean is today is the first day of a new stage of my life. I have stopped being in paid employment. When husbandface got up to go to work today I had no stomach sinking sense of having to get out of bed and face the day, I had no dread, I did not have to go to work. For the last 7 months getting up well to go to work has been a battle I have lost more times than I have won. The irony didn’t escape me this morning that it was remarkably simple to bound out of bed just after 7 and get on with the day. Not having somewhere to go strangely made me more inclined and delighted to get up. Odd.

I have started what is technically known as maternity leave, but as I don’t plan on going back to full time paid work anytime soon I’d rather think of it as starting the rest of my life.  I’m glad I’ve had practice in living with unstructured time, being a Staff Worker with UCCF taught me how to plan my days well, to know that I go crazy if I haven’t seen at least one person in the day and that I need to exercise. The weeks in front of me have really only one day in them where I might not see people or get out to exercise.

There are many projects and things to get on with as I live out this inbetween time.  Preparations for the arrival of the boy, being involved with the lovely Festive, taking the opportunity for more writing, being involved with the life of our church, and seeking to encourage people more and more. I’d love to get to know some more expectant mothers and I want to read many books, and of course enjoy lots of afternoon naps.

I don’t think my working life is over, there is work to be done that is neither paid or with a nice neat label attached to it. I’m a kind of person without portfolio, seeking to live out the life God has called me to in a variety of situations and contexts. I want to live a rich life, to not try and label it. Frankly the title ‘Stay at Home Mum’ makes me recoil. Life is too diverse and wonderful to be shrunk to titles and labels. Even on days when all I might do is wash nappies, my title is daughter of the King, my life is to be lived in reflection of all he has done and put in me. I want to seek contentment in that, to see the value and worth of this kind of life and delight in the privilege of being able to do that. I know others would long for this life and some would recoil in horror at it. I’m aware of the danger I face of looking over the fence at others lives wanting what they’ve got or smug at what I’ve got.

I want to be thankful God has made me for this, I’m looking forward to discovering what opportunities there are in this new land. If I’m honest I’ve  wanted to live as Kath without a job title for a long time now. I’m grateful that I’ve been given that and I want to live these years well. I don’t know how long they will last but I want to seek the Lord in this land of the living and trust that his goodness will sustain us through whatever lies ahead. I’m realistic, I think, I know there will be hard dark crazy times, I know my head, I know it’s temptations to despair but I want to live with hope in the midst of that. His grace has carried me safe this far and I put my tentative nervous hand in his knowing that it’s the best place to be and that He will bring me safely through whatever lies ahead.

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What perseverance looks like (or filling the Olympic void in my life)

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Kath

On camp this year I had to do my first talk to 11-14 yr olds. It turns out it wasn’t so bad after all, although that maybe because I couldn’t see many faces as the stage lights were shinning directly into my eyes.  It made me wish that we took as much time thinking about how we visually illustrate points in our talks to adults as we do to the youff.  The use of people acting out the points you are making is really helpful in making them stick in your mind.  All of which makes me want to get a whole lot more creative next time I speak.

Anyway, that aside, I was speaking on my old favourite subject, perseverance.  Camp was clearly themed around the Olympics, making illustration jumps to the Christian life a wealth of cheesy joy. I chose to resurrect an old Olympian who very helpfully shows what perseverance looks like.  Derek Redmond in the 1992 Olympics was in the form of his life when this happened in the semi final:

This clip never fails to send tears streaming down my cheeks, despite my efforts before camp to harden myself to it. Here’s a man who doesn’t give up despite having no chance of winning the race, he gets up and keeps going around the track, through the pain and frustration and tears. And then his Dad comes on to help him limp those final 100 meters to the end of the race.

Perseverance is hard, messy, gutsy and doesn’t look or feel like winning most of the time. It doesn’t look like success. It doesn’t look like success. (I wrote that twice deliberately) Perseverance is tumbling motion, limping on, crawling when we can stand no more, being aware we are still on the track but barely. There isn’t much glory in the process.  There is, however, someone who helps us on, someone who has walked this gutsy path before and won’t let go of our feeble shaky bodies.

Our Dad comes on the track, puts his arms around us, helps us lean on him and gets us to the end.  To the prize, given to all running, walking, stumbling, crawling, sat on the floor in this race.

Today I finish a job where perseverance hasn’t looked neat or tidy or as if I’ve achieved anything. I’ve got it wrong, I’ve finished days in floods of tears and battled with failure.
I’ve not left the track though, I’m still in the race because my Dad has been walking around with me, holding me up.  I’ve  felt like I’ve been writing left handed for a long time now and it’s time to stop for a bit and rest. I’ve no idea what being a Mum will feel like or how my insecurities will play out in the minefield of parenting opinions but I know I have a Dad who will walk me through it. I want to know him more in these next couple of months before the arrival of McSquirmy. I want to know his arms around me. I want to know that perseverance is possible because he comes, he puts his arms around me, he lifts me and walks me home.

 

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Diary roundup.

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Kath

Camp* is over, we’re bravely fighting off colds and other sicknesses (for bravely read pathetically) and it really is time to be back on the blog. ‘Camp’ was it’s usual mix of joy working in one place with one set of people for a week, hardcore washing up, delighting in seeing God’s work in the lives of the members and leaders and general fun.  Being pregnant meant it was a bit more of a challenge and I was sent to bed to sleep several times when my ability to interact with others was at an all time low (that’s a nice way of saying when I got too grumpy).  Highlights of said camp included: singing the whole of Joseph whilst washing up, hanging out with lovely Bereans**, late night desert and discussion, Corrine discovering the collective noun for Bereans – a breeze of Bereans, indoor swimming pool action, getting to tell lots of 11-14 yr olds they belong to God, hanging out with various random people from all over the spectrum of my life, being Team Cunningham with husbandface – working together was a rare treat and the constant overuse of Olympic illustrations to describe this Christian life thing.

All in all it was a week where I got to do what I love and am good at. I’d forgotten quite what that feels like, like writing with your dominant hand after being forced to write with your other one for 6 months, like swimming with the current instead of against it, like sailing with the wind, like freewheeling down a massive hill you’ve just climbed, like doing what you know you were made to do all along.  I’m very grateful that such a week exists in life right now.

Because we are slightly insane, and because our unpaid very helpful labourer (hi Dad) is free this week we have decided to tear apart our bathroom and make it pretty. Right now it’s in that stage where you think… Was it so bad in the first place? Chaos rules in the house, dust is everywhere but I trust it’s going to be ok in the end. Like much progress in life it doesn’t really look like progress at the time – it’s messy and revealing of the cracks under the surface, for real change to happen more than the outer layer needs to come off. I find it slightly worrying that the only way I’m able to deal with a crazy messy house is to find a sermon illustration out of it but, hey, that’s the way my brain works.  I look at the mess and know that my life too sometimes needs to get this messed up for the carpenter to work his wonder in my heart. I need to wait patiently for the final results, to know that there is more to come and to not fret about the seeming lack of progress.  We are all unfinished works of art and although that doesn’t help my desire for a tidy clean house it does help me chill out a bit and learn some patience.

*’Camp’ – there are no tents, we were in a posh boarding school all week. It seems more fun than saying – posh boarding school venture all the time.

**Berean – name for assistant leaders on camp, general slaves who wash dishes, help with games and study the Bible diligently each day – like the people from Berea in Acts… Too obscure? Nevermind.

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Weakness pt6 My most recent weakness hero.

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Kath

Emma Scrivener is another person who more recently has come into the fore for making the world a gift of her weakness. She writes about her experience with anorexia and her on going struggles to keep going through this world. I love her writing because it’s infused with a very deep thread of the reality of God and yet is never glib, never gives easy answers, is always honest about the reality of living with ongoing brokenness without being self pitying. It’s an incredible path to walk and it’s one I want to continue to learn.  It is a crazy feat to not give into the desire for easy answers and to be honest about the internal battles without ever attention seeking.  I love that loads of Christians I know are finding her blog so helpful because it reminds me once more that we need people like this, we need to be honest and vulnerable, we ache to know we are not alone, we ache to know how to keep walking when the easy answers have failed us, we want to know real hope in the midst of our real messy everyday lives.

Over the weekend a copy of her recent book ‘A New Name’ landed on my doorstep, I’d been sent a copy to review for this fair blog and I couldn’t wait to sit down with a mug of tea and get into it. I’ve been finding it hard to write a review ever since, especially after I read the excellent review by Mark Meynell over on his blog, he says all I want to say in much more eloquent ways. So, rejecting the paragraph format and the need for linking sentences here are my top 7 reasons why you should stop what you are doing, do all you can to find a copy (here is a good start) and mark out an afternoon in your diary when it arrives on your doorstep, it won’t let you put it down.

  1. It’s a gift. (I don’t just mean my copy was a gift, although thank you Emma) Her story is a gift. It’s a story that makes you feel privileged to have read it, and deeply thankful for Emma’s vulnerability, admission of weakness, and willingness to share her weakness with the world.
  2. It is a big fat reminder that change and progress are long term, gutsy epic battles. There is no nice tidy ending. I’m always worried about testimonies that end with and Jesus sorted it all out and everything is great. Emma really met Jesus at the lowest point of her struggle when she found the courage to cry out for help and everything was different but not everything was great. It’s vital that we hold onto what the reality of change looks like. Long messy and not easy, but worth it. The last chapter is a wonderfully realistic picture of trying to believe the wonder of God’s love in the everyday, a path that is not straightforward.
  3. Emma manages to write about God in a way that makes me want to know him all over again. There wasn’t a jarring change of gear when she stopped talking about her story and then started talking about the reality of God. He didn’t feel like a sticking plaster answer over her issues. I believed that he is a reality as a result of reading this. None of the Godtalk felt like jargon or unreal.
  4. It made me cry. A lot. It reminded me of my own different story and how God is working in me and it gave me hope that the stops and starts, tumbles and turns of my life with God are normal. It reassured me that God was real and at work and worth crying out to.
  5. It felt like reading a breath of fresh air, like a cool drink on a hot day, like draughts of living water. It was deeply good for my soul.
  6. It’s incredibly well written. I thought I was going to be jealous of someone I have come to vaguely know, through our mutual love of each others blogs, writing an actual book. When it came to it the book is simply too well written to even bother being jealous about. How often do we really pick up books by Christians and delight in the wonder of the prose within them? Too little I fear. Here is writing that even made me forget the horrible font IVP insist on printing everything in at the moment. It is that good.
  7. It’s a brilliant reminder that the externals of our Christian lives are really not the things by which we should be measuring how we are doing.  Emma looked the part of the great Christian in ministry for a long time but things hadn’t changed deep down inside. What’s going on in the battle of our hearts is the stuff that matters.

There is my less than comprehensive list of why you need to read this book.

If I have one issue with the book it’s that I was left at the end wanting more. I want to read Glen’s side of the story now, I want to know how he dealt with the issues of wanting to rescue Emma and the realisation of God as the true rescuer. But maybe I want too much. For now I’m content with a real story of the way God can work in the deepest mess of our lives and hearts. I’m grateful for the story of someone else on this road who knows the deep wonder of the love of that God and the daily struggle to believe and live in that love. Thank you Emma.

(disclaimer: no-one paid me to write this slightly effusive review, I got sent a copy and loved it)

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