A slightly roundabout way of saying something rather important.

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Kath

The thing about writing is that I just need to start doing it. The thing about new areas of life to be written about is that I just need to start writing. Whenever new things happen in my life this fair blog goes a bit silent. I need time to mull over them, to reflect without sharing those instant reflections with all and sundry (the few people who pass by this way occasionally). I think it’s a good thing, I’m aware that this is a space for reflection after I have communicated in flesh and blood ways to people I know and love and who can respond in personal ways. I think it’s good to be slow in announcing stuff and slow in thinking about how to start writing about new things. It is right that I have told many actual people in personal ways about this news before I have written about it here.  But sometimes I get paralysed by thinking about how this new thing can be written about, can be shared with the world, especially when it is something that has the potential to cause pain in others lives, and lets face it the potential to go horribly wrong. (go me and my less than optimistic personality)

I had this paralysis when it came to going out with someone, becoming their fiancee and then marrying them all in the space of 9 months. I didn’t know how to write about it all, mainly because my life had been so clearly defined by being single and dealing with that for so long. I knew people would struggle to hear the news, I knew that because I’d been there myself in that tangled place of joy, sorrow, envy and thankfulness. I know that I can’t help peoples reactions, I know that I am not responsible for others reactions and yet being aware of them stops me writing. Lets get this clear. Empathy is a good thing, over analysis and trying to make everyone happy is not such a good thing. One is loving, the other is, lets face it, a little bit over controlling.

I wrote recently about the joy in sharing in others adventures however different they are and in principle I’m totally all up for this, but I find it easier when I have to be the one dealing with loss, pain, envy etc. I always find it a bit easier to be the one struggling than the one who is perceived to have much. There is a dangerous appeal of identity in the pain. It is these emotions I am used to, these I know how to fight. When I’m given amazing gifts that I know others long for it’s a little bit harder to deal with.

I think I find this because it’s easy to buy into the lie that my former life was one of emptiness whilst this new world is one of fullness. The reality is that I had a very full life before husbandface came along, my 20s were brilliant years, I enjoyed deep fulfilling friendships and fought for contentment in the world. I wouldn’t change them for anything. When we started a relationship husbandface didn’t complete me, fill my empty world or any other strange lie the music industry would like to tell us. He’s wonderful and I deeply love and enjoy being married to him but it doesn’t stop loneliness, fear, rejection, envy or pride. (odd that) Our world before the possibility of a real live baby was not empty and is not now suddenly full. It’s just a differently shaped world. I do my friends a disservice when I assume because I have what they don’t that their world is empty and mine is full. They do themselves a disservice when they look at my world and think it’s full and theirs is empty. And yet that seems to be a big fat lie of the culture around us. I can’t stop friends going through painful times, I can’t control people’s reactions, I can only try to walk through this life with a generous heart, grateful for the presence of our wise kind Father in the midst of the joys and sorrows that our different adventures bring us, trusting that He will be enough for me and for those around me.

There, that was a nice roundabout, over anaylsing way of saying, I’m pregnant and we’re, all being well, going to have a baby at the end of October. This blog will pretty much stay as always on the rambling topic of faith in the midst of this crazy world and will probably include slightly more stories of how having a child affects that. But fear not, I’m not going to have a countdown clock to when the baby appears nor will I go on about my theories of parenting in a slightly militant style (I’d have to actually, you know, have some theories, for that to happen). I’ll save the parenting blogs for those who are actually good at it (Circus Queen being one if you are a parent out there, not militant at all and very helpful indeed) and who set their blogs up for that very purpose.

Your correspondent, slightly afraid that now this is out there in the public arena that everything will go wrong. Yep she’s one of those worrying mother types. Any advice on dealing with worry will be gratefully received.

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Am I the only one?

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Kath

This is going to be one of those posts in which I wonder once again… am I the only one?  Today I want to talk about that beast of all beasts, the telephone.  I usually think my incompetence and fear when it comes to using this device is another one of those proofs that I’ve never really grown up or become an adult. It just doesn’t seem a socially acceptable fear to have. I’ve hated the telephone as long as I can remember. The idea of phoning up someone you can’t see and having a conversation honestly makes me feel a bit sick. If I have to do it I’ll plan out in my head what I’m going to say, rehearse and procrastinate everything else in my life until I’ve made the call. Thoughts of the call will circle around my head until I’ve made it when I can get back to thinking about normal life like a sane person again. (this doesn’t count when dealing with close friends, I love talking to them on the phone, I can imagine their faces and know they’ll forgive any social awkwardness.)

Being in a job where I had to answer the phone and make phone calls to people helped my fears a little bit. I’ve managed to improve in answering the phone, after all, the ball is in the other person’s court and in my office I could always pass them onto someone else if I had no idea how to deal with them.  I also find it much easier answering as someone from a company/charity. It’s easier to have a line to say rather than my mumbled attempts at hello. I’d still rather not answer the phone to someone I know even if we have a great face to face relationship unless I know why they are phoning, I fear the awkward how are yous, the not knowing how long the conversation should last for, the lack of social etiquette to help us through this conversation. My face will turn red at fumbled awkward moments and I’ll have to walk around the house for a bit after the call trying to shake off the weirdness. I have issues. I know.

Phoning people is still a massive hurdle to overcome.  I have to work myself up to it, I have to wait until the office was clear, and then worry about it some more until the dreaded moment.  What makes the whole sorry debacle worse is when the person I’m trying to speak to is out- it delays the inevitable, and I have to go through the whole sweaty process again. Give me email any day, let me express myself to strangers in words and I’m happy.

I think I fear the phone so much because it gives so little. All I have is my rather strange voice and my fumbling words, the person can’t see my winsome smile or be amused by my body language, I can’t read the non-verbal signals they are giving telling me it’s ok to keep talking, or that they haven’t a clue what I’m talking about or that I need to repeat myself clearly as they are looking at me with an increasingly puzzled expression on their face. I hate the social awkwardness of the telephone, the not knowing whose turn it is to speak and the randomness of trying to work out how to engage with someone based on their voice, and my voice. I hate that sometimes people think I’m a man on the phone, that I can’t parade my obvious signs of being a woman.  I hate that if we have an awkward goodbye it will stay with me for hours afterwards, I’ll worry if I offended them or if their shortness with me was because of me or because they just saw a giant rabbit eating their plants and had to deal with it straightaway. There are no physical reassurances at the end of a phone call, no smiles to see, no clues to pick up on that all might not be ok with the other person. I’m getting better at this phone business slowly but it doesn’t get easier to phone up random people.

I know I’m a big wuss, my Mum battles with a stammer and has an excellent reason to hate the phone, I have none of that, just a red face, a whole pile of social awkwardness and maybe a love of actual physical face to face interaction.

Am I the only one?

Posted in Life on the journey | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Dear Diary… It’s been a while…

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Kath

We’ve been back from holiday for a week now and it really is high time I started this thing called writing again. As ever, to get back into the world of blogging, I feel like I have to write a post filling in the gaps. So it’s another dear diary post for me today.

We spent the Easter Holidays in Chicago enjoying the hospitality of our American family (it’s a long story but they pretty much adopted husbandface as an honorary son back when he was small and by default I got invited into the family when we got married). We had wonderful times hanging out with them, wandering around pretty places, eating amazing food and generally soaking up the joys of big city living in America. As ever it was fascinating noticing the differences in our cultures, in expressions of faith and the way we live our lives. It’s always tempting to think we are pretty similar but there are so many different ways we approach this thing called life.

This time I was struck once again by the continuing existence of the American Dream, despite all the battering of recession and hard times there is still a sense that you can achieve what you want to with your life, that hard work will pay off, that hope is a reality to infect today, that no-one is going to give you stuff for free so being an entrepreneur will pay off. It’s a good thing to try hard.

I’m sure it’s not like that for everyone but there does seem to be a bit more optimism around over the other side of the pond. Over here I think we’re tired and cynical. It’s easy to give up learning, growing or trying. We still feel the shame of the nerdy kid at school who knew all the answers and think that effort, learning and growth aren’t things to champion, it’s almost a bit too geeky to care about your job that you want to develop in it. If we are like that the best way is to play it cool. Husbandface is doing a masters at the moment and the general consensus of his colleagues is scorn, wondering why he would give up his Saturdays to think about teaching.

I know we’re into giant stereotyping world here but I sense this pull toward apathy and cynicism in my life, towards a fear of trying for what I might look like if I fail and a scorn for those more optimistic in this life. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m also sure that there are people over here who still have hope and who are up for making the most of this life, whose brains haven’t been dulled to death by spending all free time in front of the TV. It’s just that they seem harder to find.

Anyways, enough of pontificating with no real basis for my conclusions. What do you reckon? Have we lost the plot over here? Is there any hope left?

Whilst you have a think about that, here are some pretty sights we saw out there.

The view from the apartment, Chicago by night.

Don’t look down… At the top of the Willis Seers Tower on the skydeck with Meredith.

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Ebenezer’s

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Kath

Nope, not Mr Scrooge and not the guy named Eezer who is the main geezer and will vibe around the place like no other man could. (forgive my digression into early 90s pop, it was a strange time for us all).  I’m talking about the old school Ebenezer’s, from the Bible. Sparking off the last post about my need to remember God I happened to turn to the next bit of 1 Samuel that I’m ploughing through at the moment and found exactly what I was talking about. The Israelite nation has once more turned back to God, got rid of their idols and cried out to God. Thankfully Samuel is on hand to intercede for them and they get God’s help once more in trashing the Philistines. Immediately after the battle Samuel places an Ebenezer, a stone of help to remind everyone that God has won the battle, that God has helped them. You’d think that would be easy to remember but apparently not. They needed a massive big fat stone to go, hang on, wait, ah yes, God was the one who helped us.

I like the physical reminders of things, I like the idea of putting a really massive stone in the ground to remind everyone of what happened in battle. I’m wondering what Ebenezer’s there are in my life:

I have a box full of letters and cards sitting in my bedroom from friends over the last 13 or so years. It’s a box that tells a story the further you dig down into it and it reminds me of the good, bad and crazy times that God has brought me through over the years. It’s full of friends reminding me of God and it’s full of God reminding me of where we’ve come from.

In a drawer in my writing desk is a half finished scrap book, one of my many ambitious projects that has never quite been realised. (although one day I will make granola, I will) In it are pictures, ticket stubs and random bits from the last two years of marriage. In time I want it to become an Ebenezer book. I want to create more books we can look back through in years to come and know that the Lord has helped us thus far.

We have a blackboard in our kitchen full of what we will eat this week, things we need, pictures friends have drawn of themselves and I wonder whether it can serve as an Ebenezer, a reminder of the things of the Lord in this world as we eat our breakfast.

I have countless files on my computer, writings that will never make the light of day because they are full of wrestling encounters with God, times of struggle and as I look back over them I see the handprint of the One who has never given up on me. My Ebenezer’s are less made of stone and more of typefaces across a screen.

When I go to the Lake District I see mountains and valleys that are still there, I see the changes in me as I visit an unchanging landscape and as I live far from there I know that those rocks and crags remain, reminding me of the Creators never failing hand on this world and work in my life.

As I look around our flat I see objects and furniture that were gifts from others, tangible reminders of God’s grace. As I live in this flat I feel the weighty joy of gifts on our lives as we had no way of buying this without them.

I have two rings on one of my fingers on my left hand. These remind me of vows I took and another person I am part of. These remind me of the weird steps the Lord took to get us together, these remind me that I am part of a covenant. Remembering this points me to the deeper covenant we’re part of that makes sense of this earthly one and enables us to walk in it.

It turns out that Ebenezer’s are everywhere. I want to look deep and remember. I want to take note of the Lord’s help thus far. I am forgetful and small and need the physical tangible reminders of the presence of one so much bigger than I in my life each day.

What are yours?

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On remembering…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Kath

Is it possible to write a post about how I feel there is nothing to write about? This blog is meant to be a space for my creative reflections on life. I’m trying to think if I’ve had any for the last few weeks? Hmm. Most of my days have been spent trying to survive, trying to walk through each day and get to the end of it. Life has been very much about the moment recently and my head has had little space to be reflective or thoughtful about that. Which might be sending me a bit crazy. I want to free up my brain from it’s current occupation and set it free to think about the wider issues of life. It’s just that the immediate seems to take up the most space in my brain and living hour to hour, moment to moment is about all I can manage.

Some might say that’s a good thing, it’s after all in the present that we experience God, it’s in the present that he is alive and active and we can become aware of him. But I long for my brain to make the space for recognising that right now.  I long not to be all consumed by the immediate problems and issues of this present reality. I’m all for living in the moment if in that moment we have the space to remember who else is in the moment, that there is a another voice who speaks perspective and reality into the moment.

Remembering is active, left to my own devices I forget, I get caught up in my issues, my struggles, the only thing that is on my mind right now. Remembering forces me to place those things to one side for a moment so they can be picked up and looked at with fresh eyes. Remembering enables perspective to be restored. God really likes the whole remembering thing, he constantly puts reminders in the Israelites faces, stones are placed in significant places, special garments are worn and festivals are celebrated. Most of all, this side of the cross, we have a meal to remind us of the ultimate reality, that we are tied to this earth by bread and wine, by a body broken and poured out, by events that change everything.

I long to breathe in the habit of remembering. To not let the all consumingness of today rush me to the end of the day without having stopped at the feet of the one who knows about the stuff that runs around in my mind and who longs to shape it into not more consuming stuff but to give perspective on it, hope in the midst of it and a way to walk through it that enables me to keep on loving him and the people around me. How is this possible? Is this possible?

What helps you remember? What can help me remember?

Posted in Life on the journey | Tagged | 5 Comments