Hungry for encouragement

I'm not one for New Years resolutions. I don't think a New Year allows you to suddenly do things you couldn't do before, like in November. But I think that there are certain times when you are able to suddenly break through problems that have plagued you. There are sacred spaces, thresholds that arise where you are able to move forward. These threshold places are usually preceded by dry desert experiences, where nothing moves. Where, despite your best efforts, nothing wants to go your way. After expending tons of energy you end up sitting, exhausted, waiting for 'the next thing' to turn up. It seems to me we often need to come to the end of our current self to be able to cross a threshold to new growth.

I have noticed as I emerge out of a desert season into a time of new opportunities how much people are starved of encouragement in our culture. In a society where our worth is measured in our economic production skills I think we are desperate to know that we matter, just because we exist. In an atmosphere of intense competition for jobs, status and even a life partner there are many who are feeling the strain in their soul. I have realised that in our busyness we often don't take time to appreciate the good in others, or if we do, we don't tell them.

As I enjoy this new season of my life I want to encourage those who are still sitting in the desert. I want my friends and family to know what I appreciate about them. That they have many qualities that  I think are awesome, that I really value them. My parents and relatives are getting older. I want them to know this before they pass away, and not just deliver a nice speech at a funeral where they can't hear it. May we all be blessed with the ability to encourage each other more, to stand up against the cultural view that we are only cogs in an economic machine. And may we do it before its too late.

The Christmas grinch

Usually I'm the Christmas fairy, baking up a storm, playing the music, planning the big dinner. But this year I just feel flat and permanently annoyed. The lights on the Christmas tree broke and I don't care. I haven't driven around to see the Christmas lights like we always do. I have only half planned the Christmas meal and we are three days away from the big day. The Christmas carols have stayed off the CD player.

I think the reason why is this is our first Christmas in a new town. And I feel lonely. I was really looking forward to my mom coming to join us for Christmas and showing her around but she pulled out this week, instead deciding to spend Christmas Day with my aunty. So it will just be my husband and the kids for the big day. No pre Christmas dinner with my dad and stepmom. No Christmas Day present opening and dinner with my mom, sister and brother in law. No light trail around all the places I know and love.

This all came home to me when I went to my daughters end of year prize giving and realized that in that large hall I didn't know a single person. I have been weeks now where I haven't seen anyone I know. In my old town I would see people I know where ever I went. At the grocery store, on the school pick up run, at the mall, in church. Little conversations here and there, a coffee with a friend, a walk with my mom or a drop round call from my sister who lived around the corner. But in a new place there in no daily connection. I feel grumpy and sad and angry. I am missing family and familiarity, not to mention sunny weather!

My mother wrote in her text to tell me that she wasn't coming "spend the day with your new friends". Hello Mom! The 3 new friends we have made will be spending Christmas with their own families.

So this year it's bah humbug to Christmas. Here's hoping for better luck next year.

Lemon faith

I like lemons and limes. I like the smell particularly, it's a get-up-and-go kind of smell. I like home made lemonade, lemon kurd, lemon cheese cake and lemon lime and bitters to drink.

However when I talk about lemon faith I am not referring to the fruit. I am thinking of it in the context of a lemon car, like on the movie "Cars 2". All the old cars who were beat up and dusty were referred to as lemons.

Spiritual faith is often like a car. It starts off new and shiny and doesn't need much maintance. However as the road goes on and we drive for a few years the car starts to age. It gets dents, it starts to rust, things begin to get blocked up or fall off. The car may even be in a major accident and require extensive repair. After 20 or so years a car will have a lot of parts that have been replaced.

In the past few years I have felt like my faith has been quite lemony. Bits of it has fallen off to be replaced by other bits, some bits haven't been replaced at all, just left empty. It seems to creak along, frequently getting bogged down in the mud.

I like to write out my wondering thoughts, my musings on faith, spirituality, parenthood, anthropology and other stuff that I am pondering. So here's to having faith like a lemon, may it refresh and be refreshing.

Because it's awesome.

The power of Mr Mandela

I once met a man when I was working in a bookstore who wanted me to show him the biography section. In 18 years of working in retail I only remember a few individual customers and he was one of them. The reason I remember him was because he was so rude and aggressive. He was an older South African man. As he scanned the titles he pulled out the biography of Nelson Mandela, 'that man is a terrorist, a %$#@*()&% terrorist, he ruined our country' and on and on he went. I was taken back, I didn't know what to say in the face of such obvious hatred, so I said 'and here is the history section'.

In retrospect I can understand why the man was so full of aggression. He grew up in an era where he was taught and believed certain things and that all took a radical change. The world that he grew up in was no longer in existence and he couldn't bring himself to change with it, so he felt forced to leave to his country, although he probably didn't want to. His response to these changes was hurt, bitterness and profound anger. It poisoned the air around him. I was only with him for 15 minutes and he was a total stranger but his presence sucked any positivity out of me. I felt sorry for anyone who had to live with him.

Nelson Mandela was the total opposite of this man. He was not even part of the privileged majority, like the man I served in the bookshop. He spent 27 years in prison. Hard manual labour, beatings, torture, degradation, separation from loved ones, never knowing if he would get out. And yet out of that came a totally different attitude than my angry customer. One of reconciliation, one of forgiveness, one of humility. Someone who sang the national anthem of his oppressors, who set up reconciliation committees rather than sending his captors to deserved punishment. Who surely saved hundreds of lives by managing to avoid civil war and changing to a type of democracy that was the total opposite of the previous kind, that is a modern day miracle.

In the face of this type of forgiveness the world is stunned. We don't know what do with this type of person except to revere them, because we know that if it was us in that prison and we were let out we do not have the inner reserves to be like Nelson Mandela. That is what made him such an unusual person, he actually had the character so many of us would like to have. That is why we will miss him so much, we know there are so few like him, someone who brought a glimpse of divine compassion to earth.