All for a bunch of DaffodilsMarch 12, 2016
I saw them selling daffodils, huddled behind a bucket of posies, out in the gathering dusk on the Saturday evening. The yellow heads bobbed their strangely distinctive shapes, flooding my memory with images of Mothering Sunday. “Buy me some daffodils” I murmured, buy me some daffodils for tomorrow is mothers day. It wasn’t, I was a week early, it didn’t matter, nobody celebrates it here anyway. It was my right of passage though, it was my honour to be honoured, it was something I’d delighted in as a child, squirmed over as a teen, endured as a childless adult. I stopped the party and had them buy me daffodils.
Part of the joys of living in a different country is getting to share in their celebrations, but part of the sorrow is sometimes needing to let go of your own. We have a wonderful opportunity as parents to chose which celebrations we will encourage our child to join in with, which celebrations our foreign status will allow us to downplay and which we will ‘import’ with us. This chance to really asses the events you have always taken as given is a great eye opener.
For the first few years I imported the delight of bonfire night. I told the story of a failed explosion and watched the murky autumn air fill with vivid colour. It was a physical marker of autumn for me that I had adored, but as time passes I’m less eager to continue. As time passes the defence for keeping a tradition can easily erode. Easter and Christmas traditions stand firmer in my head, but Mothering Sunday simply wasn’t on the radar until recently. Locally March 8th (International Women’s day) is like valentines and mothers day rolled into one. This year the real date for mothering Sunday was only 2 days different, I foresee this celebration being one I need to let go.
If I’m totally honest with myself part of me is glad. While the celebration is a great thing it’s not without it’s bitterness. I’ve stood amongst the barren and bereaved, I’ve held the hands of those who never found a partner and seen the uncomfortable hesitation on faces that don’t know if they should be giving flowers. I’ve seen the faces of youngsters vie over their better gifts and mothers boast over receiving them. Yes it’s their honour, yes it’s their pride, but pride goes both ways. If I’m totally honest with myself I’d prefer tulips or roses but I suppose that’s besides the point!
EnoughMarch 5, 2016
It’s been one of ‘those’ seasons of late. Life has blown up a storm, wind whipped and cowering under the latest wave I couldn’t bear to see if it was tidal or just a ripple, it would knock me down either way. I kept telling myself it was a season, nursing my aching soul with tasks that should sooth it’s woes, building environments that would be fertile for my sapling to bloom in, leaning into routines that kept me ploughing forward through the waves rather than allowing myself to drown under them. I’ve been here before, days when emotions seem disconnected to actions, productive days, lonely days.
It was an evening when I felt more than exhausted by life that I left for a short wander in the drizzle. Occupied my weary body with nothing more demanding than placing one foot before the other. Opened my mouth to whisper into the gloom the words that would not stop their conversation in my head. Heard them speak and let them go.
I told my maker about my joys and fears, I described in intimate detail the heavy yoke that was holding me down, the uncertainty, the sacrifice, the failed expectation.
I left nothing out, furiously moving my lips to detail every scratch and blemish and hue. In the gap that expelling all these weights sat the word I’d chosen for the year, to ‘appreciate’. Like a hidden sin exposed, it hurt to examine from this angle, offended me as if mocking my woes.
Was it not enough that I had shouldered the burden, was it not enough I’d given, enough I’d taken, enough I’d paid already. That I should appreciate this weight seemed cruel. How much more could he possibly be demanding, how much more would be piled upon me. Then the voice changed: I have offered to carry the load with you. The road may be rough but I am here, I am your staff and your travelling companion. I have already paid The price, I have. I have given enough, and more than enough already. Dwell in that, that more than enough. And the voice stopped. The silence wrapped me like a comforter, rooting me to the spot and retuning me the creeping cold, half light and quiet road.
With straightened shoulders I picked up the yoke inscribed with my name, felt the shift as he shared the load and started to move. It was a short walk back to the warmth of home. A short walk repeating the line, “He has given enough, more than enough, already”. The problems were still there, the uncertainty still raw, the loss still chaffed and the numbness still present… but the wave was now harmless, the storm fizzled, the deep valley no longer as shrouded. As the weight settled I recognised that ‘enough’ was what I had, ‘enough’ was my blessing, ‘enough’ was part and parcel of this heavy weight, ‘enough’ was the skills to carry and to flourish, ‘enough’ was what I could give or take, because ‘more than enough’ was walking besides me. Appreciating the hard times is a bitter lesson, cruel indeed but laced with mercy and grace.
Linking up with Velvet Ashes where the theme this week is “Yoke”
The big screenFebruary 20, 2016
It’s not extravagant
but we didn’t need it
but people think we are strange for not having one
but we have other things we use instead
but alternatives do have their limitations
but our bank account is, in part at least, filled by donations
but it would be nice…
and it’s not extravagant
That’s the conversation that circled my head for months, ney years. It’s a conversation that I’m sure many whose lives are funded, even in part, by generosity rather than companies have had millions of times. It’s the uncertainty between funding items you need and items you want. It’s why church leaders with expensive cars set alarm bells off in our heads, it’s the thin line between provide and squander.
We’d looked and dreamed and placed our dreams away again so many times.
Did we always need to agonise like this? Where is the line drawn, how do you mark the sand and feel confident the wind will not shift it into unacceptability? How do you separate the reward for your work, your tent-making and you mission? How do you deem something an ordinary need rather than an unnecessary splurge?
For us the conversation rotated round one item, an object that you will find in almost any house you enter, a television. When we first married we lived in a borrowed flat with a TV, since moving out, approaching 4 years ago, we’ve made do with tv through Zeljko’s computer, using catch-up and streaming services. Apart from the news and international sports events, it almost became a boast that there wasn’t one in our house. Time was not squandered channel hopping and wasted hours carved of advert breaks were not part of our lives. Then Adam ended up watching his beloved ‘Bing Bunny’ on my little tablet because Zeljko was working, and touch screens and toddlers…need I say more. So, with a wall bracket at shoulder level the new tv sits on the wall. The voice that told me it wasn’t extravagant won.
As mission turns from temporary into permanent your needs evolve, it’s a natural but challenging experience. Many people on mission live knowing there is an end date in sight, it flavours their friendships, peppers their conversations and fuels their drive forwards.
Living in a state of temporary is unhealthy for so many reasons, and yet we passivly, if not actively, encourage our oversees volunteers to do just that.
While having an end date can be useful it can also be really harmful, especially when it comes to building a home. We berate missionaries who indulge luxuries, pennies must be accounted for and generous blessings eked out as far as possible. For short-term-ers this is logical, why would they invest in objects they can’t bring back, why can’t they do without and bask in the luxury of homes normality when they return. But long-term-ers know the return is so far away, if it’s ever coming. They need the ordinary ‘luxuries’ to build their present ‘home reality’, just as much anyone else needs theirs. Shouldn’t keeping them in check, at a relevant level for the community you are in, and generally being frugal be all that’s should be demanded?