Restarting wiserJanuary 3, 2016

Over the last year I’ve become a fan of Velvet Ashes, It’s a site, a community, for women scattered across the globe, people who have called themselves missionaries, who still call themselves by that name, those about to dive into the water and those long dry from the swim. Velvet ashes has a weekly theme, and this week it’s Eden.

Eden is a beautiful but painful parable. A story of divine perfection and absolute communion that was ultimately wrecked irrevocably. It’s a story of innocence, the baby steps of the bible. It’s a souls longing to return to the time of simplicity, a time when we could wander alongside our maker, skimming stones and marvelling at flowers, where our creativity could bloom as we name the creatures and explore our new world. But Eden’s perfection is so limiting in my eyes. Eden was before the heavenly choirs of Christmas, before Easter darkness and blinding light, before our beautiful, complex and awe inspiring relationship with our maker expanded and grew. It’s naivety was easily tricked, it’s knowledge limited and community tiny and hence fragile. Eden is a story of both wonder and woe. We could never return to Eden without forgoing the story thus far.

As a new year dawns we once again come to it’s Eden, it’s beginning, it’s shiny new blank diary pages and well intentioned resolutions. Beginnings for us mean flights. We landed last night shortly after the snow started, passing gritting lorries along dark roads where heightened headlights reflected snow flurries blinding our way. Outside the crisp whiteness deepened during the day, leaving a blank slate of possibilities and restrictions. Inside we turned up the gas and unpacked into our little Eden, guarded not by cherubim but solid walls.

But our Eden is not our weakness, for our Eden was opened up, opened by a neighbours unbidden kindness to clear our pathways, open by the technology that links our world to others. Our years start is not riddled with first discovery but with knowledge we can build upon, the innocence we retain is more precious for we know how easily it is lost, how protected it must be. We may have wiped the slate clean, reset the books, written our goals up high on the wall, but we do so in community with man and God, aware of the blessings we have been given and the responsibility they carry. Our hearts will always long for something of that lost Eden, but by man’s adventures beyond, by his stumbling we have discovered so much. Perhaps that’s why Eden is a limiting a story to me, for the adventure only really begins when God asks man to ‘go’.

The social barometer of Novi SadDecember 9, 2015

We live next door to the most clear indication of the cities affluence, Nijlon Market. We are sandwiched between the ‘city proper’ hemmed by the canal, and the poorer Klisa, butted alongside a Roma settlement. Klisa feels suburban, it’s lack of high-rise and tree lined streets betray the three family homes with eeked out wage packets. As you pass along the main road out of the city the tarmac becomes the line between klisa and the Roma settlement. Roma, or Gipsies as so many call them, have their own sub society there. Affluence is present but poverty purveys, as crudely constructed vehicles with either bikes or horses move around huge mounds of items worth mere pennies. But before all of this is a large open space, it’s tarmac about 3 hectares, filled with sellers 3 days a week for the largest of the cities open markets.

Upon a damp and drizzly day there will still be life here, but when the sun shines the atmosphere buzzes. Men selling drinks and plastic bags drag carts through the crowds, while sellers, who have sometimes camped all night, flog every item under the sun. The majority, by far, are selling mounds of clothes. Blankets spread across the ground roughly protect garments piled high, as potential customers stoop to rummage for their treasures. The larger sellers simply assign one price to any item. This is where the ‘good will’ clothes end up. Most from mainland Europe they arrive in huge canvas holdalls to be sorted into large garbage type sacks and sold as job lots. Eventually they are tipped out, perhaps laundered and start their circular journey round their owners before sitting wearily in the landfill.

Thrifters and the penny-pinchers scour the stalls alongside those whose meagre wardrobes originated there. Others, even with their poverty, will not dawn the gateway unless pushed by dire need. When the city is doing well the market humms quietly, but when the purse strings pull the crowd surges. Lately it’s surged again, a very physical and tangible tell that a hard winter is in-store. We’ve noticed it grow, noticed the subtle hints, the drop in new items and rise of pitiful prices.

So Friday will come and the long weekend of the market will begin again, we are sure to spend some time wandering it’s wares and browsing it’s offerings. We will fill our bags again with the fresh produce, perhaps peruse the furniture or try not to lust after the beautifully woven wicker baskets… no that’s just me. Our feet will mingle with the cheaply shod toes of children and weary bones of those whose retirement gave little rest, the women with perfect manicures and the women whose silhouettes tell of poor nourishment. Amongst the tools men with greasy fingernails will display every screw and bit size imaginable, while others will sell things that once whirled and buzzed but hold no guarantee of doing so again. As we move, we’ll notice the crowds, hope for good weather for the sellers and sigh at the swell.

It’s hidden in it’s place, looked down on as junk, but it’s the most accurate reading of the city I’ve found. While it’s lovely to feel the buzz it’s like watching the final act, the crowd surges and cheers all the harder for they know the music is about to fade.