UnawareJune 8, 2015
Yesterday was switch off Sunday. It was a CMS community thing, and to be honest that’s the reason I took part. Switching off is awkward for a household whose life is pretty much fed and watered by the internet, just 10 days after a 3 day internet blackout made the date mildly ironic. Yet, though our attempt was somewhat half-hearted, it did make me think and consider how much energy and stuff we waste.
For me, switching off meant I didn’t get the washing done, didn’t use my computer and tried not to use my other electronic devices. While Facebook and my Sunday quiet time ritual may have missed out other things benefited. We sat together for a lovely home cooked meal, enjoyed fresh produce from the market and store on our doorstep, and played games and puzzles which stretched our minds and left graphite dust across the table.
I had only really planned one activity and that was to finish stitching Adam’s t-shirt. Waste is a huge environmental issue and some baby clothes are so easy to re-purpose. We have loads of long sleeve baby-grows that are ending their life but only a couple of t-shirts which are so useful to put on when bouncing around the house in a fabric nappy. Cue scissors, a garbled prayer of thanks for non-fray fabric, and viola! OK, I’m not gong to win any fashion awards, especially as the cut line isn’t even that straight, but it lives another few weeks and helps save a few pennies along the way.
We throw away so much, recycling is in it’s infancy here and the garbage pile on the outskirts of town has begun to tower in the last few years. I’ve never been very passionate about environmental causes but I do believe we are called to care for, rather than destroy, our world, and frankly it’s much easier to do the latter. While recycling struggles others aspects thrive. Many people here grow their own, markets are big, produce seasonal and if it can be re-sold it probably is going to be. Serbia is the first place I’ve actually found one of those service centres where they mend your appliance under warranty, the city is full of them, real places you can go into to replace the handle or half a set of whisks. It may sometime require extra effort, but there is a beauty in knowing your trash can is a little emptier and that mountain may grow just a touch slower. Plus there is always the sobering thought – just because I’m not an eco warrior doesn’t mean Adam won’t be.
Celebrating the childJune 5, 2015
The dawning of June is the time our city really celebrates being young. May bid farewell with Baby Exit – a kids version of the city’s major festival. The fortress boasts mini stages where judo meets ballet and various other costumed groups perform for parents and passers-by alike. Fire trucks open their door and hand over helmets for pictures while policemen turn performers. Amidst tables of kids drawing, sweetie stalls and fair rides the usually subdued fortress buzzes.
Skip forward a few days and into June proper and the action moves down into the city centre. Substantial set-up’s dominate the city square where street art, men in costumes and fine dance vie for attention. The main street is a slalom of helium balloons, street entertainment and outdoor speakers. Candy-floss and the more permanent popcorn stands fragrance the air as proud parents tweak costumes or coax their young ones to interact with the free events.
The young are valued, their innocence precious, their enthusiasm infectious, and their energy seemingly boundless. It is no surprise to me that Jesus chose these as examples of how our faith should be. Their power is just as much potential as realised, their imagination not shackled by preconceived realities and their footing confident yet so fragile. Oh that our faith could be so, to daily see heaven on earth and yet the greater heaven to come, to throw out the limitations we have placed and instead believe that our faith can really move mountains, to walk confidently into each challenge we meet, knowing their will be a cost but not counting it. All our doctrine, all our legality, our arguments and schism pale in the face of a child – and at our core we really are just children of a heavenly father who loves us, brothers and sisters squabbling but bound by blood, insecure infants loved beyond any understanding.
Divine MomentMay 27, 2015
God is here, right now, and I know that, I do… but sometimes the veil parts, sometimes he’s almost tangible, and those moments have been rare of late.
The other weekend I went to my first Serbian Catholic wedding. I stood amongst the family in the cathedral, I saw the customary stole and alb, followed the service that was so familiar though completely over my head. Whispers told me the priest had married the parents and baptised the bride. Unprompted amen’s showed the church natives scattered amongst those gathered. The old walls rang with the clarity of the younger priest’s voice and then the powerful trembling of the older priest’s anthem. And in the almost deafening sound of the final prayer I closed my eyes and felt the wind atop the mountain, the spirit of the Great I AM reverberating my bones, the ghost of passing generations inside those stone walls.
Church is such a beautiful thing in it’s gathering, it’s such a powerful presence even to those who pay it mere lip service. If I’m to be honest, then Serbian weddings are not the place I really expect to meet God. While there are echo’s of the divine in the sacred act and the places of devotion, they are deep and subtle, overpowered by the deafening music of the reception and abandoning of etiquette to circling up in drink fed dance. So such a powerful moment swept me off my feet temporarily. It made me look afresh at the place I was in, long again for fresh spiritual nourishment, highlight my lamp burning low and show my oil jug dangerously empty.
It prompted me to move, to seek out teaching and create myself a scheduled moment. I tried it out last Sunday while friends watched Adam and rain pounded the streets. Little did I know that rain would cut us off from work for 3 days, temporarily strand our friends, issue the first level of flood warnings. Thrown out of kilter that short deliberate time replayed in my mind and sustained me, engaged me, and challenged me onwards. How this emerging ‘moment’ will develop is something I now very much look forward to.