A trail unseen (follow)March 24, 2017
When I first heard I would be going to Serbia I travelled up to Nottingham to meet a woman who had some a similar trip some five years before. If memory serves she had stayed in the house of a local minister and her experience had been fostered in that communion of a church family. The effect the trip had taken on her was clearly visible and while it gave me some broad brushstrokes for my preparation prayers, the realisation, even at that time, was that my visit would be immeasurably different. I left with clear knowledge that this encounter would provide me with no road-map for my travels.
It’s a simple desire with many who travel to wish for a road-map in advance, and the longer you spend living between cultures the more you realise the simultaneous futility and terrible need for one to be given. For many on mission trips the road-map is presented, to some extent at least, within the organisation they go to serve within. For others, the mission itself is undefined, to draw a map or simply traverse the land. We imagine this trail unseen, undiscovered, not yet laden with footprints, not yet cleared with human traffic. We paint ourselves explorers lead by God’s great call, when in reality we are stumbling forward hoping God will use wherever we land.
In the the messy daily gritty-ness of living we can find ourselves aching for the guidance a road map may bring, a need to feel in some way routed and not totally clueless on where we should be going. On basic level it’s a control craving, to live with more certainty and less reliance on that faith that got us here in the first place.
As I follow my saviour on the long 40 day Lenten journey to the cross I simultaneously walk a pathway well worn, with smooth stones and prayers untold held in the memory of every speck of dust, while continuing on the pathway of everyday which seems to hold no fixed destination nor plot any course. The two hold each up upright, the certainty and the security of one breathe stability and flexibility in the other. It is only through trusting faith we can slowly become less about pursuing the way forward through the undergrowth and more about following the sound of that faint whisper, searching it out.
I know even as I move that my path is not direct, my route not efficient, rather it is like a child’s innocent dance – it swirls and falters and it’s elegance is equally clumsy. I move littering the ground as I pass with echo’s of my presence. Easily I fall pray to relying on my own council, my own image of the divine becomes both a comfort blanket and justification for stomping over the ground with such bad grace. I may snap twigs and trample undergrowth, weaken bridges or clear pathways, I may cause ripples of conversations and interrupt others. But the call beckons me to keep on towards a light, a whisper, a radiance of power that words can not contain. I follow those dusty sandals that lead me up Golgotha’s hill, those ancient words that open up wells that quench thirsty souls, than indescribable that calls me to come. Perhaps my trail may never be a pathway for another soul but really that was never the point, perhaps I’ll turn round to realise that as I followed I lost my own way completely without even realising it.
Linking up with Velvet Ashes where the theme this week is “Follow”
heart-worn and refinedFebruary 26, 2017
February seems to be redefining my word of the year – Invest.
When I thought about ‘Investing’ at the beginning of the year it was much more about getting my house in order, about being in the moment and cutting back on the dross that filled my time so I could refine my efforts into less pursuits. But on this journey I’ve found that the thing in greatest need of investment is me. I need to invest in the building bricks of who I am and what I believe and who influences my choices, what I give and what I take in.
The daily discipline of listening to either pray-as-you-go or watching a sermon has been inconvenient and yet hugely rewarding. Rather than push ahead it’s really drawn me to look in every other direction first. To look outwards, outwards at the people I’ve neglected to be a great friend to, outwards at the people waiting to be befriended. Outwards at the church I could be a part of and how that part may fit or fail. This has translated not just to my prayer time but in time to exercise, meals to plan and people I connect with.
But mostly this looking has lead me to reconsider how I look back, both at the history of the faith and my own years. Scripture suddenly seems more gritty than it has for some time, it’s events being told and retold through a prism of words. The idea that my own history is just a draft version, and the final piece can still be tweaked is a notion that’s rather empowering. If history is indeed ‘written by the victors’ then as private and personal authors we can rewrite, not the events but the voice and emphasis with which they are told. As I approach a decade since I was the youth-worker that so defined me, I’m redefining my identity and letting it be shaped, both physical and spiritual. Those failures of the past become lessons upon which to glean wisdom, those adversaries can be seen as misunderstood and misconstrued and painted as fallen opportunities to connect with our brothers, those working out of faith can be detours from the pathway or daring shortcuts through reliance on God’s provision. Our names can be refined from the childish self descriptors or the practical labels into the heart-worn and refined titles of our character.
And this changes what we expect of ourselves. Practically, by allowing motherhood to be a more primary definer tot-school takes president over JWL for a few weeks without the guilt. I worried that the JWL requests and support would dry up, but quite to the contrary both donations and requests are flying in. In particular translation projects for multiple languages and alternative means of doing this seem to be bouncing about. Meanwhile the tot-school packs are getting the chance to bless others around God’s wonderful globe.
And prayer stands as the anchor. The thick tread of steel in the fine fabric that weaves through my days.
The goggle boxFebruary 8, 2017
I’ve noticed a pattern, it’s a sad one and one I’d vowed I’d never fall prey to, but alas I have a kid that totally over-consumes on screen time. In some senses it’s not really surprising. We have more screens per room in this place than we had in the whole house during my childhood. I’ve got the 2 year old who can exit a kids app and happily navigate youtube alone if unchecked. It’s something we are clamping down on.
I’ve always been terrible with screens myself, I feel them suck me in like a huge vortex and all other activity fades. I apparently goggle quite badly and can’t multitask while they are blaring, even silent screens will result in lost conversations. I’m not sure why they are quite so potent to me but it’s not surprising that Adam seems to suffer similarly.
Screens are like the prayer life I’d love to have. That all adsorbing focus, irrespective of time or distraction. It’s been too long since I got ‘lost’ in prayer. I found myself time wasting the other day as I waited for sleep to claim the little man on the other side of the room. I read correspondence, saw the headlines and peered down the rabbit hole of social media until I found my eyes close from frustration and the thought of prayer came. The shame came too, for prayer shouldn’t be a last response for the bored, the forgotten task you left unchecked on your list.
There have been times in the past when prayer was a delight, a refuge and a divine embrace when life seemed too huge. But not lately. Recently my prayer life has been like a long distance phone call, a mix of highlights and pleads, frustrations and forgotten thanks. And really that’s not all bad, sometimes we don’t need a God who is our BFF, prep talk, and crutch. Sometimes. Other times we need to feel that almost tangible hug, that connection you only get after you’ve got past all the small talk, past all the niggles and fleeting affairs, onto the deep stuff. While my prayer life of late has not been absent, it’s not been celebrated or treasured either.
One way I’m combating this is to restart my love affair with the pray as you go daily recordings. I discovered these when I first came to Serbia and they have been ebbing and flowing since, arriving gently and slipping off silently when other activities drown them out. I’ve also discovered that I’m best praying for others, praying over situations conveyed through the webs of murmur and sighs of help. While it’s great to finally be the friend who genuinely prays when she exclaims she will, it’s also not so healthy for my own relationship with the divine to be always turning up with an outside agenda. So I’m going to start writing to God again, pick up my pen and scribble lines, correspondence that is never as one way as it first appears. Hopefully I’ll fill you in on the journey.
Photo Source : Unsplash – Pawel Kadysz