Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

Graciousness

I had a wonderful phone call with one of my Great Ones today.

I was reminded of the graciousness of God.

Gently nudged towards returning to the discipline of prayer and genuinely 'enjoyed' as a fellow pilgrim.

The conversation was worth hundreds of pills.

Little Boxes

I cannot get out of the study for boxes. 

 

Have just found my diaries and am having to be exceptionally disciplined not to sit down and read thm all cover to cover.

 

We're Off!

The menfolk are lugging huge bookcases across the courtyard and into The Sanctuary interspersed with boxes brimming with books.  It feels like we are moving house - laughter is in the air and some excitement as well as a degree of huffing and puffing (our son) and counting to 10 and tryng again with our son holding it this time!!! (my partner).  I love the way they are both distracted by possibilities;  Humphrey fancying a swim - sends both my partner and Newf off to the sea for a few minutes; a quick 'round' of computer game, roll on the drums and run, jump and scream down the hall from our son.  The photos of Humph are beautiful - and as I fill the hall with boxes our son is learning a new skill - the high-long jump.

 

The news suggests that all our careful plans at recycling are ending in landfill anyway!  Just NIMBY.  When we will learn not to exploit our neighbours and the finite resources of the planet.

 

I was looking up very old friends of my parents on the web last night.  One thing I would like to do is to get to know a little about my father through other adult eyes outside the family.  He died before we were able to relate as adults to one another - which probably explains that with one, very notable and precious exception, I have always had a distinct attraction to the older man (actually even he is a tiny bit older)!

 

Amazingly I discovered that the husband of a great friend of my fathers - one of his favourite acts in Blackpool died - last July.  I read his obituary in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent.  I think, on reflection, The Independent's obituary was the best.   However it renewed the urge to go and see a person I used to delight in sitting in her dressing room, watching her put her slap on ready for the matinee or evening performance.  She was always the same - and my recollection is that she and my father had a warm friendship.

 

Back to more books - separating the sell on e-bay from the ones I love...

Actually that's a very good way of looking at life.

Born to Be Wild

First day of the year and we still have a fierce frost which has clung to the landscape for several days sometimes with hours of very atmosperic fog giving us a sense that we are completely cocooned, unable to see the nearest houses just a third of a mile away or the Black Isle four miles across the water.  Strangely comforting - like a macro duvet day!

 

The men folk have been beavering away in the library moving a LOT of books over to The Sanctuary.  The Library will become my son and my music room.  I haven't taken music seriously for years - but after a recent inspirational letter from an old school frined I felt a sudden sense of loss.  I gave up performing as a singer and folk musician pretty much as I was ordained.  I was given some advice - can't remember who it was - although I have a suspicion - that as I was to be ordained - now was the moment to move into ministry as my vocation; my life; my duty and at times with a sacrificial heart in the service of others.  Silly advice and left me as half a person during the early years of ministry, trying to please and live up to unhealthy expectations of myself.  I used to be a bit of a religious sentimentalist.  Not even a vocation loves you back - it can lead to a certain rigidity and judgementalness which is lost by being ourselves in service; not killing ourselves with some delusion that only we can do this thing.

 

I have spent many an academic year nurturing those preparing for ministry in the very serious agenda of self care and the theological roots of pastoral care and reflection - in a sense redressing my own hideous mistakes!  Looking back I wish I had attended some of my own classes as an Ordinand!!!!

 

So - an early passion is being revisited.  I have sore pads on my left fingers from picking up a guitar yesterday - but I won't have missed for the world the jamming session with my son on keyboard.  He has an excellent ear.  Today he has ransacked the vestry in the chapel and brought over the drum kit we bought him when he was about 7 to try and help him have something safe to relieve his frustration on!  He has returned from school this holiday able to play quite well, and I have been listening to him drumming alone with us both singing at the tops of our voices Born to Be Wild!!!

 

Saw the New Year in with Maestro Jools Holland.  I am in love with Annie Lennox - an inspiration.  We had watched Mama Mia! and I guess I am the only person on the planet who thought it was seriously rubbish - not even inspiring arrangements - it was a parody of what was already a parody.  Meryl Streep does her best with poor dialogue (I hope the dosh was worth it) and Julie Walters (I adore - and had just finished her biography earlier in the day - which is an OK read - do borrow mine) seemed to be simply making up the numbers.  It must be a national hysterical response to the credit crunch or some such.

 

Back to packing boxes...