Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

Slence; At Work

It is an absolute joy to have the energy (at least some of the time!) to be taking bookings for The Sanctuary once more and begin to schedule my life into some kind of pattern.  The Bohemian in me detests routine in quite a violently adolescent kind of a way - and yet I am the first to recognise that I - probably above many - actually thrive on structure. 

Left to my own devices without a timetable - precious little gets done.  Once a timetable is in place I am pretty conscientous about following it.  I like to see the rewards of a morning well spent - so - I now have my timetable.

Humphrey is free running for short walks inbetween lead work - and is swimming!  He loves the sea and looks a little like an otter as he doggy paddles away.  We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a bitch Newfoundland pup in the late Autumn (favoured name at the moment - Constance - Connie for short).  We are on the waiting list.  Humphrey is such a charming temperament we are very much hoping that if he passes all the relevant heart and other checks he will be released by his breeder for mating.  We are very fortunate to have found out that the kennel that provided Humphrey's Dad for the mating with his mum is due a litter of black pups at the beginning of September.  None of them are directly related to Humphrey - so this would be a good place to get a puppy from.  Apparently we have to mate with a black bitch if we have a brown dog - so apart from a few seasons when my partner will have to take Humphrey away while a young bitch learns to become a woman(!)  It might be possible with the relevant endorsements lifted to breed! 

A friend has bought a Newfie bitch pup too - so I am hopeful that she and Humph' can also have puppies - and if not puppies - then at least be playmates.  Humph is a few months older - so when she's a little older I must have a Newfoundland 'Teddy Bears Picnic'!

Back to work...  What a great ring that has to it.

Out of the Blue

Dido's death last week has left a huge whole in our family.  The other dogs are doing very well - but they have missed her too.  We are hoping to get another puppy in the Autumn.  The 'boys' need the civilising influence of a female about the place!  We are on the waiting list for another Newfie.  If all goes well and the relevant breeders are happy to remove the relevant endorsements, we may well breed.  It would be a wonderful new interest - and something I would enjoy hugely.  I do like nurturing new life.

Out of the blue a property has come up which might work as a community base.  It is over on the West Coast and includes a manse and a former free church on the shore of a loch.  We are going over on Thursday to take a look.  We will probably stay overnight in the caravan to give us time to get a sense of the village community.

It is good to be thinking again about community and what it might mean.  Encouraging.

I feel very blessed that opportunities are appearing and that I have the chance to explore all kinds of creative possibilities.  It is good to feel well too.  I am not back to my old habits with regard to regular meditation yet - but I am enjoying relaxation exercises at the beginning and end of my day.

As I write a thunderstorm is gathering and the occasional crack can be heard.  The weather is more like April than August!  Humphrey looks fascinated and is bobbling his head to and fro.

Lines in the Sand

The weather has been stunning and I have taken to meditating out on the decking by our bedroom door.  Even with my limited sight, the sounds, smells and warmth have been very powerful and life-affirming.

Our son has been home and has helped progress the cutting down of the Leylandi.  But. in amongst his helpful periods, he has left enough messages sublimally to help us realise he is going through a tough period right now.  I think it is harder than ever to be a teenager these days.  Our young are exposed to so much that it is little surprise that they find it almost impossible to decipher what is and isn't acceptable or life-enhancing behaviour.  Without any clear filters through which to assess all that is thrown at them, I suspect many adolescents spend vast amounts of time very frightened at the deepest level.  Carrying a knife is more about fear and an inability to make sense of situations in a safe, non-confrontational way than it is about bravado.

I wonder what the most helpful response is to the challenges facing our children.  Clearly protecting them or judging them are both equally counter-productive.  Perhaps all we can do is to show as clearly as possible how we cope - without thrusting our value systems down their throats; maybe all we can do is listen and encourage them to trust their instinct and judgement.  Maybe all we can do is to be effective boundary keepers - drawing the line in the sand which it is advisable not to cross.  We then have to stand back and, now and again, watch them deliberately rub the line out, kick the sand up behind them and march off into the middle distance!  It is hard - but an important part of testing boundaries and making one's own mind up.  I am currently washing the sand out of my eye!

Humph now weighs 16.45kg and looks like a 'proper' dog - although his coat is a bit of a giveaway!  He still resembles an enormous fluff ball!

Timber!

We have been plagued recently with a number of telephone calls for Scottish Hydro Electric.  They began a few days ago and had almost reached the point where one of us was going to phone Scottish Hydro and see if we could find out what was going on!  A very kind soul rang back after his failed attempt to log his  metre reading with us .  He, along with many others it seems, made the easy mistake of phoning the date on their estimated reading card instead of the free phone number.  Mystery solved.

Our son is home and as I type is out with his Dad cutting down huge Leylandi trees.  The first crack and fall has resulted in brilliant sunlight flooding the small garden we whimisically refer to as the Paddock and our bedroom.  The difference is amazing.  Although the wood is pretty gunky, in these financially strapped times if we leave the sap to dry out, it may well be OK to burn through the winter.  They tend to be a little like fire crackers - but heat is heat.

Wonderful to see the two of them working together - our son so nearly a man - helping and popping in and out.

I caught a smashing documentary last night with John Barrowman exploring his own sexuality and whether he is the product of nature or nurture as an out, gay man.  None of the research was new - but it was presented in a highly personable format with John Barrowman as the guinea pig.  I thought it a brave attempt to restore sanity to the demonising myths around homosexuality.  I watched some of it with my partner and son - and felt we were all the better for seeing it.  It made a stark and necessary contrast to my other TV watch last night.  I am glad I only caught the final minutes of a rather odd documentary on the new Anglican Alliance - that sounds like an over the counter cure for indigestion - you know the one?  I refuse to give the organisation credence by printing its name. 

I couldn't help thinking as I watched Archbishop Akinola's ego growing palpably with each round of hyperbole and chorus of certainty regarding the sinful nature of the liberal church, that it will be an awfully great adventure not to have to pretend to be a Church as wide in our doctrine as we are varied in our spirituality - and simply get on with the business of being inclusive without having to worry about those who want to represent a different interpretation of the Gospel.  A covenant would be a work of convenience not an authentic expression of belonging.  Let those who historically have been persecutued by a Canterbury-centric Church have the freedom to be what they believe they are called to be.  In the end we are all judged not by what we say we believe but by our actions; by the moments when we risk our very selves.

I have no doubt Archbishop Akinola and many others are risking their very selves and I delight in that.  I think schism is actually a sign the Holy Spirit is working with great energy and discernment.  People who need power to create identity and who need others to sign on dotted lines of belief soon find that within their organic ranks apostasy will coagulate and spawn new life - as division begets further division - and different dotted lines become demarcation lines and departure points. 

Staying together no matter what is a good strategy when you are on a life raft in shark infested waters - but at a time when globally we are living through a technically, socially and economically highly unpredictable global experience - diversity may actually add strength and much needed sustenance to the basic tenets of the overall diversity of the Christian faith and its accompanying spiritual journey.

The trouble with breakaway movements is that generally speaking a number of disaffected folk with strong, unmet agendas often jump ship to join the new emerging ideology.  That can apply to the liberal as well as the conservative aspects of the Church.

I hate the way 'orthodox' has now been degenerated into meaning conservative regarding the use of the Bible and social and moral teaching - it used to mean an acceptance of the received teachings and beliefs of a value system - in all it's complex and provisional forms - not the creation of dogma as an evangelistic tool to put some clear, blue spiritual 'water' between African Anglicans and Muslims or politically right wing westerners and an emerging highly pluralistic, essentially hedonistic society.

A voice has said: "Hello Mum" through the study window.  The sun is shining.

Decisions.

Thinking done; decisions made.  The discernment process has been hard.  The silence and then listening to my heart isn't as self-indulgent as it sounds.  The amswers aren't always what I want to hear.  Recent musings are a case in point.  I was hanging on for a different response!  Sadly, it hasn't come.

The appointment of a Rector at Leith captured my imagination.  The church is lively with a mature interest in social justice, ecology and spirituality.  I was entranced and very drawn to apply.  On the back of a 'tingle factor' that the post could potentially be a good 'fit' were the pragmatci concerns - not so much my mental health - I need to be challenged now not papmered - but our son's needs.

Our son is at a good special school and he is as happy as he is ever likely to be with many of his needs being extremely well met.  However unlikely it might be, if I was to be successful and get the Leith job - our son's current funding would cease and he would have to be reassessed for his future needs.  He is about to start GCSEs and a catering course.  We could find ourselves (indeed it is the most likely scenario) with me starting a new appointment and our son wondering why he has suddenly returned home until his future schooling is sorted out.  Last time, it took two years and a fight to Tribunal level to finally get the provision he needed.  That process and the uncertainty is not conducive with me giving of my best to a new relationship with a church I would feel at that moment called to serve.  It isn't fair on anyone.

I am hugely disappointed.  Supporting our son when we have each wanted to do other things with our time and lives has involved some personally costly decisions - but in the end we have learnt so much from the process that it has in the long term been life-enhancing.  It remains tough in the moment though.  It doesn't require a political brain the size of a planet to see that the English system rgarding educational provision and special needs has something going for it.  If a young person had been assessed and then moves area he continues with this provision at least until his annual review.  The local authorities operate an understanding based on reciprocity.  Young people who 'beach' in a new authority are accepted with all their liabilities 'as seen'.

TISEC's decision to fire me still concerns.  I am determined to fight the element of discrimination and poor management of the situation in this.  No one deserves this happening to them.

One of my former students rightly encourged me to look forward to what is around the corner.  That sounds fun - liberating.  The discussions will happen in the Autumn.  It is a shame it has come to this.  I still can't quite believe it.

Humph is now huge.  We will take some photos to send to his breeder.  He is learning sit, stay and fetch just now.  He is doing well!

From Leper to Leader; Healing Companionship

Bertie, our tabby has been found.  He disappeared on Monday and my partner discovered him while he was out delivering leaflets asking people if they wouldn't mind checking garages and sheds and generally keeping an eye out for the missing mut.  By yesterday evening we were quietly optimistic.  A couple of our nearest neighbours, down in the hamlet of old fisherman's cottages, were sure they had seen him during the intervening days.  Another neighbour relayed the priceless information that he had woken his neigbour up by jumping on their bed in the early hours of the morning and settling to sleep.  Our secret night life will out!

My partner spotted Bertie as he was returning home - hind quarters and a tail disappearing into the gorse.  He called him, Bertie climbed into the car; travelled home with his front paws on my partner's forearm looking out at his estate; he was fed; and then slept all night on the bed - mostly with his legs in the air.

Bertie is staying in with Teazle our smokey grey and white moggy  for a while.  We suspect he may have de-camped because he was not sure about Humph - so we now need to give the two cats and Humph time to adjust fully to each other.  I'm not at all surprised Bertie was at six's and seven's - he had almost a month with Teazle in a cattery.  I might be tempted to get a wee bit disorientated about which house is home if I spotted a warm comfy bed and there were no objections to me being there!!!!

I am working half time just now with a view to going full time at the beginning of September.  Despite my worst fears I seem to be enjoying becoming more routinised and focused!  The drop in medication is a huge spur to get on and practice well-being.  Another medication drop next week - and on I go.  I want to be as drug free as possible by September.

I am hugely indebted to the extraordinarily professional quality of care I have been given through mental health services.  I am also proud of myself, I am choosing life.  One of the huge and little understood aspects of mental health is that it is the person's brain - and most usually their emotional psyche which is fractured or crushed in an episode - not their identity or their skills base. 

There is a popular myth around that somehow a person with a mental health issue can, at the time they are ill, function fully if only they tried.  If trying was all that was needed I would never have become ill.  Another widely held assumption is that mental health issues are a sign of weakness or fragility.  Well, in one sense, yes, I do buy that.  When I broke my wrist last year it was damaged sufficiently that I have not regained full use of it.  In that sense there is an inherent structural weakness.  What is not true is to then assume that a weakness caused by illness means that it is impossible for that limb, organ or brain to compensate and function at an excellent level despite the inherent difficulty.  This is of course particularly true with mental health.

Stephen Fry, an 'out' Bipolar person, has been quoted as saying he would not be him if he did not have this aspect to his personality.  The same is often claimed by depressives.  In the case of Borderline Personality Disorder,that is certainly true for me.  My experience is that however painful, disorientataing and frankly life-threatening the condition is - ultimately it makes me fully and completely as I am.  It is as much a part of me as my blue eyes.

Of course individuals are instinctively reserved around people who have a 'history of mental health problems', but this says more about the conditioning that exists in our society than it does about the actual rather than perceived needs of a person living with a mental health condition.

Some of the classic assumptions (some I have made myself during my early years in ministry) are that people living with mental health issues:

Need more support on a continuos basis than other people (= are hard work).

(Speaking for myself, there are key times when I am going into, in and coming out of relapse when more support is valued - but not at other times.  I need friends - but not indulgence or too much understanding when I am well; my role is to function within society's boundaries and limitations in wellness - not manipulate them.  In common with many with mental health issues I have as much desire to stand out because of my disability as I do to learn how to pole vault.)

Cannot be trusted to work, think or react consistently and professionally.

(This is based on ignorance rather than fact.  In relapse most of the 'Disorders' leave the person enduring them with a sense of disaasociation and communication; touching base with reality; and sustaining relationship may be a future aim but not a prresent reality.  Out of relapse, the vast majority or people with mental health issues are unknown even to their closest colleagues.  They would not be easy to identify in a day to day situation any more than a person with Diabetes.  They adjust and enjoy periods of wellbeing whilst respecting and taking seriously the need to monitor their condition.)

Cannot tell they are ill.

(There are some conditions where the delusion that the person is not ill is part of the taxonomy of the illness.  However my own experience and those shared with me suggest that we all knew when we were ill - and could explain our relapse 'signature' so others would be able to spot our behaviour patterns perhaps even before us!  Yes, this does sound scary - but usually we are talking of slight, gradual changes rather than sudden personality swings.  In my case it seems as though about five triggers all have to be pretty well aligned before I have a relapse.  This last one was 5 years after the previous one; the one before that was 10 years prior.  Often when relapses are very much more regular than that there are other significant complicating factors - like social skills; poverty; substance abuse.)

 

Are best left to their own devices.

(This is the last thing we should do.  If any of our friends have mental health issues they need to be surrounded by more social structure not less.  At my illest I feel so disgusted with myself I could not bear to see anyone.  This is negative framing and messaging which is part of my illness and not part of my everyday preferred practice.  When a person is this ill it is doubly important people are around them.  I could not have heard at that time how much I was valued or how sorry people were - but I know that isolation is the greatest friend of negative self-imaging.)

 

If I had broken my leg the flowers would come; cards and visits.  Everyone would know the boundaries and have a grasp of what to ask and how to offer sympathy.  It isn't so different with mental illness just imagine the plaster is round the entire person.  Sitting in quiet companionship was a great healer for me.  Distraction was wonderful too - funny magazines, DVDs.  Like all illnesses, the world of a person with mental illness becomes very small - so it isn't news he needs to hear - or be asked how he is.  He just needs to know you are there and comfortably relaxed about sticking around him in his current inner unrest.  Being present gives a powerful signal sublimally that the person is worth taking trouble over.

Enough work avoidance... time to drink a coffee and get going.

Two by two

Why is it that interesting jobs come along in twos like buses?  In the last week, after months of looking, two vacancies have popped up - one on top of the other.  The first is at Leith.  It has a tremendous 'tingle factor' and offers a creative, engaged community of faith keen to continue to explore ways in which they can be incarnationally present within their wider context.  The other came 'out of the blue' and is a group of churches just across the water from us.  I knew their priest had moved on, but I had wrongly assumed as it turns out, that they would almost certainly either go for a non-stipendiary post this time around, or that the post might be combined with some other post of responsibility.  Apparently they haven't drawn up a Church Profile yet - so I will watch and wait on that one.  It would be a very different engagement; facilitating a small, but already very committed group of people to grow their church.  It has a different appeal.  They have amongst their membership some very committed and gifted individuals, but they are three very different 'patches' with, I suspect, some fairly different requirements from their priest.  I am not Protestant in style - and I suspect at least one of the churches would value a person with a more Evangelical mind set.  This post has a different sort of appeal.  I know the area reasonably well and I know a little of the story of the place.  I am going to have to listen to the wisdom of others and the whisperings of my own psyche very carefully.

I have been told today that the psychiatrist over-seeing my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder doesn't want to see me again!  I think we may go out to dinner to celebrate.  Drugs I have been taking as religiously as the sacrament itself are now to be hugely reduced (yippee) and I am to continue with talking therapy - something I have found incredibly valuable throughout my ministry.  I am excited.

I raised at the consultation that I have struggled with the medicalisation of a condition like Borderline Personality Disorder.  The psychiatrist was adamant that her intention was to avoid medicalising me.  I explained that I believed that anybody who had been through all that had happened to my partner and me during the last ten years would probably exhibit similar 'symptoms' and could therefore be classified with a mental illness.  She agreed - essentially circumstances are a major factor.  I felt encouraged.  BPD is a part of me - but not the defining core.  It is entirely manageable and is to be monitored and positive coping strategies nurtured through talking therapies.  We have discussed my returning to work.  This is clearly my shout.

The more I have thought about it - the more I can link well-being to purpose and engagement with life.  I feel ready to be engaged, challenged and to enable and learn from others.  I am ready for responsbility as well as the joys and frustrations of belonging in communion and faithful doubt with others.  I think it is very tempting for me to believe that there are always others who can do x or y better than me.  The truth is it's not about better or worse - but rather vocation and commitment.  Pardon the pun - The X Factor!!!!  I am at a unique praxis in my life.  Our son is at a therapeutic residential school; my mother died last November and my recent period of illness has shown me just how important it is to take my own emotional needs very seriously indeed.  It has been very purging and healing.  I take myself much more seriously.  It has helped me discern what matters in my life.

As for the jobs?  Much more mulling, praying and thinking.  Trip down to Leith next weekend!?  Working on it!  Trip to Fortrose too!  Week after?  Why not!  Transparency, authentic process is what I most value - and so that is what I will now embark upon.  I feel like Tigger...

Mug and Nonsense

I now have a desk and I can see the wood and find everything.  Amazing.  I have a huge pile of things to be filed - that's tomorrow's job (ugh!) but I have caught up with myself and some.

I have tried to track the job I spotted on The Church Times website in Leith.  I have come to the conclusion there is a typo on the closing date for apllications.  I have tried sending off an e-mail (returned to sender) and checked the Provincial website - no trace - so I guess it is done and dusted.  Shame - it sounded super. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part.

Something else will turn up.

Now I can see the desk - no more work avoidance - something significant must be begun.  Bother!  Tempted to put my Pooh door nob notice on the study door "Do not disturb - thinking things" with a picture of Pooh lying against a tree snoozing.  Ready... Steady... ah, tea has arrived.  Saved by a mug...

Cow Pats and Spiders

The sun shone for a short time this morning and low and behold our local farmer arrived to mend the fencing in the next field ready for the arrival of this year's cattle to fertilise and replenish the land before market.  The fine beasties seem so very young, but they have had huge fun discovering the bank behind our house and the fact that they can climb up it (some are better than others) and down it and then wander into the next field too!

They were originally placed in the field for grazing the day before Bea's funeral and I can remember looking out of the window to see a herd in our orchard and one up in the little courtyard!  They had broken through the fence and were wandering off - most of them towards the village.  I had a sudden image of them turning up in the car park of Tesco Extra just off the main road.  I also had images of Betty's hearse driving through cow pats, but the farmer was quickly on the case and as they were gathered they mosied off to find literally pastures new.  No poops - so there is a God.  Amazing really as that would have truly rivalled my Father's funeral which was on a icy and snowy day 23rd December - 1981 in a South London Church where the pall-bearers slipped and dropped his coffin.  They were embarrassed and apaulled, we could simply hear in our hearts the distant roar of laughter from Dad, who would have seen it as pure slapstick and with a strong sense of humour would have enjoyed the farce.  I suspect my Mum's reaction had there been a patchwork of cow poo would have been much the same - but I suspect the drivers of the funeral car and hearse would have been deeply unimpressed.  Think of the cleaning.

I am still getting my head around the settling of my mother's affairs, but I am delighting in the fact that I not only feel well enough now to do this, but I am in a deep sense enjoying the nature of the process - it is an act of completion as well as a token of love and respect.

The hard part now is doing enough and not too much.  I need to keep up the good work and I am pleased that I have at my ancient age, at last learnt how to read when I need to stop rather than plough on regardless.

I was sent the other day a powerpoint presentation from a friend that I have known since he was born, his family and mine would often socialise and he and his brother and I would play together.  It was about recognising that life is short and what we are and what we have at the moment is what life is about - not the means to an alternative end - but the reality is now.  So many religious and philosophical models demand exactly this structure of understanding.  Being isn't what I do; it isn't even what I facilitate in others; it is the moment and our shared or disparate understandings of the moment; our interpretation.

Good to remember this when a usually quiet house has been filled on and off by the barking of Jo - our rescue collie who dislikes cattle per se.  Tractors have a similar effect.  He's calmer now it's dark - but instead of the four of them wondering out in the garden and having a sniff round - for now they are led off in a chorus of "Cattle Go Home".  Poor Jo he really is anti-rural living.

In the last weeks I have been wondering where God and my former spirituality is.  As I became very disassociative - so any sense of a value or belief system also seemed to gradually elude me.  Some things have returned.  I know silent contemplation is still exceptionally important to me and stillness physically is returning now the drugs are less of an issue.

I am now needing more than ever to continue to work on what Church means in terms of community, diversity and issues of acceptance and tolerance - as well as explore more deeply the hermeneutics of mental illness and actually the whole rationale that underpins mental healthcare and it's desired outcomes.  Whether this is autism, conduct disorder, schizophrenia or depression.  There are two books there I reckon.

My next big treat will be to persuade my partner to build a sloped writing desk to fit on my existing desk for me.  Since my accident last June I have had a lot of problems with my left shoulder and hand - altering the angle seems to help hugely.

I guess this signals a need and desire to test my boundaries again with some intellectual stimulus.  I have enough on the back burner to keep me in work probably for the next three years - so there is a sense in which as I start to think - "Yes, I'd like to have a go at that again" I need to simply get on and do it.

Rather exciting.

I took great delight in the two large spiders in the bathroom this morning who have decided to squat.  They seem to enjoy chasing each other or - more precisely - one is stalking the other.  They are both quite big - and I have named them, obviously, Spy and Der.  Spy is the dominant one who leads.  I am hoping we may have baby spiders - but they seem to have no desire to leave via the window - so I am waiting and watching in anticipation!  It is a pleasant distraction from noticing that the bathroom needs a good clean.  Post illness I am still drawing lines at some things.  I have a strong feeling returning to domestic goddess mode may always elude me or be the last part to return.  (I can hear my partner's groaning!)  He's getting good at that kind of thing so why disturb the good work.  I am not convinced sharing the load is justifiable - I am still ill after all...

I wonder how long I can string this out - it's great being cooked for!!!!

Onwards and upwards

Another very good day.  Although it is still Hogmany in Scotland so many business things cannot be done until tomorrow.  I am feeling upbeat for the most part and am still working through the incredibly long list of things that still need to be done following my mum's death.  I haven't rushed.  I wanted to be able to do things properly and well - and not on the back of drugs.  I wanted to be present and grieve in the moment rather than rush on.

The day has been chilly and snow is anticipated tomorrow - but a dusting rather than a drift.  We are still blessed with a cacophony of geese in the bay who are thoroughly enjoying the water and gather for their daily conference as the evening draws in.  It sounds fun and it is quite clear as you watch them that there is a strict pecking order with disciplining side-coaches checking out the precision formation flying.

A cooler winter shows Ben Wyvis off in it's full glory with snow covered peaks and the duller skies, with a pinkish hue at sunrise and sunset with a slight mist are breath-taking.

I have just started reading Boff, L., Essential Care: An Ethics of Human Nature (2007) London: SPCK ready to review it for The Expository Times. 

(Gosh - she must be feeling better.)

Boff writes:

I dream of a world that is still to come, a world where we will no longer need electronic devices to overcome our solitude and fulfill the human essence of care and kindness.  I dream of a globalized society, in the great common home of the earth...of a world in which care has been recognised as a fundamental ethos of the human being and as an indispensible compassion for all beings of creation.

Amen.