Saying Nothing

I haven't placed anything on these pages since my Thought For The Week last Sunday, I see - and now it's Saturday evening.  It hasn't been because there's been nothing to record, so much as because I haven't found myself able to find the words or the impetus to record it.  Actually, it's been quite a busy week, but maybe too busy to be well documented - since the time's not been there for me to have reflected properly on all the week has contained, and on the issues it's raised.

One thing I would say:  perspective is all.  How many of the problems of our world would be eased, if not solved, if we were able to find and make the time - and the space - just to step back a little, reflect, try to see what it looks like from the other person's point of view.  And maybe also make a proper assessment of how green the grass really is on the other side of the fence from where we're standing.

Next week will, if anything, be even busier and certainly more jumbled than this one has been.  There are some big issues to face, some meetings I'm approaching quite warily.  I'll not rush into reporting the week;  in fact I hope I won't be rushing (or rushed) into anything.  Too many mistakes have been made over the years, by my wanting to hurry things along, force the issue, take more than I'm due, stop my ears to the stuff I don't want to hear.  The call before me (and all of us, frankly) is to live in the real world . . . not the version I (or you) have created or desired, but the real one we'll only see and understand when we take the time to step back and take stock.

Nonetheless, we must do that purposefully, and with a real intention to act on what we discover and come to understand when we have taken the time to get things into focus.  Rushing into things and acting on prejudice or on half-formed ideas can do a huge amount of damage - but so can procrastination, the woffling discussions and futile argument that scaredycats and fence-sitters substitute for true involvement.  As is so often the case in life, there is a middle way that is the right way.  So I hope I'll find that middle way in the events and encounters of next week . . . it occurs to me that sometimes, when what you hear or see isn't to your taste, the vital thing is just that you take or make enough time for the initial emotional upheaval to die down - so that when you do come to act or decide you're dealing with, and informed by, the facts and feasibilities, and not just the feelings and fears.

Thought For The Week

"Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."

Samuel Butler

A Day in the Garden

A cold start this morning, but once the sun had broken through the mist and murk, a lovely day.  For me, the first morning for a while with two (almost) fully functioning ears.  What better way to celebrate both sunshine and decent health than to get out into the garden, and do some autumn clipping, cleaning, tidying and mowing?

So that's what I've been doing.  So long as we don't get too much in the way of early frosts, there's still some enjoyment to be had from the garden, so a tidy now will encourage a bit of a second flush of flowering, and keep things looking neat and attractive.  We've plenty of roses still to come, and our geums are still very attractive.  Some of the other flowers are looking a bit past their best, and the hanging baskets are well and truly finished - time for some winter pansies to be started, perhaps, or maybe I'll try out some little dwarf chrysanthemums for an autumn burst of colour.

It's been an enjoyable day, and a timely reminder of how things do slide a bit without you noticing, so it's always good to take the time just now and then to have an extra look and do a bit of serious tidying and sprucing up.  Obviously, that's not only true in the garden, but in all sorts of other aspects of our lives and selves.  It may well be raining tomorrow - in fact, one of today's papers is speaking very gloomily, all over its front page, of the impending arctic blasts - but I'm sure I'll be able to find some more tidying and sorting to get on with here inside, while I can't get out!

The Angel on Next Door's Drive

Coming home after twelve

on a still and starless night

I saw an angel,

reclining in a tumble of white satin

on next door’s drive.

I blinked, and looked again.

This is not what you expect
on the night of a rainy Friday
here in grey and safe mid-Wales.

And there was, after all, no angel -

though what was there

was almost as wonderful.

A white peacock,

astray from the gardens up on the hill,

shook his crown,

rearranged his tail feathers,

and strutted away down our street,

all in complete silence.

And I went indoors,

to reflect later that if there really had been an angel

he might well have had a message to give,

and maybe things for me to do.

                                   Peacocks, I think, are probably safer.

Not Hearing

I've spent a good proportion of this afternoon having my ears syringed - the wax in the one ear was tough and hard to shift, and required skill on the part of the practice nurse, and a degree of patience and forbearance from me. An hour and a half's work!   But at last I can hear again, and it's the first time I've really been able to hear since about a month ago.  There is still some inflammation to clear up, so I have some antibiotic drops to use, but the doctor's hopeful everything will be sorted by this time next week!

It really cuts you off, not being able to hear, and my present hearing problems have lasted for over a month.  It's so frustrating when you feel disconnected from conversations, and assaulted by noises that you can't interpret, and of course, as anyone living with deafness will know very well, you are from time to time spoken to with extreme and occasionally angry impatience, or indeed treated as though you are an idiot.

In scripture we read how Jesus healed many lepers, and those who lived with leprosy and similar skin diseases, all of which we treated the same and were the cause of great fear and alarm, were I suppose the great and symbolic outsiders of the day.  If you suffered in this way, then you were required to live separately from other folk.  There was no access into towns or villages, no everyday human contact at all.

Deaf or deaf and dumb people were able to live in community with others, but even so they were also outsiders.  My temporary deafness over the last month has given me a little insight into that disconnectedness, which would perhaps have been made worse by living within the community.  These days, signing deaf people can make a community of their own, and be proud of that community, and defensive of its rights and status - but in those days, to be deaf was simply to be excluded.  But we see how Jesus has time for those who are written off, who are no longer in the script, who are regarded as without value.

How much value do any of us have, really?  We may think we're doing all right, but the fact is that we're all failures, sinners, fallen people;  and so we're all outsiders, even if we don't recognise that about ourselves, or behave as though we are.  But when Jesus looks at me he sees not just the mess I've made of myself, and all its taint and imperfection - he sees the me I was made to be, the me God wills me to be, the me I would hope to be at my best moments.  His call and healing touch can help me to discover and develop the true self which otherwise I have fatally lost, but which I can find in him.

Thought for the Week

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."

Plato 

Autumn Poem

Brown-curled parchment driftings of the green lane's ancient haws                    

crunch beneath my boots;  once again the year is dying,                        

and this shaded path is in transition.  Those screaming swifts are now long gone 

that once possessed this sky.                                                                

Quarrelsome starlings arrive to take their place, and only                                  

the last few nervous swallows hold conversation along the wires, debating         

their overdue departure.  Beneath the coursing swifts of June                

there had seemed so much time, too much to ever spend; but now                    

the north wind on my face breathes its tale of coming frosts,

and my account is overdrawn.                                                              

The farmyard beasts eye me across their muddy gate.  For them                       

time has a different measure                                                                 

and is not reflected upon.  I walk on                                                     

towards the yellow smear of the disappearing sun,                                            

leaving the swallows on their perching wires, to climb the hill path                      

and gaze across the hard land they will leave.

Jackdaw

                  

As the river turned black below the swirling willows

I turned my collar, hurried for home,

cursed the rain.  But cursing

isn’t really my thing, I don’t

do it very well;  certainly

it neither stopped the rain

nor warmed my heart.  And yet

maybe this curse conjured up something

(if you believe that sort of stuff):  a jackdaw,

young bird I suppose, crashed down in front of me on the path,

looked back in astonishment at my lumbering figure

but didn’t fly again, maybe couldn’t, or didn’t dare.

Instead, he busied along in front of me

till the path left the willows, to dive

into the shelter of some taller trees.

There I stopped, not as much breath

as I used to have.  And the bird stopped as well, looked at me again,

tipped his head to one side for a moment,

then hopped into a thicket of nettles and thorns

and was gone.

A dark angel to match me and maybe to cheer me too,

on this dark day?

Not all angels have white wings.  Or maybe we were

just kindred souls for a stretch,

man and bird, bird and man:  there’s

not that much between us,

two creatures of dust and ashes,

the product of our genetic chemistries -

except that he could have flown,

had he chosen to, or dared to.

Thought For The Week

"The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that shall endure."

Cicero

Left To My Own Devices

Left to my own devices

I soon become idle

find excuses not to do this, go there, give that,

or even, really, believe.

It’s strange, bloody annoying sometimes,

but (in the end, on the whole) good,

how life’s events have a habit of

tripping me out of my indolence,

jabbing a needle into the tender bits,

tipping me out of my chair.

Follow me

(can’t seem to shut out that call):

just do it.

Evening Prayer

                            

Day’s end: a gentle breeze and rippled stream,

the drift of willow branches, sunset gleam

reflects from every splash on dappled stones,

somewhere a blackbird sings in muted tones.

The close of what has seemed a perfect day;

now, shadows stretching out, the gentle play

of country sounds around me, here I stand

beside the gate for home, to scan the land.

The gentle sound of bells invades the air,

and somewhere in the stillness hangs a prayer:

your name be blest, Lord, for these blessed days,

from dawn to dusk my heart shall lift in praise.

Thought For The Week

"Peace comes from within;  seek it not elsewhere."

Gautama Buddha