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

What to do on a rainy Bank Holiday

Rain pattering on the conservatory roof (my desk and workspace are located in the conservatory) was until a moment or two ago making quite a restful sound.  But now it's beginning to get heavier and more intrusive, and the wind is beginning to rise as well, so that soon the roof of the lean-to greenhouse next door will start to creak and groan in ways that always alarm me.  One thing is sure - my gardening and DIY plans for today are well and truly shelved.  So what else to do?

My newspaper has helpfully supplied a pull-out section of puzzles, clearly anticipating a bank holiday wash-out.  That'll take care of an hour or so, I suppose.  And then I could go out for a walk.  My all-weather walking gear could do with an outing, and so could I, having eaten rather too well over the weekend.  When the rain first started, I was being put to shame a bit by the honey bees which, despite the weather, continued busily to visit the lavatera flowers, which they love, just outside my window. Mind you, they do seem to have given up now.

I have a book I'd like to start reading, but whether Henning Mankell is a good choice as an author for a dark and gloomy day I'm not so sure.  Maybe a chapter or two over coffee, and that will probably be quite enough.

Of course, I could simply do nothing, which, I suppose, is what bank holidays are for.  In my case my options are limited today by an ear infection which is both painful and somewhat destablising (though it is showing signs of getting better), so a trip to visit family and friends will be, sadly, out of the question.  I'm not up to driving that far, and the weather's against me, too - so I am thrust back on my own devices and my own company.

I do find it frustrating when there's nothing much to do.  I suppose for many of us it's hard to escape the whole Protestant work ethic thing - and when I'm idling (itself a loaded word), I feel guilty and it feels wrong.  And yet I know that the rest of my week is going to be a very busy and quite demanding one, so, logically, a day today doing nothing or not very much - especially as I'm still a bit under the weather - would probably be just what I need. If I can do it.

Many of us spend too much time doing, and not enough just being.  Perhaps I should see how much 'just being' I can manage today.  An alternative thought for the week, then: "Don't just do something, sit there"!

Thought For The Week

"The world is a book, of which those who do not travel read but a single page."

Augustine

Ice Cream Castles

Some words that resonate with me, from Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" -

Bows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feathered canyons everywhere -
I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun,
they rain and snow on everyone,
so many things I could have done
but clouds got in my way.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall -
I really don't know clouds at all.

Not Being Strong

People around me need me to be strong, reliable, inventive, resourceful, happy.  I think - I hope - I'm managing to make a decent attempt at all of these, but inside I don't feel very much of any of them. Yesterday I wrote something about how I envy those who are content with where they are; today I was gardening next door to someone who is exactly that, and yes, I do envy him, and why wouldn't I? He has a good home and a good job, in a place where he feels content and well supported, with his family around him.

And yet for me that could never be enough. Am I wired wrong, somewhere inside? Why, when I clearly want to be content, can I not be? I find myself reminded of the Peggy Lee song "Is that all there is?" - written, I think, by Leiber and Stoller. Everything is ultimately disappointing for Miss Lee, who, I think, sang (and recited) the song so well because it chimed in so closely with something in her own personality.

"You look so much happier these days," people have said to me recently on several occasions. "Oh, I am," I usually reply. True. The pressure is off, I've nothing really to worry about, I do enjoy the things I do, and I am surrounded by good people who love me and support me and sustain me. But, though it surely should be, somehow it isn't enough.

So here's the question really, I suppose: am I the exception here, or the norm? Is it me who's a bit odd - or is the odd one out the content and happy person with a sorted and settled life? The existence of art and music and poetry, or the human desire to push back boundaries in science, or exploration, or sporting achievement, might suggest that it's that ache to have more, to go further, that worm of discontent within us, that is the norm. And that is also, for some of us, the motivation to search for God.

Sweet Baby James

This is one of my favourite James Taylor songs, and though there are reasons why I find myself feeling sad as I listen to it, I still choose to do so.  It's a sort of cowboy song, and at the same time a sort of lullaby;  I believe he wrote it for his baby nephew and namesake.  As a song it has a sense of disconnectedness from the world that, when I think about it, is a feature of many of the songs I count among my favourites.

We are waiting for a baby right now.  A grandson.  Not James, but Alex (the name, by the way, of the father of the James in Taylor's song).  He's a bit late, having been expected a week ago (though I suppose that's our schedule, not his!).  As a family, we're operating according to a sort of interim programme, or working timetable, that will need to be immediately and drastically revised once we get the news.  In other words, we're all on tenterhooks.

Back to the song, though.  I suppose I find appeal in the solitariness of the singer, and the sense as he sings of an almost timeless journey just beginning.  I envy the contentment of those who are quite secure and settled in their own little bit of the world, and their set routines and established customs . . . I see them and often I'd like to be like them, but I can't be, it isn't me.  I have a troubled and questing mind that isn't for settling down, and a sneaking sense of a truth glimpsed in the dream times that I can never catch and hold in this world however far and wide I search.

An almost timeless journey just beginning: every next moment is adventure and possibility, and never more so than at a time like this, when we wait together for a new birth, and a new child's first cry.

Thought For The Week

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Aristotle

Music

I enjoy participating in acts of worship that do not involve music, but I could never make that my staple fare. To me, music is vital to my expression of faith and indeed to my perception and understanding of faith.  The funeral I assisted at yesterday was small and quiet, but I was glad that (unlike the much larger funeral I attended on the previous day) it included an opportunity to sing.  Some people are not singers, of course, and for some to sing will be a difficult and even perhaps distasteful activity;  but for most of us, to sing together is not just a harmonisation of voices but of hearts and souls - or so I feel.

My good friend Andrey has written a tune to accompany the words I wrote for the 'original hymn' section of the Minsterley Eisteddfod this year.  I'm pleased to say that they won.  But that was a hymn for Trinity Sunday, and words and tune were not matched together in time - we managed to do it only this week, when Andrey and I spent half an hour together at his keyboard.  So I have written a new set of words with harvest in mind.  I offer them below, but of course the tune remains the property of Andrey Chulovskiy.

Lifting our voice as one body we sing

in harvest celebration;

lifting our voices we gather to bring

gifts of our Lord’s creation.

He is the Maker of all things; his love

our life and our salvation:

we join with the song of the angels above

to sing our Harvest Home.

Praise to our God for the works of his hand,

and for the season’s growing.

Praise to our God for the fruits of the land,

his gracious spirit showing.

We who give praise for the power of his love

should seeds of love be sowing,

to join with the song of the angels above

and sing our Harvest Home.

Lord of the Harvest, that all may be fed

we bring these gifts for sharing.

We too are Harvest; with you as our head

to walk in faith we’re daring.

You send us out to the world in your love

to do your work of caring;

at one with the song of the angels above

we sing our Harvest Home.

Giving Up

I spent all yesterday feeling down and despondent.  I can't really say why, exactly, it wasn't in itself a bad day, but sometimes things just all build up and get to you, and you feel like giving up.  When I take the trouble to think things through, I know that my blessings add up to a much bigger pile than the other stuff, and I do need to discipline myself to do that addition sum on a regular basis!  Also, I know that there are people about who value me, need me, and are ready to support me . . . and to whom, quite apart from the self-centred way of approaching this, I have obligations and responsibilities.

So, let's get myself back on track.  But here's another way of approaching the situation :-

A Visit to Cors Dyfi

My nature notes piece for the coming month, as published in a trio of local magazines . . .

Last Saturday we decided to call in at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Cors Dyfi, just along the road from Machynlleth.  Although there’s a county boundary between the two, Cors Dyfi isn’t far from the RSPB reserve at Ynys Hir, from which this and last years’ SpringWatch programmes were broadcast.  Ynys Hir’s wildlife potential is huge, and there many interesting birds on which the SpringWatch presenters could focus - but there’s one species that is a Cors Dyfi speciality - it’s one of the two places in Wales where ospreys presently nest.

The terrible weather we had in late spring and early summer has meant that many birds have failed to produce young, or haven’t produced the broods one might have normally expected.  That’s been true of the ospreys too, in their second year of breeding at Cors Dyfi.  Only one chick survived out of the three eggs laid, and then only because Wildlife Trust staff intervened at a crucial moment when the parents birds had ceased to feed their hungry but unresponsive chick.  Birds like ospreys feed in response to stimulus, and this chick had grown too weak to ask for food.

Monty, the father, may have been a chick from the successful osprey nest near Welshpool a few years ago.  He is unringed, and the chicks in that nest couldn’t be reached for ringing - and ospreys will often return to the area where they were raised.  They spend winter in West Africa, which seems eminently sensible, and Nora, the mother bird, had already left on her migration when we were there, leaving Monty to provide for the needs of the chick, named Ceulan.  Ceulan is fully fledged, but has not so far begun to hunt for himself.  When we were there, Monty had caught a fish, brought it to Ceulan, then taken it away again to eat himself.  Was this a tactic designed to encourage Ceulan to have his own try at fishing, I wondered?  We were told that the parent ospreys do not actively teach their offspring to fish, and sometimes the chicks will start their migration south having to learn that skill as they go - quite a risky endeavour. 

After a while, we were pleased and relieved to see Monty bring the uneaten half of his fish (a mullet, probably, caught in the estuary), and present it to the very hungry Ceulan.  We could see the actual birds from the hide, but the CCTV images in the visitor centre were excellent.  Cors Dyfi is exactly what it says on the tin - marshy bogland by the River Dyfi (and kept marshy by the water buffalo the Trust use).  So there is no great show of birds other than the ospreys - but we were also delighted by the tits, siskins and lesser redpolls using the feeders by the hide.

Thought For The Week

"There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun."

Gerry O'Driscoll, doorman at Abbey Road Studios
(part of this quote formed the closing words to the Pink Floyd track 'Eclipse')

Sunshine

It's been a lovely sunny day today, and I've made the most of it, spending time in four gardens and working pretty hard in each one.  Next week doesn't look so good, so I need to do what I can while I can! Anyway, Ann and I went on to have a very pleasant meal out (in our local Greek restaurant) after my hard day's work. In between pulling weeds, I've been reflecting on all the stuff I wrote about yesterday.  I closed my comments yesterday with a reference to the need for prayer.  So what shall I be praying for?

I think the intention of my praying must be to clarify my relationship with the Church and my relationship with God.  They are not one and the same.  The status of priest is mine because the Church has made me a priest;  and because currently the Church denies me a licence, I am a priest who cannot be a priest, in any practical way.  But the beginning of that journey to priesthood has to do not with what the Church says to me, or asks of me, or recognises in me - but in my sense of God's call and prompting.  What the Church does with that is to interpret it as a call to ordination.  Usually the Church is right in its interpretation, and sometimes it is wrong.

Right or wrong, what then happens is that the individual person is locked into a relationship with the Church within which, if all goes well, that sense of God's call can deepen and become fruitful.  But sometimes what happens is the reverse of this, and a person becomes stifled and cramped, imprisoned by the Church as institution.  The bird that should fly free is instead locked in a cage, however gilded that cage may be.

I find I am not worried or distressed by yesterday's letter.  I shall not have sleepless nights, or I hope I won't anyway.  There've been enough of them over the past months.  I am a little unsettled, perhaps.  I don't expect, or even want, particularly, any sort of instant resolution - but I do hope that the coming weeks might bring me to a sense of being in process, of having some kind of programme ahead of me.  I've been strung along often enough, and for long enough.  So I hope to be treated fairly, prayerfully, considerately, and as me, as who I am, not just according to some formula.

Very Slightly Ajar

I am a gardener who used to be a vicar.  Simple statement.  Gardening isn't the only work I do in fact, as I also work for a funeral director . . . but I'm self-employed as a gardener, I have the interest and the fairly steep uphill learning curve of trying to start a small business (and in a recession!), and I am to a degree fulfilling a dream and a calling, as I have always enjoyed gardening, was educated to degree level in botany, and am, on the quiet, something of an expert on weeds.

But I also had - and have - a dream and a calling that is to do with the ministry of a priest.  The reason why I'm not currently operating as such is complex and painful, though not - I would dare to say - scandalous.  I hit the buffers, let us say;  I hurt some people, perhaps in the end myself most of all, and I let some people down.  I also - thank God - had good friends who stood by me and walked with me, and good advisers who let me talk and, where necessary, talked to me, sometimes in pretty hard words.

And I find myself to be in a good place.  I enjoy the view from Brookfield.  But the dream and calling are still there.  Is there a way back?  No, not least because I don't want it.  I shall be very happy never to be a vicar again (a vicar being someone who has the job of running one, or these days very often many, church parishes).  But I am still a priest;  I'm not sure I want to be, exactly, but it is what I am, and what I ought to be, it is something that God is still calling out of me.

I have investigated whether there is a way forward, into a new stage of priestly ministry.  I could be used;  I could be useful;  I have my hopes. Or had. A letter this morning rather suggests that - in the short term at least - my hopes may not be well founded.  I have felt very discouraged, reading it . . . or at least, on first reading it.  But it is not an unfriendly or unsympathetic letter;  and, even if only very slightly ajar, a door remains open.  There is the chance to talk.  Before that, though, there is also the need to pray.

Gardening

I seem to be in demand as a gardener, which is, I suppose, a good and honourable occupation for a retired clergyman.  The recession does not seem to have greatly affected - as yet - the desire of people to be surrounded by well-kept gardens, and their readiness to pay someone to do it.

It helps, I suppose, that I know fairly well what I am doing.  I'm not a garden designer, I don't lay paths or install decking or put up fences;  I don't even cut lawns and hedges if I can help it (though I do do some).  But I do know my plants, and I can distinguish a weed from the sort of thing people want to keep, and I am hard working and thorough.  So I'm getting work, and therefore getting paid . . . more to the point, I really enjoy what I'm doing, which is worth a lot.

I'm also quite a quick learner.  I don't pretend to know things I don't, and I always try to be honest and open about my lack of knowledge, and any deficiencies of technique I may have.  The most obvious of these, I think, is that I'm far too kind as a gardener.  I cut things back too timidly, and when garden plants stray into the 'weed' category by being too invasive and crowding others out, I'm loth to remove them.

A certain hardening of my heart is therefore needed, along with, perhaps, a bit more confidence in the ability of plants to recover from being cut back or weeded out.  In gardening, as in many other areas of life, there really are times when you have to be cruel to be kind.

Of course, I also have to listen to my client - views vary a lot!  For some, Welsh poppies (to take one example) are a pest of the first order, to be rooted out on sight;  for others, they are a delight, to be treasured.  The truth lies some way between the two, for me anyway:  The Welsh poppy is a lovely and delicate flower, and a floral symbol of the nation even if not one of the two 'official' ones . . . but there's no denying their ability to spread, and the annoying deepness of their tap roots.

"Treat this garden as if it's your own," I was told in one place.  I wouldn't dare!  Each of the gardens I visit and work in is different and special, and in some way expresses the character of its owner.  My job as a gardener begins always with listening and learning.  And it's worth (to close these thoughts) reflecting on the fact that mission and ministry also should begin with listening and learning;  so much damage is caused by those who rush in, sure they have all the answers, and creating for themselves at first glance a version of the truth that then remains impervious to all subsequent information.

I have encountered this myself - been a victim of it, I suppose.  I hope that on my part, as a minister, just as in my gardening work, I can remember to take the time and the trouble, and have the humility of spirit, to begin by listening and learning.