Ordinary people

A friend of ours died suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday.

A chest infection kept me still and inactive so I listened to many of the visitors who came with shocked expressions to see and to comfort and to help in any small way. I watched those who had got there, the first responders, friends of many years. It was they who called the doctor and funeral home. I watched the nearly adult children's god father reassure them that he would fetch them from the plane. I watched others make and pour endless tea. I watched still others make beds for the sudden influx of people. I watched them step back and give a shocked and grieving wife something to do. I watched others bring milk and tea and cake and beer and wine and snacks (the flights arrive late in the evening.......there is going to be a lot of waiting around).

So I watched ordinary people do ordinary loving things well and with a fullness of heart.

In the grand scheme of things not a big deal but down at the frontline of life, a difference that may make it possible for resilience to sprout and grow in the face of overwhelming grief.

Happy Feast Day

To all those who are Jesuits or who are part of a Jesuit family in some way

Happy Feast Day

Makorokoto (congratulations and felicitations in the vernacular)

Snow in Africa

People who aren't African's tend to think of Africa as a hot and dry and dusty place. Indeed we often get "foreign" visitors who toast is "dust in Africa". If you watch the news, any time you like there is some story lurking there of famine in Africa. Pictures of starving children are likely to tug at the world's heartstrings and, thank heaven, produce funds to provide food for these mites.

Along with the vast migrations of the Serengeti in Kenya, gorilla's in the equatorial rain forest and young thugs in pickup's committing horrific crimes and violence are iconic staples of how the rest of the world sees us. Just as we see the First World as a golden shining place of riches and better, safer lives. True but not the whole story.

A picture that does not commonly spring to mind is of snow in Africa. A friend phoned this morning to say that she wasn't going out as the snow that has fallen in parts of South Africa has snowed her in and besides it is too damn cold as our houses are really not built with this kind of weather in mind. She was quite grumpy but said her children who have never seen snow before were having a great time outside with snow ball fights and building snowmen and sledding on her kitchen trays. In the mean time while it isn't snowing here in Harare Zimbabwe and is not likely to (we would really know that there was something seriously wrong with the worlds weather systems if it snowed here) it is fresh and cold.

Chased

"restore the years that the locust has eaten"

This verse has chased me through my prayers and my dreams and odd moments of stillness and in the whirl of activity for a few months. I didn't realise at first that it was actually a bible verse ..... I wondered knowing my mothers stories and my own experience (as a young child) of the devastation that a horde of locusts can cause where this thought came from and who might restore what the locust had taken. When it occurred to me that this might be biblical it was easy to track Joel down. His description of locusts destroying completely on the move is eerily familiar.

My spiritual director is away for nine months.

Where do I turn for help in discerning what being chased by this verse means? I guess I have to trust that as the verse comes to me, so will understanding and enlightenment.

Tonight I pray for light in my darkness.

What do you say?

What do you say to a young man in your confirmation class who says matter of factly to you "my father murdered my mother"?

I knew it was true but didn't know what he knew.

Shocking to hear such words from a teenager.

Words failed me so I hugged him instead.

Check up

I have had a check up with my doctor today.

Wonderful.

After fifteen years of dealing with ill health and setback after setback I guess I was not expecting too much in the early days of treating this epilepsy. I couldn't have been more wrong. I had a battery of tests earlier this week and today learned the results. It is all good. Almost incomprehensible but oh so enjoyable.

I left walking on air, grinning like a crazy person.

I can do this!

And I am moved to bubbling excited gratitude.

Growing up

My sons are out today.

Both surfaced early, Vetboy to go and assist with a dressage show and Small to go and referee. I expect neither home till later this evening when they will appear full of stories of their day and starving hungry. I have prepared for the hunger on a cold winters night with macaroni cheese and rice pudding with stewed fruit. I look forward to their return and their stories.

I have also looked after a friends two year old, "King Julian" of Madagascar fame, this afternoon. I forget surprisingly easily how active toddlers are. King Julian and I did have so much fun and had toys strewn across the kitchen/library by the time we were finished playing. For both of us it was a fun laughter filled afternoon and for his young mother hopefully welcome healing space for herself.

Now that he is gone home giggling with his mother and my kitchen/library restored to rights I reflect how quickly children grow, from baby to toddler to independent youngsters. They grow by the Grace of God, and I have been blessed to participate with food and attention and love.

Given my life back

I am not one for pills and potions and what ever the pharmaceutical industry produce.

And amongst the dismay I felt at discovering I have epilepsy was the idea that I would have to take pills to control the seizures for the rest of my life. Not really having a choice in the matter I began taking the medication prescribed ten days ago, and began examining my life to see where it could be made less busy.....per doctors instruction. All a surprising level of cooperativeness from me, who is not renowned for being a cooperative person.

This afternoon, having a no electricity day I have sat in a sunny corner out of the cold wind and luxuriously read my book. An unheard liberty on a weekday afternoon. Finally succumbing to the soothing silence and the sun I simply sat, still, silent, peaceful. Gradually it dawned on me that something was here that I did not really know, a strange comfortableness, an easyness. Idly examining the feeling I discovered I had no headache or eye strain, that I had slept well without the usual plague of nightmares. I was relaxed, happy, in a good place.

Eventually it dawned on me. This is the impact of the pills, and the beginnings of decluttering my life.

I feel as though I have been given new life, and it is marvellous, wondrous, almost to good to be true. I grasp at it greedily with both hands, enjoying every second just in case it should be taken from me again.

Double golden Wedding

Today we celebrated not one but two golden wedding anniversaries with a blessing at Mass.

It is astonishing that in our turbulent country, where there are nearly as many Zimbabweans in exile as remain, that two couples who were married on the same day in the same church fifty years ago should still be members of the same congregation and firm friends fifty years later.

We celebrated not only their fifty years of marriage each but their fidelity to and the stability offered to our congregation this morning with great joy.

the world out there

I am not much of a news junkie. Usually I find that the news doesn't tell me about the people and how they live and what they see and do. Usually the news seems to be a propaganda tool, part of the "media" brainwashing that goes on in our world today.

In the last few days though certain events stay in my mind

South Sudan is now independent. How amazing is that! After generations of slavery to Khartoum. It seems to me that people (not governments) from all round the world just wouldn't give up and made this happen. People who wouldn't let the agony in Darfur disappear into a news black hole, people who watched on Google Earth for troop movements and the like during the referendum, people who continued even after their leader Col John Garang was killed in a helicopter "accident".

Space Shuttle Endeavour will be the last shuttle into orbit this week. How, I wonder, can the American people let their space programme die? I know it costs money, good heavens I am an accountant. But so much was born out of the space programme... miniaturization, computers, microwaves, communications, Hubble. Who will lead us in development and space research now? The Chinese? Beyond my dismay I am simply sad that these workhorses are being retired with nothing to replace them, and seemingly unappreciated.

Prince William and Catherine are on a tour of Canada and the United States. They have no choice but to live their lives forever in the spotlight. They are going to make mistakes, they are human after all. I pray that they will receive tolerance and understanding.

I wonder at the Greek government who impose terrible austerity on their people without tackling the bloated civil service. Small wonder as it is the civil service who design the policy and they, naturally, protect themselves. Global economics reduce me to perplexed dismay much of the time ..... and seem to concentrate on greed, protectionism and passing the buck - its ok so long as I don't have to pay.

The Chinese Government is developing high speed rail networks for all of China. I don't know too much about China but I wonder at their priorities. People still starve in China. Will this rail network help them?

Well that's my round up of world news....what stories catch your eye?