Sitting on my hands and keeping my mouth firmly shut is a prayer?

I am in the middle of a steep learning curve.

Mum had a stroke last week. I am deeply grateful that it was relatively mild and although she has suffered some damage she is not completely incapacitated.  She is presently out of hospital and staying with me. The occupational therapist warned me that she must be encouraged to do as much as she can for herself in order to return to some sort of independent life. I am surprised how hard it is to step back and let her struggle with ordinary tasks such as making a cup of tea.  The temptation to say "here let me....." is almost overwhelming. Intellectually I understand but the reality of putting it into practice is entirely another thing. It is heartbreaking to watch the effort simple tasks take. 

Imagine my surprise when sitting with a client this morning and finding myself again in the position of not leaping in and doing the task at hand. It would have taken me about fifteen minutes but left to his own devices and with limited guidance it took the young man over an hour. Again I realized he needed to learn, and that the best way for him was to work through it himself. I wasn't doing him any favours by taking over and doing it for him. 

I am learning to breathe gently, sit still silently and wait in such circumstances. 

Such waiting certainly doesn't come naturally to me but this morning it seemed a form of loving contemplative prayer. 

Shattered dignity?

I fell this morning over my elderly golden retriever who was deeply asleep on the steps to my office at the time. A case of not paying attention to what I was doing because I was trying to do too many things at once. So instead of edging out of my office door keeping the other two shut in I was already talking to the guys who had come to service the generator. My crashing tumble had a number of witnesses. The generator guys, my assistant, and a newly arrived client.

Landing heavily on my shoulder I rolled across the veranda. It was not a graceful flight to earth for I am not a small or light woman. More like timber coming down.

Stunned I lay there for half a moment very much aware that any dignity I might have had was in tatters. Then, as sometimes happens to me in such situations, I was overtaken by a fit of the giggles which exploded into full blown laughter. My audience seemed dumbfounded and uncertain as to which move to make next when confronted with a toppled accountant lying on her back laughing.

Eventually the laughter subsided and I was assisted to my feet and dusted down with much solicitousness.

I will have some spectacular bruises in the morning and my ankle is gently swollen. I have used it as an excuse to take the afternoon off and sit in the sun listening to Margaret Rizza's Light in our Darkness which soothed the last of my shattered dignity.

And if you should be wondering my beautiful "old boy" escaped the incident unscathed.

It's cold

I know it doesn't snow here and a lovely sunny winters day is around 18 C. Hardly cold at all by some standards. But cold enough in houses with out double glazing and central heating.

My best friend thrives in the cool. Energized and full of vigour. I just get miserable, and cranky and long for hot summer days. This year I am especially out of sorts as we had a long wet summer which wasn't any fun either. I am sitting snuggled with a warm cat on my lap feeling only marginally less chilled than since I got up this morning.

The weather has major effects on my mood, and just right now I am depressed and sad. Some of the grief arises from the death of my close friend and therapist a couple of months ago but some of it is definitely weather related. I am wondering how to reorder my attitude so that the cold does affect my mood so much.

But no bright ideas come to mind.

What do you do when the weather gets to you?

Magnolia mistiming

Today my magnificent magnolia is all but bare of leaves in the winter cold, but just a month ago it was flourishing and prolific with flowers. It occurs to me that magnolia's must flower in spring in the northern hemisphere, and mine keeps faith with that timing in the southern hemisphere but is then driven by the cold into winter and leaf loss. A case of mistiming. It does flower in the brief period that passes for spring here, but nothing like the magnificence of its autumn show.

It makes me consider faithfulness on one hand and inflexibility on the other.

It is faithful to its "programming" and flowers when magnolias flower. Just as in the heat of summer we in the south are faithful to the Christmas story with its winter images. Christmas to us usually means summer thunderstorms and baking heat and humidity, very alien to much of the imagery portrayed on European and American TV and in books. None the less we celebrate Advent and the Christmas Feast with as much joy and splendour as anywhere else in the world, observing the same liturgy as Catholics anywhere do. Much as my magnolia celebrates life by flowering in the autumn.

Yet, fortunately it is a grafted tree and so not expected to reproduce itself. The winter cold would kill off any seedlings that grew out of the bountiful autumn flowering. Perhaps inflexibility is not the right word, but a lack of adaptability to a different situation. The tree doggedly pursues its rhythm even when that seasonal rhythm makes no sense. I reflect this morning that sometimes I am like my magnolia and that I can't get in sync with the seasons, flowering when it is right and losing my leaves when the cold winds blow.

Palm Sunday

I was asked to be part of the team who was reading the Gospel this morning. I usually get the crowd or one of the smaller parts and I wasn't expecting today to be any different.

We gathered a little early before Mass and the usual crew were assembled, and we welcomed the lone newcomer amongst us. Our young Jesuit Rector then started to hand out the "scripts", and we were all astonished to find that our usual assignments had been quite shuffled around. I looked at mine in disbelief for I was reading the part of Jesus.

I protested in shock that I couldn't do this. Why not? Asked Father Rector.

I didn't really have a good answer except that a woman Jesus seemed a bit odd. Crisply I was told that I was exactly what he wanted for the job so would I please just get on with it.

So I did.

But I can tell you that for me it is one thing to hear those sacred words and entirely another to proclaim them from the centre of the altar. I heard in a new way Jesus's dignity under trial, his compassion for the women of Jerusalem and the thief dying next to him, and the great gift of his forgiveness and finally his faith in commending his spirit to the Father.

Hours later the words I spoke aloud, familiar and oft heard still echo within me in a new way, in a depth that I have not before experienced.

Death watch

I have been visiting the hospital where my good friend and therapist lies dying. She had a stroke last Friday and has slid into a coma since. Today I am bemused by the conventional wisdom being bandied around that she cannot let go, and the not so silent urging by some of her many friends that her time is done and it is alright to let to and pass from this life.

I sat quietly in a corner this afternoon, my own need to sit with my friend over ridden by the stream of visitors all driven by the same desire. I watched for the while I was there and wondered if I had known the same person as so many of the other visitors who were so distressed at her lingering in life after a fashion.

To me it seems as if she is moving purposefully in her own time and own way toward the end of her life. This is a liminal time, not a pause governed by fear or uncertainty. I wonder if I knew a different person perhaps, one whom I cannot imagine shrinking from what is to come. Working with her, and knowing her as I did she was always purposeful, sometimes eyewateringly so. Her timing might have on occasions been quite different from mine, but again it was always purposeful. I simply can not see her abandoning the habits of a lifetime now.

Whatever the truth of the matter I shall not know as she is unlikely to regain consciousness so instead I continue to pray for light in her darkness and courage for the final journey and peace in her ending.

Squeak was a very fine cat

This morning Ranganayi my gardener and Smokey Cat and I buried Squeak under the shade of the spreading jacaranda tree, where she liked to sit to survey her domain and the goings on on the road in the cool, cool of the evening.

She died last night from complications following dental surgery for the tooth problems that were preventing her from eating.

I rummage in my memories of her this morning, seeking the best and sifting through them in my mind for comfort just as I might turn a river polished stone in my hand. I smile gently to myself as I think of her benign dictatorship of the entire household. She has been Top Cat for the fourteen years of her life, and though others have tried to usurp her position  from time to time, none of us, cat, dog, hamster and human ever seriously thought of disputing her claim to the title, and all the perks that go with the post.

She considered VetBoy her especial human and guarded him jealously from all comers. I learned much from her when he went away to University, both to rejoice at his presence and serenity during his absences. I will hold that particularly in gratitude toward her always, deep in my heart. She and I developed more of a rapport when he went away, born in part from our shared experience of missing him. I think back to her arrival in our household as  6 week old kitten, who had been hand raised by friends when her mother was killed before her eyes even opened. She was a fighter, surviving a period with out sustenance and a mothers warmth and going on to thrive, and to live life to the fullest.

Never a very vocal cat, she had other endearing ways of making her wishes known and crystal clear though she was not above using teeth to make her displeasure known. Mornings will not quite be the same, without her insistence that breakfast be served NOW, before any thing else happened and before I had even put the coffee on.

Rest in peace Squeak, you will be missed.

Adventure

People who know me well know that I am not a very brave person, and while prone to brashness I am actually quite timid. I am not known for my willingness to plunge into adventures. Perhaps that's why I make a good accountant - I am cautious, careful and look at least three times before I leap.

So it is odd that I find myself engaged, at the suggestion of my spiritual director, in the Ignation Prayer Adventure website here.  I am not known for diving in deeply as Michelle put it last week, I am so much happier splashing about in the shallows. Larking about and laughing with a child's attitudes are much easier. But one of the aspects of Lent, for me at least, is a maturing, and a deepening of faith.

How can I not strike out for deeper waters when I stop, pause and have revealed to me The God, who is in all things? I see God in the tiniest delicately spotted moth resting on the door lintel, to the vast cedrillla tree next door that is dying in bits from some terrible internal fungus that reminds me of the effect of sin.

So the grace I am praying for this Lent is the courage to seek out adventure.

A Valentine Haagen Dazs zen moment

I fell in love with Haagen Dazs ice cream when we lived in New York some twenty years ago. My favourite was a caramel flavour with caramel swirls. Since returning to Africa I have not eaten it as it is an particularly American desert. But I haven't forgotten ...........

Tonight my husband came home with some, which he proffered as an early Valentine gift, having surprisingly found some in a shop he happened into this afternoon.

It must be over twenty years since last I ate any.

Oh it was heaven. I ate a dishful in deep meditative pleasure.

A true Zen moment.

ITCZ

We have a weather phenomenon here called the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ. Generally the ITCZ appears in February and brings with it overcast and persistent rain. The overcast and rain can last for days, often the entire month with very little sunshine. If the ITCZ moves in and stays put for any length of time tempers fray and sense's of humour fail. We are Africans and used to sunshine and blue skies so this month of damp wetness does not suit us.

This years long range weather forecast predicted a dry February and little or no Inter Tropical Convergence. While we don't like the ITCZ rain its failure to form this leads to drought conditions and famine. I am not begging here - everyone is heartily tired of famine in Africa. Just a statement of fact.

However........

it formed early yesterday morning and we have had overcast and drizzle for the last two days with the promise of at least another week of it. Not bad, as it goes, but it may extend. Already I am depressed by the leaden grey skies and sprinkling rain. I cling to the beautiful morning earlier in the week but its glory is fading fast. This morning I have had a new thought as I deal with some matters from my Dad's Estate. We are of Finnish descent, though it is not something I often think about. Somewhere I read that Fins have one of the highest depression and suicide rates due to the lack of light and the high proportion of overcast days. Perhaps some of what I feel is a genetic inheritance.

Not sure why, but this is a strangely comforting thought and it makes the overcast easier to bear.

A beautiful morning

Every now and again we have a beautiful summers morning. A dawning that promises heat in the day as it wanes finally to a golden afternoon wherein the bees buzz busily in the pink basil bush outside my window.

This morning was such a morning.

It was glorious to step outside into the dawning and see the high clouds, floating in a baby blue sky, coloured electric orange, fading to delicate pinks and greys. The morning was a feast for all five senses. The arch of the sky sating my visuals, while the refreshingly wonderful taste of early morning fresh air had me drinking great draughts of it. It's cool moisture touching the bare skin of my arms making me want to dance like a whirling dervish.

Sound and smell similarly overwhelming.

The sweet fragrances of the yellow cassia tree just coming into flower and the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow mingling to make a perfect perfume that Dior would envy.

And all around the dawn chorus sang in tune with such a beautiful day. A great choir of twittering with the robin chats vibrant  solos rising in counterpoint from different parts of the garden until from the high silky oak tree the hundreds strong flock of splendidly coloured European bee-eaters took to the skies offering their melodic voices in harmony with the multitude of voices already singing the morning into being.

Such mornings are a rare gift, and whatever today may bring my heart has been lifted to new heights in praise and worship this day.

Missing him but not sad

I am not sure why people keep saying to me you must be so sad without your boy and how terrible the empty nest must feel. I am coming to realise that this what many mothers feel when their children leave home. In that I would appear to be fortunate. I certainly miss him, lots. But I cannot be sad that he has left home.

How can I?

He sent me a text this morning telling me that he is having a blast. It's clear that he's excited and enjoying his new environment, that he is utterly immersed in his adventure. How can I be sad when my son is happy? Isn't that what every mother wants for her child - that they be happy?

It maybe that I have a slightly different perspective having lost a child. That is sad. Twenty years on it still makes me sad, and even now some nights I weep gently for her loss.

So no I am not sad that Small has left home, even if I do miss him.

Changing life

Early this morning Small and Wonderful Husband left for Bloemfontein in South Africa where tomorrow Small will begin his University education. He hugged me tightly this morning before he left, saying "see you in March Mum". That hug conveyed so much - anxiety, excitement, quivering tension of a horse in the starting gates.

I am left pondering the changes.

This is a change for both him and for my husband and I. And our feelings mirror each other surprisingly closely. I will miss Small enormously, even as I am delighted that he is able to move on to the next stage of his life. I will miss his mischievous humour, his willing help and the friends who seem to fill the house. It will be quiet now. Mostly I will miss our outings together - we do have such fun together.

Yet much as I will miss him I am looking forward too the new flexibility that not having children in school will bring. The opportunity to plan a holiday outside of school holidays, to take off for a weekend on impulse, to spend a Friday night in peace as Small is not partying (well I won't know about it) and just time together with my husband. I can see that we will be buried in our books often enough, but it will be strange to have a conversation that doesn't get interrupted.

Changes.

A new phase in my life.

What will it bring?

A new group

We start the new years Confirmation group tomorrow with twelve or thirteen teenagers signed up.  This appears to be a particularly young lot, so some of our material will need a little tailoring. My co leader and I have been talking about where to begin, especially with the meditation part of the class. In this discussion we have marveled at what the Holy Spirit has in store for us this year. We have learned to trust that the group that forms is exactly the group that needs to come in to being.

Often times our particular group seems to attract some of the most vulnerable boys in the college and from its sister girls school run by the Dominican sisters, yet the groups develop into tight knit communities across divides that would normally keep the teenagers separate with in the broader school context.

We are also intrigued how one year binds to another, despite having no real contact and only a shared experience of the class to join them. Before Christmas when one of a set of twins from the class of two years ago was killed in a car accident members of several years classes turned up at the funeral mass, despite having not known him, while all the members of his class either arrived or sent messages if they were out of the country studying.

We are certain that the shared meditation and prayer is key to this group unity, and it most certainly ties each teen to our own hearts.

A good day

It is said that one man's meat is another's poison.

This thought came strongly to mind this afternoon when I got an email from Vetboy describing his first rectal examination of a cow. He was delighted and full of enthusiasm for the process, describing it to me in detail. Unaccustomed to such lurid detail, I could only feel glad that I had not had to stand behind a large bovine and insert my arm into its rectum.

Vetboy on the other hand ended his long chatty email with the simple words "it's been such a good day".

At the end of the day

My grandmother, who taught me to pray, would often use the words from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer at the end of the day. What I learned as a child I do still and tonight I pray in weariness born of being busy at work, caring for a sick husband and a sick cat, and the edgy grief of missing Vetboy who is back at University after two wonderful months at home.

              Lord support us all the day long, 
              until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
              and the busy world is hushed. 
              Then in Thy mercy grant us safe lodging, 
             a holy rest and peace at the last.

Funny how the words we learned to pray with when we are very young are the ones we are drawn to when energy is low, and the spirit drags a little. Comforted and warmed by the memory of my grandmother I slide down toward sleep, happy to close out tomorrow in the welcome of my own bed.

Feeding the five thousand

The reading for this morning is the feeding of the five thousand. I always find this story fantastical and for many years considered that the real miracle that Jesus wrought was changing people's hearts so that they shared in generosity what they had with their unknown neighbours rather than a simple multiplication of five loaves and two fishes.

Today I contemplated it both ways and found that all that was revealed to me was my own anxieties.

It didn't actually matter whether hearts were changed or food was miraculously multiplied.

All I am aware of is that unable to completely trust the power and love of the Living God I am frequently afraid. And the familiar Christmas words come to mind. "To a people who lived in darkness, a light is given". It is disturbing to realize how much anxiety I live with daily. No wonder gratitude is hard to come by. Those who ate that evening on a grassy Galilean hillside were present to Jesus, hearing his teachings, sharing in his compassion. The Gospel doesn't say how the people responded, only that Jesus loved them and cared for their needs.

Perhaps even now He has compassion on me and will meet my needs, so that my legion of anxieties are unnecessary.

The New Year

Happy New Year to you all.

This morning, when I am supposed to be back at work and actually working, I find myself contemplating The New Year instead. A couple of clients have expressed disquiet over the fact that we are in the 13th year of the 21st century and their beliefs make them anxious about what 'bad luck" the year may bring.

If the opening day of 2013 is anything to go by it will be a year filled with the usual mixture of good and bad, happy and sad and laughter and tears. We spent New Years Eve with some very good friends and had a very relaxed and comfortable evening, full of laughter and humour. We watched a local fireworks display at ease on our friends patio, safe in the knowledge that our epileptic dog was at the Veterinary Hospital carefully sedated and being monitored so it was unlikely that the bangs would trigger a fit. However when we got home around one in the morning our little black cat was sporting a massive cut on her side, clearly she had been caught on barbed wire somewhere. She was in so much pain that catching her without hurting her further was an exercise in agility and dexterity that I was not capable of at this time in the morning. Vet boy however scooped her up and we set off for the Veterinary Hospital for the second time that day, where they cleaned her up and have left the wound open to drain.

In the morning we collected both animals, one safe and well and the other still in considerable pain but healing.

Although we face a great deal of uncertainty in this country with a constitutional referendum and election coming up, both of which promise to be violent if previous years are anything to go by, it is a year to look forward and hope that any improvement in political relationships will allow our moribund economy to move forward a bit.

All in all I think I look forward to the usual variety that each year holds. And today I embrace the highs and lows, at peace with what may come. Although such equanimity is unlikely to hold all through the year it is a good way to begin.