Freedom

For the last six weeks or so I have been using a prayer site called Sacred Space, run and maintained by the Irish Jesuits, to guide my meditation as my spiritual director is away on extended leave in Germany. It has been very fruitful. The meditation follows a pattern of becoming aware of the Presence, of Freedom and Conscious of God before examining and meditating on the the Gospel for the day and flowing from that mediation into prayer.

A few days ago this was the introduction to the Freedom portion, slightly different from the usual way..


Freedom
Many countries are at this moment suffering the agonies of war.
I bow my head in thanksgiving for my freedom.
I pray for all prisoners and captives.

And found myself thinking that perhaps I didn't really grasp what the Jesuits were on about. Poking about on other sites I have become more certain of my lack of understanding. I realise that I have grown up in a country that in my lifetime began with civil war, run by a one party colonial state, where freedom of speech was distinctly limited. The situation didn't improve after independence, being still a one party state with limited freedoms of association and speech. So quite possibly I do not understand freedom as someone who lives in the First World might.

So I reflect.....

Freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom to do what?

African Pied Wagtails

 I had a new app on my iPad which not only gave useful bird identification pictures, maps and pictures of nests but, to Vetboys pleasure, it also played back birds calls.

He was playing this African Pied Wagtails call and suddenly noticed that these two were getting closer and closer as their curiosity about this "bird" overcame their natural shyness. They came with in a meter or two of him but no one else could get close enough to take a good photo.


They did this any time we played the call. Small maintained that they were two lonely bachelors looking for a likely female, while my husband thought that they were defending their territory.

What ever the reason, no other birds responded in similar manner but we did have a lot of fun watching these little guys up close.

Kariba

We have just been on our annual houseboat trip to Kariba. 
Here are a couple of photos of the Lake taken with my iPhone - not the best for a panoramic view of water, mountain and sky but the best I can manage.

Fidelity

My mothers garden is looking terrific and my amateurish photographs do not do justice to it.

It wasn't always 'her" garden though. It was planted and nurtured by Dad who was the gardener of the family. She however has taken on the challenge of learning how to care for a garden as her way of honouring his memory and two years after his death here it is flourishing. Not without some wobbles along the way but her solution to most bugs, diseases and pests is to spray with soapy water. So far it seems to work.

To me it just goes to show how important love and faithfulness is. Even plants and gardens absolutely flourish under a faithful, loving hand.

First Rain

Last night we had our first rain of the season.

We were all outdoors in a flash watching the thunder and lightening storm their way across the night sky. Then came the rain. Teeming down. Welcome. Joyous in its drumming on the roof. Swirling in the storm winds. Oh the smell of rain on hot, dry tar and dirt and grass. The temptation to strip off and run about in the rain is almost overwhelming.

Up and down the road people could be heard celebrating the rain. Children went late to bed but on the night of the first rains of the season that's ok.

One hot October night

It is October. In our part of the world that means hot, still and DRY. The last time we had rain was in March. Everything wilts under the relentless heat, the grass is sere, the sky is opaque with haze even  the Jacaranda trees mauve flowers blend into the sky. Only the bougainvillea give splashes of bright colour in our colourless world. We wait breathlessly for the rain.

But the evenings are wonderful and last night we spent the evening at a music concert at school. It was a wonderful evening with families picnicking before hand and plenty of space for little children to race around playing tag on the only green for miles - the cricket pitch. The crowd was incredibly varied, old and young, a mix of races, those with connections to the school and those who had none and had come for the music alone. Wowed by a range of music that included opera and pop, country and western and jazz, and choirs. Music both sacred and secular, the artists covered a range from young to old and included  a young Jesuit in training brought the crowd to its feet with his magnificent voice singing music from The Mission.

I thought to myself that Ignatius would have enjoyed the inclusivity of the event. Here God was revealed in a common shared experience, by a crowd who put aside their differences for one night to share in something wonderful. And the performers offered us of their best, sharing a stage together in good humour and generosity.

The Class of 2012

 An end of the school year always has its occasions and none more so than my sons one hundred and eleven year old Jesuit High School.  We have had Prize night, made doubly poignant by the departure also of the Headmaster after forty years at the school as boy and man.

We are yet to do one of the other teary moments, the blessing of the Leavers in a special Leavers Service devised and led by the boys themselves.

Yesterday the Class of 2012 had its last official teaching day, and is now on study break ahead of their external Cambridge based examinations. I thought that the two and a half meter banner, hung from the tower, reflected what they had learned in six years of Jesuit based education, with a nod to Nike!