Looks like I'm not alone...

As I've often said I love Simply Simon blog, always wisdom and solace and far better writing than I could ever hope to achieve! He posted this tonight...

just an angel

It’s the day before the day before Christmas, and it’s all ho-hum. To be honest, I feel less prepared for this celebration of Christ’s birth than I have for a long time. The anticipation that’s meant to mark the Advent season has drifted by, unnoticed. Busyness, weariness, lack of intention … despite my pastor’s best efforts to prepare me for the wonder of Incarnation, I’ve been a lousy congregant. Sorry Carolyn.

But then, as I walked home from work this afternoon, I noticed something. In the window of one of the old terrace homes that line my street is a Christmas tree. Nothing unusual about that; such things are a standard feature in house after house--elaborately decorated, colour coordinated, with fairy lights perfectly balanced top to bottom, left to right.

This one is different though. Awkward looking, slanted, no lights and empty apart from one porcelain angel dangling off centre, in solitude. I stared for a moment. It was odd, yet beautiful: no tinsel, no baubles, no flashing lights, just one off-centred angel, alone.

One of the most important books of the late 90s for me was Dale Allison’s The Silence of Angels. It was significant because it helped me to articulate what I had long intuited: that rapid advancements in technology and science have sometimes dulled our ability to discern transcendence and experience wonder in the everyday. Amidst the clutter and rationality of our demystified and explained lives, we’ve silenced the angels.

According to Allison, technological development has (i) eradicated silence, (ii) defeated any concept of darkness, and (iii) proliferated visual stimuli in every corner of our lives. Consequently, we’re losing the ability to hear, to see or to experience transcendence in the ordinariness of our days.

As I sit here at the window, the night before the night before Christmas, I can see a sparrow sifting through the mulch on my garden. From there it flies up into the shrub that fronts our house, with the twilight sky behind it. One bird, one angel, one child: the ho-hum is perhaps more sacred than I thought.

Week 35

Auntie Flower pointed out to me that this year I am living my own advent ... we are in our 36th week of pregnancy which amongst other things may developmentally mean

"he/she now weighs about 5.25 pounds/ 2.4 kilograms and measures approximately 18 inches/ 45 centimetres from head to toe. His/her elbow, foot or head may protrude from your stomach when he stretches and squirms about. (Sure does!) Soon, as the wall of your uterus and your abdomen stretch thinner and let in more light, your baby will begin to develop daily activity cycles.

This week, your little one is now sporting fingernails and has a fully developed pair of kidneys. His liver can also process some waste products.

There's much less amniotic fluid and much more baby in your uterus, which has expanded to a thousand times its original size".

What a miracle happening inside of me and yet has this mystery placed a different spin on the advent story for me? Truth is I don't know an advent when I've had a more church-less, God-less experience. Actually between work, visiting and hosting friends, preaching elsewhere and just being exhausted by life that's pretty much been my year. I certainly haven't set foot inside All Saints since October and the thought of this afternoons Christingle is really exciting (not least because it's a service I love).

At the beginning of advent our vicar sent out this challenge...

"Advent is a time of preparation, of recognising the signs of our failures and setting our lives back on course as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our brother Jesus.

Bill Hybels famously said: ‘The local church is the hope of the world.’ Our Anglican churches attract only 1% of the population on an average Sunday (maybe 3% if all the Christian churches are lumped together).

Advent is also about waking up to the signs of the times. Jesus went on at length about this. The signs seem to be that people see our ‘churches’ as hopeless rather than a source of hope.

So perhaps the times have arrived for us to set our churches back on course. (church = you and me, the church communities and how we express our faith when we are together and when we are ‘in the world’). The big question is ‘how?’

Do we know what are goals are? Are we just trying to survive? That doesn’t seem to me to be what Jesus meant when he commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations.

Imagine this: If we as Christians were arriving in our villages for the first time this December 2008 what would we do and how would we be ‘church?"

I haven't really given much time to this brilliant question but tonight I think Jesus would be less interested in what we did and more in how we did it. How we love each other.

My home group leaders have given me calls to let me know their schedule this term even though they knew I couldn't make it, which is great but no one has called to see how or where I am which makes me a little sad. Not being in church regularly is one of my failures this year, (going back to Derek's opening statement) back in January I committed to being there at least once a month to enable me to someway be connected to the life of what happens there and to the wonderful people walking this journey together. That is my advent challenge, a day and a half is left and I want to think about what our church looks like and where I am in the picture, what I can give (and I don't just mean by doing more but by being more creative with what I do maybe). I certainly don't want to be just a consumer. How could I have handled my absence better, would it have been possible to keep in touch more? If I couldn't be there in body what about in spirit - have I been praying for all that happens there?

I wonder in answer to that challenge if we get better at looking after the church we have maybe that will be the best way to have a useful church for the future.

I pray in the services that I go to over the next two days that the lessons I need to learn will be really clear, in the carols, readings and community. At this point in time the final verse of In the Bleak Mid Winter (my favourite carol) seem really appropriate... and a great way to get back on course.

What can I give Him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
Yet what can I give him?
Give my heart.

See Me

Last week saw the opening of LCET's latest art exhibition and if the chaos on the day before was anything to go by it's just as well they only happen every couple of years!!

The finished gallery - a former estate agents on the high street - was awesome though and it got some really good press coverage and more importantly about 300 (or more) visitors through the door.

The work - photos, instalations and audio - was all the work of around 9 kids we work with, not to mention the amazing Carter and Turner. Hearing the experiences of young people is always powerful, it was a great way to honour their request to be seen and as there was such great feed back from Social services hopefully this will improve their experience of the whole system.

Nice work LCET!

Maternity leave

Well I've been off work for two whole weeks and so far am pretty unable to stay away! Not least because I wanted to help out with the amazing See Me exhibition about children in care and then I foolishly offered to copy 300 cds of The God Man, the song our kids wrote at summer camp. We're sending it out as a Christmas card to our supporters.

It's amazing to see what non-Christian, un-churched kids made of God's story - we gave them the first verse they wrote the rest of the lyrics...pretty cool. It was recorded in our basement, no expense spent, Holy Joely's done a great job though, especially with the tuning!!

The God Man - Joel and the summer camp kids

Current reading.

It's been a phase for allegorical books recently. (Just had to check whether 'allegory 'was the right term, never let it be said my BA(Hons) in English was a waste of time!)

Our team book this term was The Shack which has been touted as a modern classic and called a modern day pilgrims progress. It seems a slightly odd premise for a story about the nature of God and to be honest I would normally give Christian literature a wide birth but this book was strangely compelling.

The story goes...

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness.
Four years later in the midst of his great sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against Mackenzie Allen Philips' better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare.

The author does an incredible job of exploring the characteristics of God, putting that into words has to be a real challenge, after all it's often untangible and I guess different for all of us. But here there is something so familiar and beautiful, it really is heart warming but also incredibly challenging. How can you forgive the unforgivable, what kind of life change needs to happen to make that possible?

It leaves you feeling as if you've glimpsed a deeper meaning about this old thing called life. It also debunks a lot of the rubbish that comes with religion and get's straight to the heart of what it's liked to be loved.

I wanted to hate it, I now want to re-read it!

The second book I started last night was called Hind's feet in High Places and was a leaving gift from lovely Gingerkidjoe. Written in the 50's by a palestinian Nun it is the journey of Much-Afraid to find herself as God see's her and to freedom. I haven't got very far and it seems quite old fashioned stylistically, which is taking some getting used to but there's already been some wonderful passages.

This is my favourite to date...

"many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love's flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love Himself walks and rejoices with his friends."

You

You are unique.
There is no one else like you anywhere in the world.
No one can replace you.
Simply because you exist, you are special.

Chew on that.

September's post...or should have been!

I was really excited to come back to work in September and no one was more surprised about that than me. Though I love the project with all my heart have found the last year really tough and have not found answers to questions about my role here.

But I was very excited and so much so I was in early to prepare for the new term and our first meeting as a new team. I'd planned a meeting to start with a prayer exercise about our feelings towards this term, as we were all in very different places, and it made me laugh as I sat at my desk untangling a pile of pipe-cleaners that were to become our mode of expression.

How typical of work at LCET and how lucky am I to be able to 'work' in such a playful way?! It seemed comforting to be sorting out and ordering as my first task, I hope this years experience will be much more like the finished pile, as last years seemed a bit like the former and we're still straightening out the tangle.

Food glorious food...or the longest lunch ever

Caught up with boss, Rg for lunch today.She's going to retake the reigns of the chaplaincy team while I'm off, having handed them to me when she was on maternity leave all very cyclical!

We went to Zza Zza's pizza place in town. It's a nice place that always scares me slightly since I saw the colour of the chefs once white apron and because one minute you see him making dough the next smoking a fag outside. But I have never actually been ill, despite feeling a bit queezy after most lunches!

We ordered pizza and once it came both thought it was overly salty, so plucked up courage to throw off our niceness and send it back. There was some story about two of the workers having salted the dough (too many or not enough cooks???) and after another 20 minutes more pizza arrived, still somewhat highly seasoned! We decided just to eat it as time was at a premium and when offered a free drink we accepted gratefully.

The pizza is huge and I had about a third unfinished and the waitress offered to package it up for me to go. She took it through to the kitchen and as she turned to get a box the chef threw it away! That would have been fine except that he then insisted on making me a new one...by this time 2 o'clock had been and gone and it was beginning to look unlikely that we'd ever get back to the office but it was such a nice gesture and his refusal to take no for an answer meant we spent a further, somewhat bemused 20 minutes waiting for it.

Thankfully the fun factor when it arrived made up for it...my own heart shaped pizza, charmers those Italians! And it was a good tale to tell at the office, not to mention the workers appreciating the food!

Relearning (again) intimacy with God...

Just back from 3 weeks off and really aware that I shut down a bit during that time, not least because of grief (having lost our wonderful Nan and Grandma in the same week), exhaustion (completion of another school year and summer camp)and a degree of uncertainty (finding myself pregnant again after a miscarriage just a month and a half before).

I was also berating myself from having switched off from God too, not having been to church since heaven knows when (not that heaven's keeping a record)not reading or feeling particularly open to things spiritual then I read an interesting post from Simply Simon quoting an old Christianity Today article by Eugene Peterson and I think it really rings true for me and my good evangelical background...

Interviewer: "Many people assume that spirituality is about becoming emotionally intimate with God".

"That’s a naive view of spirituality. What we’re talking about is the Christian life. It’s following Jesus. Spirituality is no different from what we’ve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It’s just ordinary stuff.

This promise of intimacy is both right and wrong. There is an intimacy with God, but it’s like any other intimacy; it’s part of the fabric of your life. In marriage you don’t feel intimate most of the time. Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn’t primarily a mystical emotion. It’s a way of life, a life of openness, honesty, a certain transparency".

I think it's in those moments of shutting down that we're sometime most aware of God (maybe in hind sight)as the fabric of our lives, when we're fully living each moment or feeling most alive we can forget that weft and warp, as that's when we're busy embroidering our pattern on top.

We're "having a baby"!

I'm not sure why that phrase is in my head in a scratchy northern accent a la Jonny Vegas but I'm sure there's an old comedy sketch burried in my brain somewhere!! Answers on a postcard to...

But a joke this is not, we are now gloriously 17 weeks pregnant and our little foetus is as big as an avocado!!

The great news - in the light of my previous miscarriage and losing our two remaining grandparents - has been really special but understandably maybe it's taken ages to sink in. Hearing it's heart beat at my last doctors appointment made it all a little more real, as did realising that we're already heading to half way through the pregnancy - scary!!

Ever since that appointment I've had the lyrics of the Iona song "No Heart Beats Like Your Heart" in my head, I love to think that we're all - past, present and future - part of God's great heart beat!

"No heart beats like Your heart keeping me in time
No hand as warm as Your hand holding onto mine
No eyes can see through me
No smile ever drew me like Yours

No voice like Your voice can calm my fears
And no prayers like Your prayers can move me to tears
And no arm around me
Can fully surround me like Yours"

Goodbye Nan

One of the brightest lights in my life went out last night. After almost a week of struggling, Nan finally passed away as Dad read the Psalms to her.

As I wandered round the dark house I imagined her flying through the nights sky, breaking off bits of stars as though they were glacier mints and laughing at the sheer wonder of it all...she was always one for life, even in death it transpires.

I can't even begin to contemplate what life will be like without her, except that I know she'll always be a part of it because she dwells so richly in us...all that life and light cannot be put out.

Some people may think this poem is twee, I like it. God bless you Nan.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Food, Frivolity and Fun

Mr Flower and Myself aren't really ones for television, except maybe with a curry and beer at the end of a really hard day but recently we've stumbled on a totally engrossing programme that combines shows such as Ready Steady Cook, I'm a Celebrity, the 1900 House and Supersize Me.

"The Supersizers Go..." see's (lovely)Restaurant critic, Giles Coren and writer and performer Sue Perkins try the food of different periods whilst emersed in that age with everything from wigs to clothes and work to passtimes.

This week saw them head for "Restoration Britain in the 1660s, a time of fire and plague. They both don wigs, with Giles in tight breeches and Sue in wide skirts. They snack on coxcombs, eel pie and copious amounts of small beer".

It's fascinating to view our gastronomic and cultural history so playfully bought to life. Watching Coren and Perkins trying some of the most gross looking dishes is hysterical; kind of repulsive and riveting at the same time.

Having done Victoriana, and the 17th Century they head for the 70's on Tuesday 10 June 9:00pm - 10:00pm onBBC2.

A slice of heaven on earth

As the rain held off this weekend and we were actually at home, it meant we were able to get some of the much needed weeding and feeding done in the garden. It's such an exciting time with the plants growing practically as you watch and all the time you spend out there being rewarded with another bloom, a little more colour, height and reach. Ordering the jumble of ever expanding stems and leaves also does something to the soul, making space, reconnecting to creation and the creator. I love this time of year, it's already looking great and it's not even summer yet.

Trawling through my favourite blogs earlier this evening I came across this poem on Simply Simon

Dear God,
let us prepare for winter.
The sun has turned away from us
and the nest of summer hangs broken in a tree.
Life slips through our fingers
and, as darkness gathers, our hands grow cold.
It is time to go inside.
It is time for reflection and resonance.
It is time for contemplation.
Let us go inside.
Amen

Michael Leunig, A Common Prayer, Collins Dove, 1990.

In the first instance it seemed sad that just as we're rejoicing in coming outdoors and rediscovering the healing of sun on skin and life-giving breezes others are preparing to wrap up and put away...only fair though I guess and necessary for the amazing diversity of our planet.

Dear God,
let us prepare for summer.
The sun has turned towards us
and the nest of summer is woven in a tree.
Life grasps at our fingers
and, as light increases, our hands grow warm.
It is time to go outside.
It is time for activity and awareness.
It is time for exploration.
Let us go outside.
Amen

I have a good friend...

...called Amy and every time I wash my face I think of her! Why? Well it's all because of a great new face wash I found.

Amie (Ok, so it's spelt different)is an all natural skin care range and as well as using yummy floral ingredients and essential oils, it's free from parabens, animal extracts or any ingredients of genetically modified origin.The packaging is also 100% recyclable and they're made locally in the UK.And if all that seems too good to be true it gets even better as it's sold on the high street for really competitive prices, more mainstream than top-end organic.

In fact the only problem I had with these products is their slogan "purely for young skin", it left me in quite a dilemma as I'm not sure if thirty-something counts as 'young'. And I wondered what could go wrong if you used it when you were outside that ambiguous age bracket? Then on a recent shopping trip to my beloved Waitrose, I overheard an assistant telling a customer how the stores own-brand "baby's bottom cream" had sold out nationally after a beauty journal recommended it as a face moisturiser! With this in mind I decided my visage could cope with something for the teen market and am now slapping it on, with great results.

At the beginning of the year I decided to consciously try to cut back on synthetics and chemicals such as parabens after reading Janey Lee Grace's Imperfectly Natural Woman. She writes "the Ecologist listed all the common ingredients in many skin care products including: dimethicone,ethylhexyl salicylate, disodium EDTA, ethylparaben, propylparaben preservatives and parfum. All of the above can cause skin irritation; some have hormone disrupting potential, alter skin structure and allow cheminals to penetrate the blood stream and, in the case of the preservatives, have been known to mimic oestogen and been linked to breast cancer". Such information may be from largely small scale investigations but I decided I have enough problems with my own hormones thanks and I'd rather not risk it! Besides new products that are full of goodies at great prices, like Amie and Daniel Galvin Junior Hair Products, means there's no need.

Inspired to iron!!

Gunilla Norris might have been illuminating the holier aspects of housework to me recently but a new purchase has actually inspired me 'to iron'.

Sad it may be but I would like to take a few moments to wax lyrical about the Tefal Express Steam Generator Iron! Yes they are a piggy bank job at about 6 times more expensive than a normal iron BUT they get the ironing done about 6 times faster. It really is incredible, you only have to iron things on one side and both sides get done, bedding and tea towels can be folded up and just have their top surface done and they're pressed right through.

Mum's had one for ages and the cost had really put us off but it was every penny well spent...I love ironing (almost)!!

Long in the tooth?

I noticed recently Mr Flower and I have both taken to sitting down on the edge of the bath whilst cleaning our teeth, does this mean we're taking a more chilled approach to life or we're just getting old?

Washing on the line

Washing on the line 3
Originally uploaded by redhairedpixie

Hanging Out the Clothes - Gunilla Norris

As I hang up the clothes let me think
about what it means to be "on the line"
It may not be about courage or bravery
or intention. It may not be about social action,
good works or justice. It may be
something before that, something much earlier
more simple and humbling.

It may just be clinging for dear life.

I pin these wet clothes to the line...
an image of joining, of clinging to something.
If I really know that You are my lifeline
then to cling to You is my primary business.

There are so many spiritual traps
if i am the one who puts me on the line.
Instead, let me be simpler, let me just cling to You.

Then all other lines in my life fall in place:
the line of duty, the line of business
the line of poetry, the firing line.
Please help me to cling so tenaciously
that I find myself in line with You -
aired out and shaken.

Routine

It's been a disquieting start to 2008, which is probably why I haven't blogged till now. After a period of much doing, relating, change and talking it's seemed necessary just to stop, listen, watch and feel.

It's been interesting to notice what things bring peace, comfort and joy and the routine of 'being home' is definitely one of those. Wicked et al bought me the book of the same name for my birthday. It's full of meditations on daily chores and fits right in with my life-long quest to find God in the ordinary.

Today it was windy and bright enough to put washing on the line and have it really dry, the breath of fresh air that the laundry's getting feels like a breath of fresh air for life and I'm starting to breathe it in.

Spring has sprung

Anemone blanda
Originally uploaded by multiflora

Last Easter, Auntie Flower gave us a little pink basket containing an anemone blanda, it was very pretty and in due course I popped it under the holly tree in the garden and forgot about it.

They are now all over the this shallow and somewhat problematic end bed and are the sweetest flowers ever! In the sun they stretch out their petals and tip their faces to the sun, as the light fades or when rain comes they fold them self up tight to weather the storm.

Ok, Ok... I hear ya!

The following comment by Tom made me laugh so much I decided it deserved a space of it's own and would maybe, along with all the other comments and fears the Royal Society for the Protection of Blogs might be after me, get me blogging again...no promises tho ;-)

Tom: Hello Lillies Blog...

Blog: Hello T-Dog! Whats up?

Tom: Well aren't you lonely and feeling bereft of Lillie's knowledge - I mean she posted nearly every day in December!

Blog: I know, and I was so happy, my page was filled with so many wise words. But now I feel empty and alone.

Tom: I hear she blogs on www.schoolswork.co.uk

Blog: She does?!

Tom: Yes little blog. It appears she may have abandoned you and her loyal readers

Blog: What shall we do Mr Tom

Tom: Only thing we can Mr Blog. Cry and wail until she hears...

Tom & Blog: LLLLLLIIIIIIIILLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE