degrees of seperation between rhymes...or some silliness

When wondering what Lent has meant
I thought it's maybe like rent
paying for what was spent on my salvation.
It's a space where my pent up soul can expand,
holy ground just passing,like a moment on a mountain not demanding a tent.
It's enough maybe to dent our quotidian walls,
a window for light and for love.
Like a memory sent of colour and glass
and a sacred moment in a church down in Kent.

Longing for spring

Outside all is snow and fog
a world obscured.
These winter days have white-washed my heart too
It should be dancing
But it lost it's shoes

Nibbling...

I don't know who said the cold burns extra calories but that's not what my jeans tell me!

The need for carbs though is stronger for ever as comfort eating becomes the only way to survive as I look out on endless whiteness; snow, freezing fog, ice - not much to inspire the eyes so the tongue has to be tantalised instead!!

So this morning I made Cheese Pastry Sticks from Cooking for Coco by Sian Blunos.

100g cream cheese
100g butter
100g plain flour

She says mix the ingredients together until it resembles course bread crumbs then bring them together into a ball and chill over night or for a few hours at least.

Although 100g of flour should have been enough to cope with the cheese and butter, mine was very wet and bread crumb effect was far off. I put a load of extra flour in (after scrounging some from the neighbour) and it became a slightly sticky, quite solid ball.

Unperturbed I put it in the fridge overnight and rolled it out successfully, cutting it into little stars before egg-washing it and baking on 230C for 10 mins.

They are lovely, though could do with seasoning. Sian also suggests poppy, carraway (yuk) or seasame seeds which would be delicious but not so good for blossom at this stage. However I think some grain mustard or maybe even flavoured cream cheese might work too.

First time I've done some baking for ages, and it worked, brilliant!

Poetry please...

"Poetry is the music of being human"

So says Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy in last Sunday's Songs Of Praise. I just love that description, it ties in to my ongoing fascination with the ordinary being a dwelling place of something 'other'.

For words are indeed musical and also magical and it's the enchanting that is often beautifully brought alive in poems.

Carol Ann's poem Prayer (echoing that by George Herbert) does just that for me, it's the perfect explanation of God being in the very fabric of our existance, again it's the mystical in the everyday...

Prayer (1993)

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

I wonder what are the unformed prayers of our days, what sounds make up the music of our humanness?

Maybe that's something to attend to for another post...

Something 'extra'...

11 months ago I did something extraordinary, I gave birth to a baby girl. What followed has undoubtedly been an incredible adventure, filled with almost-daily miracles but at the same time the ordinary is larger than ever and how to deal with it is a big question for this year, and my sanity.

The routine of motherhood, of living in windows of free time is challenging. Like writing this blog post, I can only do it now because Blossom has finally on the third attempt gone to sleep. How do I make those windows count, without exhausting myself and with still achieving all the hum drum must-do's like cleaning, washing etc. How do I handle the guilt I put on myself if I spend my small parcel of free time reading a magazine or online as it doesn't seem a substantial achievement for my day?

Thinking about this as the snow pours out of the sky is also interesting, here is extraordinary weather which results in us being stuck inside the house, stuck with the ordinary.

I wonder if this collocation always follows? Perhaps that's a clue to the answer to this question.

Perhaps the extraordinary is closer to the ordinary than we think?

And prize for the biggest meany goes to...

Royal Mail!

Can't believe they've developed stamps that can't be peeled off and reused!! That was one of life's bonuses, like finding a tenner in the back pocket of your jeans, now it's been mercilessly taken from us. I really can't believe that many escape the franking machines and survive the furtive peeling-off exercise, surely their profits can't be suffering that much.

But they have gone and developed little cuts in the body of the stamp that make it impossible to peel it off in entirety from one direction...that's soooooo tight.

Boooo, booo, booo. Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Simple Pleasures

Last week I missed out on a picnic of tea and cake on Stewkley rec. It was a gorgeous blue sky, sunny day and the thought of hanging out with friends was really appealing. It struck me how just tea and cake has been come a real ritual for this group and is the setting for sharing, much love and laughter. It made me think about the pleasure of simple things, following on from my carpet thanks giving.

On the same morning I saw a poppy growing out of the crack between curb stones, it's yellow pollen matching the double yellow lines. I was in too much of a rush to take a photo but just to notice it's brief quirky appearance was a gift. Another simple pleasure. The daisy above and miniature iris have self seeded in my back yard and today I had time to take a photo.

This all reminded me of a song on the theme by brilliant band Dolly Varden, one of the simple pleasures from my old job!

Simple Pleasure - Dolly Varden

It's nifty to be thrifty

Just watched River Cottage on Channel 4 plus one (I so take back what I said about a channel solely playing the same schedule at a later time being rubbish, I live there now bedtime always clashes!!).

It was left overs night at the restaurant and Hugh and Tim came up with a host of inventive dishes. It was funny because I'd just been thinking about being thrifty as i made a stock out of my asparagus ends, carrot peelings and parsley stalks, amongst other things. I can't bear to throw food away and I love the promise of stock that out of waste comes something delicious and unexpected, whether a soup or risotto.

I'm reading Life with God by Richard Foster at the moment and he's just been talking about spiritual discipline and exercises and he lists frugality as such a thing. I'd never thought about it in that sense but I totally see it. Being creative should be a hall mark of faith, as is gratitude for and nurturing of resources and it's amazing what a sense of achievement I get out of making the most of things, or at least trying. Like Hugh at River Cottage I'm determined to honor the growth of food, whether meat of veg or grain by doing it full service.

I guess Kirsty's Home Made Home bought into this with all the digging in skips and rooting round antique shops and reclamation yards. It's amazing how snobbish we can be about 'junk' if we're not looking at it creatively. It's great to think too that the tide may be turning and rather than throwing things away at the drop of a hat we might really start to buy items for keeps, re-use and truly recycle.

On that theme I've just taken charge of real, cloth nappies. Blossom will be the third or fourth baby in some of them, which seems very sustainable. It's always hard to know with the energy versus landfill argument, especially as we've been using biodegradable, non-chlorine bleach, non plastic disposables to date. But I guess we'll still do a mix of both.

Hugh also examined bread, with all it's dodgy additives, that alongside not being able to find a decent loaf these days has me itching to try making my own but I'm not sure if I've got the staying power to get beyond the brick phase. Never was very good at practice makes perfect but who knows...

Something in reserve?

Tonight I met with a great friend, when we parted a song came into my mind that I hadn't heard for years. My heart often forms prayers for people that way.

It had been a really busy day with loads of visitors and as I cleared up a mountain of washing up and a chaotic house, there was something reassuringly therapeutic about restoring order and something peaceful about the methodical washing, drying and wiping, collecting, folding and tidying. It was a very spiritual calm and taking the washing off the line in the fading light it felt like tidying the day away and putting all that had been to bed. You know that feeling of having had a gloriously full day and collapsing into bed exhausted but buzzing? Kind of like that.

Then we had a powercut.

Thankfully I'd restored order and had settled down to surf the web so no real harm done. I lit a few candles and got out our super powerful torch to read by but it lasted about 3 minutes before dying. How typical! The only time we've needed to use it and it had no charge left.

I thought about that as a somewhat cheesy metaphor for faith, I could just imagine it in a less than subtle sermon "are your batteries charged enough to give you light in the darkness?!" I guess the thought occurred to me after my previous thankfulness for that song.

And it led me to wonder what I've read or listened to recently that might become useful in future? And I felt a lack of anything sustaining. In fact I'd been bemoaning an absence of anything uplifting or happy to read to Auntie Flower recently. Whilst I've read some great books, fascinating writing, it's all been a bit doom-laden and whilst that has it's place, it can all too easily lead to unhelpful navel gazing, false comparisons and negativity if one's not careful.

Mulling all this over tonight I was reminded of the words from Romans...

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind ...

I love it when I either make the effort to search out those things, people or experiences that enable me to find that renewal or when I'm able to just stop with God in order to let him change something in me or show me something new in Him.

Tonight in the garden after bagging the washing I stood listening to the evenings activity and giving thanks for all the thinking, conversations and experiences that had happened in this house. I'll be sad to leave it's been such a special home but I know I've received a wealth of reserves here that will power me up for whatever the future holds.

Thanks

Thanks to the friend who recently reminded me to take off my slippers, feel the carpet beneath my feet and give thanks.

Simple Supper

Have been making a conscious effort to try some new recipes again, after falling back into the same old ruts and the Mighty W came up with this brilliantly easy recipe on one of it's recent pamphlets...

Salmon Teriyaki with Tenderstem Broccoli

4 tbsp Teriyaki Paste
1 tbsp Chilli Paste
2 Salmon fillets
4 tbsp Vegetable Oil
200g Tenderstem Broccoli

1. In a shallow dish mix together the teriyaki paste and half the chilli. Add the salmon fillets, turn to coat in the mixture and leave to marinate for 10 minutes
2.Heat half the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. When pan is hot, add the salmon skin side down and cook for 2-3 minutes until deep golden. Then turn over and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. Add the marinade and bubble for 30 seconds.Set aside.
3. Meanwhile heat the remaining veg oil, add the remaining chilli paste and broccoli and 3 tbsp of water and stir fry for 3 minutes or until al dente. Serve with the salmon, sauce and steamed rice.

Thoughts...

To make it even easier you could just steam the brocolli and not worry about frying it with the chilli. We used mixed basmati and wild rice which gives great texture and flavour. The salmon is also great topping a vegetable and noodle stir fry!

Enjoy...

Noticing...

A long while back I spent a while trying to be conscious of God in the ordinary bits of my job, I just came across to reflections I wrote as a result and thought they may resonate with some of you youthworkers out there...

Locking up

With the turn of a key, I am alone in the darkness.
The chill air stings my cheeks still flushed from the chatter, the games and the sugar.
My breath is silver against the night.
Breath of life,
Given by You.
Breathe life into all who have just left this place,
Breathe into them possibility and life unfolding.
Breath of life,
Breathe life into me again.
Fill this tired body, weary mind and anxious heart.
Breathe life into me again,
Here in the darkness,
Finally alone.

Diary

People, places, times and venues
Days filled, hours crammed, minutes packed
Where are You on these pages,
You who holds forever?

You are in the blanks and the lines and the full stops.

Teach me to seek you out underneath and in between these inky distractions.
To pause before each new entry and acknowledge your presence,
in all, through all and for all.

13 weeks

Blossom is 13 weeks old and it's incredible how she's no longer a baby...I mean of course she is but that initial distant, dependent stage seemed to be over so quickly.

Johnson and Johnson have a sickly ad that says "when a baby is born so is a mother" and once I finished wretching I had to admit this is in many ways true. Although my maternal powers existed long before she did, thanks to experience of caring for younger siblings and a team of younger work colleagues who I seemed determined to mother!

But it is interesting how your frame of reference grows along with a child and also how you re-access your childhood. The other day I found myself singing to her,

Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so, little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong. Yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me the bible tells me so.

I wasn't really sure where it came from or how a knew it growing up in a largely non religious household. (Turns out it was my Mum, funny the hope "God bless" was also uttered every night as the bedroom door was closed, religious no, spiritual yes).

It reminded me of an amazing seminar I attended by Kenda Creasy Dean, author of The Godbearing Life. It was all about adolescence and how we form our identity and how people around us influence that. It was also looking at how we walk with teenagers through that to best help them find community, creed, hope and ultimately through these things faith. She started one of the sessions getting us to think about our experience of teen age and how we felt about ourselves, with all our insecurities, hopes, longings, fears and experimenting and she got us to sing that song from that place.

The power of that truth; that we are loved even in the midst of the shifting sands of our becoming was immense and is still with me ... I hope I can have the grace to share that gift with my little one, both when she is weak and strong.

Let them eat cake...

Just made some chocolate brownies from my Aussie neighbour's recipe, perfect with a cup of tea after coming in from the snow!!

Melt 185g dark chocolate and 125g of butter together
Stir in 1 cup of sugar and 2 eggs (one at a time)
Fold in 1 cup of plain flour and 1 cup of chopped walnuts (I used mixed fruit and nuts as it was all the cupboard provided!)
Cook at 180/gas mark 5 for 30 minutes

To be really naughty ice with...

Mix 2 cups of icing sugar with 2 tbsp cocoa
Melt 1 tbsp of butter and add, along with milk, to the above until you get the right consistency.

Yum!

The poetic version

You're by Sylvia Plath

Clownlike, happiest on your hands
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fool's Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Father off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

Today's the day...

that our little Sprout is due. But I don't think he or she has any intention of arriving just yet.

Talking to Mum earlier we were reflecting on how quickly you forget the experience of pregnancy and although several people have asked if I was keeping a journal I've found it really hard to commit any thoughts about the process to paper.

In some ways I've been unwillingly superstitious after miscarrying last time, not wanting to create anything that may out-last this baby but recently I've come to a place where I think I can accept the pregnancy for what it is as a complete experience in and of itself now, before I even get onto thinking about life with my child.

I've been so well, a tiny bit of nausea and overwhelming tierdness early on but nothing more than that. In the last weeks I have the trade mark swollen ankles and am starting to feel like I am shrinking or at least am now as wide as I am tall.

I have loved the timetable that Sprout has kept, springing to life each night as my head touches the pillow and how it's striking a flamenco pose - one had by its head beating my bladder and two feet stamping by my ribs - and dancing earned it the name Ernest Fandango.

I have loved everyone's hopes, dreams and opinions on this child, how my half brothers and sisters named it Sedgley (?!) in a moment of familial madness and are almost bursting for it's arrival.

Reading up about it's development; a heart as tiny as a poppy seed beating at 6 weeks, seeing it yawn during a scan and taking turns to poke each other through my stomach.

It aches to think of those who couldn't wait on this earth to meet this new member of the family and intrigues me to see in what ways this child will carry their story on.

My waist measurement is 42 inches, I have no idea what I weigh. My hair and skin have been in amazing condition throughout, with no stretchmarks! I've been swimming every week, walking most days of maternity leave. Haven't craved anything to the point of having to have it but crisps, MacDonald's (yea gads), coca cola, sherry and everything I shouldn't eat (blue cheese, smoked salmon etc) have seemed awfully appealing. I went off coffee, tea and wine for two thirds of the ride but am now happily imbibing all three - in moderation of course.

Wierdest experience, heightened sense of smell. I swear I could have worked for the drugs squad in my first trimester, it was the most bizarre thing and not always pleasant

Will I miss life with a bump? Definitely. I'm wondering whether it will feel lonely for a while without an on-board friend.

Am I ready to give birth? Nature is a wonderful thing getting you to just that point of being so uncomfortable that you're ready to take delivery of this miraculous package.

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