Busy week!

Phew!

What a busy week it’s been!

And we have a dotty phrase in our family (lifted I think from Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound): “The night’s not over yet, Simon Gascoigne!!!” (the name to be said with great relish and dark, sinister meaning).  Which is to say that this day also is rather bustling with things queuing up to be done – but just time to wave and say hi, how ya doing?

The week was a full one, with two funerals to write and conduct, and the bereavement call associated with one of them to be wodged into the week as well, as the next-of-kin involved needed to cancel his Friday appointment of the previous week.   Those went well, and were I think a comfort to the people concerned. 


Through last week I was also reading through the manuscript of my novel The Hour Before Dawn, which follows on from The Hardest Thing To Do (out in July), and which will be published in the winter.  It had come back from the copy-editor, who knows how unbearably finicky I am about the exact detail of everything I write, and how prepared I am to argue about every comma.  So he had cunningly sent me the amended manuscript with the changes not tracked.  Actually to be fair to him, he probably has to format the text so if he tracked the changes the whole manuscript would be so peppered with tracking it would be barely legible.  I think.  Anyway, I had to be even cunninger and know what I’d written so that I could think: “What?  Where has that word gone?  Why does that phrase sound odd to me?  Shouldn’t there be a comma in here?” and go back and cross check with the manuscript I had sent him after the first editing process had been completed.  This took a long time.  He is a good-humoured and patient man, and I hope won’t mind the many changes and reinstatements in the manuscript that came winging back to him.

I just got it finished and off by Thursday evening, then a funeral to complete and conduct on Friday, from which I came home to find my dear and much-loved friend Julia Bolton Holloway sitting patiently on my doorstep (see her in the picture, top, talking to the Badger over breakfast about the Roma in Florence).

The last time I saw Julia in person was when I was in training for ordained ministry in the Methodist Church, which feels as remote as another life now!  The last few years she has been living in the English Cemetery in Florence, gradually restoring it to beauty as well as championing the cause of the Roma, who are persecuted in Italy as everywhere else.  We had a lot of catching up to do!

Then Saturday, after Julia had moved on to her next port of call, was dedicated to preparing for Sunday, that being the Wretched Wretch’s second birthday.  His entourage, who were with us from Sunday lunch through until well past his bedtime, included his godmother from Sweden, his Granny and her new (delightful) husband from Washington, his Great-Grandmother from Battle, his Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother from Hastings, his Grandad and Nanny (my first husband and his present wife), two of his best friends and their mother (who is his mother’s best friend), all his aunts (naturally) and of course his mother and father.  With me and the Badger added in, that makes 20, I think.

The Wretched Wretch’s mother and I went to church with him in the morning – she had dreamed of skipping chapel on this busy day, but thought better of it, which was just as well as they had a wonderful colourful Happy Birthday banner for him on the front of the weekly notices sheet, and sang a Happy Birthday song to him, at the end of which he won all hearts by shouting “Hooray!” and clapping enthusiastically, as his mother is wont to do at the slightest provocation (nobody can say the Wretched Wretch’s mother is not an encouraging and affirming parent!).  After that had been done, he and his mother and I repaired to a back room and played with toys while the service took place, returning to the fold to participate in the eucharist, where she and I insisted on sharing our bread and wine with our little one, because that’s our theology even if the church doesn’t see eye to eye with us in every respect.

He fell asleep on the way home, and was crashed out on the sofa for a long while.  When he woke, his daddy was sitting with him, and brought him into the living room where everyone was gathered.  Poor child.  He was overwhelmed to see such a huge gathering, but once he reached the safety of his mother’s lap he was happy to let her point from person to person, quietly reminding him of the name of each one, so that the realisation sank in that this appalling crowd was in reality constituted of actual friends that he knew.

It was a good party, with presents and lots of food and chat.  His American Granny and Barpar (this was the Wretched Wretch's choice of appellation for his new Stateside ancestor.  No-one knows why.) had brought him a wonderful birthday gift of an aeroplane full of little people – a great hit!  He loves it!

His Grandad and Nanny (I hope you are keeping up with the component parts of this rambling 21^st century tribe with its many step-relatives!) gave him a fabulous green wheelbarrow just like a grown-up’s one, with a watering can and gardening gloves.  Michael loves the garden, and I think this gift will be a favourite in days to come.

We (me and the Badger and the Aunts) gave him a farm with an eclectic selection of Schleich animals.  
“Where are these animals from?” asked his Grandad.  
“eBay,” I said, “They’re all Schleich.”
“Oh, mum, they’re not that bad!” responded his Auntie Fiona. 
The Wretched Wretch loved his farm.

Eventually the time came to ferry precious goodies and a tired child back home.  His godmother and father went ahead to fix dinner, his Grandad loaded up the loot, and his mother and I piled the young Adonis himself into my Nissan Micra.  This is a lengthy procedure, as he has ambitions to be the driver.  We waited a long time while he changed gear and adjusted the heating mechanism and opened the sunroof etc, responding with a decided “No!” to his mother's suggestions that he might like to get into his car seat now.  The time arrived when she had to Become Firm, and with cries like rending metal and many wild convulsions, the Wretched Wretch was pinned down into his car seat and strapped in (yes, readers, this is the Gentle Parenting of our dreams…)

As his sobs subsided and the sun went down, we drove him home.  My last memory of the day is of his still slightly distraught voice quavering pathetically: “Donkey… Chocolate cake… ”  as we drove along – the memories of a wonderful day.

And today brings a réprise of beloved American family on their all-too-brief visit to the old country, then time spent with my mother so she knows she is loved and not forgotten, then my début as Parish Church Council Secretary at the Standing Committee this evening.

But tomorrow – ah, tomorrow! I am off to spend a couple of days at one of my favourite and most hallowed places, for some solitary peace and a double-dose of Minster evensong.  Ciaou!! xxx

Guest post from Ganeida on The Quaker 'Stop'

Over at Ganeida’s Knots, Ganeida has posted an excellent piece on the Quaker ‘Stop’ in response to our conversations here.  She has given me her permission to reproduce it here (Thank you, Ganeida!).  As follows:

My lovely friend, Ember, has been on a fascinating journey & has been sharing how the Lord is leading her while all of us wide-eyed & avid readers goggle at the ups & downs of her journey amongst plainness & simplicity in a very modern world. And when you find you are being led down the narrow paths, the paths that most of us avoid because they are so very narrow - & lonely - & require so much of trust because there is only the Spirit to guide & even fellow travellers will baulk & say, "Thus far & no farther," there are many stops & starts & false leads & retracing of one's steps to begin again. Amongst the old signposts is one I know as the Quaker *Stop*.



The old Quakers were unusual. Firstly they were unashamedly & unambiguously Christian in thought & practice & while this is no longer always so many of their thoughts & ideas remain. They were also what I would term charismatic - in that they were spirit-led. I know most Christian churches give lip service to the power & place of the Holy Spirit but far too often that's all it is - lip service. The reality of the Spirit is too frightening, too overpowering, too dangerous & so people hastily pack Him back in a box & close their ears. The Quakers, on the other hand, stepped completely the other way. Their whole philosophy of religion was, & is, that God is available to everybody; that no intercessor is necessary because each & every one of us can hear directly from God. Indeed, as God's children, there is something wrong if we are not hearing directly from God for ourselves.



I have talked about Quaker worship here. I mention it because both the *leading* & the *stop*, two sides of a single coin, have their origins in the depths of silence. They arise out of listening for, & then heeding, the still small voice of God.



Now the *stop* is not conscience which is: For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. [Romans1:20] There is set in the heart & mind of Man the knowledge of God, of good & evil, of right & wrong so that none will be without excuse on the day of judgement. That is basic. All of us, whether believers or not, instinctively know certain things are wrong because the knowledge of God is in us & all around us. Thus we know murder is wrong; theft is wrong; lying is wrong. I can't think of a culture in any age that has condoned these things whether they practise them or not.



If we indulge in certain acts our conscience will bother us because God is whispering that these things should not be so. At it's most fundamental the *Stop* is the warning to halt before proceeding on a wrong course of action into sin but it is also, in my experience, more than this. A *stop* can be a call to wait patiently until all those necessary are prepared & all that should be in place is in place before way will open to proceed. It can be a call to a complete halt allowing for greater light to reveal that a course of action is wrong & that one should no longer proceed along a designated path. It can be a call to wait patiently while others meant to journey with us catch up. It can be the call that there is a change of plan. It can be a place of enlightenment & also accountability. It's God's, "Whoa! Hang on & listen up!"



I like the old Quaker way of phrasing things. It speaks to my condition. It speaks of a people conditioned to patience, humbly listening for the voice of their God. It speaks, not of resolutions, but of the journey undertaken. "Way will open..." speaking of the patience to wait & allow God to work. "I felt a *stop* in my mind..." speaking of the humbleness to be corrected & directed by God Himself. It speaks to me of the practise of holy family because God is our Father & like any good parent He watches over His offspring carefully & because He loves us there are many yeses in our lives but there will also be the Nos, the *Stops*, the pauses for thought & reflection.

There is a delicacy about God. He is a gentleman. Where I go thundering about like a blunderbuss minus my manners creating Havoc & High drama, God quietly minds His Ps & Qs & waits to have my attendant ear & if I am listening carefully I will hear, "Stop. Wait. Proceed with caution. Way will open...."

Easing life over the seams

Today, as well as the usual chores – cooking, cleaning, watering the veggies etc, I have been doing two particular things. 

The main task of the day has been to read through the 2^nd of the three novels currently with my publisher, Crossway, to prepare a ‘glossary of terms’ for the copy-editor to add in at the end.  This is necessary because the novel is set in medieval England, so some of the words in it – glebe, extern, villein, frater, reredorter for example – are not in everyday use and are likely to be unfamiliar, especially in the US where it will be published.

A long time passes between submitting a manuscript and getting it to the copy-editing stage, and several more months will pass before the time comes for it to be published.  This book, called The Hour Before Dawn, will be out in January 2012 and is part of The Hawk and the Dove series.

[The Hour Before Dawn is the one with your dedication in, Jeannie :0) ]

The second chunky task of the day was to alter three petticoats.  I was slightly changing the necks because they are a bit high.  I don’t know why but I have a particular aversion to anything tight round my throat – I can’t bear cap strings and bonnet-strings at all.  The dresses I’ve had made for me I totally love in every respect except that when the high necks pull against my throat it triggers this aversion.  So I’ve slightly enlarged the necks.  And now the petticoats show a little sometimes, so I’ve altered those too.  I am not an enthusiast for visible underwear!

The new hem to the neck passes across the shoulder seam of course, so in sewing there comes a bulky bit where the needle has to stitch through that seam twice folded as the hem crosses it, if you can imagine what I mean.   What I find is that if I am sewing fast as I cross that lumpy bit, the machine just goes mental, running on the spot and convinced it can’t do it and then seizing up completely.  To get past the hiccup it’s necessary to be sewing slow.  As a bomb disposal expert once said: “Walk towards the problem slowly” – a good maxim for anybody’s crises!

Sewing slowly I can ease the seam along, and sew the hem with no difficulty at all.

Sewing, like all manual tasks, is an opportunity for thoughts to germinate.  The Hour Before Dawn is part of a trilogy that looks at people passing through transition, struggling to understand themselves and each other and assimilate change.  Though it is set in a medieval monastery, it explores many of the life issues and family problems that modern people in the everyday world experience – forgiveness, trying to see the other person’s point of view, struggling to remain faithful to our calling, discovering what that calling might be – sometimes slowly and painfully.

It occurred to me as I was sewing and thinking about the characters in my story getting to grips with the adversities life had thrown at them, that helping each other through the traumas and difficulties which every now and then are part of ordinary life for all of us, is quite similar to easing that hem through the machine as it passes over the shoulder seam.  Life goes along smoothly for a while, and then it hits a lump.  When it does, if you go at it with all guns blazing you just bring the whole thing to a grinding halt, seize up completely.  But if you ease it along slowly and gently, mindful and careful, not rushing, going slow, you get past it ok, and come through to the other side, and things smooth out again.

That’s what I thought.

And I apologise, my friends, if it sounds like a trite diary column from a women’s magazine in the 1930s….

Actions that speak of the failure of imagination

I don’t believe in smacking, spanking, or whatever you like to call it.  I don’t believe it is the way to deal with a situation that has gone wrong.  But of my five children there was not one that didn’t get smacked sometimes, and mostly by me.  The ones that were smacked the most were not the naughtiest – they were the ones I understood the least.  If I could live my life again, and change one thing, I would like it to be the case that I never smacked any of my children – never frightened them, never was harsh or impatient with them.  But that isn’t going to happen.

Whenever I smacked my children the same root cause was in operation; I had hit a wall.  I had run out of ideas, the situation was beyond me, nothing else seemed to be working, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.  As a course of action, in the here and now, it short-circuited a few dramas; but in the deeper and more important levels it was never an improvement.

I think now, and I thought then too, that smacking/spanking is evidence of failure: to communicate, to empathise, to exercise patience, and to understand.  It is a failure of the imagination and of moral strength.

I think the same about putting Osama bin Laden to death.

I can see how we got there, I can see why it has come about, but it seems to me to be at a deeper level a symptom not of justice but of division – the failure to imagine, to understand, to redeem and to heal.

He inspired and condoned violence on a mass scale.  He hated the West and all it stands for.  A lot of the things he hated about our way of life are things I hate too, oddly enough – secularism, imperialism, the ways of Mammon.

I am sorry that it had to come to this.  Sorry that, if we find killing and violence so repulsive, we couldn’t think of anything better than killing and violence exacted in revenge.

I have no idea what kind of a man Osama bin Laden really was.  I deplored the atrocities he inspired, and I can see that this execution was inevitable.  But I believe it was inevitable not only because of the evil in him but also because of the evil in us.  Supposing, like St Paul, he had experienced a visitation from the living Jesus, and come to us to tell us so.  Would we have received him like Ananias, like Barnabas, and taken his overtures of friendship on trust, in good faith?  I doubt it.

The Old Testament seems to be full to the brim of Osama bin Ladens, visiting the wrath of God on people and slaughtering the enemies of the Lord in their thousands – yet we don’t say they were evil; we say the battle belonged to the Lord.  This violence, this interminable bloodshed!  Until we can get past the mindset of it being about whose side we’re on and reach the mindset of understanding, the manufacture of guns and bombs will always be a lucrative trade.

As much as I deplore the violence and bloodshed Al-Qaeda has perpetrated, so do I deplore the cheering crowds on the news broadcasts today.

A man who was our enemy has died an untimely, unnatural, bloody death at our hands.  It is not a matter for rejoicing, even if it had to come to this.

There is only one good way to annihilate an enemy; and that is to annihilate the enmity itself, and win him over into being a friend.

I hope this day’s work will have weakened rather than strengthened terrorist activity around the world; but even if it does, I’m sorry we had to do it this way.   I wish we could have found a better way to draw the sting of terrorism and promote the cause of peace.  

The question we are to live by is “What would Jesus have done?”  In this case, realistically, I'm not too sure what Jesus would have done – and that’s always at the heart of where things begin to go wrong.

Kindly light

I have felt disconcerted by the number of people I have heard saying, with reference to the royal wedding, that we (British people) ‘do’ this well.  I have heard it referred to as a ‘show’ by people who should know better. 

A creepy feeling as though the Abbey were no more than a film set, and the Bishop of London a fictional character in a TV drama, has breathed its miasma into something that was either real or of no value at all.

In the Sunday Times, Bryan Appleyard wrote: “…the royals are back.  They did what they do best – put on the greatest show on earth watched by almost a third of the world.”

On another page of the Sunday Times, headed “Frock watch”, another journalist whose name I couldn’t see, had this to say, under the heading The Mother-in-law Face-off: “Carole Middleton went for an ice-blue Catherine Walker coat and dress topped off with a Jane Corbett hat.  Camilla tried to out-razzle her with an Anna Valentine coat dress complete with embroidery, pleats and ombre detailing. She also sported one of the biggest Treacy hats of the day. So who won?”

On the back of the Sunday times Rotal Wedding section is a piece headed India Knight finds everyone aTwitter about Pippa’s rear.  “The assessment of Pippa’s physical charms quickly veered into ribald territory,” she says of Twitter commentary on the occasion.

Meanwhile online a Plain Quaker posted a photograph of the royal newly-weds on the balcony, unfortunately angled to suggestive effect.  And, as I noted here yesterday, a born-again evangelical Christian expressed disappointment that there were no assassinations.

To the world, to the stars, to the angels – to the watching, listening universe that believes in the image of God in us that we seem to have gone to sleep and forgotten, I want to say this: these people have got it wrong.  What we witnessed was something real.

The love was real, and its intention serious.  The Bishop is not a guy got up in a frock spouting pompous religious yadayada to please an eager crowd; he is God’s minister, and he brought us a word of truth.

Westminster Abbey is not a film studio or a backdrop, it is a holy place; and tittering twittering descending into ribaldry over a young woman’s body has no place there.

As to the third of the world that was watching and the ‘mother-in-law face-off’ of women trying to outdo one another to steal the show, this is the vain, shallow, empty thinking of Mammon, and it misses the mark by a hundred miles.  What I saw was people drawing together to support, to celebrate, to rejoice, for a young couple who really love one another and really meant their vows; and drawing together to drink at the well of ancient faith tradition, because it has power to feed their souls.  And in Carole and Camilla, I saw two elegant and beautiful women not rivalling one another but joining together to honour and celebrate a happy and wonderful occasion.

It cannot only be me who finds this smart-alec stance of cynicism, seeing only spectacle and statistics, looking gleefully for a fight or a cleavage to snigger at, unbearably wearisome.

The journalists all agree that Catherine Middleton, as a middle-class commoner, has breathed new life into the ailing firm that is “the royals”: “braying aristos” as Bryan Appleyard described members of the English aristocracy, ploughing on with such determination with his embarrassing vulgarity.

The English monarchy is not a commercial operation or a TV show.  The dignity and composure of the Queen is only stuffy and starchy to those without understanding of the value of restraint and majesty.  The fealty we owe her is something real, both as her people and as members of the Church of England.

I wonder if there may be enough of us to resist the creeping sulphurous suffocation of this slime mould of Mammon whose spread advances constantly, enough of us to see by the light that is both real and gentle, that beautifies and dignifies and clothes imperfection with compassion.  I wonder if we can come into the holy space with reverence, seeing not preening mannequins trying to outdo one another but the honest self-giving of people who have brought their best; and looking at a young woman not as a collect of ‘assets’ to nudge and wink and snigger over, but as someone whose humanity is beautiful in its wholeness, supporting her sister with love on this most happy of days, watching to see that all went well for her.

The gospel writers place great emphasis on how we see things, and sketch for our imagination the vision of the Kingdom of Heaven as a state of inner light.  The world we each live in is according to what we see; and what we see is not a random accident but a matter of choice, direction and focus.

The light illumines the sanctuary of our souls, lifting the darkness with its steady and gentle shining.  It is not a harsh light, exposing everything to the critical eye of judgement.  The light of Christ is a kindly lantern, clothing everything in beauty, transforming the world into a place of wonder and mystery.  If we want to, we can choose to see by the light of Christ.  There is no need for the glare and glitter of worldly cynicism to infect and ruin everything.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

MamAmor

Further on 'Walking Into Simplicity' in a day or two - for the moment I seem to have walked so far into it I had a bit of trouble getting back out and onto the computer!

But friends, I had to show you this!

My daughter Grace (Buzzfloyd online), mother of the Wretched Wretch, found the MamAmor dolls, and oh they are so beautiful, delightful - such a wonderful idea.   Of the ones for sale at the moment my favourite's Agnes.  Which one do you like best?

They are for exploring the experience of giving birth, breastfeeding, carrying and loving and caring for babies.  They are big enough to be used in group work - women's groups, children's groups, schools, all sorts - as well as suitable for individual children, who clearly love and relate to them amazingly (see the photos on the website).

It is just such a joy to see something so positive and life-affirming, beautifully and mindfully made.  And I love to see artefacts individually designed and made by creative people in their own homes rather than mass-produced factory products.

God bless MamAmor, may that business prosper and flourish!

Web address: www.MamAmorDolls.com

Walking into Simplicity 2

This is a picture of my father four years ago at his 80^th birthday celebration.

He was a remarkable, unusual man, very intelligent, very private and shy.  He had to be free and was incapable of confinement to others’ agendas.  He didn’t like being  interfered with in any way – had some spectacular crises of illness at various stages in his life because he couldn’t countenance the idea of submitting himself to medical investigation at an earlier stage.   He always cut his own hair, and hated going to the dentist – when one of his teeth fell out he super-glued it to its neighbour; served him well for several years.

He was the soul of kindness but very inaccessible as a person – so I had very little to do with him through my life, but felt his love and concern emanating vaguely my way as from some desert island none of us could reach.

He travelled the world through his working life (he had an extraordinary gift for languages and was fluent in several), and was rarely at home and never for very long.  When he retired and had to live permanently at home with my mother, he moved out into a cottage of his own.  They stayed married, and spoke on the phone several times a day, went on holiday together and did lots of things together – he just wanted to live by himself; and he wanted to live simply.  I felt very at home in his cottage, which was comfortable but plain and unpretentious.  The heart of his home was his little dog, whom he loved, and the birds (and inadvertently, the rats) he fed every day in the garden.

Just over a year ago he died – quickly, neatly, suddenly, without fuss and with no preceding illness, just as he would have wished.  My mother and I found him dead in his cottage the morning after his death when we called by to visit him.

To me and my sister he left his estate: his cottage in the quiet English countryside, and a modest amount of savings.  My sister loved him very much and wanted to keep the cottage that had been his home, so she threw all she had at buying out my share; and his money was divided between us.

This has been a wonderful gift, and a key element in our household’s journey into simplicity.  The money from the sale of his cottage is in the bank ready (it is the exact amount we need) to pay off our mortgage on the house as soon as we can do so without penalty this summer (to do so before would cost more than waiting).  Having mortgage-free accommodation is the crucial thing that allows us to choose our occupation.  It allows me to work as a writer, Hebe as a letter-cutter, the Badger to work as a publisher only because he loves his job not because he is shackled to it, allows Fi the freedom to explore and travel and do a myriad different jobs and keep us all afloat at home in between time, and means that Alice’s bread-and-butter job at the library while she does the things that really speak to her soul – making stained glass windows, writing, textile crafts etc – is something she could walk away from and explore new possibilities if she chose.

The money from the cottage allowed us to pay off the mortgage, and this in turn allowed us to sell the small house we owned, that Hebe, Alice and Fi lived in before we all moved in together, to Grace and Clay and the Wretched Wretch at a price affordable to them on husband’s salary only – a vitally important thing, because it allows Grace to be a stay-at-home mother, and will in turn allow her to home-school the Wretched Wretch (hooray!)

So, a bit like Jesus’s picture of the seed that falls into the ground and dies and yields a rich harvest, in his death my father passed on to us the gift of the freedom he loved – freedom not to accept the ways of the world and the agendas of mainstream society.  It was a wonderful thing he did for us.

I should say as well that the little house Grace and Clay and the Wretched Wretch now live in was bought from money my mother gave us.  She was also a stay-at-home mother, raising sheep and organic fruit and vegetables, working every hour of the day, investing every bit of money that came her way into our home, so that gradually, buying shrewdly, buying low and selling high, she acquired two or three houses.  As she downsized and sold them off, she shared the proceeds with me and my sister.  Her gifts and my father’s legacy have given us both freedom and security – they have been Christ’s Good Shepherd to us whom they loved, allowing us to go out and find pasture, to come in and find rest.

Then of course the Badger has thrown all his resources and energy into the project, adding his savings and working hard to finance a considerable mortgage in the interim.

So our journey into simplicity has long taproots – it flowers out of the lives of parents who lived simply, frugally and thriftily, and have given us the gift of the opportunity to do the same.

But there was more.  In addition to the proceeds from his cottage, my father had his nest-egg of savings.  And this has allowed us to put photo-voltaic panels and tubes that harvest the sunshine to heat our water, on our roof.  They have just been installed, and the day they were connected we switched off the gas boiler that ran the central heating and hot water.  During daylight hours we now have electricity from the sun to fuel our household needs, and enough over to export a steady supply to the national grid.  We have enough hot water for the needs of five people – washing, washing up, washing clothes – all from the sun.

I always dreamed of having access to technology, but never imagined I would be able to generate the funds to do so.

Like my father, I do not fit in well to this world and its ways. I live an odd, shy, retired life, and have never been able to find my way in to any kind of belonging.  I communicate with the world through the books and blog I write, and have found that it’s best kept that way.  So I have never been wealthy; I cannot fit in to the employment structures well enough.  The idea of having solar panels on the roof seemed like a far-off dream that only rich people could have.

All my life I have tried to teach and tell people about caring for the earth and living naturally but, though people have listened to me courteously, the only converts I’ve made have been my own children!  Now, however, I don’t need to try to persuade.  They will buy the green electricity because we are exporting it from our own roof  :0D  Result!

So that’s another step we have made in the direction of simplicity – our washing machine, our computers, our iron, our water heater – the sun runs them now!

And somehow it’s all the more wonderful that this came to us through the mindfulness of my parents’ way of living.  They knew what to do with what they had and, when they passed the baton on to us, we knew what to do with it too.

It also pleases me that instead of waiting to inherit in their turn, because we all share and live together, it is possible for the generation of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to benefit simultaneously with the parents and grandparents – for my mother who was so generous to us benefits in her turn; this morning her bedsheets have been through our washing machine and are hanging out on the washing line in our garden to dry in the sun, for though her apartment has a beautiful view over farmland and woods it has no yard of its own for a washing line, and tumble driers have never been our way.

Walking Into Simplicity - steps in the right direction towards a plain and simple life.

“I’ve got the Wretched Wretch a farm for his birthday.”
“A farm? Geez, mum!  He’s only two!  No wonder we haven’t got any money!”

So went the conversation between me and my youngest daughter, which made me laugh.

But I thought I’d tell y’all about some of the steps we have made in our journey into simplicity (‘we’ as in our household, I mean, not the royal ‘we’!)

As this has involved a number of different things, I thought I’d post about it over a few days (though I’ll be at Spring Harvest in Minehead this next week, so there’ll be a space).

First off, I want to say, this is not me bragging ‘Look at us, we’re doing it right’ holier-than-thou kind of thing.  On this quest into simplicity I find I am continually learning, going one step back for every two steps forward, and having to compromise and wait and keep trying.

For example, there’s the matter of the car.  I’d set up everything to get myself car-free, got rid of the car, resolved never to have one again – and then my 83-year-old mother moved down to Sussex.  The town we live in, and the road we live in, are not her style at all – she would be miserable here; it’s quite a rough and ready kind of place, and my mother is a more refined kind of person.  She likes beautiful and elegant places, and country villages.  So she has moved to live in the ancient town of Battle, where the centrepiece is an abbey, still in good order and now a school, built in the eleventh century by William the Conqueror on the Pope’s orders because William and his men so badly mutilated King Harold’s slain body after the battle in 1066.

The snag with country village life is the public transport is a bit sparse.  At five miles distance along fast and narrow roads in hilly Sussex, getting to Battle on foot or by bike is not going to work.  There are trains, but it means walking 20 minutes to the station, waiting up to 40 minutes for a train, then a 10 minute journey, then another 20 minute walk from the station – and no trains through the night of course.  The buses go once an hour through the peak hours of the day.  At 83, my mother needs me to be able to go, and get there quickly, if she gets into difficulties.  She also needs me for outings into the country to garden centres and all the things that make her happy – because I want her to be happy in the last years of her life.

Like a lot of modern people, my mother is used to adapting circumstances to fit the thing she would like to do, rather than fitting what she would like to do to what circumstances offer – and this is a key factor in the difference between car culture and public transport/walking culture.  Those of us who walk or bus learn to choose the best veggies our greengrocer has to offer.  Those of us with cars maybe drive out to the farmers’ market where the real best veggies can be found.

When we re-fitted our bathroom this year, I asked Joe our builder: “Just get us white tiles and a white bath and basin and toilet, Joe – something basic that doesn’t cost much, whatever you think best.”   I had no plans to go anywhere to a bathroom store.

But when my mother re-fitted the bathroom on moving into her new apartment, she wanted to go to several different industrial estates and stores to see what tiles and bathroom fittings were on offer, to compare them and make an informed choice.   She’s that kind of person, and she gets immensely frustrated and stressed and eventually miserable and defeated if she can’t put her plans into action.

Looking after the people God gave me to care for is one of the things right at the top of the list of what I was sent to earth to do.  And I find it such a wonderful, precious privilege to have in my hands the chance to make people happy.  What an amazing thing to be able to do!  To make someone happy!  I love it!  I am determined that, as far as it lies with me to do so, I want to see to it that my mother’s old age is happy.

So it became very clear to me that my dream of having a car-free life will have to be put on hold for a few years.  Once she is no longer with us, the car can go again.  Meanwhile, being a car owner (though expensive) is no hardship.  It makes many things easier, and driving along the Sussex lanes is a joy.

So that was one of the steps toward simplicity that went awry.  We have tried to preserve as much faithfulness to the simple carpenter of Nazareth in our choices as we can.  The car is small and economical and basic, with no gadgets.  It is shared between all of us here, and while the Badger is away in Oxford through the working week, it is the only car this household has.  And we try to remember not to just drive everywhere, but walk and go by train or bus as well.

We don’t live our dream all the time and often, as with the car, it’s two steps forward one step back.  But we are making slow progress.

One of our simplicity initiatives I am pleased about is the whole matter of birthday and Christmas gifts.

 

We are a big family.  Five of us live in this household, then the Badger has two adult daughters who both have men of their own.  Then there’s Rosie (my eldest daughter) and Jon just 10 minutes walk along the road, and Grace and Clay and the Wretched Wretch (my grandson) 10 minutes walk in the other direction. Then there are the Old Ones – parents-in-law from my first marriage, and my mother.  And of course my sister, and her sons and their partners . . . and our friends . . .

Christmas can turn into an awful present orgy.

We have lived a long time in an age of mass-production now, and we have also seen what problems arise when things accumulate.  No-one in our family really wants or needs any more hats, bags, scarves, earrings, perfume etc, etc.   Book and CDs are usually welcome – ah, but which ones?

We eventually realised, having pussy-footed around the subject for fear of hurting anyone’s feelings, that we were spending too much money buying things nobody needed, wanted, or knew what to do with.

I took note of Ann Voskamp’s creative solutions of celebrating Christmas without gifts (can't find the post on her blog now, but this gives a good general idea), but felt the way that was right for her family was not quite the right fit for ours.

Then we hit on a workable compromise.  Each person would receive a birthday or Christmas gift, from all of us.  The gift might be a parcel of several small things, or one big thing – my mother had a little bag of prettily wrapped items that different ones of us had chosen, each of which would have looked pitiful on its own but together made a good present; my son-in-law had a ticket to a special concert that we all chipped in the money to buy.

That way, we keep down the expenditure and stop special occasions descending into consumer-fests but without the stark austerity of no gifts at all.  And, we try to include items home-made with love – the socks our Alice knits are always received as a special treasure, and my friend Julie Faraway has just sent a wonderful collection of beautiful yarn from her daughter’s amazing yarn workshop.  So socks are in the offing!

Thus it came about that I found a toy farm and purchased it ready for the Wretched Wretch’s birthday in May, populated with a number of beautiful Schleich animals – which can be got on eBay with great economy.  He will receive it as his birthday gift from our whole household.  I hope it is special enough that it will not feel disappointing, and I hope it keeps things simple enough that he does not end up with the materialistic overwhelm associated with a glut of presents.

This is one small step we have taken towards simplicity.  As always, when I write it down it doesn’t sound like much at all, but it’s surprising how long it has taken us to journey towards it, and how much careful thought has gone towards putting it in place.

Another thought about John Wesley - this time his marriage

This may prove to be an ill-considered post, possibly too much of a rant.  But something in me really loves John Wesley, and I felt very very angry when I read this.

It seemed to me to have all the usual feminist unfair bias towards women and incapacity to perceive the plain facts of what lies before us that I have come to associate with the world of psycho-tinkering.

The writer of the article quotes a letter from Wesley to his appalling wife in which he says:
‘Know me and know yourself. Suspect me no more, asperse me no more, provoke me no more: do not any longer contend for mastery…be content to be a private insignificant person, known and loved by God and me.’

The article describes these words as hostile and scathing.
Scathing? Hostile? Is it? To go on steadily telling someone that you love them and that God loves them too, even when they have done their utmost to ruin your reputation and even behaved violently towards you?  Why?

It reads to me like a simple, humble plea.  True he speaks plain, and maybe a person would have to understand plain speech to see where he's coming from.  But what a man!  I honour him.

The article describes with sympathy Molly's cause for disgruntlement:
At first Molly accompanied him but his travel schedule (by any standard through all church history) was relentless, and she, as a newly married 40 year old woman, was clearly hoping for some normal domestic joys.


But, did she not pause to consider whom she would be marrying?  Did she not realise that Christ was his first love and deepest passion?  What did she imagine marriage to John Wesley would be like?

The writer describes the Wesleys' home life as very unhappy, saying that Molly left home on more than one occasion, and John Wesley begged her repeatedly to return - in spite of her violence towards him; the article cites a diarist of the time who entered their home to find Molly dragging John across the floor by his hair.

He did his best.  The article says that when Molly finally walked out on him, John recorded in his diary - 'wryly' the article says, I don't know why:
 ‘I did not forsake her, I did not dismiss her, I will not recall her.’

But what enveloped me in red mist was the paragraph in which the writer concludes:
He should have consulted with Charles. He should have asked for the wisdom of other leaders. He should have been prepared for marriage. He should have considered his wife’s needs more than his own.

And his wife?  Oh yes, poor lamb!  She should have had everything exactly her own way and it was all John's fault, of course!

Tchah!!!!  Spit!!!!

At the end of this piece, the writer suggests that if we, too are experiencing difficulties in our marriage we might like to apply to Holy Trinity Church Marriage Course to be further immersed in more of the same.

You can see it now, can't you... a whole classroom full of whingeing disaffected violent women whose lives are SO unfair because unlike John Wesley their husbands had the temerity to get a haircut and can't be dragged anywhere.

You know what?  I would have married him.  I would have been PROUD to be married to a man who loved the Lord as much as John Wesley did, even if he was just the tiniest bit bonkers.

Rant over.

Endeavouring to wind my bottom around the year - Thinking about John Wesley

John Wesley, who inspired, founded and led the people called Methodists, preached a very practical word and lived a very practical Gospel.  In one of his sermons he goes in detail into his own experiments in maximising the time available to him for the work of God by decreasing his allotment of sleep to the least he could bear and still function – “redeeming the time,” as he said.  John Wesley took his responsibilities as steward of life's blessing with absolute seriousness.  During one patch of his life he tried a mono-diet (I think he went for bread) to decrease the amount of time, thought and expense he spent on food.  Samuel… er… was it Johnson or Pepys… Johnson, I think – it was the one who did the dictionary, the accurist who, when his wife came in and found him doing that which he ought not with the maid and exclaimed in reproach “Sir!  I am surprised at you!” replied in the interests of clear definition: “No, madam.  I am surprised – you are astonished.”  Anyway, him – one of you will know which one I mean – must have been Samuel Johnson: he complained that John Wesley was no fun as a dinner guest because he would never stay to relax and chat – it was just eat the food, bid a courteous goodnight; then boot, saddle, to horse and away on the good works of the Lord.  He had work to do indeed.  Beau Brummel didn’t have much time for him as you can imagine (it was mutual), but historians looking back on the social impact of the preaching of John Wesley and the movement he founded are of the opinion that what he did in the power of the Gospel saved England from civil war as bloody as the revolution they lived through in France.  He showed a better way to take command of one’s own life and rise out of poverty, and God bless him for it.

John Wesley wrote pamphlets about the kingdom of God and the power of the Gospel, and these pamphlets sold very well – so well in fact that without really meaning to he accumulated quite a stash.

He preached on more than one occasion about money.  Wesley’s oft-quoted phrase, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can,” comes from one of his sermons, and has been hi-jacked in error by more than one economically focused individual who doesn’t understand eighteen-century English.  They take it as the hallowing of the principle of hoarding, but it ain’t.  When Wesley said “save all you can”, he didn’t mean “store up as much as you can”, he meant “do without all you can”.  “Save” in this context is an injunction to restraint, frugality, thrift.  In an age when the fashion was for a man to keep his hair cropped and wear a wig, John Wesley grew his own hair and encouraged his friends to do the same.  Wigs were an extravagance he frowned upon; so were ribbons and bows and lace and abundant ruffles, and all such unseemly feminine frippery in the women of his congregation – as he let them know from the pulpit in no uncertain terms!

As a young man bounding down the stairs from his lodgings one frosty morning, Wesley encountered the chamber maid starving (as they say in Yorkshire where “starving” means not hungry but cold) and shivering in a thin cotton dress, and he urged her to add a warm coat, or at least wear a warmer dress.  Though he was himself one of a large family where they were put to it to make the money go round and his father spent some portion of his life in the debtors’ prison, Wesley was nonetheless both shocked and upset to learn that the girl was wearing the only dress she had.  Wesley’s mother, Susanna Wesley, would have seen to it that her own offspring were warmly clad, I think; this practical man came of a practical mother.  Anyway, his automatic response was to reach into his pocket to give her some money for a shawl, only to find it empty and realise with a pang of shame that he’d spent the last of what he had on books for himself, and was consequently without the means of charity for another’s need – and of this he was deeply ashamed.  And he preached about it: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can” – earn the money, refrain from spending it, give it away – that was John Wesley.

But because he wrote these excellent pamphlets that sold so well, his critics thought they had something to fasten onto – Mr Wesley, advising frugality in others while raking in the dosh very nicely himself.  So in one of his sermons on the use of money he feels moved to give account of his own management of earnings.  This makes very interesting reading, but when I first came across it some twenty years ago I stopped at his phrase in defense of his financial habits: “I endeavour to wind my bottom round the year.”  What?

I asked here and there among clergy friends what this might mean, and nobody seemed to know.  Oddly it was my second husband Bernard – wild woodsman who hated the church but loved Jesus and His Gospel, and refused to let the Methodist clergy meet in his cottage – who solved the mystery for me one day when he was ruminating about the etymology of the words “dignity” and “gravity”.  I wish I could remember what he said now – probably something he had dug up in the writings of Patrick O’Brien or Robert Louis Stevenson or Rudyard Kipling or other well-travelled and informative mind.  But the connection suddenly clicked into place for me between gravitas, dignitas, substance and bottom.  These were all terms expressive of wealth or influence.  Actually dignitas in its Roman origins was descriptive of non-material substance: I come across it in a modern context when I hear Quakers describe a venerable and venerated member of the Society as “a seasoned and weighty Friend” – a soul of dignitas, gravitas, substance. 

So the word “bottom” implies substance – what you’ve got at the back of you, what you’ve got behind or underneath you (hence its migration to the slang usage of “what you’re sitting on”).

When Wesley said “I endeavour to wind my bottom round the year”, he meant that he did his best to eke out his financial means so that he didn’t incur any kind of debt.  It also (I think) can carry an implication of fundamental provision (hence “fundament”, like “bottom”, expressing “lowest place” then “posterior/sit-upon”) rather than abundance.  So it’s a well-chose word for a sermon on money, heard by the poor and the wealthy alike.  The wealthy man might be considered a man of considerable bottom (substance, got a lot behind him), but the poor man might be down to his bottom dollar – his having reduced to very little.  To both alike the example of “endeavouring to wind my bottom round the year” will speak: to the wealthy man it recommends prudence and thrift, to the poor man it recommends avoidance of debt where at all possible.  Wesley had a keen personal awareness of what it meant to struggle financially, and his advice is heartfelt as well as shrewd.

It's a good pointer to a sensible way of financial simplicity, because it's provident in the widest sense.  The Buddhists say all people are selfish but there are two kinds of selfishness: there are foolish selfish people who only look out for themselves and there are wise selfish people who look out for others as well - because we all belong to one another, so if the umbrella of provision shelters everyone it inevitable shelters thee too.

Wesley's way, with its huge impact on the whole of society, created a framework of stability and responsibility that served his country well in offering a good political base in a time of considerable unrest and inequality, and served his Lord well in the effective communication of an honest and practical preaching of the Gospel and the faithful example of a converted and sanctified daily life

That’s all; just happened to be thinking about it and thought thee might be interested.