I'm not quite sure who I have reading here — I know there's a lot of you because the stats are visible to me, but not many people comment so I don't have much sense of a community, if you see what I mean.
I have never worried much about this; I just write down thoughts as they pass through my head and put them here for anyone who might find them useful, to take or leave, like apples by the garden gate at harvest time.
I have a settled aversion to the shrewd/calculated business of building a promotional platform etc. I can see it's a good idea, but it's not how I've ever done things. For one thing, I believe in the power of the hidden life, the way of simplicty.
There used to be a type of Christian evangelism described as "friendship evangelism" (perhaps there still is). The idea of this was to target individuals, encouraging them to think you liked them and wanted to be their friend, whether you actually did or not. You got alongside them as a golf buddy or as another parent at your child's school's PTA or just in the course of social encounters, and set about making them like you. The end game was to attract them in to the church.
I have been on the receiving end of this — when I was a very young mother in my early 20s, married to a gifted musician, the curate of the church we attended "made friends" with us. He used to call in to our home to socialise; and as I was new to the area and short of friends, I enjoyed his visits and was happy to have found this friend. Only later did I discover that it was in effect a kind of religious entrapment — he'd been detailed off by his parish priest to make sure my husband (the one whose contribution they valued) put down roots in their church and stayed there. I felt disappointed and betrayed.
So when I started writing for publication about 35 years ago, I made myself and God a promise that I would do no networking or ladder-climbing, I wouldn't try to worm my way in to any circles of successful people, I wouldn't try to appear to be anything special or important to attract readers and create a market; I'd just write what is in my heart and offer it to God and let him bring the increase if he wanted to. And that's what I've done.
In consequence, I won't monetise this blog or use it to build any kind of little empire of my own. I say what I think and I'm interested in what you think, and I have made some good friends here; but there is no hidden agenda.
And so I haven't strategised for a "readership", much less a "market", and I don't know who most of you are.
But today, whoever you are, I wanted to ask you a question: do you have any plans or strategies for landing the plane?
What I'm talking about is old age and death. As I get older, more of my friends die, and I have lost several friends in the last year or two. One of them died the way I would love to. She had her lunch, settled down on the sofa for a little nap — and never woke up. How brilliant is that?
It reminds me of the man whose funeral I took, who got up one morning, made his bed and got washed and dressed, fixed himself a cup of tea, sat down in his armchair and drank, put the cup down, and died. Perfect, eh? But we all know not everyone dies like that.
My (previous) husband died of a horrific illness (pemphigoid). I wrote about it in the most recent edition of my book Spiritual Care of Dying and Bereaved People, so I won't go into it all again now, you'd be here all day. It wasn't a long illness — about a year and a half — and in the last months of his life when he was increasingly incapacitated, I and my daughter Hebe were there to take care of him, doing everything he needed so he could die at home.
My present husband has Parkinson's disease. As he is a few years older than me and has a heart condition and swampy lungs, it is our expectation that he may (nothing is assured) pre-decease me. He and I love each other very much, and I hope I will be there to take care of him right to the end of his life. Taking care of the people I love, watching over them and doing all I can to help and encourage them, is the nearest thing I have to a sense of vocation.
My prayer partner Margery, who died back in 2004 (the same year my previous husband died) was deeply involved in Christian healing ministry, and firmly believed that nobody needed to die of anything except death; everything could be healed, and in the end the Lord calls us home. I concur with that.
Accordingly I take very seriously the responsibility to build and maintain my own health; as my mother liked to say — quoting the Matron of Scarborough Hospital where she did her nursing training — "Your first duty is to yourself, nurse." Yes, it is; you're no good to others if you don't look after yourself. So I research quite a bit on health maintenance, and observe a strict diet — not so good on the exercise these days for various reasons, but I go for walks at least.
And at the end of her life Margery was in a nursing home for a year or two; and my mother had a carer come in daily to her home for the last stretch of time, plus she had the attentions of my sister.
But nursing homes and daily carers are very expensive, aren't they? My budget is all I need for paying bills and buying groceries, as half of a marital partnership. If my husband died, things would be very tight, but I think I could make it work.
But I was thinking today, as I was hanging out the laundry and doing the washing up — I have no idea how to land the plane in my own life.
Like many writers, I am a solitary soul and not very likeable. "Spiky," my husband says, and how right he is. I had several dear friends, but most of them have died now, and chronic illness (which I am working on healing with very slow positive progress) has kept me almost housebound the last few years.
And our health service in the UK . . . well . . . there was a thing Thoreau said in his glorious book Walden:
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.
Let's leave it at that.
God willing I shall be here for my husband to see him safe home — but I have no idea how to land the plane for myself. No plans. All I know to do is live for today and use it to lay the foundations for tomorrow. I am growing old and the space between here and eternity diminishes every day. How I look at it is that every day ticked off shrinks the problematic bit, that comes at the end.
I know to keep things simple, to make sure I retain minimal possessions so I am flexible and adaptable; so that, for instance, if I have to live in one of the households of my children I will take up as little space and cause as little inconvenience as possible. I know to live within my income and make sure that the house is kept in good repair so there is nothing worryingly unattended if the time comes when I cannot address it. Beyond that, I have no plans; and I have a moral objection to euthanasia — I believe in trusting the wave I came in on, and I believe my times are in God's hands.
But what I wondered is — how about you?
Have you thought about this? What have you concluded? Who do you rely on? Who might be your companions on the journey? What are your hopes and what are your strategies? I'd love to know.