Amazon reviews

 Friends, if you have read any of my stories, I'd be most grateful if you can find time to write an honest review on Amazon.

This can make a material difference to the availability of the books.

A while ago, Amazon blocked — removed from publication — my book The Hour Before Dawn, with 'customer disappointment' given as the reason.

The Amazon publishing platform seems to be run mainly by robots; correspondence proved frustrating because we were unable to determine the basis for the customer's disappointment. At all. The only thing forthcoming, no matter how we framed the question, was redirection to a page stating in general all the possible bases for customer disappointment. 

So we were not able to get it reinstated. We did manage to circumvent the problem by re-publishing the same book with a different ISBN, even though we couldn't include its position in the series. If we'd indicated that it belonged to the Hawk & Dove series, on republication it would have come up not as Volume 5 (which it is) but as Volume 13. So a minor annoyance, but hey.

When we republished it, I put out a plea to anyone who had read it to come and review it, and several people kindly did. I didn't ask for positive reviews, nor would I ever, only for honest reviews.

The first of my Hawk & Dove books was written in 1989 and published in 1990, so it's been around a while! In the course of time it's garnered hundreds of reviews on Amazon. But it's been less than two years since I got back the rights to all my books so we could publish them ourselves under our own Humilis Hastings imprint. Series 2 was always and only under that imprint, but until a couple of years ago Lion Hudson was the most recent publisher to have all the books in Series 1.

The reason I had more than one publisher was because the life span of the series is so long. The first publisher of The Hawk & the Dove and The Wounds of God and The Long Fall was Kingsway in the UK, under their Monarch imprint, started by Tony Collins (my husband) as part of his vision for promoting Christian fiction in the UK. In the US, Crossway took those books, and they were the publishers who did the one-volume book of that trilogy, first in 2000, and then in a new edition in 2012.

But Kingsway stopped publishing books, and became only a music publishing business, so Tony moved to Angus Hudson, taking his Monarch imprint with him, and Angus Hudson merged with Lion to create Lion Hudson. During that time of transition, Crossway was the only publisher for my Hawk & Dove books.

Then, to celebrate that trilogy having been in print for 20 years continuously, I asked Crossway if they'd be interested in a 4th book in the series. They were, so I wrote The Hardest Thing to Do. At the time I was writing mainly non-fiction, but once I re-entered the world of St Alcuins, I just kept writing.

After more stories had been added — The Hardest Thing to Do, The Hour Before Dawn and Remember Me — it seemed like a good idea to seek a UK publisher again, in addition to Crossway in the US. Lion Hudson wanted to take on the whole series, so we did that. Not long afterward, Crossway closed down its fiction department, so at that point all the books were with Lion Hudson, and I wrote three more — The Breath of Peace, The Beautiful Thread and A Day and a Life — all published by Lion Hudson.

Then Lion Hudson went bust, and their publishing programme was amalgamated into SPCK, so all my books, both fiction and non-fiction, more than twenty titles, were now with SPCK.

Then we decided to have a go at establishing our own imprint on the Amazon publishing platform. Years ago, self-publishing was not very satisfactory; the actual paperbacks were not very well-made, not pleasing products, but that has all changed. Nowadays, the books themselves, as objects, are really nice, and because Amazon operates internationally it's easy to get the books to most places around the world. My sales are, for the most part in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.

While we were waiting (it took a while) to get the rights back from SPCK, I'd added some more stories, and that's why there's a Series 2. SPCK could have refused to return the rights, and I thought it wouldn't be quite ethical to appear to be continuing a series for which they were the publisher. Hence the 2nd series, which has This Brother of Yours, Brother Cyril's Book, A Path of Serious Happiness, and will shortly also have St Luke's Little Summer. After that, there will be one more book in Series 2, which I've started but am a way off finishing.

Because of this long and winding road through different publishers over the course of 35 years, some of these books have a shedload of reviews, while the more recent ones have fewer — or even none (in terms of actual comments). So, for instance, the Lion Hudson edition of The Hawk & the Dove has 347 reviews, the 2000 Crossway edition of the trilogy has 204 reviews and their 2012 edition of the trilogy has 173 reviews.

Meanwhile, the books in Series 2, that were always published by us for Humilis Hastings, each have a healthy amount of reviews. 

But the ones that were published with Lion Hudson then republished by us have few reviews (or none) in the new imprint. For instance, where The Hardest Thing To Do has 196 reviews of the Lion Hudson edition, it has only 4 reviews for our Humilis Hastings imprint edition. And of course, some of the reviews are just stars given, rather than a comment left.

When I started writing, I made a pact with myself and with God that my job would be to write the story and just leave it there. I would never chase sales or promotion, I would do no marketing and build no platform. I believe in the power of the hidden life, and I wanted to offer my work to God rather than to a marketplace as such. So I spend very little time looking at the numbers — I've only looked these things up now for the purposes of telling you about them.

Why it matters to have Amazon reviews divides into two reasons. The first is the simple one that, as happened with The Hardest Thing to Do, there's a risk that Amazon will simply take the book out of publication if it's not protected by good reviews. So if, for example, someone's left an unhappy review because the delivery man left their order on their porch and their dog ate it, and they left that as a product review — one star and bitterly disappointed — that could get the book pulled if there are no good reviews to mitigate their misery. And while I don't want to direct my energy to blowing my own trumpet, I do want people to at least have the chance to read what I've written, because I think it will be helpful for the development of their faith.

The second reason is that comments left by reviewers help people make up their mind if they want to read that book. I always read the reviews before I buy anything on Amazon. That's what helps me decide what to purchase.

So, if you have read any of my books, and feel inclined to leave a review on any of the ones in our Humilis Hastings imprint, that will help to keep them in print and help others to decide if they'd like to read them or not. If you're not sure which ones are our edition, you can see the covers of the Humilis Hastings editions in the side-bar to the right of this post.

Waving to you from England where it has finally stopped raining!

Private and public

 During my teenage years, most girls grew their hair long, but nearly all the adult women had perms (permanent waves) and short hair. I do recall one woman in our church who had long hair swept up in a bun, and another who had what was then called an Eton Crop (a short bob), but most women, everywhere you went, had short hair in big loose curls — which went a bit flat and frizzy over time unless you carefully put it up in rollers overnight, as my mother did.

Church for us was a very social event. People were keenly aware of one another — what a person was would be noticed in every respect, their demeanour seen and assessed in detail. 

Our congregation included a woman who I'll call Margaret Reilly, a pleasant, friendly person with a round, soft face and glasses. She maintained her hairstyle very successfully in the loose curls everyone was aiming for. 

Then one Sunday morning she came to Parish Communion having had a haircut. Evidently she'd decided to try something new. The perm had gone. Now she had completely straight hair in a short bob, that definitely bucked the trend and looked startlingly severe by comparison with her usual style.

On our return home, as lunch preparation was underway, my mother said, "Do you think Margaret Reilly was doing penance for something?"

To which my father responded, "Well, it must have been something very bad."

That made us laugh. But a crucial element was that Margaret Reilly wasn't there. Yes, the joke was at her expense, but it was only within our own home, in the private conversation of our family. Neither of my parents would ever have passed comment on her appearance to other members of the church congregation, or in any other context beyond our family home. Certainly not to the woman herself. To have done any of these things would have been considered tasteless and discourteous. 

Social media has exploded these social boundaries. Because my husband is a borough councillor, I occasionally (but carefully) read the comments on posts by or about the council, and I am every time shocked and disappointed by the ignorance, negativity and sour discourtesy there blatantly — even eagerly — displayed.

A confusion seems to have arisen about what is and is not private — or public. On one occasion a few years ago on a Facebook page for a Christian writers' group, I remonstrated with someone for posting something extremely rude and churlish about a Christian leader, saying I thought it better not to express such an opinion in public. As you might imagine, I got a very rude reply, to the effect that this (context) wasn't public, it was a private group. Yes, but a private group with 5000 members. 

There's a political voice I may have mentioned before, Carl Benjamin, whose videos on YouTube I used to enjoy until I became weary of his relentless discourtesy and contempt toward women. 

Today I noticed him online posting this: 

Julie Bindel is a journalist whose work focuses on human rights abuses toward women and girls, campaigning against male violence. She has written two books on this topic. I haven't read her work but she is described online as a radical feminist. She has contributed pieces and been interviewed about the complexities arising from integrating people transitioning from male to female into shared facilities, and also about the rape gangs in English cities (I have read that she was one of the first to draw attention to these crimes).

Note Carl's comment at the top, as well as the image he is sharing.

I wondered how his followers might be responding.

Many were joking that they had taken the image to be of a man. 

Here's a sample of some of the others:

As a heterosexual white man I can safely say no loss.

Clearly been given the blank all her life, and she's now double bitter lol

On behalf of all men, everywhere 'phew'!

The " one" who after 10 beers you still say no thanks to 

Because non of them are interested in her?

Und so weite.

There were, because Carl Benjamin is an intelligent person and has some serious-minded followers, other comments not stooping to these depths, either making jokes that weren't about sex or appearances, or added something actually thoughtful:

In the last few years she seemed to have moved over to the middle ground, I was actually interested in her opinions , shock horror !! It seemed the liberal line had moved too far and she saw it.

Misandry is on trend at the moment..

Finally, proper journalism.

This article is almost 20 years old. It would be interesting to see if her perspective has changed.

But what intrigued me was this blurring of public and private. 

The original post was meant to be funny — and it was — but it was the same kind of funny as my parents' conversation about Margaret Reilly's hair; something you would say only at home. And why would you keep it private, say it only at home? Because to say such a thing publicly, encouraging ridicule, would mainly serve to put your own indiscretion and lack of refinement on display. It would reveal the deficiencies of your own upbringing; it would make your vulgarity very obvious. And it would be cruel.

Sometimes it's not the content of what you say, but the context of how and to whom you say it that makes all the difference.

English society is very, very classist. It is immediately clear to some English people what kind of upbringing and education a person has received who would put into the public sphere, for everyone to read, such implied mockery of an older woman, a dangled invitation to denigrate her as no longer sexually attractive. 

The headline itself, of course, was not a quotation. It may or may not have fairly represented Julie Bindel's views. But if she does indeed hate men, that is yet another instance of a private opinion best kept that way. I imagine it is more likely a Guardian editor's summarised impression. I do think, incidentally, that it wouldn't be hard to gather sufficient evident to write a similar column called "Carl Benjamin hates women", and mount a similarly unprepossessing photograph of him at the top. I wonder if it would garner comments of similar tone? I think maybe not.

To digress a little, I remember when it became known in a congregation I was pastoring that I would be marrying my present husband. This was just under two years after the death of my second husband. A man in the congregation asked me, "Where are you finding all these men?" It was meant as a joke, and I found it funny — but I also noticed that he evidently didn't think they were finding me. 

Now, to get back to the central point about what it is appropriate to say in public, I'm not sure that the lack of discretion (in Carl's post) is a moral issue as such. I think it may be more about manners — more an issue about being a gentleman than about being a saint, if you see what I mean.

Personally, I can well see why such a headline alongside such a photo would catch a man's eye and make him laugh. I can see why he might show it to his wife, and she would find the juxtaposition funny too.

But I think less of the man who shares it publicly, and invites all comers to laugh with him. That's not the way of an English gentleman, is it?

By contrast, this last week, I have listened at some length to Connor Tomlinson, a friend of Carl Benjamin, but one whom I have never known to denigrate women. I spent a while yesterday listening to him here, talking about the hideous phenomenon of the rape gangs disfiguring English towns and cities (that Julie Bindel has striven to bring to our attention), his fury and disgust and distress at what has been done to children and young women very apparent. That, by contrast, is a worthy use of the public space.

Knowing what to say in public and what to keep in the confines of your own trusted circle is a form of discernment that could only improve social media.

Dusty

 Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

This is the day when, if you are at the more liturgical end of expressions of Christianity, you probably go to church and the priest has some ashes made from burning the palm crosses given out on last year's Palm Sunday, and makes the mark of the cross on your brow with those ashes, with the words "dust you are, and to dust you shall return" — a reminder of our mortality.

It was thinking about those words, and about the process of returning to dust.

The other day someone was talking to me about visiting friends in the same age group as she and I are (65-80yr ish), who are both unwell — that's why she was visiting them. One has cancer and the other has an unusual form of dementia giving clarity of mind but profound physical disability. The one with cancer needed surgery, but is the sole carer for the one with dementia. So friends rallied round and provided a round-the-clock care rota for both of them, and that all went very well. But then the surgical scar gave some issues and further treatment was needed, requiring further care support. The couple decided they'd imposed too much on friends, and chose for the one with dementia to go into a care home for a few days while the one with cancer underwent the extra treatment. The care home cost £1800.00 a week (that's about $2500 US).

So the one with cancer was a day patient, not staying in the hospital, and therefore was able to visit their spouse in the care home. The one in the care home had found a rapport with two other residents of the same sex on arrival, and a request had been made for them to sit together at meals. On visiting, it turned out the request had been ignored, that for all meals our person had been sat with much older residents of the opposite sex, whose minds had gone. The meals were served not on dinner plates but tea plates — tiny portions, a fraction of what our person would normally have. In addition, our person was routinely sat in a little tub chair, slumped over for lack of support, while a suitable wing chair stood empty nearby. They were also found with their shirt buttons done up all wrong (not by them since their condition made buttons too difficult) and on once occasion wearing nothing but underpants and a sock. 

The spouse with cancer decided this was not value for money at £1800 a week, and discharged them.

Instead, a waking carer was employed for the nights, at £345 a night ($465ish US).

The first waking carer, a woman, was found fast asleep in the morning, having gathered all the sofa cushions to make herself pillows allowing her to go to sleep. Hmm.

The second waking carer was a man, who arrived on an earsplitting Harley Davidson and started by playing loud music in the living room. His first question was "Where's the sofa?" There wasn't one, because the reception room in the couple's small retirement home had been re-purposed as a bedroom since both were sick and the cancer treatment precluded them sleeping together. So the 'waking' carer was disappointed to discover he couldn't just go to sleep. As things turned out, having been booked to stay through to 9am, he left at 7am because something had cropped up for him and he needed to go home. So he just left. The spouse then discovered this carer had turned off the baby monitor allowing him to hear the person he was meant to be looking after, with the result that the person he'd been employed to care for had not been able to make themselves heard, and wet the bed (for the first time ever). 

For £345. Not good, eh?

A while ago, a friend of mine died from liver cancer. Durning her phase of terminal illness, Class A drugs (her morphine) were stolen by the daily care people she employed to feed her and give personal care, and her doctor refused to replace the drugs (leaving her with no pain relief) until a mutual friend made a huge fuss; and a fake 'nurse' called at the house and obtained the key code from a sitter covering the time between on friend on watch and the next.  

Our friend had made an agreement to go into hospice care for the last stretch, but that never happened because the hospice refused to take her until it could be said that she would die within three days. When she reached that point, the hospice refused to take her because they said she was now too ill to move.

When she eventually died and her friend called the surgery, the doctor asked her to strip our friend who'd died and video her so that the doctor could verify she was in fact dead.

All of this gives me a certain amount of concern as to how we — me and my husband — go about safely landing our own plane, as it were. I am not in favour of euthanasia (though I do understand why people opt for it) because I think our lives are in the hand of God. 

Both I and my husband are chronically ill, he from Parkinsons and me from a mystery ailment defying diagnosis that causes relentless strong pain. I think I may have oxalate poisoning, and am working from that supposition for now. 

What I notice is that it's as if there are four of us, not two. Each of us is the person we always were, with our habits of mind and personality, but each of us now has this old person to look after. He is the man he always was, but in addition he has an old man with a draggy foot to take care of. I am me, as I always was, but I also have to create strategies and diet plans for this old woman attached to me, and try and make her eat what she should and cheer her up and take her for walks, and maximise her health so she and I will be able to get it together to care for the old man that is the exterior shell sitting around my husband. At the moment he's doing very well and has a full and busy life, but I want to be the best version of myself I can be, in case my help is needed in the future.

It is extremely important that we educate ourselves and strategise intelligently, because what I have seen of the care provision available convinces me that even if we could afford £1800 a week or £345 a night, nobody in their right mind would want what that buys.

Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Yeah, tell me about it! 

I conclude that the only realistic option is to trust steadily in God and do our best. What will be will be.

And I haven't been to the ashing service, because I don't need the reminder. We're getting dustier with very passing year!

I think of friends I've known, and family members, and people whose funerals I've taken, who lived calmly and peacefully, then with no warning died quietly in their own armchair or bed, in the course of an ordinary day; and I pray, quite often, "Father, please may I have that, too."

Early morning

 It's early in the morning and still dark.

This is just me sitting chatting with you, because I'm awake.

Furry purry Clarence was up well before first light, full of love and affection. Then for a while he sat on the windowsill, just a pointy silhouette against the moonlight and the light from the far-off streetlights, watching the garden. Then he was ready to start the day. It begins (for him) with a small plate of food on the back doorstep, the terms on which he agrees to leave the house in cold damp February. He's more willing to go out now he's confident he can call this home and he'll be allowed back in. Later on, when I make my bed and get dressed, he'll have returned to the back doorstep, to come in for a BIG plate of food then a long sleep, curled up on the chair in my bedroom.

Meanwhile, I've made a cup of tea and gone back to bed. It's half-past five, very dark outside.

Later this morning my friend Carole is coming to see me. She and I have known each other since I first moved to Hastings in my early 20s — we met through the National Childbirth Trust, back in the day when it was challenging hospital practice and revolutionising women's experience of birth and breastfeeding. We were all reading Ina May Gaskin and Michel Odent, Frederick Leboyer and Sheila Kitzinger. Ground-breaking times. I was expecting my first baby and Carole her second. Those babies are in their forties now, very capable people, friends on Facebook, holding together the connections made even before they were born.

There's something about those relationships that go back a long way. When you meet up, it's within a context of shared memory, and what you used to be when you were young is still present in the conversation; no need to mention it or reminisce, it's just there, understood. We remember.

Even thinking about it sets off memories. Going up to London on the train to hear Sheila Kitzinger speak, when our Grace was a new baby. Instead of carrying her in the sling I took her in a Moses basket, with spare nappies and wipes and muslins, so she had somewhere to lie down and sleep because it would be a whole day. I still think that was a good idea. I remember being in the hospital (for a whole month!) before our Rosie was born, where I met Nan (in the next bed). Nan had a dream one night that the obstetrician tried to burgle her house but she wouldn't let him in. When they tried to induce the birth of her baby, Nan's body absolutely refused. Nope. 

That month was a good one — we women in the ante-natal ward got on like a house on fire; the nurses used to come and tell us off for laughing, sternly reminding us we were there to rest. The woman who was there before Nan arrived was on her 17th pregnancy, desperately hoping for her first live birth. 😭 So very sad. Then there was a fragile (looking) little lass with great big eyes and dark curly hair, petite and quietly spoken. But she was fiery. Her husband came to visit her, big and brawny and tattooed. We all sat in our beds quietly and looked at him, because we'd heard she pushed him down the stairs 😲. 

At the time I was reading a book by Rudolf Steiner — his book Occult Science which sounds creepy but isn't. One of the midwives came by and saw it by my bed. "D'you think that's going to help you?" she asked, somewhat aggressively. "With what?" I said. "Well . . . childbirth," she replied. But that's not what it was about. My horizons hadn't shrunk that much!

When my baby was born, another woman who had been in the ante-natal ward got very scared, because I went off to the delivery suite and shortly after she heard someone screaming, and thought it was me and that birth must be terrible because I looked so calm when I left. It wasn't me, and I continued calm. 

That baby — Rosie — was born on a beautiful March morning, so clear and bright. An induced birth, as they mostly were in those days. My understanding was that the midwives were there to take care of the physical aspects of birth, and my job was to hold the spiritual energies, to maintain it as a sacred space, a holy event. I'm not so sure they did their part so very well — I had a midline episiotomy that extended and altered my physical structure ever since — but yes, it was holy and quiet, and Rosie looked like a little buddha when she was born, a peaceful, perfect face, soft and pink.

In the post-natal ward the obstetrician came round and said, "What did you have?" I resisted the temptation to say, "a baby," and politely said, "A girl".

"Ah!" said he. "Another one to argue and fight with the doctors." So I just said, "Yes."

I met him one more time when I was expecting Grace, my second child — Mr Alaili of "one more Caesarian and I get my Mercedes" cocktail party fame. After the first go round I resolved I'd rather have a baby in a ditch than an obstetric department; I wanted a home birth but my doctor at the time didn't do that. So I settled for what was called the GP unit — with births assisted by community midwives with family doctors as back-up. When I went for an ante-natal check-up, the obstetrician was doing his rounds. He wanted to see me. He sent the midwives out and spent several minutes lecturing me on why I should choose the obstetric unit over the GP unit. When he'd finally finished I said, "Thank you. I'll bear that in mind," and off he went in a puff of green smoke. The midwives came back into my cubicle chortling " 'I'll bear that in mind!' " They thought it was hilarious. I was quite surprised, not grasping that it was expected I should treat him like God. I suppose I might have done if he'd reminded me of God, but he didn't.

Then there was the woman — Ajax's mother, was her name Letitia? I can't remember — who painted a face on her pregnant belly. You know how the umbilicus protrudes when you're pregnant? She made that the nose and did eyes and a smiley mouth to go with it. Mr Alaili examined her with no comment at all. Jeepers.

Later, when my twins were born, I'd changed my GP to Dr Mitchell, who was happy to do a home birth; but the community midwives were worried about it. So my twins were also born in hospital, on the proviso that I would come straight home afterward, not go to the postnatal ward where they'd be put in a nursery and fed cow milk. There was an argument about that, too. Our Hebe was born with chin presenting, and came into the world very bruised, and they were born a month early. So when I said I was going home, they refused to let me get dressed, and I had to walk down our street where the ambulance dropped me off, holding my babies and still wearing a nighty. 

My midwife for that birth was the lovely Amy Noakes, such a superb midwife. It was the first time I met her. My labours would slow right down when I went into hospital, because I deeply distrusted the environment — the same happens to a goat (or any other animal I suppose) if you disturb her in labour. When I finally got my home birth on my fifth baby, it was all done and dusted in four hours. But with our twins we were up all night, doctor very weary, husband very weary, me sustained by that spiritual energy that powers through you when you give birth. And at six in the morning the shift changed and Amy Noakes walked through the door and I could tell it would all be all right. Some junior doctors wanted to come in and see twins born and she told them to clear off. She said to my doctor, "Haven't you got a morning surgery? Yes? Well, go and do it, then." And she turned and looked at me and said, "Right. Let's get these babies born." And that's what we did.

So many memories from so long ago. There's another memory, too, from that time, of a friend carrying twins at the same time as I was, but hers came too early and she lost them. So desperately sad. Very, very bravely, she came to see my twins in the first few days of their life, and looked at them, and held them, and quietly went her way.

And also a memory of my aunt (who was my godmother), married to an abusive and controlling man who kept her as a virtual prisoner. But every year he came down from Yorkshire to the south coast for a trade union conference, and she asked if she could come with him to see my babies. He allowed her just twenty minutes to come in to my home (where she'd never been ) and see them. She looked at them very carefully, and held them, and she had tears in her eyes. I didn't know at that time that she'd been pregnant but he made her have an abortion, said she'd be an unfit mother. Nobody would have made a better mother than my auntie Jessie. Lord, the world is full of sadness, isn't it?

Well, now it's an hour later. I hope your day is going well. Did it bring back your own memories, all this talk of babies being born?

Later on Carole will come by, and we'll have a cup of tea together, and we won't talk about these times that are gone, but the silken web of them is what wove and carried our friendship clear through almost fifty years.

Writing thoughts

This is — for me — the waiting time, when I've written my story and now it's gone to my editor to read through. I am very blessed that my editor is my husband too. He was my editor long before he was my husband, the best editor I've ever worked with by a country mile. He asks the right questions, and he has the unusual ability of being able to both see the bigger picture and notice detail. Most people can't do that. Either they get what you're saying and lose themselves in the story and miss repetitions and inconsistencies, or the other way round. And there are many editors who are really frustrated writers and want to wrench your text into the image of what they'd have written if they'd been you. But my husband starts out with the approach that it's not his book; he's just there to help it be the best version of itself that it could be. Which is exactly what you want, isn't it?

So he has St Luke's Little Summer to read through, and then to edit and copy-edit. 

Since I got free of traditional publishers and have been able to write more according to what's in my own head, I think my stories have got odder. They come from the realm of weird; I just feel into it, through the membrane that separates us, and find what I can and bring it back here into the normal, organise it and write it down. 

At the beginning of a story, I don't even see where it's going or what it wants to do. When I began St Luke's Little Summer, there was just an image.

So I get all the bits and arrange them on the ground and look at them and see how they fit together, and write that down. Then I go back for some more bits and look at those and piece them in until it's done.

When I read it through at the end, it's more like reading someone else's book. I was surprised and relieved, reading through St Luke's Little Summer, to come to the end and think, yes, I do believe that's worked. I think it is an actual story. Because my idea in writing isn't entertainment or prowess, it's more like ministry — I'm aiming for the transfer from my soul into your soul of a way of being, a way of looking at things, that makes life more possible and helps us chart a way through this terrifying mess we've all been born into, left here trying to do the best we can. But I know there is the invisible realm in which there is the help we need, a place of grace and wisdom very close to us; and in writing I'm trying to make little holes in the membrane that separates us, so that some of its peace and kindness can leak through like liquid gold into our wilderness here, for hope and transformation.

I think I've managed what I set out to do in my new story, but I always get a bit nervous at this stage. Generally speaking, novels are meant to have plots — with twists — and action, and some kind of shape and direction; and I can see that mine . . . er . . . don't. All they do is let you go to the place where my mind and soul live, and walk around in it for a while. 

St Luke's Little Summer is about coming home (to oneself and to one another), and about understanding how to hold a vision by strengthening practice, which is achieved through habit; and it's about how the small circles and rhythms that characterise our life are part of a larger whole. 

So just now I'm waiting to see what my editor thinks, and waiting to see what my artists come up with for the cover. A limbo time.

Ha! Done!

 Sat up late last night, started again early this morning. Finished writing my story. 

Next is to read through and make any necessary adjustments, then it goes to Tony for editing and copy-editing.

Alice and Hebe are already working on the cover art, and Tony will write the back cover copy.

Then it'll all go to Jonathan for the text and cover to be formatted — it sometimes takes a few goes to get that exactly right.

After that it'll come back to Tony and me for proof-reading.

Then Tony uploads to Amazon and it'll take them a few days to publish. 

All this can take a while.

I'm hoping we'll have it to you by the end of March.

"St Luke's Little Summer."

How to deal with dark times | Tim Keller

It's not often I'd share a whole sermon on here, but what a humdinger this video is!

Worth getting yourself a cup of coffee and settling down with your knitting to listen. Wisdom and grace. I love it.

A Lenten program that may interest you

I wonder if you already know the output of Fr. Columba Jordan, a Franciscan friar of the Renewal. He's based at St Patricks friary in Limerick (Ireland). The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal website is here.

I follow him on YouTube at Called to More here, and I love his videos. There's also some of his teaching at Little by Little, here.

I read today in The Catholic Herald that Fr Columba will be hosting Crux: A Lenten Journey of Surrender which will be available on the Ascension app. I should make clear that it involves a purchase — not expensive, just a few pounds, but it isn't free.

You can read the article that tells you about it here.

I'd never heard of the Ascension app and don't know anything about it and I'm not wild about apps and tech generally — but I do like Fr Columba, and I like the idea of having a Lenten program to follow. If he's doing it, I think it'll be good.

So I thought you might like to investigate it for yourself. 

You can find out all about Crux (the Lenten program with Fr Columba) at the Ascension Press website. The page to go to is here.

Come back and say what you thought of it, if you decide to join in.

From my own point of view, if money is involved I probably won't do it. If that's true for you as well, but you do want a focus for your thoughts through Lent, there's a playlist here on my own YouTube channel of my Lenten book The Wilderness Within You. It goes through every day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Also, my Hawk & Dove story The Hardest Thing To Do (Volume 4 of Series 1) is a Lent book, but I haven't made a YouTube playlist of it. I might do at some point.

Thoughts about money and family tradition

 A lot is said about money at the moment — with good reason. The economic prospects of England look fairly bleak, and such sectors as farming and the hospitality industry have been dealt very damaging blows by political decisions. The situation with housing is tough, the roads are coming to pieces, councils everywhere are struggling desperately. These are not affluent times.

In this context, envy and resentment are often apparent. I often hear it said that pensioners are unreasonably well off — that the triple lock on the pension is crippling to the economy, that paying the state pension is too great a burden for those in work, and that "statistics show" pensioners spend their money on booze and cigarettes, cruises and restaurants and generally having a good time. Young people cannot afford to buy a home and start a family, while the older generation live comfortably on their savings and state pension, and this is not sustainable.

It intrigues me that this is a common enough scenario to be universally accepted as accurate, because it's not my own experience of life.

In the family I was born into, people worked together. Married couples built up affluence through hard work, from very lowly beginnings, and they were self-employed so they could pass on the family business. My uncle inherited my grandfather's farm, but a bungalow was built for my grandmother on the edge of their land, and my unmarried aunt who had fragile health lived with my grandmother who was blind. So everyone benefited from everyone else. My other aunt married an accountant farmer, and their daughters married but their unmarried son lived and worked the farm together with them. My aunt lived to be very old, and stayed at home living with her son after she was widowed, to the end of her life. In budgeting, the needs of all of them were considered.

This is the way of thinking I knew growing up, and it also characterised the family I married into, in which context my children were born. My mother-in-law used her savings to pay for the deposit we needed to buy a house, and every Sunday as a matter of course we — my husband, me and our five children — went to church with his parents and then ate a massive roast lunch with them at their home. We never had to pay for childcare because they baby-sat for us, and when my mother-in-law did her grocery shopping she used to include a bag of groceries for us, too. Plus each time I had a baby, my husband's aunt would leave peeled vegetables on our doorstep for several days, to help make supper preparation easy.

In this family context the older generation, having earned and saved all their lives, would help their adult children buy their own homes, and help financially with big purchases like cars, and do as much as they could afford to ensure that bills were covered for the whole family. The older family members kept aside enough money to ensure they were not a burden on the younger ones — enough to pay their bills and cover any necessary care costs — but apart from that, whatever they had was channeled down into the next generation. In many cases adult family members continued to live together, so elder care happened naturally as the need arose.

I thought that was how everybody lived, but maybe not. There was no scenario of rich old people spending extravagantly while the younger generation couldn't even afford a home or to start a family. 

Each person took responsibility for themselves, but always with a view to helping each other and contributing to the whole. Each one valued the opinions of the others and would be proud to play their part and make the most of their abilities.

What I find disturbing about articles and podcasts on the topic of finance in modern life, is that they seem to carry the assumption of everything being only about the individual. The assumption that it will be normal for some family members to be comfortably wealthy while others have too little to eat. I read about people going to food banks or couch-surfing because they are homeless, or a parent with children managing in temporary accommodation in a hostel, and I wonder — where is their family? 

I feel something similar about all these tales of sexual abuse of girls on a grotesque scale currently dominating the new, both Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking and the rape gangs in England: I wonder, where were the families of these girls? Was there no warning, protection, advice? Were they not helped to read between the lines of invitations and opportunities? Where was the wisdom of older sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers? How did people end up so vulnerable in such massive numbers? I know that in some cases fathers tried to intervene at a late stage, to get their girls back — but surely what would have protected them in the first place would have been collective wisdom and tradition within the family. I realise that there are many people in the world and most families have someone who makes unfortunate choices, but on such a large scale? Incidentally, the political establishment and mainstream media have for the most part turned their backs on the victims of rape gangs in the UK, and those who have tried to bring it to public attention have been smeared and persecuted. Rupert Lowe MP has now put in place a crowdfunded public enquiry to bring to light what has happened, with a view to prosecuting the perpetrators. If you would like to learn about the enquiry and financially assist it, go here.

In my family, the people know that the others will always have your back, that home will always be a sanctuary. There is no question of it being just about the individual, of calmly watching other people struggle. My children have varied income levels, but the ones with more will treat the ones with less to lovely outings, the ones who can drive will give lifts to the ones who can't. We mostly live near together, but the one of my children who lives at a distance will always say, if anything problematic occurs, "Do you need me to come home?"

When the pandemic lockdown happened, there was a deadline after which we could not travel and had to stay where we were. My daughter who lives away dithered about what to do. At the time she had a rented ground-floor room in someone's house. Not wanting to disturb them after bedtime, she made a last-minute decision, and used the window to go in and out to pack her car, leaving them a month's rent money and driving through the night to come home. My daughter who lives alone was the permitted member of our family bubble through lockdown, and we used to walk round to my married daughter for doorstep visits, chatting at the required distance. The rest of us all lived in one house anyway, and those of us with savings helped those whose incomes were affected; the pandemic lockdown was just ike a lovely holiday for us.

None of this requires anybody to have a big income. Everyone is okay because we all look out for each other. It's what most people used to do. But evidently in society as a whole this is no longer true. In our borough the main cost, almost half the budget, is temporary accommodation for homeless people, and the main driver of homelessness is family breakdown. 

This isn't surprising. If you have a family with three children living in a three-bedroomed house, with one boiler (furnace, US) one television, one internet provision and one car, with both parents one way or another supporting the household, and the parents split, what happens? Now each parent wants part of the custody of the children, so now they need two three-bedroomed houses, each with a boiler, a telly and internet access and a car, but now with only one income for each household. Of course it can't work. There's no wonder we have a housing crisis and people made homeless. 

It feels to me that I am watching the systematic dismantling of traditional family life — assisted by the aggressive promotion of pick-and-mix sexuality. 

The breakdown of the family unit will lead to the economic collapse of society, because the costs of trying to do life on your own are beyond the reach of most ordinary people. The more you split, the more you have to pay for.

A similar set of attitudes applies to expectations of citizenship. In my childhood, if it snowed all the men of a street would be outside with shovels, clearing the snow from the pavements (sidewalks US) to make them safe for pedestrians. People took a pride in their homes, growing vegetables in the back garden and flowers at the front, and they weeded the pavement in front of their home. Now, nobody clears the snow, they wait for the council to do it. Nobody weeds the pavement, the council comes round once a year and sprays with glyphosate (which happens to be a neurotoxin) so the weeds are still there but dead now.

The council workmen have to be paid, and their wages are raised from the public purse. The result is that less and less gets done but costs more and more, all because we have abandoned the habit of working together.

One final example. Net Zero — the political aspiration in the UK that by 2050 our carbon emissions will reach net zero. Ha! It cannot work. It will tank the economy, and all we'll have done is export our industrial activity, making in fact a net increase in dirty technology, while losing our manufacturing independence and economic resilience.

But that doesn't mean we have to give up and just "Frack, baby, frack!"

We could approach it differently. Let industry continue with use of fossil fuels, let development of renewable alternatives be assiduously pursued, but in the meantime let the citizenry work together to reduce pollution and reliance on dirty energy — informally, not by government mandate and regulation. Let all those of us who can afford solar panels put them on our houses, our churches, the buildings of our businesses. Let all of us conserve energy as much as we can, heating the person not the space at home, using modern technology that is less energy hungry — for instance, cooking in an air fryer not a big oven. Let those of us with gardens grow our own fruit and vegetables. Let us reduce waste and manufacturing by buying second-hand and sharing. We could travel fast in the direction of Net Zero and adequate housing provision and clean streets (with no fly-tipping, thank you), at the same time as taking pressure off the local and national government budget, if we simply prioritise working together for the good of the whole.

Sardine hungry

 There's a thing they say in the carnivore nutritional sphere, if people say they're hungry — "Yes; but are you sardine hungry?"

Always make me laugh, because how true!

In case it sounds merely baffling at first acquaintance, maybe some explanation is needed. 

In general carnivores aim to eat once or twice a day and mostly don't snack. They follow the principles of intermittent fasting to support health. Sometimes they fast for longer periods than 24 hours, perhaps 3 or 5 days.

When people transition to a carnivore way of eating, it takes the body a while to get used to the differences, especially changing from the frequent top-ups typical for people whose diets rely on carbs. 

So, though in general one of the great things about carnivore as a way of eating is that people don't feel hungry, ever, there are exceptions to that at first or on a prolonged fast. 

There's more than one kind of hungry, of course. There's the sort that can more or less be defined as "My teeth are bored", which is very different from the body running out of fuel and urgently needing help.

This is where that marvellous question comes into its own — "Yes; but are you sardine hungry?"

The other evening I'd been defrosting chicken, but when supper time came it was still half frozen, so I left it for the next day, but I still wanted some supper. There in the cupboard, for just such a time as this, was a tin of sardines in brine. 

I know sardines are good for us. I know they are full of Omega 3 oils that will transform our lives and banish inflammation. I know you can crunch up their spines (yuck) and that's a marvellous source of calcium which will chauffeur away the oxalates that fasten on to the calcium. And even so, somehow I can fancy almost anything else. 

But I ate them, along with some Jarlsberg cheese slices and a solitary gherkin. I hope they have done me good.

Making space and going slow — wisdom

Leaving margins of every kind in life is beneficial — some money in hand, some time in case things take longer than expected, some room for an extra guest to sit down and a child to spread a game out on the floor.

I love minimalism and simplicity for several reasons, and a big one is so I don't overtax my personal system. The less stuff I have to fall over, clean and curate, the less likely I am to get frustrated and lose my temper. The less there is in the diary, the less anxious I am about being late or when commitments overrun. The less cluttered my house is, the greater the possibility that I will, at some point, get round to cleaning something (although it most probably won't be today).

This has been a very wet winter, and a lot of people are facing issues of mould in their homes. Doubtless this is exacerbated by the misguided enthusiasm for UPVC replacement windows and insulating cavity walls and attics, but I'd better not get started on that. If you've made your home into a Tupperware box, well it will get condensation and the mould that goes with it, no?

Off our kitchen is a small pantry. The previous inhabitants of the house used to keep their fridge in it. Consequence? They couldn't get at it to monitor the reservoir at the foot of the fridge (at the back), so it grew a slime mould, overflowed, leaked consistently, and now the joists have rotted and need replacing. So we removed a cupboard in the over-fitted kitchen to create a space for our fridge. But because the kitchen is over-fitted, there's nowhere to put a bin (in fact two, for separating recycling from trash). So we put the two bins in the pantry. The over-fitted kitchen includes very high upper cupboards, for which we needed a little stepladder. There's nowhere to store it but the pantry. We take the compost scraps out to the garden compost heap every other day or so, which requires plastic clogs because the garden is wet because it's been raining all the time. My husband and I have different size feet. I don't mind wearing clogs that are too big, but he does, and my feet are bigger than his. So we have two pairs of clogs. There is nowhere to put them but the pantry. A family member returned a folding garden table I'd given her, as she was no longer using it. It's very useful, but only on an occasional basis. I couldn't think of anywhere to put it but the pantry. Did I mention, this pantry is very small?... As you can see, it was getting smaller by the day.

The window in that pantry doesn't open and has no trickle vent (a new one with a vent is on order), and the pantry is an enclosed pocket of cold, so it gets condensation. It has been steadily proliferating mould, which is a health hazard. Eventually, earlier this week, seeing the mould getting long and green and fluffy, no longer just making grey patterns on the walls, I concluded the time had come to tackle it.

Why hadn't I done it before? Well the walls and ceiling in it are plastered with that textured Artex that trashes cloths and sponges, and when I tried to do it with a brush it got bleach everywhere without getting rid of the mould. And also, the pantry had got so full I couldn't get into it any more.

So this time I rehomed the table (erected) into the hall, I relocated the bins, also into the hall. There was nothing in the hall and they are easy to move for cleaning in their new situation, so — good. Now I had only the stepladder and clogs to house in the pantry, and they're easy to move. Ha! Win!

I decided to sacrifice a washing-up sponge (bleach disintegrates them) and forget the brush. The pantry now being empty there was room to get into it, and the sponge was effective at wiping the lunar surface of the pantry free of mould, once sprayed liberally with bleach.

It made me realise that I need to leave myself more space, more margin, otherwise I'll never clean that pantry again. I need to not clog it up with stuff to store and bins.

My whole life is like that pantry.

I used to notice it when our kiddies were little — the difference between winter and summer. In summer, wearing shorts, T-shirts and sandals, we'd just hurtle out the door and go. In winter, I had to get them all lined up in the hall, make sure each one had a coat and a hat and a scarf and boots and her gloves, and the baby had her big muff thing to sit in (for the stroller). At that point, almost invariably, one of them would decide she needed to use the bathroom, and everyone had to wait under threat of death while I unravelled her weather-proofing then bundled her up again. I'm surprised we ever got anywhere at all.

A day or so ago I shared that video, which compared civic unrest in Minneapolis with those families whose child melts down uncontrollably in the supermarket and suggested that mothers would accommodate while fathers would 'bring discipline'. Hmm.

I think he was right about the need to restore order swiftly and firmly in Minneapolis, which is why I shared the video, but I had reservations about it. Because I think — refocusing away from the civic unrest and onto the domestic meltdown — you need to start before you get to the store if you're going to take kids there. A child needs both a job to do and something to look forward to. So each child needs a task — to look out for a particular brand for cereal, for example. And children like to choose not just watch, so each child needs the chance to pick a snack to add to the trolley. 

Only last week when I was in the supermarket, I saw a father with his little girl. He had her sitting crouched inside the trolley as many parents do. She wasn't fooling around, how could she be? She was cooped up in the trolley. But even so she managed to do or say something he thought was out of line, so he started reading the riot act at her — you know, "RIGHT, THAT'S IT! YOU'RE NOT HAVING ANYTHING NOW" etc etc, and snatched away a little toy she'd chosen, which he dumped on the bread shelf. She was distraught and started to cry bitterly. I noticed she was wearing school uniform, so she'd already had a whole day of self-restraint and tedious requirements before he started with his nonsense. As it happens, Mother re-appeared carrying a large toddler, swapped kiddos, gave the toy back to her daughter, and peace was restored. 

I didn't think it was the child's fault. I didn't think the mother made things worse. Although the little girl cried, I didn't think it was actually her meltdown.

But how to do better? Include the child more in making choices, or one parent stay home with the kiddies while the other takes a list to the store, or only buy a few things at one go, or send the dad into the café for a hot drink and a snack so he doesn't create havoc with his contagious meltdowns. Just get some more space and breathing room into the scenario. Whatever it takes — but prune out, don't add in.

Something I notice about chronic illness and growing old is that I need even more space. If I want to go to the store to buy some milk, gone are the days of just nipping upstairs to get my bag and off I go. Now I have to dismantle the TENS machine and put it on charge and pack away its sticky pads, and by the time I've done all that the cat will have woken up and decided if I've appeared it must be time to be fed. And my feet are fairly shot so I need to wear lace-up boots (in the winter, summer is OK for sandals) which are a struggle to put on. And this morning when I did that, the bootlace broke because it's old and frayed because I buy my shoes secondhand. Things seem less simple, less straightforward — I mean, it's even a bit of a mission getting out of the bath!

So in this season of my life, more than ever, I give myself space, and time; I create margins, look for ways to take off the pressure. Minimalism and simplicity were always good practice; they're my survival kit now.

The buddhist monks walking for peace

Did you hear about this? Probably you did, and are one of the two and a half million following it on Facebook, or the one and a half million following on Instagram. By now it's nearly concluded, but it has been a very beautiful peace testimony.

Twenty-four monks, and a dog called Aloka, connected to the Huong Dao Temple in Fort Worth in Texas have been walking 2,300 miles through the United States, passing through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the through the Carolinas and Virginia to finish up in Washington DC. They began in the last week of October, and they expect to arrive in Washington on February 10th.  

The purpose of the Walk for Peace is to promote the buddhist values of peace, compassion and non-violence.

What a lovely thing.

The video below is a song arising from the Walk for Peace and expressing its values.

Someone else with thoughts on Minneapolis

I think many of us find all the political stürm und drang going on a drain on the spirit, so having shared on this video I'll move on to thinking about other things for a while. I'm about to start sewing box pleats by hand into a black skirt with black thread in the English winter, so I'll probably be along to complain about that before long.

Please notice, these videos I've come across and am drawing to your attention don't all promote the same point of view. That's because I'm not picking sides in these issues, I'm just interested in listening to sane and thoughtful voices — I'm more interested in the approach than the objective. I think whatever your politics might be, whether you incline to the Left or the Right, whatever your thoughts on immigration, whether you are based in the US or the UK or elsewhere, it's still helpful for each of us to think through the approach we bring to civic and/or personal encounters, and try to get the balance right in establishing boundaries with a view to enhancing compassion. If we can hold in place an approach that is calm and promotes safety, that should offer the framework to air differences constructively and find a way forward that works for social justice and the common good.

Feel free to just pass this over if you are well weary of trying to tease apart the tangled threads of right and wrong in civic unrest. But I think what Nick Freitas has to say here is realistic and constructive.

I have one reservation about Nick's video — by this time I am getting tetchy about this constant denigration of women, this ever-recurring assertion that in any situation where things go wrong, the woman is the problem and she can either shut up and sit down or the man will leave. I am here to tell you that it can be one almighty big relief when he walks out of the house for the last time. 

In my own life, I have seen plenty of situations, up close and personal, where it is the man who has been the spoilt brat, and both the woman and the children have needed to be the adults who together repaired and rebuilt after he trashed everything. With that corrective, I do recommend what Nick Freitas has to say.

Resentment

 In writing the other day about women and men in society, and the attitudes I saw emerging toward women among young men on the political Right, it struck me that resentment is a serious social toxin.

There will, of course, always be inequality in the sense of difference. The determination to pursue gender fluidity to make all aspects of human opportunity available to all is likely to plough into the ground at some point, because reality will be too adverse for the project's sustainability. So I think we do have to get used to the idea that we can't all be, and have, everything.

I notice this more as I grow old, watching the magic life ingredient of potential gradually atrophy. There are things now that I can see I will never have, never achieve; I have run out of vigour and time, the chance has gone. 

On our way to church on Sunday we parked the car near a house I especially liked. I thought about the houses of other people who have written books — C.S.Lewis and Agatha Christie, for instance — and the houses they lived in. Rudyard Kipling! What a lovely home he had! Batemans, in Sussex. It's beautiful. I thought about what they achieved, and the acclaim that went with it, and the homes they were able to afford through their endeavours. 

But that house we walked by as we went to church will always be out of my reach. I know this as a matter of certainty, because however much money came my way, that's not how I'd spend it. There are other people who don't even have a home to call their own at all; I'd rather fix that than move up the property ladder.

So, though other writers have done better than I have, in ability and recognition and financial success, I don't resent their achievements as writers or the fruits of their labours. I've been doing my own thing, following my own path, shaping my own life which overflows with blessing and brings me great contentment. I've prioritised my own values in the choices I've made, and that makes me happy.

Sitting by the 'fire' in our living room the other night, I was reflecting with my husband Tony on how perfect everything has turned out. I never expected to live where we now do, it just came about through the unfolding of events, but as it happens I really love the street where we live, and in that street I like our house the best, and it has the exact layout I would choose for a couple of our age and requirements. On the sofa beside me, dozing on his heated blanket (!) was Clarence the cat. I had no plans to acquire a cat when we moved in here. But Clarence had no home and just turned up needing somewhere. Yet, as it happens, if I had deliberately gone looking for a cat, Clarence would have been exactly what I hoped for, what I was looking for. I even like his nose, which is long and aristocratic, not one of your snub-nosed pug-faced squashed-up ones. It seems to me that the great I Am, the Ancient of Days, has the exact measure of me, his lowly creation — my longings and even my preferences. Everything is just right.

But what about those young men, looking resentfully at women bosses, and denigrating the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and resenting the (admittedly spiralling out of control) preferential treatment now offered to people from overseas, arrived on our shores in rubber dinghies?

I think establishing and maintaining firm boundaries is essential for the health of either an individual or a country. I think position achieved by merit is a better way of proceeding than positive discrimination. I think there will always be inequalities and aspects of life that are hard/easy to access because of your gender or race or religion or colour or age or class or health or income or natural abilities or whatever it is. Some hurdles can be surmounted with effort, others are set too high. 

But, I tend towards the view (this is more of a suspicion than a certainty) that what undoes a person, what corrodes them, what ruins life, is not the adversity but the resentment. I'm not saying we should be indifferent towards serious persecution, like (for instance) the murder of Nigerian Christians by Boko Haram. I think society should always address violence to stop it. In the same way, I think exclusion of minorities is wrong; by which I mean things like not letting someone attend a school because of the colour of their skin. I think the legal framework of a society should defend equality, but I don't think we should try to micro-manage the delivery of equality. There will always be adversity because of cultural norms, though I wish this were not true. But in a reasonably democratic society where we're not talking about danger to life levels of adversity, I think resentment poisons more people than the adversity does.

I came across a little flurry of videos by Jordan Peterson a while ago, that he made with his wife Tammy about the principles they follow in their married life. They had quite a bit to say about resentment. It's something they have identified as being like (this is me saying this, not them) what the Bible calls 'a root of bitterness' — something that needs weeding out as a matter of priority. If they sense within themselves resentment arising, they talk it through and they examine it and they take responsibility for doing whatever it needed to remove it.

I think that's very wise. 

There's that bit in Max Ehrmann's Desiderata:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

This is wisdom. 

Of course, as part of bringing in the Kingdom we should do our best to see that each and every one has the chance to pursue his or her dream, to flourish and excel. Of course we should take the trouble to see and address the adversities some people struggle with, be that a disability or a geographical disadvantage or something bad happening like a redundancy or a house fire or whatever. Our job is to help one another, to lift each other up, not just turn away and leave other people to cope on their own.

But in one's own life, it's worth staying vigilant about resentment. It has a tap root that makes it very difficult to eradicate once it's established. Resentment pretends to be about other people, to be their fault, caused by them; but it absolutely is not. Resentment in me is my own issue, my responsibility, and mine is the life it will ruin if I don't address it clearly and directly and get rid of it.

If you look up what the Bible and the church teach about resentment, the general consensus is that the antidote to resentment is forgiveness. I see why that's thought to be the case, but I don't think I agree. Forgiveness is needed when someone has hurt you, on purpose. I think resentment is more allied to envy, to wishing you had what someone else has, to thinking action is required because their advantage means your circumstances aren't as good as theirs, or your voice is ignored while theirs is heard.

I think the antidote to resentment might be gratitude, or contentment — something more in that ballpark than forgiveness. But I'm not sure. What do you think?

Recommending a YouTube channel

I'm just sharing this along because I think this YouTuber is wise, calm and very sane. He has made only a handful of videos, so it's very easy to catch up with his perspective and what he's proposing.

His personal background and history seem to me to particularly qualify him to comment on the present political landscape in America. I'm not 100% sure about this, because I find all the rage and chaos in my own country (England) bewildering enough — the poor blaming the rich, men blaming women (and vice versa), the Right blaming the Left (and vice versa), citizens blaming immigrants (and vice versa) — but I am very attracted to his approach of calm and intelligent thought, learning from past mistakes, supporting the human, and staying within the law.

Here's his video, watch his others if you have time, and let me know what you think.

Eating aeroplanes

 There's a person recorded in the Guinness Book of Records for eating an aeroplane — a Frenchman called Michel Lotito.

He is said to have consumed quite an array of hardware, starting small with hinges, metal chain, bolts and razors, and working up through medium-sized objects like a waterbed, some chandeliers and a coffin (with handles), to arguably more chewy items like shopping trolleys, a computer, a waterbed and a telly. But his pièce de résistance was without doubt the light aircraft he ate, a Cessna 150 which took him a while to consume.

The Guinness Book of Records people awarded him a brass plaque in recognition of his remarkable digestive achievements, and he ate that, too.

But I was thinking about him today because of mushrooms. 

Opinion on eating mushrooms is divided. Apparently, people who inform us about how to survive an apocalypse say there is no point eating mushrooms because you don't get much calorific value from them but they might kill you. They either are or aren't safe, but are never very nutritious. So it is said, and yet some varieties of mushroom (Lions Mane, Turkeytail etc) reputedly have marvellous healing benefits. They are in the fruit and veg section of the supermarket, but they aren't vegetables — they aren't animals either, but they're said to be more like animals than plants.

But why eating aeroplanes reminded me of eating mushrooms is because (are you the same?) when I eat mushrooms they pass through intact. I probably don't chew my food as assiduously as I should.

There's a very interesting man on YouTube called Lee Copus — his channel is called Kent Carnivore. Lee had ulcerative colitis, followed all the medical dietary advice for managing it, and ended up losing his colon altogether. He had been advised to eat lots of fibre and fruit and vegetables, but the anti-nutrients and plant toxins won the day, and Lee had to have a colectomy. As a result he has a bag attached to the stoma created on his abdomen to collect the digestive material that would normally pass on and out through the colon.

This means that Lee has an unusual opportunity to assess the extent to which food is digested and processed in the upper gut.

If he eats any fruit or vegetables, they pass out into the bag exactly as they went into his mouth — a bit chewed up of course, but clearly recognisable. But he found that all animal products he ate (meat, cheese, fish, eggs) never passed through as discrete objects; they were always digested and just came through as chyme. No lumps of meat or flakes of fish or pieces of egg, ever.

This is what put Lee on to first realising that fruit and vegetables were pretty much going through him like Michel Molito's aeroplane parts; he ate them, yes, and they went through him, but they came out as they went in, they were not in any real sense part of his food.

This is how I am with mushrooms. They are one of the things on the short but enjoyable list of food I can eat, so I have re-integrated them into what I have because I like the taste of them and they create variety; but they may well be entirely pointless beyond those motivating factors. Like eating aeroplanes.

Now, Lee believes he would still have his colon if he had latched on to this earlier and taken plants off the menu before he needed surgery. And surely most of us who attempted to eat a bicycle or a television would end up in the emergency room.

So I'm not sure now to what extent it's a spectrum — ranging from people who can only manage animal products, through those who can manage a few fruits and veg but not mushrooms, to those who can even eat the supermarket trolley itself — or if it's more that we should all really only eat animal products (what Dr Ken Berry describes as the proper human diet), just adding in broccoli and shiitake and chandeliers as an idiosyncratic quirk to satisfy a longing for variety.

Women and men

 My outlook on life was conditioned by my upbringing. I grew up in Hertfordshire, but my family were all Yorkshire people, and I think that made a difference; they were independent, forthright, and practical.

My father was an unusual man; looking back I see that he was neurodivergent, but had to create compensations for that in a world where it was not yet understood. He was very solitary and rarely stayed in one place for long, travelling all over the world. So he wasn't at home much. Our household much of the time was my mother, my sister and me. We had friends of course, and plenty were male, but it was a very female household. 

I wouldn't say we ever considered ourselves as feminist; that wasn't part of our vocabulary at all. But my mother came of a line of self-employed people; her mother had managed the accounts and poultry on their family farm, her grandmother had managed the accounts and bakery in her family shop, as well as having trained as a textile designer because her family owned a mill. So, like her family before her, my mother didn't want a job as such, she wanted a holistic life that was organically integrated. She wanted to care for her children and her home. So she made her money buying and selling property, and made the money stretch by growing all our fruit and vegetables and herbs, and raising sheep and chickens. 

In consequence, I grew up not really connected to the workplace mentality of bosses and underlings, and the associated hierarchies of men and women. Furthermore, there wasn't such a hierarchy in our home since my father was mostly not there, and we were all women.

I'm glad of this, because it was a quirk of circumstances that of itself left me free from the resentments and bitterness that can exist between the sexes. The women in our family were strong and felt empowered, but without the need to attain that by denigrating or dominating men.

The feminist movement of the 1970s didn't make a great deal of difference to me personally, because the women I knew growing up never felt the need of liberation. They were never under anyone's thumb, they generated their own income, they took pride in their own areas of responsibility, and they pretty much let the world go by and did their own thing. They worked alongside their menfolk in strong and integrated relationships, both the men and the women having a vital contribution to make.

As a young woman, I strongly espoused Leftist politics, and stayed with that inclination until about five years ago. My family of origin were all on the political Right (though my great-grandparents were not) but I went Left because I felt certain that whatever life threw at me I'd find a way to make it work, so my vote was always for those people who couldn't manage, who needed a safety net to catch them when they fell. 

In the last five years, though, I think society has changed. Cynically opportunistic immigration has sky-rocketed, creating cultural and economic problems. The conversation about homosexuality and gender identity has moved from being a reasonable desire for inclusion to being an aggressive ideology challenging the family as a basis for society. The politics of envy have gained a hold that I consider detrimental to freedom. I do not warm to the socialist vision of society — what people often call 'the nanny state', though God help anyone with that kind of nanny. 

I prefer the greater informality and possibility for self-determination we left behind after the 1970s. I don't like the grid of laws closing in around our lives.

In consequence, after voting socialist all my adult life, in the last five years I went off-piste, exploring what people on the Right in UK politics had to say.

There are aspects of it, and personalities within it, that I like very much. Among those I admire are Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, Ayaan Hirshi Ali, Senator John Kennedy (of Louisiana) in America, Winston Marshall and Connor Tomlinson on Youtube in the UK, and Jacob Rees-Mogg in UK politics. And I liked Peter Whittle of the New Culture Forum, who died very recently.

There are others I admire less, and some I liked at first but found disappointing over time. I don't really like publicly running people down, so I don't want to say who I've gone off as time went on, but I'd like to say why.

Among speakers/pocasters/Youtubers on the political Right in the UK, there seems to be a disappointing level of misogyny. This outlook seems to thrive among young men on the political Right. Though they are deeply suspicious of immigrant cultures in general, their attitude to women would be right at home in Islam, I'd have thought. Let me give you a sample of comments from viewers of the Youtube channel of one such prominent influencer of the political Right, on a variety of his videos. These comments fairly represent the flavour of the group gathering around him because of his own outlook.

If a Woman can't park a car why would you let them fly a plane, it's madness.

They try steal the white mans lands, give his job to women who betray him and to outsiders who hate him, and start wars with those who hate him so he will die. . .and yet the white man endures.

Remember when your little sister would see you playing army and wants to join in but only wants to be a princess and cries and ruins everything and your mum sides with her and says you have to include her or else and so no one has any fun.

Imagine that but an entire society. That's us.

Women secretly like Toxic Masculinity, despite their complains.

You know At this point , i'm convinced that ninety percent of the problems we have in the west can be solved by telling women no

    Replies included:

    A woman's worst enemy is often herself.

    I need to rewatch the "How women; destroy civilizations" video

Women when given power they mess everything up every single time 

“Women In Charge - Chaos Assured”.

It does rather feel like western civilization went into decline after female suffrage. . . . 

women use to play hard to get, now they are hard to want 

Women have destroyed this nation never forget that.

Disappointed by the extent to which Methodism and the Church of England have been dominated in their thinking by the modern version of Leftist thinking (what is generally described as Woke), I have wondered if I would feel more at home in the Catholic or Orthodox wings of the church. But again, I was dismayed by the extreme nature of misogynist attitudes expressed when Dame Sarah Mulally was chosen as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I think these could be summed up by the person who commented on a podcast by a Catholic Youtuber, saying that 'there was a reason Satan targeted Eve rather than Adam'. It felt as if we were regressing to some of the more depressing attitudes prevalent among the Church Fathers — John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome, among others — calling women weak and fickle, and the devil's gateway, and created purely for procreation and nothing else.

The thing is, though I find the traditions and liturgies of the Catholic wing of the church beautiful, I would only be pretending if I lined up behind such attitudes.

As to priesthood in the church, and whether it should be extended to women or limited to men, I personally think — neither. I lean more to the Quaker testimonies of peace, equality, simplicity and integrity; but though Quaker meeting is wonderful, it is less and less Christo-centric in the UK (and that matters to me), and I think worship without hymnody is missing something vital, and I don't feel drawn to the political activism of the Quakers.

I would like church to be a circle more than a pyramid. I would like leaders to emerge rather than be imposed. I believe in the priesthood of all believers and the high-priesthood of Jesus; I'm not sure about having a priestly caste within the church. But I could live in peace with it — I don't feel the need to agree with everything; to some extent all institutions are one-size-fits-none. I am still exploring and searching for a way to fit in, a community to belong.

I feel queasy about designation of gender rôles. I do believe that in general women tend towards different occupations from the men. I do think that in general men are more competitive and women more collaborative. I think there are generalisations one can make. But I would want to stop there. When I heard Dr Gavin Ashenden opine that men can be priests and women can't, in the same way women can have babies and men can't, I thought that was a false dichotomy — ideology and biology are not the same thing. 

Looking back in the history of England, at Hilda of Whitby, Julian of Norwich, Queen Elizabeth I, Susanna Wesley — or coming to modern times, such figures as Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II — regardless of whether one shares the outlook of the individual woman, how could one credibly say that when women are given power they mess up every single time, or that women are weak and fickle and created purely for procreation? The evidence simply isn't there, the ideology has no inherent logic.

So in all, I find myself truly at home neither with the Right nor the Left politically, neither with the Low nor the High when it comes to church.

I think there is room for anybody's opinion, but I can go along with neither the idea that a man can become a woman, nor with the idea that a woman is the gateway of hell. I think a woman, like a man, is just a person, and that each of us is individually and personally called by God, not according to our body but according to our soul.