Tiny houses - fab video

 In the world right now, I have three heroes – they are Vandana Shiva, Thich Nhat Hanh and Jay Shafer.   I feel proud and honoured to be breathing the air, walking the earth, in the same generation as these luminous souls.

Jay Shafer began the Tiny House movement (though of course people did live in tiny houses all over the world since forever).  I am so grateful to Kirsten Dirksen for the wonderful videos of Tiny Houses that she has posted on YouTube as she charted her exploration through this inspiring territory.

The video embedded here today is not a short one – it lasts for just over an hour and twenty minutes, so you need a time when you can hole up with a hot drink and a cookie and settle into enjoying this absolute smörgåsbord of gloriful tiny houseness.

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365 366 Day 113 – Sunday April 22^nd     

This was my diary at the beginning of the year, but it was too big.  The Badger had a much smaller one for Christmas, but as he uses his Filofax (that’s a kind of diary made from pastry), the gift was surplus to his requirements.  So I snaffled it and the one in the picture here became kindling.  I felt on reflection I was not cut out for world domination.

365 366 Day 114 – Monday April 23^rd   

This tube contained a cosmetic product for turning my hair into barbed wire, just as it says on the pack.  I purchased it in a moment of blind inexcusable folly.  This year, one of the things I have worked on is simplifying right down the toiletries in my daily routine.  This is the resulting list:

I have 2 shampoo bars on the go from Lush (one in the shower, one in the Garret).  These are veggie, earth-friendly, zero-packaging and smell fab.  They work for soap as well as hair, and I wash my clothes with them too.  I have worked out some new life routines to keep things simple and earth-friendly, and I’ll post about those another day.  Alice and I share a big bottle of Lush Veganese hair conditioner, and I add a little to rinsing water as fabric conditioner too.

I have some essential oils – rosemary, rose maroc, frankincense, lavender and patchouli.  I put on the lavender under my arms as a deodorant.  For moisturiser (face and body) I buy a big pot of aqueous cream for £1.99 from the local chemist, and fragrance it with the essential oils.

I brush my teeth with Lush Toothytabs – saves on packaging, water, dodgy chemicals and money.  Very travel-friendly.

I have no other cosmetic products except a small stash of make-up that I rarely wear (a few lipsticks, 2 blushers).  I do still dry my hair with a (small, travel, folding) hairdryer.  We export to the national Grid way more electricity than we get through ourselves, so it’s a luxury I allow myself, and it means my hair looks the way I like it.  The barbed-wire look did not add much, I felt.

365 366 Day 115 – Tuesday April 24^th   

This was a fun mirror I had as a gift – absolutely loved it and enjoyed it so much.  I passed it on as a gift myself, to extend the joy

:0)

Tattoo

In response to my post about favourite songs the other day, Julie drew my attention to this beautiful song I’d never heard before, Come thou fount of every blessing.  I love it.

What spoke to me most vividly from the song is this verse:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

Indeed and Amen.

I have a tattoo on my arm (I wrote about it here a year ago).  I had it done in the darkest and most difficult time of my life.  It has the opening words from St Patrick’s Breastplate, “I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity,” written around a simple image of a cross within a circle, which represents the cross that stands while the earth revolves and is also the ancient Celtic glyph for the Sacred Earth.

The tattoo – I had it done on St Patrick’s day – was meant to be a luggage label ("Please look after this bear").  If I could have had it tattooed deeper in than my body, going right through to my innermost soul, I would have done.  They always tell you not to have tattoos in case you regret it later, because they are so hard to remove; but the whole point for me was exactly that – that it could not be removed, whatever my regrets and vacillations, whatever my doubts and unfaithfulness – I am the property of Jesus Christ, and I wish to be returned to Him.  I’m His baggage!

Sheep have ink marks on their fleece to show which shepherd owns them.  A monk I worked with at one time had his flock all marked with a big red J – no, not for Jesus, for Jonathan, which was his name.   My tattoo is the ink mark on my fleece, to make it clear whose sheep I am.

I have trouble with any idea of salvation resting upon my own fidelity.  That verse in the gospels where Jesus says those who stand firm to the end shall be saved, just makes me think “Drat!  Bummer!” 

I can’t even stand firm to the end of a diet, I think the chances of my 'faith' withstanding threats of torture and burning alive would be very slender.

I know that in the course of life I might lose my mind, lose my uncertain faith, become senile and wandering and vague.  I might forget who I am and where I live and who the Prime Minister is.  I might drift out of touch with the church and forget the words of the Bible.  Without even waiting for that, I let my Lord down – I am inconsistent and unfaithful and a dodgy witness. 

But my tattoo expresses what I am hoping, that even in spite of who I am the Lord Jesus will say “this one is mine” and take me home to his side.  I don’t want to do anything in particular there.   I like a good hymn, but I don’t want a crown or anything like that.  I certainly don’t want to stand in a large crowd stuck in some interminable act of corporate worship.  I just want to be near Him.  Near enough to be able to see His toenails, and the fastening of His sandals, and the stitching in the hem of His robe, and to be able to hold that hem between my fingers to make sure He can’t get away if I fall asleep.  I would like to trust and believe that this will be so, but at the moment I am just hoping.  And that’s why I had the tattoo.

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365 366 Day 112 – Saturday April 21^st    

“For everyone”; except me.  Jolly good book.  Never used it.   

Religion

I am 55 this year.  For most of the last forty years, religion has attracted and fascinated me – the path of faith in all its manifestations. 

I have loved watching Buddhist nuns sitting immobile, utterly still, in their early meditation, as the night gave way to dawn and then the rising sun slowly illuminated the room, morning light fusing with peace inseparably.  Incense smoke.  Inviting the bell to sound.  Chanting quietly beginning.

Participating in the hospitality of the langar at Sikh gurdwaras, leaving my sandals at the door, covering my head, taking my place with the chanting women in the prayer hall, felt like such a wonder and a privilege.

Sitting in the stone chapel of a Catholic monastery, watching the matter-of-fact tread of sandalled feet and hearing the muffled ripple of moving robes as the community made its way in to prayer, fed my soul.

Attending a full immersion baptism in a Baptist chapel, hearing the testimonies; singing, for the first time ever, “To God be the Glory” filled my heart with joy.

Feeling the evening fold around me in the great spaces of York Minster; the candles, the mounting intricacies of carven wood, the water-clear beauty of the choir measuring the even paces of the psalm chant, this spoke peace to me.

Preaching at little Methodist chapels out in the English countryside, kept open in every place by a handful of ancient faithful souls who, while they could, bore witness – this humbled and moved me.

Poring over photographs and tales of the Amish, the Shakers, the early Quakers – how strongly the peculiar people of God stirred my heart and called me; “You too!”

Religion in the many faces of its reverence and numinous awe has been my preoccupation for decades.

And it no longer is.

A while ago the patient Badger asked me tentatively, “What have you done with your Holy Spirit picture?”  For I loved this picture – when I first saw it I fell head over heels in love with it, capturing as it did the rapture and wonder of prayer when the Spirit comes.  The Badger is wisely cautious.  He waited some weeks after its disappearance to ask the question.

“I gave it to Paul,” I said.

He paused.  I can’t remember if he asked the question aloud, because we can hear each other’s thoughts and do not always need to speak; but he wanted to know, “Why did you do that?”

So I explained, “Because I had seen it enough.”

It was a beautiful picture, an astonishing picture:  I had looked at it every day for months, and now I knew it by heart, and it had slipped into the DNA of my soul.  So I didn’t need it any more.

I am finding this with my books.  Old books, loved books, firm favourites – I feel as though I have read them now, and am ready to let them go.   Even, dare I say it, with dear friends.  I love them as much as I ever have, but I no longer need to see them; they are already in my heart.  I enjoy their company when we meet, but I no longer feel the need I once did to set up times to get together.  Our friendship is understood; it is a given.

And this last year I am finding it is the same with religion.  We talk about faith – that a person “has a faith”.  I don’t know if I “have a faith”.  I think I might not.  If I had a faith I would be a better person, I would be driven by conviction.

I know that I have met the risen Jesus, and that He is beside me in every hour of every day.   I know that God is the context in which all life rests and moves, arises and dies.  I know that the Holy Spirit breathes through me and the whole of creation – every rock, every flower, every shining drop of water.  I don’t need any faith at all for this.  I know it.

Of those three knowings, the most vividly and tangibly real to me is the presence of Jesus.  I could not deny that I have met Him, that He is alive, that He is real.  I know this.

In pursuing their religions, people sometimes ask me what happens when we die and what the future will hold.  I don’t know and I am not curious about it.  I am sure that whatever tomorrow holds will have roots growing from the seed we sowed today.  All that is necessary is to live with love and humility, with simplicity and kindness today, and the future will take care of itself.

I still go to church, because I want the track my feet make to say “Jesus matters,” but what we do there no longer finds a foothold in my soul.

We have the eucharist in bread and wine – but I think the eucharist is also there in someone tenderly and patiently helping a frail, blind old woman drink her cup of tea.  I think communion happens in the hand-holding-hand I observe when I watch a beloved grandad walk slowly down the road with a child who trusts him.

At the funeral I attended this afternoon, I sat with my father-in-law from my first marriage, in the front pew of the side block, just a yard away from where my first husband was playing the electric piano for the service.

And I explained to my father-in-law how, when my first husband (his son) had left me, I had decided to waste no time – I resolved straight away that if he could no longer be my husband, he could at any rate be my brother, and so it has been.  The love has continued, like convolvulus roots underground; we belong to one another, we are one family in Christ – and this is indestructible, it cannot be taken from us.  “Yes,” he said: “I know.”

I don’t mean that I wish I had my first husband back; I do not, I am most happy in my marriage to the Badger, and my first husband is content in his marriage to the Fairy Princess.  I just mean that Christ is in God reconciling all things to Himself, and because of this we (all of us) belong to each other forever, and this is a blessing.

The outer forms of religion – the beautiful temples, the old stone churches, the chanting and incense smoke and prayers and rosaries and robes – I love them, and they are in my heart, but they feel like a beautiful picture I have seen enough and would like to pass on now.

“He has shewed thee, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?”

I would like to learn to do that now.  I have lost interest in the other things – the things they have the wars about.

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365 366 Day 111 – Friday April 20^th   

This is the one-hundred-and-eleventh day this year.  Do you know when to hyphenate?  I ask because many people do not.  But the principle is simple. “This is the one hundred,” is a stand-alone sentence.  “ ‘This is the one hundred,' is a stand,” is also a stand-alone sentence; though obviously they would both be very puzzling.

“This is the eleventh day this year” is also a stand-alone sentence. 

If I write “This is the one hundred and eleventh day this year, technically nothing but your common sense (which I cannot necessarily rely upon) and intuition leads you to realise that I mean “This is the one-hundred-and-eleventh day this year.”  Linking them into a train like that helps you see it’s meant as a one-thing package.

Maybe the necessity is not obvious from this example.

But what if I said: “She was a maiden and a half sister to the viceroy” (Lord only knows where that sentence came from!)

Is the meaning obvious?  Maybe.

“She was a maiden-and-a-half, sister to the viceroy.”

“She was a maiden and a half-sister to the viceroy.”

See?  The hyphenation makes clarifying links assisting access to the intended meaning.

“John kept up his see Venice and die running commentary going all afternoon.”

“John kept up his see-Venice-and-die running commentary going all afternoon.”

Don’t worry about this if it bores you.

Today’s Lost Object was a fine book of beautiful drawings and very good poetry.  I enjoyed it, but realised that brief admiration felt a better fit than permanent attachment.

Happiness Music

I love this so much. N'Kosi Sikelel' iAfrika is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.


For those wishing to sing along: 

(Xhosa) Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika

Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo.

(Zulu) Yizwa imithandazo yethu,

Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo . . .

And this, Stand By Me, is my total favourite of the Song Around the World Playing For Change songs.

In terms of performances, Sung-bong Choi singing on Korea's Got Talent is unforgettable.


There is something about the music of William Byrd that speaks peace to my soul.  I can't find the Agnus Dei from his Mass for three voices (my favourite) online, but here it is from the Mass for four voices - haunting and beautiful.


As to hymns - this never fails to lift my soul - the Gaither Gospel Ensemble singing Revive Us Again. 


And this!  Christ receiveth sinful men - oh, that is such a fab hymn!  Oh - shame!  They sing only three verses :0(  Well, never mind, here's us singing it at home.


It goes like this if you want to sing along:

1. Sinners Jesus will receive;

Sound this word of grace to all

Who the heavenly pathway leave,

All who linger, all who fall!

2. Come, and He will give you rest;

Trust Him, for His word is plain;

He will take the sinfulest;

Christ receiveth sinful men.

3. Now my heart condemns me not,

Pure before the law I stand;

He who cleansed me from all spot,

Satisfied its last demand.

4. Christ receiveth sinful men,

Even me with all my sin;

Purged from every spot and stain,

Heaven with Him I enter in.

Chorus:

Sing it o'er and o'er again;

Christ receiveth sinful men;

Make the message clear and plain:

Christ receiveth sinful men.

I love this too - love it love it - our family sang this at the Badger's and my wedding: Lean On Me.


And this, that I linked you to the other day - if it were humanly possible to have a song actually permanently tattooed on my neural pathways, I'd have this one - No Wait from Plum Village Songs for the Practice. 


I guess my choices are kind of obvious, but I do love this recording of Time To Say Goodbye.


And, just in case these choices are a little exalted for you, one of my favourites of all time has to be The Dubliners singing The Rare Old Mountain Dew, and another is the extraordinary harpist Joanna Newsom singing This Side of the Blue (I have even preached on this!). 


And Bob Marley - how did I live 32 years before I heard of Bob Marley?  What were my parents thinking of when I was growing up??  This song - Don't Worry - was one I used to listen to often in the really traumatic days when our lives were falling apart.  And it always cheered me up.


Ah.  Happy sigh . . . I could go on all day.


So finally - one for the road - Enjoy Yourself!


But - how about you?  What are your favourites?

  

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365 366 Day 110 – Thursday April 19^th 

  (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)   

A boring but useful little item, if you like arranging flowers (you may remember I had brief churchy aspirations to this).   It’s a dark green painted wooden small trough, with a rigid waterproof line of the right size to take a brick of floral foam.  And it is no longer mine.  Oh, good!

We no longer have the table it was standing on, either. 

Thank you Mr Postman

 What a week! I came home from Spring Harvest with the ominous pricklings of a sore throat beginning.  Thursday I had to officiate at two funerals, and by then the sore throat was developing and I felt kinda low.  Obviously unless you have actually been hit by a truck or something, you can’t back out of taking a funeral on the day – having written the eulogies and deceased-specific prayers etc etc.  So I continued as per normal, but during the first funeral my temperature plummeted until I thought I was going to pass out or throw up or something.  I gritted my teeth and f o c u s ed and we got through.

At our crematorium there is no place for clergy to hole up between funerals – they took our room away and gave it to the bearers.  But in the corner of the crem attendant’s office by some coat pegs they had a chair where they let me sit.  Opposite a mirror.  Fascinating.  I texted Hebe to tell her I looked like a ded Bodhi.  All in black too.  Wish you’d seen me.  Yellowish white with not even red eyes and shaking violently.  I sent a message for the Badger to come and get me the minute the second funeral was through, and at home they all prayed for me which was most necessary and effective – I still felt like a small glacier in Funeral 2 but not like I would fall over or be sick.

Once home I had to get into my PJs and into bed.  The tribe had put two hot water bottles in my bed ready, plus some flowers and snacks and a glass of water on the nightstand.  Sweethearts!  I got undressed, saying to myself over and over “You can do this.  You can do this.”  Then I collapsed into bed and my whole body shook like it was being electrocuted for a little while, and the hot water bottles began to thaw me out.  I relied on them for a bit until my temperature went up . . . and up . . . and up . . .   I floated about on hot clouds for a bit that day and night, and by the morning I was betterish.  Since then I’ve felt just kind of . . . ill.  My throat got very sore – then better.  I got tired and breathless – then improved.  Then by yesterday I’d got this mother of all coughs that sends me into turbo-super-powered hacking spasms with tears pouring down my face every now and then just for a fun surprise.  And it’s raining and blowing a hooley and as cold as an Alaskan popsicle with added liquid nitrogen.

All this week (part of not feeling very well, I think) I’d been feeling fed up and depressed about the state of the world, the church and humankind, and a bit lost in the fog and generally pointless and like giving up.

So by this morning I'd gotten to feeling kinda sorry for myself.

Until the mail came.

There were two really nice letters from the next of kin from the two funerals saying how pleased they’d been with them and how just right they were.  That was lovely.

But best of all, a letter from Sister Mary of St Joseph of the Notting Hill Carmelites to whom I’d sent a bundle of books earlier in the spring.  She’d written when she got them, to say thank you, and I thought that was nice and didn’t expect to hear from her again.

But it turns out their correspondence was on short rations for Lent, and she had more to say.  She said she really loved the Hawk & Dove books and thought they should be compulsory reading for every novice (you have no idea how pleased I feel that she said that).  And best of all, she sent me (as well as a book about the Carmelite tradition of prayer) a DVD that I’d really wanted to see but I couldn’t obtain anywhere – a tribute made by their community to one of their sisters (Sister Patricia Mary of Jesus) who died two years ago of pancreatic cancer. 

And this DVD is called “Never Lose Hope,”  which is something Sister Patricia Mary said to her sisters after a very difficult evening just four days before she died.

The community the DVD comes from is the one in the wonderful No Greater Love, so I feel as though I almost know them just through watching that film.

I’m going to make myself a hot drink, then curl up and watch this DVD right now!

Oh, God bless Sister Mary of St Joseph – that’s cheered me up so much!

Yes, I know – there are not many women who would seize a homemade film about a nun dying of pancreatic cancer and shriek “Oh, wow! That’s the film I’ve been looking for.”  Just a special select few on a tiny planet orbiting round a question mark at a suitably safe distance from the earth.

By heck, it’s cold today!  I need a doughnut!

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365 366 Day 108 – Tuesday April 17^th   

Ditching the ironing board!  Yeah, man! You better believe it!  Hahahaha – hooray! Yes, there are still some items we occasionally need to iron, but we have kept our kitchen table so that’s OK.

365 366 Day 109 – Wednesday April 18^th   

Cranks Cookbook.  Let me tell you, when in 2002 I moved in with Bernard to his cottage all kitted out with the belongings of his previous wife Anne (that was how I knew him – we met when someone recommended me to him to take Anne’s funeral back in 1997), I was delighted to find a copy of the Cranks Cookbook, because I’d been in their Covent Garden restaurant often before it curled up and died, and loved their food. "Go, Annie!" I thought, "Fab choice!"  I never actually cooked anything from it, but when Bernard died a couple of years later and I moved out again, it was the one thing that wasn’t mine I took with me.  That was in 2004.  It stayed with me in my tiny apartment in St Leonards for a couple more years, during which time I never even opened it.  However it was Cranks Cookbook, so I carefully packed it up with the rest of my stuff and took it up to Aylesbury when I married the Badger and moved north to be with him in 2006.  It stayed on a shelf there with the rest of the cookery books, and because it was the cherished and hallowed Cranks Cookbook it escaped the cull of further downsizing when we moved back to Hastings at the end of 2009. 

This is 2012.  I have never, not once in ten years, consulted that book for any recipe whatever.  When I cook, I just make it up as I go along.  Fiction cooking.  I sent it off to the Oxfam bookshop so the non-fiction cooks could have a go.

   

For your joy

A song for you to listen to, just for your happiness this beautiful day, my friends.


Namaste.

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365 366 Day 106 – Sunday April 15^th 

  

I thought this looked lovely but when I got it I found it to be the thoughts of a venerable poet with strong opinions sad that things ain’t the way they used to be so I didn’t keep it.

Sand. Mahogany pig.

Ages and ages ago Madhur Jaffrey did a series on TV about recipes from all different parts of India.  I never forgot these programmes, they made such an impression on me – because she did them all on location in the places the recipes came from.  It was enchanting and captivating and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.   India!

One of the places she went to (I mean this is yonks ago so my memory of it has gone a bit fuzzy now) was some place in a desert.  Maybe it could have been Rajasthan, would you think??  Anyway the people she visited to cook her local recipe lived very simply and owned very little.  The camera took us inside a lady’s house, which was a very small home with hardly anything in it; but displayed on shelves were some brass cook-pots, and they shone.  They were dazzlingly clean.

These ladies cooked over wood fires of course, and obviously they had no dishwashers or nylon scrubby things, so how were they getting them so clean?


Sand.

I remembered this since the weather perked up and permitted outdoor cooking again at last.  It was still just cold enough to make porridge seem attractive, so I cooked it over the Kelly Kettle fuelled with some junk mail and torn up packaging, while I boiled the water for nettle tea at the same time.  Everything went fine, but I tell you no lie in saying porridge pans are a challenge to wash up at the best of times, and a healthy coating of carbon on the outside adds its own special bonus.

I left the pan to stand with some rainwater in it while I sat on the step and ate my porridge, having in the first place diligently scraped it out with my green silicon spoon which cunningly acts as a 5-star spatula then seamlessly surges on to become the only eating implement the world has ever seen that allows you to eat silently from stoneware.

The nettles are perfect for making tea with right now.  I take the tops which makes them divide and thoughtfully grow more tops for more tea. 

So having had my tea there was water still in the Kelly Kettle for washing up, and I raided my talented charming intelligent grandson’s sandpit as a cleaning aid.  Just a little bit of sand scooped up on two fingers is all it took to clean the pan all bright and sparkly just like those ladies’ pots in Rajasthan (or wherever it was). 

Inspired by this, I had another go with sand and washing.  Hanging some clothes out I noticed (sorry chums, so way to put this delicately) that one of our hankies was still snotty in a clinging mucusy kind of way – urgh yuck.  What to do?  I got a bit of rainwater in the bucket and scooped up a bit of sand (the Wretched Wretch won’t have any left at this rate), dolloped it on the hanky and just scrubbed it around all over against itself and then rinsed it in the rainwater – ta da!  All clean.  Any clinging sand blew away in the breeze as it was drying and it was so soft and clean when it was done.  Obviously cleaning clothes with sand would shorten their little lives just a tad, but a useful tip nonetheless don’t you think?  And fab for metal pans.  Less so I should imagine for enamel or high-glaze ceramic.  We use baking soda for those.

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365 366 Day 105 – Saturday April 14^th  

  (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here) 

This large heavy pig made of painted mahogany was given us by a dear friend who knew we are always on the lookout for firewood.  Thinking it might appeal to children and be useful to sit on, we kept it as a doorstop for a while, but it was heavy to move, had an uncanny ability to be in the wrong place every tine without fail – so the Badger went mad at it with an axe and it did indeed make the most excellent firewood.

  

Lost in the fog/forest/desert/wilderness/maze/underground/crowd

 So many things going through my mind today.

Realising that again I had got sucked into someone else’s path and was trying to channel someone else's charism and persona.  Sigh.  Find the mistake, unravel the knitting, pick up the stitches, start again.  My family is patient.

Then I got to thinking, when I do this it’s voodoo really – avoiding stepping on the cracks between the paving stones so the bears won’t get you (US and Aussie and Canadian and Swedish children do this too, right?).

I try to hold the chaos at bay by courses of action – if I wear this, if I buy that, if I eat this, if I go without that.  And I guess courses of action do help, up to a point.  I mean, if we save rainwater and thereby draw off less tapwater, it has to save pennies on our budget if nothing else – and plus you have to be the change you want to see in the world; and I surely do want to see us stop sucking Mother Earth dry.   Then there’s the bees.  If we plant the right flowers in our garden and stay away from toxic chemicals, it will help them. 

But then . . . there’s all the electromagnetic mess from microwaves and cellphones and whatnot.  And complicated metals that I don’t even know about implicated in making computers.  And light pollution and nuclear power stations and asthma from car exhausts and greenhouse gases – and you know and I know that’s just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on all day.

Even if I do my very best and get as obsessive as only I can be – what difference can I make?  Apart from, to myself and the patient people who have to live with me.

I guess there comes a day when one just has to grieve that Mother Earth is dying, that wars will never cease, that religion will always bring alienation and persecution alongside its many blessings – that wherever there is Christ there is a cross, as messy and bloody and painful and impossible to get round as it ever was, at the heart of the way things are.

It makes such a wave of sorrow in me, that I am a childish person, and not very good at life, and I get things wrong so often – like, most of the time.  I never seem to learn.  I only need to meet someone who tells me “Wear this type of hat and dress, it’s what God wants:” and instead of taking the obvious course and saying “Chum, you’re sweet, but you’re off your trolley,” I do the thing (Apologies, of course, if you are a person who believes it makes a difference to God what type of hat and dress you wear).

And then the other day I was reading a book by this guy who believes money is the problem and we should all live without it.  I mean he rides a bike and goes dumpster diving and wears clothes and I couldn't help thinking, "Wait - but surely . . . "  Even so, I felt guilty, and so I should.  Friend, you have no idea with what cheerful abandon I can spend money.  Savings, what are they?

And food!  Everything that crosses our lips seems to cause some kind of damage – cheese gives me heartburn and requires the slaughter of calves, eggs require (male) baby chicks to be gassed en masse, abattoirs are the theatres of atrocities that sear the soul for ever, potatoes tomatoes peppers and aubergines are nightshades that do something bad I can’t remember, margarine is basically paint or something in disguise, rapeseed oil messes with your lungs, palm oil starts wars and causes indigenous people to be turned off their land, bread bloats your gut, anything processed is inherently evil for all the usual reasons – Geez!!! What’s left to eat?  No pancakes, no ice-cream no currant buns, no Sunday roast, no macaroni cheese – British apples R us, right?

Crossroads?  I feel like I got lost on a traffic island in Spaghetti Junction!

It is rather late at night and I was very ill yesterday.  Take this with a pinch on salt.  No, wait - I think you'd better not do that . . .  OK, just stick to the hat and the dress and avoid the cracks between the paving stones and maybe the sky won't fall and the bears won't get you after all (in your dreams . . .)

Life is s o o o o o  v e r y  d i f f i c u l t

It has no script, no map and no certain outcomes.  Before you rush to tell me, yes I do believe in Jesus, and I do know about prayer and the Bible - I'm just saying; even then.

:0\

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365 366 Day 104 – Friday April 13^th

  

This was a sweet little hook kindly given to us that lived in our kitchen for a while.   

  

Learning To Let Go

Friends, in general I try to not make this blog one of those tedious two-a-penny writers’ blogs that boil down to some desperate individual bribing you with gifts and begging “PLEASE b u y  m y   b o o o o o o o o o k!!!”

But hey, one can always make an exception! :0D

Back in 2010 I wrote a book called Learning to Let Go.  I will spare you the details of why this is not getting into the right hands, though the reasons are all too evident to me.  Suffice it to say, it is not.

Normally, I don’t mind when that happens – and for myself I don’t mind about this book either.  But it troubles me a little that there are people out in the Wide Wild World who would be really helped if they stumbled across this book, and so far it isn’t happening.  The thing is, there is no other book quite like it, as far as I’m aware, and it addresses a situation where people urgently need guidance and help in their decision-making.

Learning To Let Go is about making the transition into residential care. 

Who’s it written for?

Well, it’s for people who work in care homes, chaplains of residential care homes, people who can see that the time that they can manage in their own home is running out because of life-limiting illness or profound disability or a degenerative condition.  And it’s for relatives of people in that situation.

When someone has to leave their own home – not for a spell in hospital because of an illness with a good expectation of recovery, but for the last time – this is an experience of profound bereavement, and usually regarded with fear and dread.

Learning To Let Go is written to help make the best of these circumstances.

The chapters are as follows:

• ØStarting to think about a care home, which examines helpful criteria and questions to ask in choosing the right home.
• Ø Families and friends, which looks at some real-life stories and then goes into the human and relational issues to be considered.
• Ø Affirming people as unique individuals, which explores the why and how of protecting individuality as a vital aspect of spiritual care.
• Ø The people and the place, which differentiates between what to look for in the staff of a care home, and what to look for in the regime and building, to get the best fit for the person who will be living there.
• Ø Learning to let go begins now, which makes some suggestions of realistic life choices we can all put in place to prepare ourselves for the vulnerability of growing old or the possibility of life-limiting illness.

Pam Rhodes, a UK TV personality, says in her foreword to the book:

“How I wish I’d had this book a couple of years ago! That’s when the physical and mental health of my own much-loved mum deteriorated to the degree that it became clear that living in our home as part of our family was no longer safe for her – or possible for us . . .
. . . Pen Wilcock comes to the situation from so many angles because she’s been a chaplain in a hospice, a care assistant for the terminally and chronically sick, and a pastor in churches where the congregation was mostly in the older age group.  She has listened, watched, observed, and finally managed to draw up some sensitive, empathetic and constructive thoughts on the complex set of emotions and circumstances which bring individuals and families to the reality that either they, or perhaps one of their parents, need to consider moving into sheltered or residential care.  She recognizes the impact on the family, the fear on all sides, the need for trust and boundaries, respect and dignity.  She touches on grief, loss, relief, love, opportunity, loneliness, friendship, the future – and so much more.  She looks at the role of care staff and the importance of their kindness, patience and ability to see the precious individual within an ageing body.  And she affirms the intricate, wondrous mix of mind, body and soul that is the miracle of each and every human being.You can read this book on so many levels – as a textbook packed full of good and practical ideas; as a comfort to reassure you that you’re not alone in this challenging emotional situation; and last, quite simply, as a really good ‘read’ that will keep you glued from page to page.  This is one book you won’t want to let go.”

So, there you have it, chums.  At home I have four spare copies to give away, so if you can think of someone who would be helped by this book, send me their address in a comment and I’ll mail a copy on.  Once all four have gone I’ll post a comment to say so, giving the names but not addresses of those who will receive a copy.

Frustratingly, in neither Amazon UK nor US Amazon can you search inside, and there is no Kindle edition available.  But it is in print in paperback and should be available for you to order on Amazon here in the UK and here in the US.

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365 366 Day 103 – Thursday April 12^th

  (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)

Another hat that I didn’t think really worked on me.  I mean, I’m not big on looking cool as anyone who knows me can tell at a glance.  But even I have limits.  

Happy things

Today the world is beautiful.  Alternating great heavy grey and purple rainclouds with grand white sailing ships of clouds, dazzling sun and sapphire skies.

A wonderful flash of forked lightning  shot through the storm clouds early this morning.

The cherry blossom is out and all the spring flowers.

The garden in front of our house faces north and is enclosed by a hedge, so it is cool and damp.  It grows like a little woodland dell, a mossy path and stones clothed in moss, a small pond and flowers sprinkled everywhere, some we have planted and some that brought themselves.  

All varieties of mint flourish there, and the primroses look at home.  Returning from just a few days away I felt such joy to see the violets in flower – lots and lots of them.  

I guess they must have been there all along, because we didn’t put them there, but when we arrived here the front garden had been covered with multi-coloured concrete crazy paving, so anything living just had to bid its time underneath.

The other thing waiting for me on my return was this:

Wonder of wonders! I wish you could feel the softness of these socks, the latest of Alice’s ongoing sock creation.  

They are made from alpaca wool spun by a women’s co-operative in Latin America, silky and smooth.

While we were away at the conference, we walked early one evening into the town of Minehead (our accommodation was on the outskirts) to eat at a restaurant.  We left around eight because the Badger had a professional appointment to keep, and strolled back through the dusk that was coming down to darkness.  The street had some trees planted along the edge of the road, and high in the branches of one of them, a nightingale was singing, the first real live one I ever heard!  Just the most glorious song.  I could see him – it really was a nightingale! We listened for a while then sadly had to go on – but when we got back to the conference centre, there in one of the trees another nightingale was singing – and the next two nights he was there again; such joy, a really rapturous sound.

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365 366 Day 102 – Wednesday April 11^th       

3D glasses for viewing 3D movies.  I prefer the 2D ones, so won't need these any more.