Groovy Simplicity People & own simplicity update

I subscribe to Karol Gajda's fab blog called Ridiculously Extraordinary. Some of it is excellent but irrelevant to me, like his recent How To Work Anywhere project (irrelevant only because I've sorted that for myself already), but I had an update in my email inbox this morning with some tips for travelling light, that I thought was exceptionally good.

While checking this out and reading around, I discovered that Rowdy Kittens is doing a series of interviews with people who are blogging about living simply and minimalist living. This interview with Naomi Seldin is excellent, and the page has lots of links too. I like the interview about minimalist cooking with Jules Clancy too, here. Again, lots of further excellent links.

Enjoy!

In my own simplicity frolic, this is where I have got to.

For my work and general use I have a Samsung NC10 Netbook, which is so light and portable I can work anywhere. One drawback with it is that it has no slot for DVDs/CDs, and I rather than watching telly to relax I like to watch favourite Films, mainly Into Great Silence, which is a peace-fix/life-fix for me.

So I was thinking about having a laptop again instead of my little netbook. However Tony had a desktop computer he no longer uses now he has a laptop from work, and it seemed wasteful to ditch that and ditch my netbook and fork out £300 for a new laptop. Instead we created a snug study corner in our bedroom, where I can curl up and watch a film at the end of the day. There is a telly in the house, but I like to be private in my nest to chill out.

The house now functions as follows.

On the ground floor we have two good-sized rooms, laid out for groups - the front room has three sofas, the back room has four chairs and a piano, and we have a moveable herd of 4 beanbags to enlarge the seating capacity of either room. This is because primarily the house is designed as communal space: for meetings, retreats, family gatherings etc - this hasn't all got going yet as we've lived here only 6 months and been creating links with a church, settling in and getting the first wave of building repairs done. But we do have a regular group for bible study, prayer, fellowship & discussion up and running, and we can accommodate any tribal gatherings of our family.

The front living room has a woodstove, so will the back one when we get the money and energy to sort that out. Both rooms have televisions, the front room has a DVD player too. So they are chillout meeting spaces for household and groups. The back living room also has a Bose CD player - excellent for minimalist living - you can carry it in one hand and it makes enough sound to comfortably fill a large church. Bass packs a punch: special technology. So it's great for retreats and funerals, leading worship etc too. Take it anywhere there's a socket to plug it in.

Besides those rooms we have a normal kitchen. We like to be simple in terms of equipment and gadgetry. There is a built-in cooker and hob that is very old: the cooker is a bit dodgy and we may replace that some day, but it does actually cook things if you turn it up high. The hob's fine. We have an electric kettle. We have an energy conserving fridge-freezer, with the special feature that the fridge is cooled by redirected cold air from the freezer rather than a cold back-panel, so veggies etc can be packed in without fear of getting frozen by the back panel. This in turn means we can manage with one normal size fridge for the whole household even though fresh food that needs to be refrigerated to make it last is the main thing we eat.
We have an automatic washing machine, with a large drum, a very economic and sturdy model. We have a handheld electric whisk, and we have this excellent thing for making smoothies and soup; and a juicer. That's it for electric gadgets.

We have quite a number of glasses (more than we need, but that subject needs gently broaching with the one whose glasses they are) and a good few mugs, because we often have quite a number visiting at one time. We have quite a lot of plates for the same reason (when I say a lot, I mean we have about 8-10 dinner plates, 8-10 dessert plates - not 20 or 30)

Having put 2 households into one, we had quite a few duplicates, and some of us are fond of the stuff we brought, so we got rid of what felt painless, and have just this week done another cull of stuff we were now ready to let go. The pruning and winnowing are ongoing.

We have several (5) chopping boards in various shapes & sizes, but that's because if several of us are preparing the meal together, using the boards as heatproof mats as well as for chopping, they come in handy.

I can still identify surplus baggage in our kitchen cupboards - some pretty china, a few too many grungy baking tins, duplicate rolls of tin foil etc it's taking ages to work through, way too many teaspoons, a couple of saucepans we don't really use - but we can get everything in the cupboards without creating avalanches, and we are pruning without acquiring. We kept the fridge-freezer when we combined households, selling on the big larder fridge and separate freezer, we sold one microwave and gave the other away - so I'm satisfied we're moving in the right direction there.

Something else we have that I keep forgetting to use, but is important, is our thermos gear. We have a big thermos jug, which means we can have hot water for drinks without repeatedly firing up the kettle. We have a big thermos stewpot which will cook up a pot of stew/curry/whatever with only 10 mins initial hob time. And we have a 2-tier thermos tiffin stack that will keep a meal hot without resorting to a microwave or keeping a pan of water hot under a plate. Memo to self: actually use these. Generally if I find I am not using something I just get rid of it, but in the case of thermal technology environmental and economic good sense imperatives apply.

A recent expensive acquisition was our pressure cooker. Excellent, and cuts down on packaging because I can cook the soaked dried pulses with a satisfactory result.

On the back of the kitchen is the studio, which needs some work to pull it into shape. We gave away our dining chairs and are using the dining table as a workbench, but it's not heavy enough for stained glass work, because stretching the lead is vigorous: it's not sturdy enough for woodwork and ceramics really either, so we've ordered a heavy-duty workbench and will freecycle the dining table when that comes. We also need a banker constructing for letter-cutting in stone, and that's been put in hand.
The ceramics kiln is a big item to work round, but when we re-design the room we'll get everything fitting in sweetly. And it's not a big room: maybe 8' x 9' working space.
There's a toilet off the studio, and one can wash hands in the studio sink, so that works OK.
From the front door to the kitchen a passage runs alongside the living rooms, also accommodating the stairs. There are two understairs cupboards. The tall one carries most of our tools, including the stepladder and the lawnmower, all the picnic gear, all garden and household chemicals, car wash and cleaning gear, spare multi-sockets,shoe-cleaning stuff & all that jazz. The smaller cupboard has the meters & fuse boxes, the tool box, wellies, the iron, the stairgate for baby invasions and stuff on its way out of the house to the tip. These are really important cupboards1

So that's downstairs.

On the first floor three of us have a bedroom each - so simple I am proud of them! Each room is plain and spacious, stuff kept to a minimum! In Fiona's room she has kindly accommodated my 2 robes and winter cloak for funerals and ceremonies, because I need those to not be creased by folding so I look presentable when I conduct a funeral; and I have no hanging space in my room. Also on the first floor Tony has his study, and outside it he has a Residual Junk unit, for his occasional use gear like his fishing bag and backpack. I will post pics of all this so you can see how we live.

Up another flight of stairs and you come to two attic rooms. On the way you pass by Secret Shame - an area where I have a fairly useless display unit displaying useless stuff that I just like. But hey - I will shed it in time.

The first attic room is our grandson's nursery: maybe 5' x 7'?

The second one is Tony's and my room.

Apart from the aforementioned Secret Shame, all my belongings are in here. We have a bed. Tony has a chest of drawers for his clothes and a child-size wardrobe (we tuck under the eaves so tall furniture is out) for his work suits. He has an antique chair he loves that doubles as a clothes horse. Under the bed we keep a folding clothes airer for when the weather is no good for drying outside.

I have a chest of drawers for my clothes: fancy clothes for parties and church, travelling bags, winter sweaters and shawls in the bottom drawer, everyday trousers (and cold-weather leggings to go under them) and tops in the middle drawer, underwear in the top righthand drawer, nightdresses and washbag in the top left drawer. My shoes live under the bed in a drawer.

I have two small bookcases for all my books and papers, and the computer is tucked into the corner as described. I rarely listen to music - I love music but prefer silence - but the computer is our music machine too.

I have a comfy chair and side table too. Mainly I sit on the bed to work and read and pray, but the chair is handy for when anyone comes upstairs for a chat, or for watching a film on the computer. One of the beanbags lives up with us in the attic, in either room.

We have a third chest of drawers. Bottom drawer for bedlinen. Middle drawer for temporary stuff - eg to tidy away wools and fabrics for sewing projects, or store items to be taken to another part of the tribe - top right drawer for items salted away for people's Christmas and birthday gifts, top left drawer for items waiting to go to charity shops.

Living like this enables 5 adults to live together in such a way that a medium-sized semi-detached house offers enough space for the household, for the occasional guest and an overnight baby, for gatherings; and feels very spacious indeed.

We all regard cleaning and tidying as essential but not absorbing or attractive as a pastime, and we have other things we want to be getting on with; hence we like to keep stuff to a minimum so that cleaning and tidying are quick and easy.

So that's us. I'll stop in case you're bored and post some pics in due course.

A.mazing

We were talking about the trees, and dreaming about planting our own little wood some day, and I said: 'What I would really really like is to grow an oak tree'.

So later on I was pottering about getting on with this and that and I heard the thunder of delicate ladylike footsteps on the stairs and excited voices saying 'Come and see! Come and look!'

'What?' said I. 'What have you done? Trapped a badger? Strung up a property speculator?'

'Come and see! Come and see!' was all they would say. So I did.

In our garden you first come to some flower beds and grassy bits where we chill out and play with the Smallest Relative and eat lunch. Then there are the veggie beds (doing very nicely thank you, despite startling extremes of temperature this spring). Then there is the dell, or the meadow, or whatever it is - a little bit of garden at the end, left to be wild, Hebe's domain, where we are making something like a kind of woodland glade with ferns and hawthorn and whatnot. We've transplanted some random bushes that were planted here and there, to make a little hedgerow separating off the meadow from the rest of the garden (I'm making this sound massive - you should know, our garden probably doesn't make it to 100ft long - we pack in a lot, OK?).

And there, at the bottom of the garden beyond the 'hedgerow', just within our little meadow, there is the darlingest little oak tree, newly starting to grow. It came all by itself as a gift from the trees, because they knew we loved them.

And in the flower bed by the wall, a tiny yew tree starting as well.

Now, how cool is that!

I should have taken a photo for you to see - I'll go and take one in the morning, and add it in.

A small triumph

Ooh this was a busy morning.

Because of the bursitis and frozen shoulder problems I have been given strict instructions to rest from computer operation as both arms have gone on strike!

So I am limiting myself to two hours on the computer every day, working in the early morning when there are fewest disturbances and the time counts the most. I was up at five or six sort of time working on the current book, and had just finished the tranche of work for today, was thinking about getting in the bath, when I heard a chainsaw, followed after a while by that terrible crack that means only one thing: a main bough of a great tree has been severed. I shot out of bed to see.

Beyond the end of our garden is a stretch of land belonging to a developer. He had planning permission to build on it back in the 1960s, and despite that permission having been rescinded he is determined to go ahead and build, and has begun to clear the land.

Part of this clearing was to include the felling of two great ash trees just beyound our garden wall, and a little pear tree growing between them.

I got dressed at top speed, and in general disarray and various states of dress, Hebe, Alice and I went tearing down the garden to see.

One great stem of the tree was down, but that was all.

After many phone calls and much negotiation, the morning ended with the man who owns the land coming over to talk to us, a knot of earnest neighbours with the paperwork to show there is no permission to clear the land, an apparent willingness to consider selling the land to us in lots as it adjoins our gardens, and the ash trees preserved, for now at least, from any further damage at all.

We managed this kindly and courteously, everyone softly spoken, with no raised voices, willing to hear each other's point of view. The tree surgeons who at first were mainly interested in whether they got paid and otherwise took a neutral ground, were speaking for the trees by the end.

It took a couple of hours and we felt a bit mad with adrenalin by the end, but the trees were saved! :0)

Dust

“He made the first grains of the world’s dust.” (The Book of Proverbs)

Dust. Silken, shifting… brown-grey… mouseback grey… Dust… Brother Dustyfeet padding along the pavements in the heat of the day… Dust gathering in silence… Stardust forming radiance…

Dust I am and to dust I shall return.

My house is dusty too. Dust on the surfaces, dust accumulating in the quiet corners, dust falling noiselessly: the dust of the earth, created by God as a primal resource to make people from.

Dust becomes my enemy sometimes. I keep it prisoner. I have a vacuum-cleaner bag full of it: it cannot breathe in there – nothing could. I wage war on dust, and it never fights back: dust is peaceful and recognises me – ‘Dust thou art,’ it says, ‘and to dust shalt thou return’. Dust knows that it was created by God and that I too am made from the dust of the earth; only by an illusion do I appear to be anything else. And dust can wait; in time I shall be reinstated. So dust does not fight me, but resigns itself to evading me; rolling in small drifts out of sight, moving unobtrusively alongside the skirting boards. Lowly dust.

Jesus drew in the dust and nobody except the dust knew what he drew. I know what he drew because I am dust, so his drawing is in me too: when I return to dust I shall find what he has etched in me. So will you. It was something about understanding, and forgiveness. Something about humility.

In these days of summer the roads are all dusty… but my feet are hot, sticky with sweat, rubbing on my sandals and making blisters on my toes. So I have put a dusting of talc in my sandals, and that makes everything better, soothing and comforting. Healing dust. Dust I am and to dust I shall return. I would like to be healing dust. I am halfway there.

Sacred Heart

I have never liked statues of the Sacred Heart before I saw this one.

It’s really tiny, as you can see.

What is it that I like about it?

Well, other statues of the Sacred Heart I have seen have struck me as religious kitsch gone mad. Lurid colours, and Jesus with a challenging glare, pointing uncompromisingly to the in-your-face Post-Office-Red exposed heart with its golden crown on his breast.

When I looked at them, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be seeing. An accusation? A reproach? It looked a bit Frankenstein to me, and I didn’t like it.

I didn’t know what (in meditation) I was meant to do with it.

And then I saw this tiny statue.

I liked his face, beautiful, quite grave and serious, with that sort of little frown that people get when something is difficult for them to say: he looked shy.

He has some rather complicated robes on, and it seemed like he had drawn them aside so I could see, and said: ‘Look’. Like he was showing me his heart, and it was something that was not easy to do; needing trust, because our hearts are vulnerable. And that reassures me that hidden under all the complications and obfuscation of the details of daily living and the overweight ecclesiology of the Church, is his heartbeat of love; and if I will take the time to stop and look, he will draw it all aside so I can see the invitation to be with him.

And then, the statue is so small: and I always think of Jesus as powerful and strong. But because the statue is small, and the demeanour of the figure looks so shy and vulnerable, it makes me see Jesus differently.

Like I should slow down, and approach him gently, draw near him quietly, because he has quiet things to say himself.

And the look on his face tells me that this gift of his heart, it’s a costly thing. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is not a kind of flaming billboard, it’s a tender, sensitive thing; and it’s a privilege to be given the opportunity to approach the heart of someone who loves so much, and who gave so much. It’s also a privilege that after someone was tortured to death, he should come back not to condemn or complain or take revenge, but with enough softness to offer his heart like that, and let me see – see that it was wounded, that it was hurt, that he suffered so much; but that he still loves me.

There’s something else I love about this statue. To take the photograph, I held it in one hand (because obviously I needed the other hand to hold the camera): but normally when I look at it to think about Jesus, I cup one hand around the other, and make a kind of nest for it, cradle it in both my hands. Now, it’s made of bronze I think, and when I hold it in my hands like that, the natural thing is that my thumb curls round and tends to rub against where the knee of the statue is. But that part – where my thumb rubs – is worn shiny. Someone else has held this tiny figure in just the same way, and cradled him in their hands, and looked at him as I do. I wonder who? Someone else has loved him very much, and looked intently, and asked his permission to take refuge in the loving-kindness of his vulnerable Sacred Heart.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus: such a private thing, a meeting between just him and me; and yet knowing that same intimate time of revelation and confession, learning to love, learning to see, happens with people who love him everywhere, until his knees are rubbed quite shiny by their thumbs!

Rosary Cross

Here’s the little cross from my rosary.

When I chose a rosary, its form was not a matter of indifference to me. It has dark red wooden beads which I think are very beautiful, and I like the feeling of them in my fingers. The rosary medal that acts as the bead for the first Our Father, on my rosary is for Our Lady of The Rosary - ie our Lady of Fatima - which I don't live with very comfortably because the story of the Fatima apparitions is not really my idiom and does my head in a bit.

But most of all what I chose it for was the cross.

Rosary crosses vary immensely of course. Some are very plain and simple: just a wooden cross. Some are intricate and ornate, very pretty. I am not comfortable with the pretty ones; it seems a bit inappropriate to try to make a cross pretty!

Many rosary crosses are crucifixes, as mine is. Some crucifixes show a resurrection Jesus (we have a wall cross like that in the corridor downstairs – I’ll tell you about that one day) while others have the usual crucified Jesus. Some crucified Jesuses (Jesi?) are arranged with taste and elegance on their crosses, looking more like rather doleful sunbathers, and I’m not quite comfortable with those either.

I love mine because it looks a bit extreme; and in particular because the figure of Jesus does not look tastefully arranged but hangs without dignity, utterly spent.

Dignity and resourcefulness are very important in the family in which I grew up. To be right, to be restrained, understated, capable, knowledgeable, well-behaved and dignified; these attributes were valued. Not to break or spill anything; not to speak out of turn or behave incorrectly; to use correct grammatical forms and the vocabulary of the upper middle class – these were our aspirations. Decorum, unobtrusiveness and dignity were what we were aiming for. Sit nicely, don’t rock the boat, and all of that.

The Jesus on my rosary cross has forfeited all that baggage. He can’t have anything like that. Beyond trying or caring or maintaining appearances he hangs in agony, his joints dislocated, from the nails on his cross.

When I was a teenager I went to a Good Friday Stations of the Cross at a Catholic church in the market town near our village: they were using the prayers written by, I think, Cardinal Newman.

Each meditation, on each station of the cross, started with the phrase: ‘Ah, my darling Jesus…’

In the home where I grew up, nobody kissed or cuddled anyone – or even touched them. Nobody ever said ‘I love you’ to anyone. Very Northern types: reserved, understated and aloof.

So it came as a shock to me to hear ‘my darling Jesus’ said of the Lord I always heard referred to as ‘Jesus Christ’, in a distinctly formal manner (if at all); or ‘Christ’ in my Religious Knowledge A level course at school (more formal yet, the ‘Jesus’ part vanished from view); or as ‘The Lord’ in the sermons of Arthur Blessit on vinyl disc that I insisted on listening to despite the strong reaction of distaste these occasioned in my mother and sister. I think they didn’t like the things he said along the lines of:
Why don’t people get excited about the Lord like they do about football? Then every time someone got saved they’d ride down the aisle on the preacher’s shoulders shouting “Go! Go! Go!”.
I was required to stop playing this record: but too late! The story had sunk into my heart, and is still there almost forty years later!

But ‘ah, my darling Jesus…’ was in another bracket altogether, because it is the language of love. Without the distance and formality of a title; tender, adoring, without restraint. ‘Ah, my darling Jesus…’ Yes. That was what I wanted to say.

When people pray the rosary, each bead marks the saying of a prayer. You hold the bead between finger and thumb as you say that prayer. Each rosary has on it five ‘decades’ (sets of ten beads) which are used to pray into the mystery of aspects of the life of Jesus and the faith story of the Bible. These are referred to as the Sorrowful Mysteries, the Joyful Mysteries, the Glorious Mysteries and the Luminous Mysteries. I love those names but I can never hold in my head the list of biblical events I’m meant to be remembering. That’s my problem with religion: it’s full of complicated data and I ain’t really that kinda gal. But if you are, or if you’re just curious, you can read about it here. Anyhow apart from the five decades of beads that go round the loop of the rosary, there’s that little tail on it that has five beads for prayers, and the cross. The rosary prayers kick off on the cross, with the recital of the Apostles Creed.

So I fall at the first hurdle because I can never remember the creed – well, I remember the gist of it, what it actually says; but not the exact words. It’s too long for me. Even a shopping list is too long if it has more than four items on it. Unless someone sets it to music and turns it into a hymn, I can’t remember it. I mean I can manage Firmly I believe and truly (here - run Windows media to hear the tune), which is probably in fact longer than the Apostles Creed, but that’s because it’s metrical and has a tune. So I when I pray with the rosary I don’t say the Apostles Creed when I start with (and often never get beyond) the cross. I just pray my own prayer. I look at that tortured figure who has lost all dignity; and I say ‘ah, my darling Jesus…’ and I thank him for what he has done for me (for all of us), and I adore him in his suffering and the agony of his redeeming love.

I bring him my pain and the pain of the world. I bring him the tears of my friends who are strung up in situations they cannot escape; who are facing circumstances beyond what they can bear, but cannot control. And I bring him those who have lost their dignity… whose families malign and deride them… who have lost their job and livelihood and home… who have been caught out and exposed in wrongdoing… who are persecuted and terrorized and rejected because of their sexuality… who are reduced to a quivering mess by bullying and rejection… who are tortured and tormented… who are refugees, frightened, alienated, without hope… who are afraid and left alone… ‘Ah, my darling Jesus…’

And my creed is that no matter what our circumstances, if we can somehow find our way to creep into the company of that man dying naked and without dignity such an unthinkably cruel death, we shall have reached the touchstone of transformation; for his cross is at the heart of creation and is the wellspring of the new creation. By his death and passion, he has redeemed the world.

‘Ah, my darling Jesus…’ And I kiss the cross. And that’s my creed.

St Joseph

I love St Joseph.

Statues of St Joseph come in several main types:

Holding the infant Jesus with one arm and a white lily in his other hand.

The white lily is the symbol of purity, innocence and integrity. It is often associated with Mary the Mother of Jesus, so had an obvious connection with Joseph who became her husband. But the other saint often depicted with a white lily and holding the infant Jesus is St Antony. He was a preacher (a Franciscan friar) and so this depiction of him carrying the Infant Jesus shows him as a bearer of the Word of God. In the case of St Antony, there is also a story of him having been seen with a radiant light emitting from his cell, holding the baby Jesus on his knee and chatting to him.

We are all aware of the problems within the church about child sexual abuse, and that is not a modern danger. Children have always been vulnerable to predatory adults. St Antony and St Joseph carry the lily as a sign that they are trustworthy: that what is innocent, pure and fragile can be entrusted safely into their care, because they are people of integrity.

Kneeling to adore

Where you see a statue of Joseph kneeling to adore, or standing and bending forwards holding a lantern, you’re probably looking at a figure from a Christmas Nativity set, where Joseph is shown adoring the newborn baby Jesus, and holding the light in the stable. What an honour, as Christ who is our light comes into the world, to be the one who is chosen to hold the light for him.

Striding along with a walking staff

In the gospel stories, Joseph makes three important journeys: to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born; to Egypt, in flight from Herod’s massacre of the infants; back home to Nazareth when it is safe to return. In each case he is shepherding his little family, taking care of them and protecting them.

At his carpenter’s bench

These are the statues of Joseph the worker: the man who fulfils his vocation and provides for his family by the practical skill of his trade. Experience, pride in his work, patience, perseverance, application and aptitude are all implied: and these statues remind us that our plain everyday work is holy; that trade is holy; that putting bread on the table is holy; that muscle and sweat and rolled-up sleeves and learning a craft are holy – it’s not all eyes turned heavenwards and incense wafting in the morning light.

Simply holding the infant Jesus

This is my favourite. This is the statue of Joseph that speaks to me. The infant Jesus here is the Word of God, and Joseph is the bearer of the Word: he carries the Word through the world.

The French poet Paul Claudel says:
The Word is the adopted son of silence,
for St Joseph passes through the pages of the gospel
without uttering a single word.

And that’s what I love: the relationship between silence and the Word. That the Word of God is carried and nurtured by silence and in silence. The Word of God is held and loved in silence. The Word of God cannot flourish in a life that is contentious or gossipy or garrulous or always drawing attention to itself.

The quietness of St Joseph: walking alongside the donkey so others can ride; bearing his staff to defend them; holding the light for them; refraining from accusing or complaining or criticizing; accepting responsibility; holding on to integrity; sheltering and upholding innocence; working steadily at an honest trade; and having the humility to recognize in a little child something greater than himself, which he kneels to adore – I think even if I live to be a hundred I will never cease to love and learn from the beautiful example of St Joseph. And Joseph is often shown as an older man: which is to suggest to us that he is wise: that silence, forbearance, kindness, sheltering and protecting and nurturing others, understanding, humility, working to support our families – these show us the way of wisdom.

When I posted yesterday, I said I didn’t have a statue of St Joseph, and that’s true: I don’t yet have one that is my own and that I can relate to. But I realized that I do believe we actually have one in our house.

Tony the Badger (my husband!) had a sea-faring grandfather, who brought home curiosities from the Far East, including the statue posted here, which came from China. We think of China as an atheist country, but it does have a strand of Christian tradition, and its other religions have been Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.

It could be that the statue we have is just a pleasing representation of a grandfather and child, or belongs to a Confucian, Buddhist or Taoist symbolism that I am not familiar with: but until I manage to find a statue of St Joseph that shows him how I imagine him – and just carrying the baby Jesus, not cluttered with the other accoutrements of lantern, lily, carpenter’s equipment, walking stick or anything else – this Chinese wood-carving has the honour of representing beloved Joseph, the man whose gentle quietness carries and nurtures the Word of God.

Skyping God

Our Hebe hung about for ages by the back door, skulking furtively out of sight after putting down tempting bird food, to get this snap of one of the visitors to our garden.

We have a few statues around the place. The one in the picture sits in the yard outside the kitchen window. We have a bodhisattva outside the front door. We have a colossal terracotta sleeping buddha up on the fridge.

I have a couple of statues of St Francis, one of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one of Our Lady, one that's supposed to be Our Lady but in my head she's Saint Clare (because the actual statues of St Clare I don't like very much, they are all stiff and stern and not much like her).

There's also a little set of sculpts that our Alice made - the archetypal figures of the Celtic Year: Oestre, St John the Baptist, St Michael the Archangel and the Christchild.

In our hallway hangs a resurrection crucifix, and I love the crucifix on my rosary.

One day in our home we shall have a statue of St Joseph - but I haven't found a good one yet.

Not everyone likes the statues: specifically, evangelical Christian friends sometimes have a hard time with them - 'Your idols' as a neighbour used to refer to the buddha figures; but, see, she hadn't understood.

An idol, strictly speaking, is a representation which is believed to be in actual fact imbued with the divinity it represents - that's why idols are worshipped.

But I don't worship the buddhas and the saints! They come in handy for skyping God.

When I am trying to get a clear connection with God about some aspect of his nature, or some aspect of the way I am trying to walk, it helps me to have an image as the carrier of my thoughts and God's thoughts on the subject.

I'll tell you more about the other figures on a different day, but for now just to think about the buddhas.

Apparently, at some point in his life some people came and asked the Buddha: 'What are you? Are you a God? Are you a King?'

And the Buddha replied: 'I am awake'.

Sometimes I have heard the kind of Christian preacher who likes to play at 'My religion's better than your religion' crowing about the fact that Buddha is dead where Jesus Christ is risen from death. But those preachers don't get it. There is no competition. Jesus is doing something different from the buddha. So, the statues in my garden are not failed gods that I (sad person that I am) worship. They are reminders.

The Buddha did not make his teaching centre around himself; it was a teaching of ideas and principles - teachings of a Way to live that would help us find equilibrium and peace. The Buddha showed his followers how to come to terms with life and walk in serenity. And I think he did a good job.

He cautioned his followers that everything he said could be wrong. He encouraged them to do their own thinking and find their own way. And far from expecting them to worship him, he taught them that the Buddha, the real Buddha, is not external, not a person we can meet or idolise: the Buddha is within each of us as buddha-nature. That's what he taught. He taught that somewhere deep within every heart are the beautiful realities of Wisdom and Compassion. In most hearts they are dozing; in many they are spark out - blotto - out for the count - fast asleep.

And the task is to wake them up: to go through life with one's wisdom and compassion awake and active. In Christian terms, I guess that our buddha-nature is like our soul or spirit. St Paul said our bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells us: or , to use different language; we have buddha-nature.

When I look at the buddha statues calm and serene, sitting quietly, radiating peace, it doesn't make me worship them - it reminds me of the potential in me; the bit that needs waking up, revealing, activating, so that I too become a realised (rather than merely potential) image of God, reminding others by who I am and how I am of life's beauty and the possibility of peace.

'Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace...' my heart says to God when I see the peaceful Buddha.

Or I think of the words of the Metta Sutta, the Buddha's words on loving kindness.

The representations of the Buddha are not vying with Jesus for my attention. Jesus is Lord - so chill out! There's no need to get paranoid about a concrete statue!

I always find it a bit embarrassing, that bit in the Bible (Isaiah) where the prophet pulls out all the stops deriding people who worship idols of wood and stone, and he sneers at them, because a lump of wood can't save them or hear them.

I really wish they hadn't put that in the Bible, because the prophet seems to me to have not really got it.

Sometimes a person will keep a photograph of someone they really love and are separated from. And maybe when they go to bed at night they will kiss the photograph, and say 'I love you' and 'Sleep well'.

So we could jump in quick and sneer at them and point out that all the have there is a piece of photographic paper that can't hear them or reply hahahaha!

But, who would be the stupid one? It was only ever a means of keeping love alive, of touching with reverence and tenderness the person from whom we are physically separated just now.

And when I look at the Buddhas, settled and centred, peaceful in meditation, gentle and quiet of face, I touch with wonder the live germ of quietness and kindness in myself - and so begin to wake it up.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the statue I haven't got yet - the one of St Joseph; which provides the hardware for me to skype the loving silence of God.

General news & hi

Been writing writing writing.

Have nearly finished the second novel of the new trilogy I've set out on, and have begun notes etc for the third.

They feel good - kind of real and what I want to say.

Scrambling to get book 2 finished so I can complete The Road of Blessing,due in to the publisher within a month.

I've given myself bursitis doing this, which is a bit of a bummer! My left arm is all but out of commission & my right elbow creaking badly. Thanks be for Ibuprofen, which is my breakfast dinner & tea at the mo.

Still working through building issues & house repairs, making slow progress - two steps forward, one step back.

Waving to y'all from England. Bless you bless you xxx