Thursday, 31 December 2020

Facing the muddy path (happy!? new year)


"Mud, mud glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So follow me, follow. Down to the hollow and there let us wallow in glorious mud"

There is something about mud. If I was a hippo I would love to wallow in mud. That mud has been put there for a reason. That mud has been put there so that hippos can have fun and enjoy the moment. That mud being there makes the hippos appreciate the clean(er) water of the river when they have their daily wash. 

There is something about mud. It's slippy and slimey and there is the continued fear that you are going to get stuck. There are the 'this mud is going to go over the edge of my shoes' diversion through the brambles moments and the 'will my shoe extract itself moments'. 

Apart from in the hollows, mud is unique to a time and situation - it doesn't go on forever, so despite the secret enjoyment in its clarty glory, in moments of mild peril, the knowledge that dry ground is just around the corner makes the mud easier to deal with. 

My knees ache this morning because it's particularly muddy at the moment. I went for a walk yesterday and one of my biggest victories was not falling over in the mud. My shoes almost got stuck, the splashes of mud went a long way up my trousers, my coat is covered in mossy mud from squeezing through the oddest thin person styles you have ever seen and I have cuts on my hands from diving into the brambles to avoid the glorious mud. 

I ache beyond my knees this morning as we come to the end of 2020, a year where, since those first two carefree months, it has been like walking a long path of clarty mud with an end promised, but no idea of when we will catch more than a glimpse of what that end looks like. I ache in body and mind and soul. It's not been the glorious mud that the hippos enjoy because there has been no time (or inclination) to wallow and enjoy the qualities of the mud - this has been the kind of mud that if you stop you will sink - to keep our balance we've had to do some kind of socially distanced dance not around but over the patches that threaten to suck us down. 

Even the most thrive in a crisis people are exhausted by this constant walking through clarty mud. 

It's New Year's Eve, so time to look back and look ahead. It's New Year's Eve and the feeling of wanting to get rid of the horrors of 2020 is strong, but the knowledge that this path laden with mud continues to lay itself before us makes us want someone to invent a new machine that will help us glide across and away from the mud and not have to face the entry to 2021 with the fear of entering Mordor. 

How do we face the unknown of what's next? This is not the time to get excited and play in the mud, but that image of the clarty mud might get us somewhere. 

We need to take it slowly, put each foot down gently, don't rush. The only way we will avoid slipping is testing out the path ahead and we have to do that ourselves - gently. If we are fearful, we need to pause for a moment and breathe and gather our thoughts. If our grips on our shoes are not good enough right now, then stopping for a moment to re-equip is not time wasted. If when we put our foot down it sinks into the clart, our gentle steps will mean we can lift it before it gets stuck. 

We need to adapt, take a different direction for a while, reshape ourselves when we have to climb a stile that has more mud at the bottom and involves some kind of circus performer contortion to get through. Things will look different for a while. That doesn't meant that different has to become normal, but it does mean we have to deal with it in new ways. We might get stuck in the brambles but those wounds will heal and hurt less as time goes on. If avoiding getting stuck means a 2 mile detour, perhaps taking it can only be the best option. 

We need to take what is offered to help us through. If that's being given a break but that break means sitting on a cold, mossy rock, then take it - even if you can't switch off from the mud that surrounds. If that's being given shoes that don't suit, wear them for a while and try and thrive in the uncertain tasks ahead - we're not all made to re-train in cyber but we can try the best with the training available - incessantly being online is not forever. If it's an injection we know nothing about, but is the equivalent of the machine that will help us to glide over the mud, then get that arm out and offer it for puncture - ignore the stories that send you down a deeper muddier path and trust in the narrow stile to a better, less muddy field.

We need to hold onto the hope that this is not forever. The clarty mud will end, perhaps slower than we might have liked, but there will be a moment sometime soon when sitting on the sofa watching Gilmore Girls (or your choice of comfort activity) having had a long hot bath with none of that aching is not just a possibility but a reality. 2021, I hope, will bring the beginning of that process soon. We will have stories to tell, we will appreciate one another more, we will have a lot of healing to do and a lot of trauma to process, but it will come. There is light and it shines in the darkness. 

May your 2021 end better than it will begin. 

“If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
    “I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
    if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
    I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life, 
give you a long drink of salvation!”  

Psalm 91:14-16 (MSG)

Saturday, 5 December 2020

You are not Superwoman [or Superman]


You are not superwoman 
[or superman]

This is your advent [daily] reminder to give yourself a break.

As I walked into my kitchen today and it was, frankly, a mess, and I was once again disappointed with myself. I had to remind myself, once again, that I am not superwoman. I asked myself whether I was too tired to tidy up because I was busy or was I just lazy (I mean, noone else is coming in my house, so why bother) and then reminded myself that I wasn't superwoman. 

As I put together my online service today and wanted to spend hours making and editing a video I reminded myself that I am not superwoman. I am only one and as only one I can only do what I am able to do, and what I am able to do I can do the best I can. 

But what I am able to do is not just about capability, it's about being careful too. 

Advent and Christmas is turning out weird this year and the tendency amongst many of us will be to overcompensate by doing wackier and more time consuming things. A lot of us have decorated that little bit earlier, church leaders are getting their creative on but then spending hours and hours doing stuff that although is going to be great, is beyond the limit of what they can do and keep healthy. 

The reality in 2020 is that we have all at some point got to the point where we have had to say, well actually, enough is enough, this is going to break me..... yet we continue to overcompensate for the lacking of 2020 by driving ourselves into the ground. The reality of 2020 is we probably all need a few months off to deal with everything that 2020 has thrown at us and 2021 doesn't sound like it's going to be simple. 

Advent calls to us. Be still, wait up, take care, there is more, just hang on a minute. 

You are not superwoman [or superman], you have limits, and what you can do is not about capability but taking care too. 

Advent calls to us. Just hush a while, put that thing you are carrying down, stop telling yourself you are not working hard enough, sit still and wait, because the one who changes all is on his way.

"Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together....." Isaiah 40:5 






Thursday, 3 December 2020

Living in the waiting


It's hard isn't it, 2020? Even with the hope of some sense of kind of normal ahead, the now is just hard. Some days are easier than others. Some days you find yourself sat sighing, wanting to curl up in a ball and for someone to make it go away. Some days your reactions are quite unexpected to the small things that you would normally let pass you by. I'm on one of those days. 

I decided I would dabble in a quiet day. I was going to do it properly, but my brain wouldn't stop thinking about my sermon about peace and I wasn't going to find peace until I began to write it.... so instead I listened to the led sessions and thought a little bit and intertwined it with writing the most badly constructed sermon sentences ever where I couldn't even extract the meaning myself when I read it back.  

It was an advent retreat - a focus on waiting and hope and advent things. As I sat listening I was stumped by the encouragement to think back to January and February - what were your hopes then? we were asked. Hopes dashed are so hard to deal with and the question threw me into a headspace I didn't want to be. I've spent so much time helping others walk through their own loss and look ahead with hope, I realised that there are things that I have lost that haven't emerged at all yet and have the potential to kick me over when I am least expecting it. 

My hopes for moving forward got stopped by the process of lockdown reorganisation. My hopes of walking the Thames path by fears of crowds not wearing masks on the train. My hopes of things changing by everything changing. 

It's not like God hasn't been continually reminding me that there is hope, that things will get better, that this isn't forever - the things he has been doing even in the last few days have been a very real representation of what the phrase 'my cup overflows' in Psalm 23 means. 

But it's just that it has been hard. We're often told to live in the moment, but we're always also told to look ahead and make plans - where will you be in five years time? What are your plans for Christmas? What are your ambitions and hopes for the future? 2020 hasn't been a year of planning, it's been a year of reacting, and in it all, at times, I've felt like I've lost my way. 

Yet God still says, I have called you, I have chosen you, I will lead you by the hand. And I want to ask where to? 2020 has no signposts, just boulders and road closures.  

Today I asked and God answered with this:

"Maybe my desire right now is for you to simply be all you are called to be in the current moment"

As the waiting of advent is all too real this year, perhaps in the waiting we might lean in and say OK then, and be.