Navigating the Magic Roundabout

A few weeks ago I came across a very special roundabout. A Magic Roundabout. Not the Magic Roundabout but one of four so-called 'magic roundabouts' in towns that have grown rapidly and the road systems have grown rapidly with them.... I don't know what it is about rapidly growing towns, but roundabouts feature heavily. 

The Plough Roundabout in Hemel Hempstead is one such magic roundabout. Not only has it got a large roundabout in the middle, but it has six mini roundabouts round the outside. Look at it as a newcomer and it seems like a logistical nightmare..... but step away from the bigger picture and take its roundabouts one at a time, treating each roundabout as a new challenge to be completed then you quickly get to where you need to be going. 

Look at the beauty of it in this video.....

To step back and see how it all works is inspiring - whoever thought this all up and made it work in the way it does had some wild imagination.....

But to arrive at the entrance and only look at the big picture could, I imagine, cause panic. 

I've been talking to a number of friends recently about the challenges of life. It seems that as I and many of my friends approach one of the big ages, negotiating life has become more difficult. Choices are not as simple as they used to be and there are a number of mini roundabouts to contend with before we can get to the other side. 

Yet with hindsight, when we look back and see how we got to the other side we see the beauty of the dance of the magic roundabout. 

I'm yet again in the middle of a number of review processes - in my own church, in the Methodist circuit, at the end of my Newly Accredited period, in my own head, and sometimes the process can seem overwhelming. 

However, in mind of the bigger picture, if we take each mini roundabout at a time, the way ahead will become clear and open. And we'll get there, with God's help, the one who writes the road signs, we'll get there..... and when we stop to evaluate the big roundabout, the beauty of it all will be dazzling.

There's a time for everything, a season for every part of the roundabout

A time to stop and a time to go
A time to drive on and a time to pull back
A time to go round and a time to go over
A time to zoom out and a time to focus in
A time to panic and a time to dance
A time to try things out and a time to evaluate
A time to just get on with it and a time to just stand and watch
A time to shout GO ON THEN and a time to quietly nudge on
A time to love the moment and a time to approach in fear
A time to simply negotiate the roundabout in front.....
And a time to soar and see the beauty of the dance.

Bags and Choices

It's Friday and I've been here five days. This morning the noise felt really loud.... you would have thought I'd got used to that by now! Was woken up by some loud bangs in the night (which can't have all been one of the team who got stuck in the bathroom and had to be broken out....!). 

A later start this morning, which was nice.... felt a little bit more human. A gentler day too, but also challenging in lots of different ways. We went to visit freeset. This business was set up by a New Zealand couple and their family who were called to India to work and felt led to work in the red light district in Kolkata - providing opportunities for women who would be on the streets to work to produce fair trade bags, and now t-shirts.... It's a huge factory, with lots of things going on. When we arrived they were having their morning devotions, which we joined in with by doing the actions to the Bengali songs..... before going to work on the hundreds of sewing machines, cutting machines, screen printing machines etc etc plus those who were finishing and cutting by hand. 

I spent the day sitting on the floor cutting the threads off bags to finish them off. It gave time and space to process what has been happening this week. 

Freeset is about women being given the choice to change their lives. They are not made to give up their former life, only encouraged to. There are still women who work on the streets for all sorts of reasons while working there (which makes me very sad), but freeset enables life transformation that might not otherwise be possible. I was surprised by the choice thing.... but if people are going to be free then they need to be free to make their own choices.