A line ... a journey

So, it’s done. I‘ve taken the ashes of which I wrote in my last blog and I’ve sprinkled them into the waters off Scotland’s west coast, in one of the most tranquil places I know. I described last week how light those ashes were, and that was so evident when I sprinkled them because, instead of them pouring down from their container, they rather billowed out because the air mingled with them and they didn’t have sufficient gravity to drop downwards. No: instead they were susceptible to every breath of wind so that as I shook my container they seemed to take off, as if flying, and they were blown into the water. Where they had all landed, they formed a trail of white ash; a line that appeared to be a gash across the dark water. I felt it represented the wound across my own soul that’s as violent as a gash. I thought that it represented visually the journeying that I have done in order to reach this point when I could let go of the memories and let them go… out to sea; out of sight; out with the mercy of God carrying my previously-heavy burden that had been made lighter last week when I had burned my box.

Some people might call this ‘closure’. I could not disagree more.

This was not closure for me. I’ve had ‘closure’ for decades. The whole ghastly story has lain behind a door that I have closed every time anything reminded me of the events I wanted never to have occurred. My mind has been so closed that (I realised last week) I had not even grieved my loss. I don’t think I have felt anything. The door was so firmly closed, there was no space for feelings. All I did was close down the least little reminder.

In creating my little ceremonies, first of burning the box and subsequently scattering the ashes, I opened that door. I can only have revived memories of the little life that (by the way) were associated with exquisite pain emotionally. I didn’t face what was happening. I had pushed it into a drawer to hide the evidence. It terrified me. So it was only now, more than forty years later, that I experienced the first feelings of grief. It surprised me. Even up to the morning of going to the coast I had filled my mind with excitement about where I was going until I was positively shocked when we were about to depart and, alone in my room, I picked up the little container and discovered tears rolling down my cheeks. What was going on, I wondered to myself?

I was opening myself to grief. There is a time to mourn, and that time had caught up with me. I had denied it, delayed it, postponed it, tried to avoid it – but it finally caught up with me.

Shaking the ashes into the Atlantic did not bring closure. It heralded a beginning. That line of ash drew a picture trailing out to sea. It traced the line of my journey. I have a long way still to go. But one thing that’s important is that, when I had finished the sprinkling of those ashes, my hands were open. Fantasies about closure had finally come to an end.

Oh, and there’s one more event to tell. As I sat on the rock watching the tide pull the ashes away from the shore, a tiny white feather fluttered down to my open hands. Extraordinary. It was exactly parallel with the white feather that I’d seen when I had burned the box a few days previously. I cannot help but wonder all the more whether they signify the presence of angels.

Heaviness transformed to become LIGHT!

Yesterday I was surprised by relief.

‘Relief’ because something heavy was transformed into something light.

‘Surprised’ because I haven’t felt relief such as yesterday’s for a long time. At present my journey is, and for some years it has been, through hard, HARD territory. Private things; but it’s been extremely tough. It’s been bloody.

I was ‘surprised by relief’ because I had not known what I might feel. I had not actually looked ahead to feelings. I don’t think I had dared. I was in a sea of fear. I had, consequently, thought only about Doings, and I’d left out the feelings. But yesterday I had wanted to DO something to help the grief (or some of it) over  … (and I am about to write of something that’s always been totally private and unspoken: it’s odd to write about it now. But I’ll take a deep breath and say) … out of the sea of grief. The little corner that I thought I could maybe (maybe) DO something is over a pregnancy that I had lost, many, many years ago. It has always been so private, this pregnancy, and so has the loss. In fact it was more than private: it was secret, which is different from private. Secrecy had caused me to lock it away, and it’s taken a lot of hard work for me even to realise that there WAS a key to the lock, and even more hard work to discover that the key was in my possession.

And so I took this key that suggested that maybe I could DO something. But the Something I had concocted sounded a bit odd, and I was a bit bewildered. I wasn’t sure what would happen. Yesterday had therefore loomed as a day containing a large measure of fear. Yet somewhere in my mind there must have been a quiet hope for relief. My problem was that that somewhere hadn’t reached my consciousness.

Earlier this year I had come across a little box; a rather beautiful one whose purple velvet lid was the colour of mourning, which was very apt. I knew immediately that I could use it to represent a box to hold my memory of what I had lost; what I might have liked to have laid in a velvety place; a place that I could consider precious. That was nicer than what had happened, which was a rushed hiding away of a bloody mess; a mass of blood: a disposal full of fear and loneliness and utter dismay. By contrast, for yesterday I planned a very simple little ceremony when two friends came and we put this box on the BBQ and, after burning it, we gathered the ashes. This was Step One. Very simple. Step Two will be to scatter the ashes in a place that is special, and tranquil, and nice. For me, that could only be on the west coast of northern Scotland, which – for me – offers a sense of ‘home’. There, my soul can be at peace. I would like these ashes to be at peace, representing what I would have wanted for what I lost many decades ago. Rather wonderfully, I am being taken to the Highlands tomorrow. Hopefully, I might get to the north-west coast and these ashes could come with me and not return with me but stay in their own tranquil place.

I must finish describing yesterday before I rush ahead to next week.

Yesterday had loomed as so dauntingly difficult, even though I was convinced that doing Something would be good. In fact, the day was beautifully simple and simply beautiful. And the very important message that has stayed with me is that the box (which had been fairly heavy) was transformed. It was changed to ash (which is light).

Something heavy became something light… so light that with only a puff of wind, it began to be blown away.

That fact is a metaphor that I find very helpful.

PS. During the burning, a white feather came and landed on the grate above the fire. Someone once told me that white feathers suggested that angels are present and, although I don’t know what I think of angels, d’you know I found myself thinking, Gosh, this feather is SO tiny… it seemed to represent a very tiny angel.

Tears are very cleansing…

Addressing a HARD rock

Until today, I’ve always assumed that the story of Moses “talking” to a rock was just a story. It’s always puzzled me, actually – until today. And suddenly, today, I wonder if it could be a metaphor as to how we might pray about HARD issues.

Moses was in a hard, implacable situation. There was no water and people needed drink. At desperation point God told Moses to “speak to the rock.” Moses obeyed, and out gushed water. A miracle.

Yesterday I texted a friend, seeking support over a hard situation. Someone whom I care about very much feels rejected in life (by life?) and, no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to ‘soften’ things with the balm of love.

(A note on the side. When I texted the word ‘rejected’, I noted that predictive text wrote ‘selected’. I had to press the button to change it to ‘rejected’. How intriguing. But I digress.)

“Jane!” my friend texted back. “I think this must be an occasion when you must speak to the rock!”

Me:  “????!”

Friend:  “You can’t change the sense of rejection. It stands, immoveable, like the rock. BUT I think this is an occasion to do as Moses did. He had to SPEAK to the rock. Then water came from it.”

Our text exchange ended but I had food for thought. Am I (are we) called to “Speak to the rock”? It feels such a huge step, I would need more faith than I have. But then, faith IS a gift, and Jesus told us that His Father likes to give it to us; we only need to ask...

And then? Am I to address this spirit of rejection? Do I tell the person that something good – something much needed – will gush forth? … that the desperate craving for love, the ‘water’ of life, will become satisfied?

It would be worth a try. Anything is worth a try. But it ain’t half challenging to consider speaking to a rock…

Security compared with apprehension

I’ve been given more details about new baby Rose (mentioned in my previous blog), who was born in the quietness of the very early hours yesterday. It was the dark hours of the night while the world slept. When the world woke up, people were drawn to see the wonder of new birth. 

It is the grandmother who has told me these little snippets, and she has also told me just a little about her own experiences when she gave birth. The midwife in me can picture it very vividly. The birth of tiny Rose was a very different story from the birth of her grandmother’s first baby.

That baby, decades ago, was the firstborn of a young woman experiencing an emotional storm. The mother, giving birth for the first time, was a doctor who felt that she therefore ought to know what to do, even though this was her firstborn. That baby’s mother wanted (or needed) to keep her parents at a distance: she felt too threatened to allow anyone to come close. How could she begin this journey, even though it was a voyage of love?

That was a baby born into something that sounds quite different from little baby Rose – the one who will be “always beautiful,” as I described yesterday. Baby Rose was born into tranquil water. She was received into an atmosphere where there is a place for a thought-ful new individual… Yes, that was one of grandmother’s words for the miracle who lay in her lap yesterday afternoon. “She was thought-ful,” she said to me later. “And do you know, Jane?” she told me more than asked me. I could hear the tears in her voice. “When her father spoke, that newborn baby even turned her head: she turned towards him, seeking more of what she knew to be familiar. She recognised him. She was looking for him, her eyes wide open…”

Those of us who have never given birth have missed a miracle like no other.

"That rose is beautiful!"

Remember when you last saw a rose?
And you may have thought, with awe, “Isn’t that beautiful!”
The beauty seems to be new with each bud. Have you ever looked at one- this is a a truly beautiful rose - and thought, “Beautiful rose. Oh yes; I’ve seen one of those before...”
A friend gave birth this morning and named the baby, “Rose”. The friend, a musician, had heard Bach’s music described as “always beautiful.” She would always be awed by the beauty, again and again; no matter how many times she heard it. Just like a rose... and hence the name for her baby.
I am moved to tears. Why? Because (and my friend doesn’t know this) she has spoken to me about the main character in my new, soon-to-be-published-book. I named 'my' character “Rose”. As a little girl she had felt she was beautiful …until a man stole her sense of being truly loveable. Once things had gone wrong, she concluded that she would have to stop trusting what her Granny said of her, that “Rose is such a lovely girl.” Alone in her pink room, she told herself that she could no longer believe that word “is.” Instead she would have to make it “was”. She repeated to herself: “Rose was such a lovely girl.” That's in the very first chapter, when her quest only begins.
But a rose is always beautiful. Each one.
And so, this evening, as I ponder the name of this baby named Rose, and I consider Rose in my book, I seek to absorb into my own soul the fact that God also describes me as beautiful. However ugly I may feel, however much I consider myself dismissively as “just another human,” God yearns for me to see myself as He sees me. Uniquely beautiful.
Me.
And you of course...

The loneliness of sleepless nights

Sleepless nights – they’re coming back and I’m frightened. I hate them. My mind churns round and round with unresolved stuff. Last year for several months I woke earlier and earlier until I got no more sleep from about 2.00am. Now, once again, I’ve become increasingly restless: last night I woke at 1.51 (digital clocks!). And the problem? I feel so alone; so dreadfully alone.
What can I do?
Today I picked up Henri Nouwen’s book, ‘Beloved’. He says that there is a fact – we are alone. We can respond either by feeling lonely or by embracing the solitude.
Jesus embraced solitude. And He was equipped to do so because His Father had told Him – and He had heard – that He was the beloved.
I know the theory, and could quote with my lips how Scripture tells us (me) over and over again that we are beloved by God. But how can I feel it in my heart? HOW? There is no switch to switch so that I feel as loved as God says I am.
This morning I’ve looked more carefully at Jesus. I’ve been intrigued that He wasn’t told only once that He was loved by His Father. We know about His baptism at the start of His ministry. But it happened twice more: I wonder why? Could it be that Jesus needed to hear again the voice from the cloud? At the transfiguration (He’d been talking about painful stuff), and yet again when His heart was ‘deeply troubled…’ (to use Jesus’ own words – oh, I can relate to John 12:27!).
Do I hanker after a voice from heaven telling me that I am His beloved? Do I imagine that that would make it easier to hear Him?
Nouwen suggests that we spend too much time trying to do things to persuade ourselves that we are loveable. He reckons that we thereby miss the solitude.
By contrast Jesus, by resisting His temptation, resisted making Himself look clever (turning stones into bread), or dramatic (having angels catch Him if He jumped off a tower), or as if He possessed all the land. Instead, He stayed quietly knowing Who He was: the beloved.
Now here’s the rub for me.
Given that I haven’t (yet) heard God’s voice in my sleepless nights, could I instead ponder how Jesus used to get up at night to pray; to commune with the One Who calls Him His beloved? We’re not told that He felt lonely. I guess that He went deliberately, to embrace the solitude. Hence He could say “I am in the Father and He is in Me.” He knew – because of His silent times between Father and Son.
SO... could I follow Him – if I can’t actually do it myself, then follow Him in my mind by reflecting on His example?
Well I won’t make it sound easy. After all, Jesus had to climb a mountain for His night-prayers. I reckon I know that feeling…

Being falsely accused (2)

I’d always thought that, if I got life right, I wouldn’t be mocked. I’d always imagined that, if others were laughing at me, I must have set myself up for it. Asked for it.
Always I’ve believd that, if only I didn’t make such big mistakes, I wouldn’t be accused of stuff that wasn’t true. Not to my face or (more scary) behind my back.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, Good Friday, the penny dropped. For the first time in my life, I realised that none of the above is true. Because Jesus, Who was perfect, got mocked, derided, laughed at, even spat upon – all for stuff He hadn’t done.
So: being mocked is not a reflection on me. It’s a reflection on those who do the mocking.
That is very comforting.