attending with love to the everyday

Here's a Hauerwas quote that I've been thinking about today... on one of those ordinary days.

"...there is no substitute for learning to be a Christian by being in the presence of significant lives made significant by being Christian....
Significance suggests importance... lives that make a difference and that demand acknowledgement. But the lives of significance I began to notice were not significant in any of those ways. Rather, they were lives of quiet serenity, capable of attending with love to the everyday without the need to be recognised as 'making a difference'."

- Stanley Hauerwas
Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir p95

one that sings

The Real Work by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

_____________
this poem seemed kind of relevant to me today. on another note, i'm thinking about making a blogging comeback.... hmm....

update

I feel like I owe an explanation as to why I dropped off the blogging world for a few weeks... first, I'm no longer needing to blog for revision procrastination.... as no more revision :) and i met a boy... i think that sums it up. But I'll be back... unemployment = lots of thinking/reading time in between filling in delightful application forms...

make a plan

loving this song today... in the midst of future dreams and the ferris wheel that is my life, the reminder to be intentional with my love...

living today

Getting distracted by the uncertainty of my future a wee bit today but reminded of this quote I read a few weeks ago in one of my granda's old books again...

"Instead of allowing the future and thoughts of it to grip you, talk to yourself, remind yourself of who you are and what you are, and of what Spirit is within you; and having reminded yourself of the character of the Spirit, you will be able to go steadily forward, fearing nothing, living in the present, ready for the future, with one desire only, to glorify Him who gave His all for you..."
p105 Martyn Lloyd Jones in Spiritual Depression

Also really not wanting to wish away the next few months of my life...

"For a long time it seemed to me that life... was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life ... would begin. At last it dawned on my that these obstacles were my life."
Alfred Souza (HT: peter)

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time." CS Lewis

just another patient?

I’ve just finished a book one of my lovely doctor friends gave me for Christmas. I’ve actually been meaning to read this book for ages – it was recommended by one of my lecturers 3 years ago during an in-depth discussion about caring for patients with communication difficulties and the perspective of the patient. It’s called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly written by a guy (the former editor-in-chief of Elle) who had a massive stroke and could only communicate by blinking one eye – that’s how he dictated the book. It’s a reflection on life (past and present), his relationships, emotions and thoughts in this ‘locked in’ world. Some of the most interesting parts for me were his impressions of the hospital staff...

“...gentle, rough, caring, indifferent, hardworking, lazy, the ones you can make contact with and the ones to whom you are just another patient. At first some of the staff had terrified me. I saw them as my jailers, as accomplices in some awful plot.
Later I hated some of them, those who wrenched my arm while putting me in my wheelchair, left me all night long with the TV on, let me lie in a painful position despite my protests. For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. And later still, as time cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too painfully...”

It reminded me of a quote I read in one of my ‘required reading’ articles a few months ago... “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient” Francis Peabody 1927

I'm back to the hospital world on monday :)

Gilead

I just finished a book tonight called Gilead. I was one of those books I didn't really want to finish because I've been meandering through it a few pages at time over the last few weeks and I just wanted to drag it out a bit longer. I loved it. It's a book about beauty, grace, memories, family, love... mixed in with thoughts on age, death, regret, heartache, loneliness... It's written as a letter from a old pastor to his young son as he approaches the end of his life.

Here's a couple quotes I read tonight... (it's not all this intense!)

"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it be subordinate itself to cause or consequence?"

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparant, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us. Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true. 'He will wipe the tears from all faces." It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required..."

"Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. It think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us...to make ourselves useful."

Anyway, read it if you get the chance. It's was the perfect book for a night like mine - a quiet night in a cosy room with christmas lights. It made me laugh, cry, think and hope. The best combinations.

3 highlights

3 highlights from the last few days...
1. Watching a film called 'Black' - amazing. You definitely should try to see if you get the chance.
2. Foy Vance live: all I can say is wow. Such a good night - loads of banter mixed in with the soulful depth in his lyrics/voice. Old and new stuff. Brilliant. The best way to start a week i'd say - definitely good for my soul.
3. Blue skies and sunshine ALL DAY today... wahey!

glimpses of grace

Today I had an “indiscriminate act of kindness” moment. I had decided to go for a bike ride while there was a wee bit of rare sunshine at lunchtime. The first half was perfect, gliding along the shores of Belfast lough, feeling slightly sentimental about this city for some reason. On the way home again, it all went a bit pear-shaped when I hit the curb trying to get out of the way of a big lorry... and my tire jammed. I thought I had bent the rim of my tire or something so thought I’d just lug it home and figure out what was wrong then. After about ten minutes of getting a bit fed up with this ‘lugging’ idea, a random guy (who looked about 80 and was definitely someone’s wee granda) pulled over in his ancient red fiesta and fixed my bike (in about 2 minutes which made me feel like such a girl...) and sent me on my way! How nice is that? I have to say, people surprise me sometimes.... maybe wee glimpses of grace.

there and back again...

Lack of easily accessible internet for a while has left this blog a bit neglected...but I'm back! Ok, so it’s cliché time so I should be saying things like: "It’s so hard to sum up what the last 2 months have been like...." blah blah blah. But, it is a wee bit true. 8 weeks of a glorious mix between the world of physio in a South African government hospital to the world of the Cape Town tourist. I definitely think it was the best way to capture the essence of the city (besides living there long term) - to not just be a tourist, but to rub shoulders with Capetonians from all communities via the hospital - whether that was the staff or my patients... I loved it! One thing - it was not was a “short term missions trip” and somehow a trip free from labels/definitions meant there was no agenda... I was unashamedly a tourist at times – flinging myself off the world’s highest bungee (amazing!), soaking in the sunshine where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans met, scrambling up the majestic Table Mountain etc, but I also could just live out life and faith with my friends and in the hospital. Not much different to here I guess, just a different context and culture.

So, South Africa? I could go back. Maybe. It did seem a bit like a pseudo-Africa to the one that I know and love, but I kept reminding myself that if I went to Morocco or Egypt it would feel just as foreign. I guess it was not what I knew, but that was maybe a good thing. I could talk about the stark divide between rich/poor, the political turmoil still rumbling resulting from a troubled history, the rainbow nation, the hiv/aids crisis on everyone’s doorstep, the hopes for 2010, the mixture of both divided and multiethnic vibrant churches, the stunning scenery... etc but to be honest, the question that I hate the most in relation to Nigeria has always been “what is it like?” so I’m not even going to try after only 2 months. Just go if you get a chance would be my only advice.

I’m “home” again... but I’m going “home” on Saturday for a month... (In Belfast, heading to Nigeria). Funny that. Sometimes I love having 2 homes. Sometimes I feel like neither is really home. Not sure if travel is always the best for finding a sense of belonging that I often long for, but alas... I still love it...

how to paint

And we’re showing you how to paint, my love
To the numbers of our sycophantic applause
Are we teachers or thieves of souls, my love
Effecting the adventure of an inquisitive cause
Remember good is not always best, my love
There are times when God deplores it
Remember rules are not always wisdom, my love
There are times the devil settles for it
So let your imagination go mad my, love
Throw shapes and shimmy and shake
Create the most seductive intrigue, my love
That no other human being can make
Yes, smash the lines that we colour within
Put your soul and this world at odds
Become the provocative agitation
And the glorious beauty of the wildness of God.
- steve stockman, 2002

The Road

Just finished a book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I only bought it on Saturday but it has intrigued me... so I had to finish it quicker. It’s one of those books that, on the face of it, is completely depressing, with no sense of hope or direction or even clear storyline. But it manages to still show beauty through the use of language and the depiction of the relationship between a father and son. In a funny way, it is a case of reverse psychology. By presenting a world that is mostly terrifying and ugly and a future that is utterly bleak, it emphasises the few portrayals of goodness. It also makes me reflect more on the wonder of our “real” world and maybe even makes me think about the hope of heaven in complete contrast…

McCarthy writes… “All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain.”

I went for a walk along the shore when I finished the book today. I think that the sea was that little bit bluer and the world even more beautiful than I remember…
The song on the radio is blaring Biffy Clyro’s line… I’ve forgotten how good it could be to feel alive…

moondust

I'm nearly finished reading this fascinating book, Moondust. It's a journalist who goes in search of the remaining nine moonwalkers... to learn how their lives, and ours were changed by this surreal adventure...

One quote that made me think... the author is asking a question that he thinks we all ask in some way...

"do i stick with life as I know it, be happy and content with the considerable challenge of appreciating and improving that, or shoot for the moon and risk being dissatisfied, finding that it wasn't what I expected, or that nothing else can ever match it afterward?"

**

the moon was really bright last night... and reflecting on the water... maybe i only noticed because i've been thinking about the moon...

home

i'm really looking forward to going home. "home"...one of those ominous words for me because it's not very clear cut... i still cringe when people ask me where i'm from or what my accent is because i have to decide how much to explain of my life. i think now i could say that belfast is feeling more like a home, but nigeria will always have that true home feeling... especially as long as my parents are there. sometimes i think that i have too much of an idealistic perspective of home though... just because i had this unique and very happy childhood. i know that every time i go back it will always be different. most of my friends are scattered round the world. i don't know many people besides family friends. i don't 'fit' as i know i'm not nigerian and yet i'm not really irish either. but, five years on... i still love going back. it's as if i can just be myself again with no pretenses. i guess that's why it still feels like my home.

i wish...

i have a new addition to my living room which i'm very excited about... i can say that i'm a bit rubbish at actually playing it but i still love playing anyway, especially at random times of the day or night when i just feel like escaping from the day to day happenings. . . i wish i could just sit down and play anything i wanted; doesn't everyone though? i think it's a bit like wishing you could fly. you know it's impossible (unless you're one of those really gifted people) but it doesnt mean you can't dream, right?