Autumn Thoughts - Not from Abroad

The leaves they are a colouring, the wind, it is a gusting, the spiders they are a hanging off my windows. It must be Autumn.

Autumn is ok really. It gets a bad press because people are annoyed because Boots has got its Christmas presents out. People are wandering around muttering "It's only September" and are refusing to join in the general merriment at the Garden Centre where Christmas Joy is already full blown - if the light-up, back-flipping Santa Garden Sprite is anything to judge by. 

So Autumn is the bit between Summer when we were all quite wet for a lot of it and Winter when we are all quite wet again but need the heat on as well. It is the time when the telly bucks up a bit because we didn't need good telly in the summer when we were all rowing down rivers and drinking Pimms in the evenings. Now, the nights are closing in and we need the X Factor to bring us hope for the future. (I have never seen the X Factor - I shouldn't judge) It is therefore a time of transition and change and moving on and lots of other transitional words. 

We are transitioning a bit here at Martha Towers. We are officially "Empty Nesters" now - at least until Christmas. You are supposed to fall into one of two camps as an "Empty Nester". Either you phone your child three times a day and beg them to come home or you paint their bedroom in a neutral kind of colour and rent it out to a student called Juan. I don't think we are either. I am really pleased that they are moving on. I wouldn't want it any other way. It is their time. I enjoy lots of the new things. Small ironing piles, being able to put bacon in pasta dishes, not hearing size twelve shoes trying to creep in at 4am. HOH and I have enjoyed just thinking about us. It has been lovely. 

Yet there are friends missing from the house. There are gaps. We miss them. And, cliched as it sounds, I am wondering what I am actually for? If you get my meaning. (Please don't send anyone round. I am not balancing on a ledge or anything) But I know, I have to find the next stage. Nothing dramatic. No juggling, back packing, entering Bake Off. Just the next piece of thing. 

“When the time’s ripe, I answer you.
    When victory’s due, I help you.
Isaiah 49

It's A Timing Thing

We have been away. Not physically but mentally, spiritually. Our two have flown the nest as they say, and it has been lots of things - exciting, sad, shattering, worrying, satisfying.

I am not a depressive type of person, but I have felt a little low. Partly because, the FOWS had worries of their own. For FOW2 there are all the obvious worries of starting Uni for the first time. For FOW1 - the return to York - this time as a post grad, needing a job and starting again in a way. 

People say it's like a bereavement but it isn't - not for me anyway. I have been bereaved and it's not like that. There is too much conviction here that this is such a fantastic opportunity for both of them, I am proud. (Did we decide if this kind of pride is a sin? I can't remember) 

HOH and I have also been physically pooped. All the packing, tidying, last minute running to Wilkinson's (Did I say how expensive this whole business was?) HOH has driven to York and back over the course of two days. So we just stopped. A bit. We had to go to work obviously (They seemed to insist for some reason) Sunday, we didn't go to church, just padded around. And it has been more or less like that all week. More prayer too. We are not able to help them with the things they are dealing with ourselves so we have prayed. We have found the consolation of giving these huge worries and concerns to God a great - well consolation. And prayers have been answered. 

I pinched this off Kindred of the Quiet Way because it fits how we feel. 

"Flee for a while from your tasks, hide yourself for a little space from the turmoil of your thoughts. Come, cast aside your burdensome cares, and put aside your laborious pursuits. For a little while give your time to God, and rest in him for a little while. Enter into the inner chamber of your mind, shut out all things save God and whatever may aid you in seeking God; and having barred the door of your chamber, seek him."

                                 ~ Anselm of Canterbury

Busy

We are all over the place at the moment. Two people going to University in the next three days. Fortunately HOH has had some time off work so the main burden of overseeing and generally chivvying everyone up has fallen on him - he is playing to his strengths here.

I am a bit jumpy about them both going - not because I don't want them to go. They are ready and this is the right thing. FOW1 is going back to do his Masters and FOW2 is returning to education after a year out and she has really missed it. I just wonder how I will be. Also - sometimes I think I will be fine with it and then I feel a bit guilty.

I was talking to someone after church on Sunday though and she was brilliant. She told me - quite firmly - and I paraphrase a bit. "I was fine when they left home. I thought it was fantastic. Lovely and quiet and ordered. No more piles of washing or buying food for England. Coming and going as you please. People talk about it being a bereavement and it's not a bereavement. It's not as if someone has died or gone away to war. They have gone somewhere that they really want to go. They are blessed to do so and I thank God for it. (And they are back more often than I would like as well)"

I think this is right. I will miss them - I am not sure I will ever get used to watching Only Connect on my own but I am grateful to be here to see them spreading their wings and this is good for them. Once again I discover that it's not all about me.

Bank Holidays

I don't know where you live (obviously) but around here we were promised torrential rain and a lot of wind up us for the Bank Hols. Consequently, we planned very little that meant leaving the house without a full length sou'wester and a compass. By Monday afternoon, looking back on a weekend when the sparrows have been passing out with heatstroke - I feel we may have underachieved a little. Do not blame me - blame the Met Office. (Except Tomasz Schafernaker he's my favourite - the only weather man I have ever seen who comes over a bit louche) Anyway - digressing. We tidied out a bit. HOH sorted out some of his record collection on the dining table which went down tremendously well with me. 
Incidentally - you can see at the back an album by someone called Barbara Lewis (no - me neither) with a rather attractive blond white couple on the cover. Actually,  this is a photo of Barbara Lewis

Spot the deliberate mistake? Well this album was released in around 1965 when black faces didn't sell records so the rather lovely Ms Lewis was replaced with two refugees from a knitting pattern. Er... It's beyond words to be honest. Anyway - digressing.
Sunday morning was an all age service in which the children shared the story of Noah and the Ark with us. It was brilliantly done and kudos to the person who saw no reason not to to have children in masks, an ark made of cardboard boxes, a paddling pool full of water, and the baptismal tank ready for a baptism all on the same stage. Well done you and no-one died which was good news.
Monday and I achieved the target of "Throwing Out 50 Things" set by some guru or other with very little trouble. I did this by cleaning out my underwear drawer - easy. How I ever got some of those knickers over my hips is a mystery to me. So then we woke up to the fact that it was actually another beautiful day and we walked over Jennycliff. This is the view from Jennycliff. 

Plymouth Herald
So that's alright then.

Her name is Susan

If I have any kind of thought out pattern or ambition for these posts, it is just to write stuff that makes us all feel a bit better. We all have plenty to deal with and my personal opinion is that, as far as God is concerned, we are all probably doing a lot better than we think. Sometimes though, I just have to rant or cry or share things with you and then you can take or leave these as you see fit. 
Whatever your personal politics, you have to be horrified by the things that we are seeing happening in the Mediterranean as women fight to keep their babies heads above water. Or the terrible stories of murder and mayhem on streets which people used to walk down every day just to shop and to carry on with life. Even this week we have all probably imagined the horror of over 70 people fighting in vain for life in the back of a sealed lorry, watching as their loved ones succumbed to suffocation.

Yet sometimes something lodges itself in your head above and beyond all else. It's not a graphic photograph - not compared to some of the stuff that is out there at the moment. The origin of this photo is uncertain; wiser people than me think this lady and child may be Christians holding their names up to be sold as slaves or possibly to be exchanged for a ransom from their family. (SOLD AS SLAVES - this disgusting phrase - in this century!) The thing that struck me hardest was that the paper has her name on it and the translation of her name is Susan. It's such a normal, ordinary name. It was a very popular name when I was young. I know lots of Susans. She's just a lady - with a child and I cannot get the look of hopelessness and resignation on her face out of my head. She could be me. She has had her life snatched away in the midst of unfathomable wickedness and she is just a mum, like me or maybe like you. She is a person, not a statistic and she puts me to shame.

I am ashamed of my government for confusing the words refugee and migrant so that desperate people, who are running to save their families' lives are portrayed as people coming here because it might be easier to get a council house. I am ashamed because this government agreed to take a certain amount of refugees and seems to now be reneging in that agreement because it wasn't playing well at the General Election.

I am ashamed that this subject isn't front-row-centre of the Christian church's agenda at the moment. If they cannot expect help and mobilisation from us, then where are they going to get it? I am ashamed because my response is falling so short of what God requires. I don't think anyone should think for one moment this whole thing is about religion. It's about what most things are about - the powerful and strong taking advantage of the weak and the weak minded to increase their power base. It has no connection to any kind of faith. 

It is overwhelming. What are we supposed to do? A few suggestions.

• Pray. Pray for refugees as they are - people - individuals, men women and children. Pray for a solution.
• Talk the talk. Try and stand up for what is right. I am not talking about hiring a megaphone and standing on a plinth in the market square. But, if I had a fiver for every time I have heard someone say - "Well - with the best will in the world we can't take everybody" No-one is asking anyone to take everybody. These people are not getting into dinghies because they have heard that our National Health Service is a hum-dinger. They are coming because people are being killed in the streets. We should maybe just try, gently to point out that you can't believe everything you read in the papers.
• Think about parting with some dosh. People are out there helping at the pointy end - they could do with some support. I don't suppose any of it will help much but as I see Susan's child cling to her for dear life - I just think we have to do something.