Work...!

Goodness, I've been so busy I forgot to blog about it!

Since I was last here, I've been offered (and accepted) a permanent post in a Special School, teaching French, with a few other bits and bobs thrown in. The school is small and the children are lovely - my background in Behaviour was part of the reason I got the job, plus when they asked me what else I could bring to the school, I answered 'Cake!' to the obvious delight of the Chair of Governors.

This is pretty much my dream job. I visited again the other day and two teachers who have been there just a year told me it's the best move they ever made. It will draw together all my favourite skills and use my French (not to any great depth but I'm fine with that!)

For me this is an utter vindication of the risk I took when I leapt out of my last job. I shall actually be on a slightly higher salary than in my former post, which is great but wasn't my main reason for leaving. The real crux of the matter is that the teaching experience I've had over the past year is what enabled me to apply and get the job. Some of the questions, about classroom practice and experience of assessment procedures, were ones which I couldn't possibly have answered satisfactorily if I'd still been working as a consultant.

So - I am feeling good about life (but then I did anyway). It is going to be good to have a salary, especially as my younger daughter is finally going to bite the bullet and apply for University. I am going to be in a position to support her, just as I was with my elder daughter.

In fact, I've just been to visit my younger daughter in France. We had a lovely time, a long weekend which we filled with love and laughter. We are too close for mere Geography to get in the way too much. And after all her dreadful struggles with pain and illness, after all the times I've watched her going through the long-haul recovery from surgery, I can't be anything but glad for her that her life has been transformed.

I'm no longer sure of what to call the Source, but it's clear that Somebody provides...

Peace, peace...

I was thinking this morning about peace. The 'peace which passes all understanding'. I am fortunate to have known it many times during my life; it is unmissable. I'm not talking here about the lovely warm fuzzy glow-type peace (although that's good too) but about the Peace you feel against all the odds, when your rational mind tells you that you are insane for experiencing a deep certainty that you are safe.

It tends to creep up on you unawares. One moment you feel as though you have been thrown into the deep, frozen lake which is Life, and the next you are being gently drifted back to the shore, wrapped in a blanket and given hot chocolate as someone murmurs soothing words into your ear.

I've felt it at times of crisis, during hospital stays, when worried about my children, and whilst watching people dying. I'm quite sure if we wished, we could explain it away in terms of chemicals flooding the brain - that is, after all, how we experience life. But my daughter (who studies these things) is also a great believer in peace and doesn't seem to think that the physical explanations for it negate the experience itself.

Jesus was a great proponent of peace. He definitely didn't approve of empty platitudes. He was angry with those who burdened people, "saying 'Peace! Peace!' where there is no peace." (Which reminds me of those people who insist that everything's fine when it patently isn't, which is neither faith nor peace, but crass insensitivity). But he did seem to be tapped in to some place where he could access this peace, even if he did have to struggle to do so in Gethsemane.

Other religions too call for us to be peaceful and know that we are safe.

What does this mean in practice?

It is not enough - for me, at least - to drift through life like Fotherington-Tomas [sic] oblivious to the cruel realities of what is happening around me. My peace has to be in the context of knowing the harshness of the world - the sunshine to life's shadows if you like.

In fact at this stage in my life I would go as far as to say that peace is experienced more surely in times of trouble. Since I was in my thirties, I have always turned to those simple words of Mother Julian: "All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Thing Shall be Well." In other words, "It will all be okay."

And won't it? As humans, whatever we choose to believe about life, aren't we all heading for death? And if that's where we're 'supposed' to end up, then isn't it right that we shall all arrive there? So in that sense all IS well.

I am very suspicious of any system/belief/religion which promises peace but doesn't deliver. I always think of what Jesus said: "By their fruits you will know them". If someone talks about knowing a God of Peace but doesn't know peace themselves, I'm sad that they haven't accessed it. If someone teaches a method to calm people's thoughts yet is an angst-ridden person with a lot of nervous energy on the boil, I wonder. I've known a Buddhist who would sit deep in meditation and then go home and shout at their family.

I'm not saying that I am always calm myself! It's certainly not my place to sit in judgment on people, but - if we KNOW this peace exists, doesn't it make sense to live in it as much as we can? So that our lives are increasingly calm on the inside, and then on the outside?

Personally I believe there are many ways to this place. One of my favourites is to sit in the countryside and just experience being part of creation. Another is to listen to Bach or Mozart or some other music which has stood the test of time and can ground me. Your way may be very different. But if you follow a way which promises peace, make sure you aren't missing out.

Political correctness

As I write, an Iranian pastor awaits execution for refusing to stop following the Christian faith. I've just seen a twenty-second news report on a Saudi woman who was given ten lashes for 'repeatedly driving a car'.

And there in a nutshell you have my objection to our involvement in the struggle going on in various countries around the world. We happily spend millions on supporting one set of people over another, yet how (once we have taken the dubious step of interfering in the first place) can we possibly prioritise where we intervene/interfere?

I was in my forties before I realised that our relative poverty as a family when I was a little girl was in fact due to my parents' choice to educate my brothers (but not my sister and me) at a private school. Personally I believe we girls got the better deal, but that isn't the point. I remember the atmosphere of worry in the house, the anxious faces when a brown envelope arrived, the hand-me-down dresses which meant that I could never fit in with the girls I wanted to be like...

Why am I telling you this? Because I am angry about the poverty I see around me. Just as my family's poverty was self-inflicted, our nation's finances are being drained by our involvement overseas. Don't get me wrong, I am totally in favour of Foreign Aid and I support several charities at home and abroad. But when I look at the money being poured into other people's wars, I am angry. I am angry that my friend in Hampshire, a single parent who wants to work full-time as she did before she lost her job, has been advised that she will be 'better off' if she only works 16 hours.

Better off in what way? Oh - materially... and there's the rub. Who is watching out for our spiritual needs as a nation? Who is making sure that children grow up with values which go slightly deeper than which version of PlayStation they can cajole out of their parents? 'Things' and 'money' take precedence; therefore it is fine to spend all the country's money on wars waged ultimately to increase our prosperity. Oil? Let's help the people we think will be most amenable to our demands in the future. Ooops, we accidentally tortured one of them before we realised his future value? Hmm - tricky one, we'll sort it somehow.

I'm extremely myopic but I feel clear-sighted compared with those who govern us. Do they not realise the wider implications of Iran choosing to ignore the UN interpretation of religious freedom? Do they not realise that one day Saudi women may revolt, rise to leadership and hold us responsible for ignoring their plight?

Of course, it would be even better if our Government spoke out not from an 'eye to the main chance' standpoint, but from the perspective of having compassion for the victims of such harsh regimes. Even a 'This shouldn't be happening' would be a start, and wouldn't necessarily sever diplomatic relations.

But - we go on prioritising according to potential materialistic gain. To our spiritual and moral peril.

Meanwhile, pastors are executed and women are punished for daring to drive their own cars in public.

It's a funny old world...

I believe in...

Twice in the last week, someone has said to me in genuine surprise, "Oh - I didn't think you prayed any more... given your beliefs."

I think what they mean is, given my LACK of belief in the Church of England God. I can see why they might say that, but I do feel more than a little surprised, even slightly insulted, that they assume my journey ended when I left the C of E.

I have only myself to blame. For many years I was the kind of Christian who believed that other people's faith wasn't the Real Thing - and now that former arrogance has rebounded, so I suppose I must welcome it as a life lesson! But... there are plenty of studies and polls which show that although churchgoing has fallen, people still count themselves as having faith in God, and many still pray. In my former Frightfully Christian days, I suppose I might not have counted prayer in extremis as really genuine - why weren't they praying at other times, I would have pondered. Whereas now it seems to me that the cry of the heartfelt is possibly the most genuine prayer around.

I have been mulling over writing a Creed - my Creed - in recent weeks. Perhaps the time has come. I've always had a problem with the Creed, particularly since knowing a very 'High Church' Anglican who told me that he wouldn't countenance taking Communion from a Woman Priest but would have no problem if a Roman Catholic were to receive it at his side. Apart from a quick conversation pointing out the holes in his theology, I left it. But it made me realise that quite possibly I shared less with those around me in Church than I had thought.

Last week I attended Communion in my friend's church. I quite often help them by making up numbers in the Choir. It's not easy because unfortunately I don't really enjoy their service or the sermons (I was brought up on huge, solid helpings of Evangelical theology, and ten minutes of tweeness leaves me as unsatisfied as a Navvy with a salad). On this recent occasion I realised that my beliefs had moved on enough for me to have to really think as we said the Creed. (As an aside, I have always deplored the practice of asking Baptism families to say the Creed, when they are attending for that day only - if it is really the bedrock of the Church's faith and teaching, how can it be treated in such a shallow way?)

Anyway we set off. I was fine with God the Father, I believe Jesus existed, am less sure about some of the rest (my knowledge of Language and Oral tradition asks for a truly stupendous miracle of total recall, if accounts were true in every detail when written down 'only' thirty years later. I used to proudly proclaim this as a proof of the New Testament's accuracy, but these days I'm far less certain).

The Holy Spirit, well I got round Him with a little semantic wriggle. But a lot of the rest, I was unable to say in all conscience (do I take it more seriously than the average Churchgoer, perhaps?) and so didn't.

The key for me (as a Linguist, it would be) is that word Semantic. My understanding of semantics helps me to see how people might make the assumption that I don't pray. THEY are talking about prayer to God (1), where (1) = 'The God commonly referred to in the context of Christianity and more particularly, the Church of England'. Whereas these days my prayers are addressed to God (2), where (2) = the Numinous, unKnowable Figure to whom I tend to address my wishes and desires; in shorthand, 'prayers'.

I'm not even sure I believe in a 'personal' God any more, and this is where I part company with many in the Church (although not ALL - I know this because of conversations I had as a Clergy wife when I spotted people who didn't believe 'properly'...)

I do believe in a life force, and I'm sorry if that is too arty farty for readers here. I see no reason why that life force cannot be your God (1) and at the same time my God (2).

What DOES intrigue me is that quite often, God (2) seems to offer me comfort which eludes those who worship God (1). They say all the right things about how God takes care of them, how He is there for them, and how His Peace passes all understanding... but when it comes to the crunch, that isn't always the case. I have known God (1) and it's true that He was wonderful at offering solace and peace - but so is God (2).

It's just the old 'Muslims don't believe in the same God as me' in slightly different clothes. I am unnerving people who thought they'd packaged me neatly into a 'Lapsed' box. I refuse to stop praying. I don't always call it prayer, out of deference to those whom I think might be offended.

I see prayer differently these days. My shopping list has been torn up. I expect no neat endings. I spend much more time listening than talking. And I accept whatever comes in, I suppose, a rather too fatalistic way for my old Church friends to be comfortable with. I no longer have to make excuses ('perhaps your God is in the toilet' I remember from the Good News Bible!) because God (2) doesn't work in quite the same way.

I'm still searching for my path through life. Well, I'm ON it, actually. I don't see any reason it should be the same as yours. Or hers. Or his. It may very well be that we are ALL projecting our own ideas onto something which doesn't even exist, and if so - what a silly thing to fall out over!

Ooofff...

Yes, that's how I feel today. I rarely have Ooofff moments, but this has been a tough week. A trip to see a rapidly-deteriorating ex-Mother-in-Law, being there for her son (my Ex) because that's what you do... well it's what I do... all the while worrying about my sister who was very ill in hospital (recovering I think but still very unwell and with surgery to follow), half an hour on the phone late at night to my sobbing ex-Mother-in-Law who was confused, frightened, and couldn't get anybody to answer her call button (I am angry about that). She's better as I write, almost her old self, and they think a large part of it was caused by a urine infection which hasn't showed up in repeated tests over the last few months, so I'm concerned about that as well.

So - ooofff...

And then last night my first date in over two years. A really nice man but so not a match that I almost wished I hadn't gone and wasted both our evenings. The kind of date which makes you go home and think, "I am pretty happy alone, isn't it safer just not to try?" Two years is a long time to go without being held and kissed, without a shared meal with someone special, or a walk by the river... but I do some of those things on my own (okay, I have to share the meal with myself!) quite well. I am torn - is it so bad to sink into the comfort of long-term singleness (almost 10 years now) or am I copping out by not copping off?

Ooofff...

Still, I'm the Queen of Picking Up and Dusting Down. I survived seven hellish years of constant trips to A&E/Operating theatres with one of my daughters, and we're out the other end.

This too shall pass...

I've always identified with Snufkin in the Moomin books when the first stirrings of Autumn (which led Moominmamma to prepare for hibernation) called him like the Pied Piper. He would stand and sniff the air and know that it was time to go.

I feel like this every year in Autumn. As I grow older I find myself less worried about consequences, and more aware that I need to do all the things I want before it's too late. I see this as a gift of ageing, this reshuffling of priorities. I've known too many people who've died within a year of retirement. I'm not going to postpone my life.

Brave talk. I ought to add for the sake of accuracy that as of this moment I've no idea where this will take me. But, like Snufkin, I'm sniffing the air and wondering...

9/11

I don't want to be crass and cause offence. I have avoided the media today, but that isn't out of disrespect. The opposite, in fact. I don't think it's my business to watch people's grief. You can 'mourn with them that mourn' without gawping at them on television.

I wonder how it feels if you lost a loved one on that day - not in the terrible attacks but to some other accident, or gently after a long illness. I wonder if it feels as though the very day they died has itself been hijacked by history, like some fifth plane.

Conspiracy theories still abound. One which seems to have a better pedigree than most lives here: http://www.ae911truth.org/en/about-us.html

I know enough about politics to understand that finding the whole truth on this matter is going to be impossible. I certainly believe that politicians in every country are capable of doing terrible things to cover up their true agenda. I choose to believe that the Bush administration probably did not sacrifice 3,000 people to the cause of promoting war, but - there are many unexplained things about that day. And with a heavy heart I have to say that I could envisage being proved wrong.

What saddens me is that America and Britain seem to think that because of 9/11 and 7/7, we have some kind of moral superiority. The West is able to decide, apparently, which countries need to be Sorted and how to Sort them. I believe the vast majority of British people would not be able to tell you why we went into Afghanistan, or why we remain. I cannot think of a country where we have become involved and brought about peace. (Please comment if you can, I may be wrong). I don't believe we are currently fulfilling our stated brief in Libya. I am cynical about our involvement in countries where there is oil, and our lack of support for rebels in countries where there is not.

It has proved to be rather an own goal on the UK's part that we handed over one of the rebel leaders to the torturers of the CIA some time ago. Now he is threatening to sue. The carpet will be lifted, and we shall be able to see how much dirt lies underneath.

I don't want to write any more tonight. There must be literally miles of column footage on this subject and I am not well-versed in politics. So I leave you with one last thought:

When we look back in forty years' time, will we truly believe that Guantanamo Bay was a fitting tribute to those who died in New York on 9/11?

1662 and all that...

I was in a bookshop the other day, trying to think why Richard Dawkins annoys me so much.

This won't be a popular view perhaps, but it's nothing to do with what he says (some of which is eminently sensible) - it's the sloppy way he argues it. I don't think he's very good at putting his point across. It may be some misguided intent to make his ideas accessible, I don't know, but whenever I read his writing I feel as though I'm running round some mental Moebius Strip. I also really don't like the way some of my atheist friends lazily quote Dawkins rather (I suspect) than think things through for themselves.

My train of thought led me onto pondering why the Church annoys me so much these days, and a phrase popped into my head - something John Sentamu (the Archbishop of York) said the other day: "Being a leader is not only about being courageous and determined; it is about being part of an effective team."

Like so much of what Bishop John says, this is very true and yet - it depressed me to read it. I had no idea why, so I took some time later in the day to think about it.

And this led me to an important realisation about how I see the Church of England. As I sat and thought, I remembered being taught many things about Leadership decades ago. Back then, leadership (in the Church context) was about 'Taking time to listen to God'. After all, Jesus could hardly have said at times that he was part of an effective team. They were on occasion a rubbish team, who only really got it together after he'd gone. It didn't stop him being a leader.

A memory flashed into my mind of my ex-husband coming in from a clergy training day many, many years ago and venting his frustration at it all. "They're giving us MANAGEMENT training!" he spluttered indignantly. "It's all very well, but if we lose our vision of the Church as a spiritual organisation, we are going to end up with all the problems which big companies have."

How prescient. As we went on, we discovered that there was less and less room for 'Being Still and Knowing' in clergy life. It was increasingly about meetings, budgets, finance committees... in fact we were great at fund-raising, I discovered a real flair for it - but I never quite lost the feeling that in some way we were running counter to the true gist of the Gospel.

I'm not stupid. I know that in effect the C of E is a giant business. Therein lies its spiritual downfall, like so many religions and insitutions before it. I went forward to ABM (the Church's Selection process for clergy) and was turned down (so I was told) because I appeared to be 'too much of a people person'. I consoled myself with the thought that Jesus probably wouldn't have got through either.

I began to lose patience with it all as I watched an institution which largely preached against the dangers of Astrology and the like, turn to Myers Briggs profiling to choose its clergy; there was a rumour that introverts were far more likely to be appointed. I suppose they were more malleable?

Anyway perhaps I was unlucky with my timing. If I'd been a decade earlier or later I might not have had the feeling of watching something precious go downhill. I know enough Church history to know that this isn't a unique time in history, but I truly despair as I see the Church desperately manouevring to 'get down there' with whichever element of society they are trying to draw in. Where's the USP?

I was drawn to the Church through the early morning Prayer Book service at the age of 13. I've also led worship in the pub style, loved it at the time, and see nothing wrong with both co-existing. But the 'pub-style' church were astoundingly bad at welcoming the people my Ex and I brought along from our local pub. He always said that many churches with good 'foreign mission giving' were pursuing an active foreign policy, paying others to do what they weren't prepared to do themselves.

I know this isn't the case in larger, flagship churches and indeed in many others - but I think 'The Church' has ignored to its own detriment the fact that systems and methods simply don't replace a genuine urge to share the love of Jesus because you just can't help it.

I'm not in that place any more. I just try to extend love to people, because - well for all sorts of reasons, but basically as a fellow human. There was, you see, no place for me any more in a church which sought to put me in a box, refused my offer of deeper involvement, turned away the truly needy until they were a bit cleaner...

I grant that I could have been in a different place at a different time and had another experience entirely. It was unfortunate that after two decades of being known for encouraging hospitality in our congregations, the several churches I attended after my divorce happened to be places where nobody spoke to me. One of them had Alpha posters (don't get me STARTED!) all over but I assumed as I hadn't been invited, I didn't count as a statistic by just turning up. Whatever - nobody spoke to me there, either.

My point, though, is this: I WANTED to find a church. I WANTED to be involved. I had a lot to offer. Whatever systems are in place, they are probably letting down hundreds, even thousands of people who truly would like to explore their spirituality.

I don't even count myself a Christian any more. I can't because there is no place for me to be one. And I actually don't want to be, not if it means having to conform to this awful, watered-down form of Being. It's sad but to be very honest I feel as though I've escaped from a cult; my daughter said the same.

I'm aware that my feelings are my own - that there are many arguments for what the Church is getting right. It hurts me to see my beloved nephew so worried because I can't in all conscience say the things he wants to hear about my faith.

Has the Church failed me? Have I failed it? I have to believe that I am on my own spiritual journey and that things which have happened to me have been for a reason - to make me ME. I look back at all the people I led to Christ (a lot!) and wonder what they believe now, if they are still glad I did, if they are tussling with the feeling something's not right, or the guilt of wondering if they are beyond the Hebrews 11 pale.

I'll keep you posted!

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...

If I were allowed only one line of poetry to keep safely in my memory, I think it would be that. My slight touch of synaesthesia can taste and smell those wonderful words as I roll them around my brain like a fine wine. And yet every year I manage to be surprised by just how much I love this time of year - however much I remind myself, in Spring and Summer I always doubt my love of Autumn. And then September arrives, with its air of having just got in from some very enjoyable show; late and a little tired, but full of excitement still.

How much my life has changed in a few short years! I've moved so far from the feelings of desperation and being trapped in the wrong job. I'm not quite sure I'm in the right place yet, but I'm so much nearer than I was. My daughters are both settled in their new countries, I've enjoyed travelling and feeling Truly Alive again, and now Autumn is here to remind me that there is an energy in growing old which isn't available to Spring. There is a way to grow older whilst retaining a love of life, an exhuberance, even an embracing of what is to come, because at least it's new and different and therefore exciting.

I've been very fortunate to have some great role models of older people. I knew a woman of 107, and remember my Mother coming in laughing because she'd just met the son, who was grumbling about how he'd had no sympathy from her when he had pleaded Arthritis as his excuse for not digging her garden. "Yer nobbut a lad!" was her scathing comment. He was 83 at the time.

When I was a little girl of 6, my best friend was 63. We spent time together most days, I was an honorary OAP and went sketching, walking and swimming with her and her friends. She saved my life really - I got the warmth from her which was lacking at home. She in turn had been The One Who Stayed At Home, looking after both parents until Mother died at 90. She had a very close friendship with one woman, and looking back I think it's very likely she was a lesbian (even as a child I thought she was manly) but I have no idea whether they would ever have sought anything more than intense friendship. I remember well her disparaging remarks about men and her wonderful example of embracing life and it just being a bally nuisance if your legs got stiff, but not to pay any attention. She was my best friend until I was a teenager. I realise now that perhaps I also gave her something emotionally. I'm immensely grateful for having known her.

So - Autumn as metaphor. Too obvious to comment on. Many people have written about it far better than I ever could. What interests me this year is that, way back in late Spring, I found myself dreading Winter.

To put this into context, I've always loved Winter. In Yorkshire we really did have those deep drifts of snow of which people speak nostalgically. I used to sit at the window and watch the snow falling at night, each flake visible in the light of the lamp outside our house. I would choose one way, way up in the air and watch it weave its way down amongst thousands of its brothers and sisters, feeling special that I was the only person in the whole world watching that particular one and seeing its journey's end.

Last year, however, snow took on a different meaning for me. I was still recovering from knee surgery and my estate was swamped by so much snow that the cars were visible only as the white shapes of beetles on what used to be the road. It snowed, and snowed, and snowed. My daughters were really peeved to miss this re-run of the winters I'd told them about from my childhood. Buses disappeared for over two weeks. It took fifteen minutes to walk to the corner shop some 300 metres away. I feared for the elderly couple across the road and battled out every other day to buy them food.

For the first week it was amazing. It really was like travelling back to the past. And then as we went into a second, and then a third week of the snow, and I couldn't leave the house without it falling inside my wellies, I began to feel this irrational fear that it was never going to stop. We had had a huge flood a few years earlier (not my local area thank goodness) which had shaken our confidence in the weather. Now it looked increasingly as though I was never going to be able to drive again.

I realise now that something was damaged inside me last winter. This year I have been dreading it. I don't like feeling this way, and I'm reminding myself of all the wonderful things about the dark and snow, the warmth of the lights in shops and houses, the buzz of shoppers and the cameraderie you feel when you finally sit in a cafe and peel off your coat, and catch other shoppers' eyes.

Perhaps there is a deeper resonance here. Maybe it's not the season I dread, but the symbolism. There has been so much talk the last few years of disaster coming at us from all directions, perhaps in some way I equate it with that bad winter.

So today I'm making a choice. I am going to enjoy next winter, whatever it brings, even if it's just the challenge of enjoying it! I always hate to feel cut off from my beloved Peak District - so this year I shall find ways of getting there anyway. I'll force myself out in the cold to walk through the crisp air, and I shan't worry in case my knee (fine now) lets me down. It won't. I'm going to rediscover that childhood joy of breathing in pure, cold air, hearing the silence behind the muffled traffic, watching snowflakes dancing and knowing that Spring cannot be far behind...

51 and counting!

Yesterday was my birthday - you may have gathered by now, I get insanely excited about my birthdays and don't worry too much about the actual 'getting older' part. I had a lovely day, although it was a little poignant because it's the first time my younger daughter hasn't been able to spend the day with me. She rang in tears at one point, so my other daughter and I did silly voices and made her laugh till she felt better.

That sort of brings me to the point of this post; I told her that we can't be everywhere in life. We have to make choices, and of necessity, eventually we will have to choose between two places we want to be at once. It's unavoidable. She loves her job and where she lives near Paris, and she needed to be there. End of, as far as I was concerned. I shall see her soon I'm sure. Our love for each other is far too strong to be weakened by the matter of a few hundred miles' distance in any case.

I always ponder even more deeply than usual as I come to a birthday. Perhaps it's because my birth wasn't easy and I was brought up with the story (true or not) of how I never nearly made it at all, and so I treasure life as the most precious possession I have. I actually do love being alive. That's not to say there aren't days where it's all difficult and grey; that's how we get the depth to our experience. Shadows throw life into sharp relief. I was born with a pessimistic, phobic nature (which still rears its head) but it occurred to me somewhere along the line that I had a choice to be positive, and so I've faked it until I've [almost] made it. Whatever situation I'm in and whatever fears I have, I choose to look at the positives, to reframe until I have some kind of peace around it all. As a younger woman I believed in the Christian God and one of the perks (as an Evangelical) was that the Creator of the Universe was somehow on my side. I guess I still feel that deep down.

I make New Year resolutions on my birthday. This year as I looked back over '50' I realised just how much of a transition year it's been. I changed job, we sold the family home, I've travelled, I've planned, and I've moved on out of my forties with - if not panache - a certainty that I'm getting back on track.

Back on track? Well - I realised a while ago that I had stopped allowing myself to dream. I was always someone with vision for my future, until one day I realised I wasn't any more. It came as a shock. So... I pushed myself to go for what I could remember of what I wanted. And being a slave to a high salary in a job which was wearing me down wasn't it. Eventually, after gathering my courage for a few years, I left.

So far, so good. I then realised that even without my former Christian beliefs, I do really know in my heart that All Shall Be Well, and I've allowed myself to return to my former belief in provision. I'm just no longer quite sure what to label the Provider.

Living my life is like being in a small boat on a fairly choppy sea. The way to avoid seasickness is to move with the boat. I've decided I can either brace myself against each wave and end up rather the worse for wear, or just enjoy the feeling of being carried along, whooping excitedly when the boat goes up and relaxing as it bumps back down again.

My 52nd year is going to be my 'Why Not?' year. I've done the hard part, made the transition, and now I need to enjoy the fruits of that. It's going to be the year when I tackle things - my house, my weight, my fitness, my career... funnily enough, I hesitate to write 'my love life'. I find that whenever I do a life-laundry, love comes low on the list. I don't know whether that is because it's genuinely a low priority or whether I'm afraid of failure - or even, as a counsellor once suggested, afraid of success. I'm not going to focus desperately on Finding Someone because I have plenty to keep me busy just finding myself! And if he's out there, he will be someone with the guts to take on life (and therefore me) - so win-win!

I've come so very far in a few short years. I know my fifties are going to be another exciting chapter in my life. Bring it on! :)

Through a glass darkly...?

Someone asked me recently about my interest in Tarot and Astrology. I suppose for someone who was a deeply committed, Evangelical Christian it is a slightly odd path I've trodden, although I know many who have gone the reverse route. Indeed, I used to pray for people to be 'delivered' from belief in the Occult, oblivious to the fact that I believed some pretty strange things myself, such as having a God who came to heel (and heal), Words of Knowledge, Prophecy, etc. But more of that in a moment.

As I've said before somewhere on here, I became a Christian from a very non-Churchy background. I read tea-leaves as a child (fairly accurately sometimes) and believed absolutely that I was from a 'psychic' family. I had a dramatic conversion and renounced all that side of things. I was now in a Flagship Evangelical Church, and it took me a few years to discover the contemplative Christianity which in fact was my more natural habitat. I had come to faith in a small attic room, with a candle and a crucifix and silence. As a ten year old, that was instinctive to me. As a new Christian it was all Noise and Halleujahs, which I also enjoyed but which I now realise never quite fitted who I really was. As the last child in a very noisy family, I somehow had a strong sense of the Numinous which I retain to this day.

I eventually came under the influence of the Charismatic Church, and began to experience what are known as the Gifts of the Holy Spirit - speaking in tongues, having prophetic visions, healing, Words of Knowledge, etc... There was a very strong anti-Occult teaching around, and certainly Tarot/Astrology were considered Satanic. (Which was ironic really. I realised many years later that the Charismatic Church does all the things which Psychics do, but as it's in the name of Jesus that's okay.)

Anyway I was a fully paid-up member, with many experiences of accurate Words of Knowledge, a few prophetic visions and even a couple of healings as part of my Christian experience. I had yet to discover Mother Julian of Norwich and her amazing metaphysical visions, which remain dear to my heart to this day.

In the Eighties, my Ex went on a course paid for by the Church, which was an exploration of Myers-Briggs personality typing. He came back very enthused and explained it all to me. I felt there was some incongruity which I couldn't quite put my finger on... it wasn't for a few years that I realised there was very little difference between the cold reading of Astrology and the prescriptive practice of Myers Briggs. I've been 'typed' several times and nobody is ever quite sure whether I'm INFJ or ENFJ - but they are happy to tell me all about who I really am, based on a label - just like Astrology. Yet this was accepted by the Church although it has a far shorter pedigree. There seemed to be a dichotomy between the spiritual and the secular, and it was okay for Spiritual people to use secular means to predict how people might behave in certain circumstances. Interesting.

I must say here, I do believe that Sun Sign Astrology is ridiculous. I think I share a birthday (not the year though) with Cameron Diaz. So what? However, when you have had the experience of someone looking at your birthchart, asking about your deep love of religion, whether you've finished writing the book and telling you that you almost died at birth, it does sort of impress. All these, of course, can be clever cold-reading guesses, but even so it makes you think.

I don't believe in predicting the future. Not particularly because the Christian God forbids it, but because it rules out free will. I think we can spot trends in our lives, and for me that's where the Tarot is interesting, I know very little about it, but I have been fascinated for years by archetypes. Jung used the Tarot not to predict, but to make sense of the personalities he was working with, As far as I'm concerned, it's a shortcut for stimulating self-awareness. It works for me.

I'm the kind of person who is drawn to what at one time I'd have called Mumbo-jumbo. It doesn't mean I believe it all, but it does mean that I've grown past the point of needing to Be Right and Know The Truth. I increasingly suspect Truth is not as easily pigeon-holed as I once thought. When I became a Christian (having told the Sunday School teacher that I was FAR too intellectual for that rubbish, when I was 12 - cringe...) I decided God would be my working hypothesis unless or until I knew differently. And there came a point decades later when suddenly it didn't quite work for me. By 'it' I mean The Church. God, I take as a given. I still love liturgy and the thought of the link to generations of worshippers - it's just that I hate what I see in the Church today and I simply don't believe that Jesus would have encouraged the judgmental, self-seeking practices of some. That's not to say I'm any better, just that for now I choose not to keep their company.

My situation over the past few years - moving away from friends, settling in a new area with a very poorly child, my own injury and surgery the other year - left me the time and space for much soul-searching. I spent time in silence - the blessed silence for which Evangelicalism never seemed to leave space.

I've read a lot of Deepak Chopra. I've thought a lot about how Quantum Physics really might affect my world view. My sense that it is arrogant to dismiss all other possible world views has grown. I trust that whoever God is, my ship will come to the right harbour for me. We are all on a journey and I no longer feel the need to be the one who is most sure of the route. It seems fairly clear to me that all the 'special powers' which various parties claim as their own preserve must be fairly natural human attributes, and that we ignore them to our detriment.

As the old joke goes, "Faith, Hope, Love abide - and the greatest of these is Tongues." Love is definitely the mainspring of life as far as I'm concerned, in all its many forms, and hopefully if we seek Love, we will learn to be enabling of others rather than condemning them.

I know this can lead to Liberal namby-pambyism but I continue to search my soul, and I continue to do my best. That's all anybody - even God - can ask of me, surely?

Results day

It's That Time of Year again. 'A' level results are out today. When I was a Secondary teacher, this was the day when teachers were as nervous as pupils, wondering how they had all done together.

I went into teaching relatively late, in my thirties. I've never forgotten the day our Head of Department, who happened to be a Linguist, talked about perceived changes in standards. I felt very insecure as a 'wrinkly' amongst all the bright young new graduates. John gave us some French exam papers from 1973 and asked people to guess what level was being examined. There was some discussion as to whether they were second year 6th form or 1st year University. I kept silent, feeling very disorientated. John smiled at me and asked, "What do you think, Gill? What level are they?" Feeling rather foolish, as though my memory had let me down, I stammered, "Well - I was 13 in 1973 and - I think - this is pretty much what we were doing then..."

Cue derisive laughter, to be silenced when John turned to the group and said, "Yes, Gill's absolutely right! This is a Y9 exam from 1973."

I was treated with great respect after that!

I wrote a brief paper based on interviews with local heads of Sixth Forms and University Lecturers, in which I highlighted their unanimous opinion that there was a huge gap opening up between the end of school and the beginning of University. Many of them spoke about having to do refresher courses which were in effect a recap of the last year or two of school.

I did a little research into why this was happening and with my fairly unscientific methods, decided it was mostly down to the existence of the League Tables. Children were not being taught to love their subjects, but to get the school the desired position in the tables. So they were fed the knowledge needed for a good grade, without the breadth of subject knowledge.

As a Languages teacher, I saw very quickly that Key Stage 3 was largely a waste of time, as everything taught was covered again in years 10 and 11 and this bored the children. (I'm generalising of course, but sadly there is a lot of truth in this). My theory was backed up by a family member missing KS3 through illness, sailing through KS4 and going on to Uni and an MA. As an NQT I was given a class of 'UnTeachables' and the curriculum for the French Certificate of Achievement. I engaged them, got through the first part of the Certificate in the first term, and when I went to the Head of Department and asked for the next part, he looked at me in horror and said, "That's meant to last the Whole Year!" Thus was born my theory that a lot of misbehaviour is due to boredom, and a lot of boredom is due to low expectations, and those expectations are fed by teachers' need to concentrate on the brighter children who can bring glory to the school in the league tables.

Years later in my capacity as a Behaviour Adviser, I would bang my head against the wall of a school toilet having seen a teacher ask a class of 7 year olds, "So! What kind of question is this?" I was impressed at children of 7 knowing the difference between open and closed questions, until a pupil volunteered the answer, "A TWO POINT qeustion Miss!" and was rewarded with a hearty "Yes! So don't forget to answer it!"

I think it is unfair to blame exams per se. I do however believe the Curriculum is not healthy. I am incredibly uneasy at the number of schools where I am told there is 'no time' for Art and Music. I once headed up the Infant Music in a school where I was on long term supply, and introduced the children to some classical pieces. which they loved but which they all told me 'made them sad'. I eventually unpacked this to discover that they had no other word for the strong feelings which classical music aroused in them, and it was a valuable starting point for work on emotions.

I estimate that preparation for SATS in primary schools probably removes about 8 weeks' teaching time from the school year. I was asked to deal with a boy of 10 who had become very violent in school. It turned out that he was terrified of 'failing his SATS'. When I asked him "How do you fail SATS?" his eyes widened and he gasped, "If you get less than a 4!" We went on to discuss what the other levels meant, in that case, and (very unprofessionally I'm sure) I told him that SATS were a load of rubbish which only meant anything to the Government, and that when he was in the pub at 20, nobody would even ask him about them. I watched him in the tests, sitting in a huge hall, and I observed at least 3 children hyperventilating with stress.

I frequently remind anxious parents that in many countries, children don't begin formal schooling until the age of 7. Here, we are already formally testing them by that age. I am convinced that our system is driven by poor childcare facilities. Where is the encouragement for parents to spend time with their children, time which feeds into their social development and which can never be regained?

So we teach our children early on, in the UK, that we can fail miserably. And no doubt in a few hours, the papers will all be saying how easy it was for them this year, that their efforts mean very little. What with the vast amounts of money needed to go to University, the scant job prospects and expensive housing, it's a wonder any of them are still standing.

I'm not sure exams are 'easier' than they were. They are very different. They look strange to those of us raised on 'O' and 'A' levels. But they take a tremendous amount of work to pass with high grades. We ought to be congratulating our children and building their self-esteem, not giving them the message that their efforts are worthless and their futures grim.

If you know a young person who has got exam results this summer, commiserate or congratulate as needed. Remind them that the world doesn't ask what you got at 'A' level for the rest of your life, that they now have time to enjoy themselves, that they are valuable human beings... do whatever it takes to build up our young people, because they deserve it, and they are our future.

NB I've just re-read my entries for February. They seem prophetic now!

The meaning of life...

You may realise from my previous writings that I am running at Midlife head-on to find some answers. Technically I may be past midlife, I don't know, but then I've known people who have died in their teens so I don't let those labels worry me any more.

This morning I was watching a spider swaying outside my window, web invisible, and it struck me as a powerful metaphor for my past couple of years. As my belief in Synchronicity has grown, so has my need to Stop and Be. A spider does what it can to create the circumstances for provision, and then just sits and waits. I could unpack this more, but I suspect it may apply differently to everyone so I'm leaving it there.

And then I read a little of Shirley Maclaine's book 'Sage-ing with Age-ing'. I love this sentence from near the beginning: "I realize that ageing well isn't about the search for happiness, but more about quietly feeling content with what I've experienced." This is so true for me that I felt like applauding. I've just had a week away with my elder daughter, and one of the recurring themes of our conversations was about how I feel the need to differentiate between things I could revisit (eg Education) and things I'd love to do again but which aren't 'Life stage appropriate' - meaning, I'm no longer a teenager! I still yearn to do lots of things in life, but I recognise that some of them would be simply about pretending I'm not an older person. (Some are still eminently doable, however, and I intend to do them until I'm 90+ such
as the terrifying speedboat ride we went on!)

So Maclaine's words chimed with me. I seek the contentment of which St Paul spoke, I suppose. And increasingly I feel it. This doesn't mean, though, that I don't still crave adventure, because I do, and I intend to have it!

This morning my daughter and I were talking about life purpose. I increasingly suspect that we have got this all wrong. When I was a practising Christian there was a lot of talk around about 'our Extravagant God'. Well I do still believe in that God. (Not perhaps in the Church's version.) And I am therefore led to the logical (to me) conclusion that my life might just as well be about the minutiae as the Grand Scheme. Perhaps my life's purpose was fulfilled the day I spent with an elderly woman grieving her husband's death? Perhaps everything else has been incidental? Or has my life been about the biscuits I baked for the School Summer Fair... or the heart-shaped pancakes I made for a Valentine's Disco... or the woman I smiled at on the bus, or the child whose eye I caught as she was being told off... I'm sure you get my point.

We assume that our whole life has to have meaning, but if it's true that there is an inherent extravagance to Creation, then perhaps this 'making peace' with one's life, the Being Content, is about recognising that Being is more than enough. Everything else is a bonus. What do you think?

Holiday

I took my soon-to-be-Dutch daughter to York and Bridlington for a few days last week. We had a fantastic time, ate well, drank champagne once, laughed almost all the time... It was a lovely break and one I shall look back on and cherish the memories when she has left.

I've always felt (like so many people) that I would love to live by the sea. Usually when I visit I paddle every day. This time, however, I found I didn't want to. We went ON the sea in a sailing boat and - possibly unadvisedly - a speedboat. But paddling didn't appeal this time, perhaps because the skies were mostly grey and the beaches very wet indeed.

One day of our week dawned glorious, and we took the opportunity to travel up to Whitby, taking in Filey and the wonderful Robin Hood's Bay, driving along the coast at Scarborough as we returned to our B&B. The East Coast is simply wonderful; there is an underlying poignancy about it because so much of it is doomed to disappear over the next century. Like Venice, there is a sense of Carpe Diem and a resulting joy at having been there before it's too late.

I never tire of being by the sea. I love Deepak Chopra's analogy of human life being like waves in the sea, constantly in motion and each wave visible for a short time but 'you can't put a wave in a bucket and take it home'. The energy of the sea is that same energy which fuels us all - which IS us all... if you put me under a strong enough microscope, all you would see would be the gaps inside the atoms of which I'm made. It is a salutory thought that everything solid seems to exist only because we have some prior agreement to see it that way.

In a week of riots, it struck me that this is how 'Society' is too. It functions normally only for as long as we agree it. This is why it is important that we refuse to let the media make us fearful for the future - we need to carry on believing in ourselves and our ability to live together. We need to agree to have a good and peaceful land, and not to let terror take over in any form.

Family time

My daughters are visiting at the moment and my Ex's sister and husband are visiting from Canada so there's been a flurry of activity over the past few days. One daughter returns to Paris on Monday so we are trying to prioritise and do the Really Important things.

But what are they? My daughters and I are in agreement that they are around seeing family and spending time in the Peak District. We don't have time to go to the seaside this week but Parisian Daughter stayed with Roman Daughter for a fortnight to help her pack for her new life, and they went to the beach while she was there.

Meanwhile here I am in my tiny ex-Council semi, loving having my family here but with very little space to move around in! Roman Daughter is moving to Maastricht to do an MSc, so we are learning a little Dutch before she goes. I almost drove off the road yesterday as we tried to get past our amusement at the word 'Winkel' for 'shop'. I've told her if she gets homesick all she has to do is enjoy hearing people speaking like the Swedish Chef all around her.

As a linguist, I've always been sad that people find German and Dutch 'ugly'. I love the deep, rich sounds and the way my brain has to think backwards in order to speak grammatically. Roman daughter's friends have told her Dutch is a 'Lingua brutta' - 'ugly language' - but she's excited about trying to learn it and hoping someone will let her try rather than speaking English.

So far we've spent the time talking, eating, walking and laughing. I'm the kind of person who thinks ahead, like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll, and usually the dread of them leaving would be weighing heavily on my soul, but I have decided that at 50 it's time I stopped being a ninny, and am determined to enjoy my time with them. Likewise with the Canadian (ex) relatives, who are lovely. We've met them only too rarely - usually at weddings or funerals, and never in Canada, although hopefully one day I'll get there.

Relating to people is one of my primary joys in life and yet... and yet I am also aware of an inter-connectedness which is so exquisitely tender that it's almost painful to me at times to walk along a street, so much do I feel I am part of everybody and everything. It's only just struck me that - just as synaesthetics rarely question their experience, assuming everyone is the same - perhaps I am not 'normal'. Ever since I was a little girl I have been moved by sudden emotions as I go past people... I remember once seeing an old man and his dog and crying for hours at the sadness of one of them being left behind one day. I used to be cross with myself and try to reframe such feelings ("They are happy right now because they have each other!") and indeed peace finally came as I learned more and more to live in the Now.

I am still far from expert. As a child I was tormented by fears and phobias, and I've come a long long way but still some days I struggle to maintain a peaceful equilibrium. But most of the time I am just content to Be. I love to go into the Peak District and feel a part of it all, almost as though I AM a hill. I love to sit in a cafe and feel a kind of spritual empathy with the other people around me; it feels like an active meditation as I quietly wish them peace and happiness in life.

Of course I may be gently going insane, but it feels like a spiritual journey, so that's what I'm going with for now. :) Family time for me encompasses my fellow humans, and when my daughters have left, I shall return to enjoying this feeling of kinship - and surreptitiously spreading a little peace, joy and love as I sip my Latte...

Anecdote

I'm still laughing about something that happened in Castleton yesterday. The town was full of teenagers doing Geography surveys. I was sitting by a stream and heard three boys laughing about throwing things at a duck, so I walked along and leant on the bridge to see what was happening.

They were only throwing twigs, and it wasn't hurt - but it was obviously scared (though holding its own and quacking bravely back at them).

From my vantage-point I said very calmly and nicely, "PLEASE don't do that!" The boy furthest away said "Who said that?" His friend looked at me and then moved so the first boy couldn't see me, as I said: "There's no need, is there?"

They stopped throwing things, and then we had a chat about school, coursework, etc - and after I'd walked away my supersonic ears tuned into the poor lad saying, "I thought it wor't'DUCK talking ter me!!!"

He had just accepted the incident - of course a duck would do that. He never questioned that it had spoken! And so politely, too, as my daughter pointed out...

I'm still laughing about it! :)

Away Day

I've been meaning to go on retreat but haven't had the means. Yesterday dawned bright and sunny so I made my first visit of the year to the local lido, which is set amongst high green hills. The air smelt as fresh as if it had never been breathed before. It was a delicious day, made all the better by the realisation that I'd forgotten my phone. I relaxed into a true retreat. In the Present.

I begin my day with a lot of breath-holding so that I can gaze at the pattern of shining ripples on the bottom of the pool. The shallow end is home to tiny children being encouraged to practise leaping into the unknown - yet always landing in the nurturing arms of their mothers.

After an hour of blissful (and Factor 30- protected) sun-bathed swimming, I make my way to the grass by the side of the pool and enjoy watching people splash and just Be. We are a small community of escapees from the Rat-race.

I leave and go on to Castleton, a favourite of mine. A ruined castle sits high on a hill above the entrances to caves, a sparkling river, numerous sheep and ducks, and a picturesque village with plenty of provision for the hungry tourist.

Sitting at a table on the pavement I watch as women lead tiny horses along, teachers lead slightly bigger children along, and walkers amble happily towards their lunch. I fall into a conversation with an elderly woman whom I'll call Mary; I don't ask her name, it would break the spell of her lilting Devon accent and the rhythm of her tales of life. The gist of what she says is, "Find out who you are, go and be that person, and be happy!" She sounds to have had a hard life but has skipped happily into widowhood and now travels the world - wherever takes her fancy. Lithuania, Russia, China, "And one of those Vampire Castles!" She regrets having taken forty years to realise she has a brain, but is now getting on with using it.

A lively crocodile of ten year olds makes its way past, a teacher rather ominously holding an enormous number of wooden swords. Are they going to re-enact some battle by the river? Or has he had to confiscate them? In calm and weary, well-rehearsed words he says, "Yer in't'middle o't'ROAD Mason - yer doing wrong." I am impressed at the delivery of such judgement. So is Mason, for he quietly finds his place on the pavement. The children and their noise disappear around the corner, and the day closes around them as though they had never been there.

The sun continues to bake the village. A woman emerges from a car in a long-sleeved, leopardskin mini dress. She must be roasting, despite her long bare legs, which draw the gaze of every man in sight. A group of Germans discuss first where the Men have gone, then where the Women have gone. Those who are presumably neither find a table and resignedly sip coffee as they wait.

After lunch I'm not sure what to do, so I sit on a wall and write. Write this, in fact, as well as jotting down snippets which will some day germinate and grow into poetry.

I think about Mary. Was she some kind of messenger? I'm thinking hard at the moment about the role of ambivalence in my life. I hope to meet someone else who might shed a little more light. Mary advocates the single life and lots of travel. I know for sure... I do know... that I don't want to work behind closed doors for the rest of my life. Is it possible to find some other way? A compromise perhaps, where I work part time for other people, and make the time to write during the rest of the week?

I decide to find some water - I love to sit and contemplate its noise, its movement, the light-play on the surface... A small stream runs by the car park; I stand and gaze at the unthinking beauty of the scene, and a tree leans across to hold my hand, its leaves brushing my fingers.

I think about how my father would have loved it here, and feel the familiar pang of regret that I simply don't know what my mother would have thought of it. My love of such places is surely the fusion of their lives and psyches? Perhaps not. I have no idea whether I brought a new 'me' to my experience of the world, or if I tread the traces of others. It troubles me, this easy connection with my father and not my mother. I feel the need to carry something of her forward into the world, even though I'm aware that the traits I ascribe to her may be pure projection.

I walk on, and come to a burial ground - a place of real peace and solitude. I read the gravestones, weep at one, and ponder our frailty as I often do. Why should I waste my life doing work I don't believe in? The answer - for me - has to be that I shouldn't.

As I walk back through the village a strange synchronicity occurs. Yesterday I went with a friend to a place many miles from where we live, and met a woman known to both of us, a former teacher. We shared a coffee and many memories and I asked after her cousin, whom I'd also known. I hadn't seen either of them for about 5 years. "Oh, she's happily retired and globe-trotting!" came the reply.

So it is with some surprise that as I walk along to find a tea room, in this place also some miles from where I live, the cousin herself greets me with a joyful cry of recognition. It is quite a coincidence, and as such I search for meaning after she has gone.

I buy an ice cream instead of a cup of tea, wanting to sit in the warm sun. I find a bench and two sisters come to sit next to me. They tell me how they left Holland in the war and moved to Australia. The one who lives nearby still has a strong Aussie twang, the other (who lives a 14 hour flight away back in Australia) has a heavy Dutch accent. They, too, have just travelled all around Europe and highly recommend it. They, too, are man-free and happy. Like me, they are eating ice creams and enjoying the sun.

I ponder it all as I drive home. Have I just been given a glimpse of how happy I shall be in retirement, or is there some more urgent message for me here? I have met people who are relieved to be out of their former jobs and who are happy travelling and Being. Is that something I dare aim for at this stage in my life, or must I wait it out?

I recall the startling words of one of the Dutch sisters, as she suddenly leaned across and smiled at me with her piercing eyes on mine: "This place is calling you!"

And so it is - ah, but WHICH place? The geographical one, or the metaphysical?

Words...

WORDS
They're great, words are!
Babies roll them round their mouths
savouring them for months
before spitting them, fully-formed
into the air around them.

From then on, that's it -
Words, words, words...
On the telly
On the radio,
On a teacher's lips...
They never stop coming at us,
Bombarding us with knowledge.
I've got some favourites:
Scudding, Micklethwaite, deelyboppers, iconoclastic...

They're great, words are!
You can tell people who you really are inside,
explain your dreams, hopes, desires...
ask for what you want,
tell it like it is,
comfort, caress your lover's ears with quiet whispers...

They're a great responsibility, words are!
You can irritate the HELL out of people,
invade their headspace,
say things you didn't mean, and can't un-say,
use them as playing-pieces in the game of love.
They can hurt people, break people, bring bad news...
Words are EVERYWHERE; they mean
Nothing and Everything,
all at once.
Sharp rocks, tumbling from our mouths,
cutting others as they fall.
They're dangerous things, words are...

But on the whole, I think they're great.
You can hide behind them,
Talk about things so you don't have to face them,
Express emotions so you don't have to feel them -
Project your preferred version of yourself into the public eye.
Everybody does it, don't they?
Except me.
I don't.
I just say what's on my mind, but
I like to do it right.
So of course, I choose my words. Carefully.

I sometimes wonder...
...whether they choose me.

Gut feelings...

Right, no more apologies, I shall blog much more regularly again from now on! [REALLY? -Ed] I've been so busy - but that is no excuse for not prioritising the enjoyment of catching a few of my thoughts as they fly past, and popping them onto the screen.

My walk along the top of the Learning Cliff continues. I'm really enjoying Supply, and once more am in a school where they are very keen to keep using me, so that's good for my professional self esteem. If you recall, one of the reasons I left my Advisory role was that I felt I was lacking integrity; telling teachers what to do when I hadn't taught for nine years didn't feel right. But I knew I didn't really want to go back to teaching French in Secondary, so I asked my agency to place me in Primary schools.

Almost a full academic year on... I still have food in the fridge, I haven't defaulted on the mortgage, and I've even been on holiday to see my daughter in Paris. On paper I've taken a drop in salary of at least £15,000 but I honestly haven't really felt it.

Now I'm being head-hunted for a year's post in a parallel Advisory Service. It would mean being paid the former salary again, and I'd be paid through the holidays (despite the hype, Supply does NOT pay enough to see you through the holidays, but I enjoy the challenge of budgetting).

I'm trying very hard to think it through what is known as 'sensibly' (ie 'thinking about the money') but I find that my intuition is screaming so loudly that it's almost a no-brainer. What on earth would be the point of plucking up my courage to leave a job, only to walk back into its identical twin? How can I ignore the sinking feeling I get just at the thought of being 'back in harness'?

I owe it to myself to be responsible and to check out my reactions fully. For example, it's possible I need to go back and face those feelings. It's possible it would be 'sensible' to have a year of guaranteed salary.

But I'm not one to ignore my gut feelings. I've raised my daughters to listen to their intuition. I can live no other way. It really doesn't even feel like a choice. I have been so HAPPY this last year, loving being in the classroom, and (so I was told by a parent of a child with Aspergers) "changing lives". Former colleagues have been amazed at 'How great you look!" (I'm not sure what they were expecting!) Some of them are envious - but they all had far more choice than I did, as I was the only single person on the team. They all had financial back-up and yet have chosen to remain in a place which, they tell me, is even more stressed and unsafe these days.

I'm not even sure that teaching is where I shall ultimately remain. But I'm sure that I need to carve a life where I can take time out if I need, to retreat and write, or to be there for family and friends.

Nevertheless I am very conscious of the old joke which ends "I sent a helicopter!"

To be honest, my mind is made up. Or rather, my gut is. This is where I find out just how much courage my convictions hold...

Remembrance of things past...

I've returned to this blog (my other one still exists in impoverished form) because I'm more concerned with general, rambling thoughts than with being 50 (which continues to be great!).

Lately I've been thinking a lot about religion. As in, Christianity. I was converted as a teenager into Evangelicalism (the story is all there earlier on this blog if you care to look). And from a very troubled place I came to a point of relative calm, though the legs were paddling away under the surface as I approximated to Adult Life.

A friend of mine who was an Anglican Priest for many years has just come out as 'having no faith left' and it has made me think again about my attitude to what I have left behind. It's particularly hard as an ex-Evangelical because you are taught all the Bible verses about the dangers of falling away, and even today I can remember my abject fear of doing so, and my determination never to desert Jesus.

And yet - I have. It astounds me still, after twenty years as a clergy wife and having brought countless people to faith through reasoned discussion and prayer, that I find myself in this place. But a pilgrimage can't just be abandoned when you find a comfortable roadside cafe. I always promised myself that I would never give up using my brain (which after all was presumably God-given) to question my faith, and that if I found it lacking in integrity, I would do whatever it took to remain in a place of integrity as far as was possible.

What I never expected was to feel angry. I have spent a good many years suppressing anger in my life; as a child I was prone to terrible rages which terrified me and left me hiding from the power of those emotions. Christianity enabled me to 'rise above' that - although to be fair it was my interpretation and not the Church or Bible which taught me to hide from such a large part of myself. The Bible clearly says we ARE to be angry when appropriate. I had just hidden too well from myself, and it took a few different counsellors to help me see that it was safe to be in a room with myself however I was feeling. Dampening down anger meant that I dampened down every other emotion, and I've been on a long, slow learning curve back to 'normality' (whatever that is!)

Now, I DO feel angry at how the brand of Christianity I bought into robbed me of the realisation that I possessed huge inner strength. By attributing all my successes to 'God', I externalised everything.

GOD was strong, I was weak. All loving thoughts came from God, I wasn't a loving person without him. I didn't realise how many inner resources I had until I was in my forties. Until then, I truly believed that I was nothing without God, and that everything I needed had to come from/through him. So I was able to shift all the responsibility for major decisions onto him too. "God doesn't want me to have sex..." "I have to stay in this job /relationship/place because God hasn't told me to move on..." etc.

I realise that a lot of this reflects on me, not the Church per se. However, nobody at any time encouraged this naive young (and later, older) person to move on in her view of herself, to take more responsibility, to dare to make decisions. And in fact I know many people in unhappy situations who are there 'because it's what God wants'. It couldn't possibly be the case that God might want them to take risks and be uncomfortable, to face their inner demons and admit their faults. Oh no, it's God's will that no boats are rocked.

There are those who have taken precisely the opposite approach. God has told them to go out and do daring and wonderful things. Can you imagine a Billy Graham who admitted to loving having power over people and being a public figure? Or even a St Paul who had a midlife crisis?

It is all much to ponder, and I continue to do so.

Glorious day!

I just wanted to record how good it feels to wake up to a glorious, sunny, frosty morning.

The sky is an absolutely brilliant blue; the sun is already casting crisp shadows and there is a definite feeling of Spring on its way. After a long, hard winter this is wonderfully welcome!

I've had a tough few weeks emotionally; the nest has felt very empty indeed. As someone who spent her entire life from the age of three planning to have two little girls (and had them!) I still have to work on making the shift into Life After Motherhood. It's not as though I didn't prepare, nor is it that recent but - I suppose nursing someone through a horrible illness for seven years brings you extremely close.

I have lots of other things to do in life. I write, swim, walk, enjoy the countryside and have a full-time job. Yet still I am aware of an emptiness in my heart, feeling bereft on a bad day and merely nostalgic on a good one. This is classic midlife stuff and I know I shall get through to the other side.

I feel a little irritated with myself to be honest. I am thrilled that my daughters have built their new lives. I am excited by what they are doing. And it's quite possible that I am feeling the stirrings of needing to get out there myself. Is there any excuse for someone who speaks several languages to sit at home in England wishing she wasn't lonely at times?

Money - of course. But... there are jobs abroad. There are cheap holidays. And there are two beautiful capital cities to visit in the company of my daughters, the locals.

Now that I'm off crutches and no longer hobbling around, it's time to get off my backside and stop feeling sorry for myself!

Watch this space...

March on...

So here we are in March, thank goodness - February, I'm afraid, lived up to its reputation for being a grey, dreary, cold month this year. March began with a warm, sunny day - although it's cold at the moment, the birds are singing their hearts out in preparation for Spring.

I've been in the same school for over four months now. I've put a lot of work in and learnt a lot too, and am waiting to hear when the teacher who is off begins her phased return.

After that, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I'm planning to be around for the transition which may mean missing out on other jobs, but I'm hoping for some day-to-day work which will help tide me over. I still don't feel that I'm 'there' yet in terms of What I'm Going To Do When I Grow Up, but to be honest I'm not sure I shall ever Arrive. I am happier on this journey, though, than I was for the previous nine years in my old job. I keep meeting people I knew then who tell me I look 'years younger'. Certainly the pride in having been courageous enough to leap out of bondage to the Local Authority has made me happier,; I expect that's what they see.

So - what next? I'm not sure. But as I've always said to my daughters, SOMETHING will be next. You never arrive at a point in your life without being able to look back at the path you trod to get there. I have absolute trust in that process, even though I'm hazy about the details. A year from now, I shall undoubtedly have been living my ilfe for another year, so it just remains to see what I'll have been doing!

Happy March to you all!

Afraid of the dark?

For many years I was afraid of the dark.

Part of my fear was fuelled by the fact that my darkened room was very blurred and indistinct. It took me a long time to realise that this was because I took off my glasses as I turned off the lamp.

This is a helpful metaphor to me as I try to remain true to my pledge to face my fears and live life with the fewest regrets possible. I was a phobic child and teenage for me was a struggle to fight through to some kind of normality. At fifty, I've largely won those early battles, but a little stress can tip me into cocking my head like a gundog at strangely magnified sounds, waiting for the Undefined Awfulness to strike.

These days, with a little help from CBT, I can quickly step back from those fears. Some days I have to do it a few times, but most of the time I'm fine. I have my glasses on as I look at my life.

My greatest fears are no longer for my personal safety. Nor even for those brave souls in Egypt. I fear for what we - in the UK - have allowed society to become. It was ever thus, people decrying, declaiming, wringing their hands... but I see many cases of families falling apart, people putting physical desires before everything else, greed and plain, old-fashioned nastiness. And I don't like it.

It seems to me that countries where there is a named evil to fight are almost (ALMOST) more fortunate than we are. With our so-called democracy, we have no place to turn and plead for a new regime. For isn't it already a privilege to live in a free country? We do not march in anger at the (non)treatment of our elderly, disabled, despairing. For aren't they already lucky to live in such a wonderful country?

How long are we going to continue pretending that Britain is the kind of place you'd want to live at any cost? ANY cost? When bankers are still receiving bonuses, whilst the rest of us are being encouraged to go out and volunteer to ensure that some lucky citizens receive their basic rights?

THIS is true darkness.

We all need glasses to bring clarity to the situation and no, Mr Cameron, not the rose-tinted ones, if you please.

The Big Society

I genuinely no longer know whether David Cameron has really spoken, or whether reports are spoofs, these days.

I don't understand how nobody has yet stood up in public and asked how we can create a Big Society when the Tories are fully aware that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY. Sowing and reaping come to mind.

I don't know if I've fully understood the implications of his plan, but it looks to me as though charities are going to be allowed to fill all the gaps which Government aren't prepared to pay for. Is that it? If so, it's a wonderful vision... for the bankers.

When will those in 'power' understand that there is anger - REAL anger (and this from someone who buried her anger so deeply under a Christian veneer that it's taken me thirty years to get back in touch with it) - about the fact that whilst hundreds of thousands of people are unable to afford basic staples, we have yet to see those who brought about this situation brought to book. Bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds are still being paid as a reward for greed and mismanagement.

I AM angry. And I feel powerless. I voted LibDem because that is where my heart lies, not as some weedy cop-out from having to think about politics. And so now I am homeless, disenfranchised through the whole cynical process of the Tories munching up Clegg and spitting him out.

And don't even get me started on footballers' salaries...