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.