5 years on

When the boxes were packed and the house empty and bare, we went to Church for the last time. I remember turning to a member of clergy at the post Mass leaving party and saying “How do I cope with this?” With the clerical voice of authority and wisdom he said “Do you drink?” Slightly bemused I replied in the affirmative. “Well then a bottle a day should suffice.” He said with a smile. So with these parting jewels of wisdom, we left for the last time.

Packed up in one lorry and down to the warmer end of the country, it may as well have been a different world. Stepping into the life of ordinands and later clergy is like stepping into an alternate reality. It is a time warped bubble of hectic serenity.

You step into a world that is very much like being back at boarding school, complete with afternoon tea with children full of fun running home from school as fast as possible for that all too precious cake.  You live in a world separate from reality, yet you cross the borders of college land and become deeply involved in reality. You encounter friendships and experiences that don’t just change you in the moment but for the rest of your life. So much changed the day the one family from the north east of England packed their bags and left for Oxford.

They talk of Formation (or what was known among spouses as the “F” word), when you leave your life you do so sceptical that such experiences can truly change who you are. But they do. It is like they take a raw family, naive and unaware and scrunch you together, run you through the tumble dryer several times and hang you out to dry in a completely different shape and colour to the way you went in.

You learn more about yourself and your family than you ever thought possible. You learn the meaning of sacrifice and the strength of family bonds that come out of such sacrifice. You know how the Priesthood works, you have seen others live it and work it but nothing hits you quite like the reality of your own husband training and living the Priesthood. The 9-5 is gone, the predictability of life vanishes, and your life stops at the drop of a hat, others become important. Your house is no longer just a home but an office. Simple things like support and confession become treks into the wilderness of next door parishes, because in yours your husband is the support and the confessor.  Most of all nothing is so bizarre and awesome as seeing your husband vested and offering Mass and baptising the faithful.

It has turned our world upside down. Would I change it for a minute? NO, never. It is chaotic and it has changed all of us but it has made us stronger, happier and the changes you see your husband make to other people’s lives is worth every single sacrifice. The joy is in the giving but also in the receiving and we have received the best life filled with so many blessings. Deo Gratias.

Into the unknown

It is dark, it is cold and the last thing I want to do is get up and catch a train. Looking back through my posts I realised how much the unknown used to terrify me. Moving around, going new places and meeting new people used to fill me with dread. However despite my reluctance to go out into the cold so early in the morning I realised I was feeling adventurous. No longer absolutely petrified or frozen by fear I was actually looking forward to it.

We all go on journeys, we usually know what our destination is and although the road sometimes takes detours or suffers traffic jams we get there. Indeed this was true of our journey, a few hiccups and minor detours but we arrived and in one piece. Rather like our move to Ilkley, I knew where I was headed but the rest was unknown.

Moving to Ilkley I had a 101 questions floating in my head. I agonized, fretted and lacked the ability to just trust. The experience taught me to trust a bit more, to hold my hand out a bit wider in the of chance someone might catch me. I will not say the more stationary emotional journey since arriving has not been without it's detours and traffic jams but we seem to be making good progress on the road, so to speak.

When we stand at the beginning of something new, we look at all the things that we anticipate with fear. You look at them, you focus on them and they grow until they fill the road ahead and you can not see a way around. What I have learnt since coming here is these road blocks are often the points in our lives where we might have a minor (or indeed a major) clash with another driver but the results are often unexpected and more often than not the end up going down the road you were headed in the first place but now the road is clear.

Learning that these obstacles in the road are not going to stop you forever is a valuable lesson. It is about having faith. It is about putting those fishing nets down as the early disciples did and following the path into what many would see as impossible. Following Christ is not impossible. It is not an easy journey but it is a rewarding one.  Christ himself faced the impossible, he died for us. When you learn to accept the fact that God made possible the impossible and gave us life eternal, you know you can conquer the smaller impossibilities.

Then all of a sudden going into the unknown is no longer impossible, In fact something really quite wonderful might happen. We got up, we took the train and we had a fantastic weekend. Today in the face of impossibility put down your nets submit to Christ and his teachings and see where he takes you. You might be stopped temporarily, stuck in a traffic jam or maybe take a detour around but one thing is sure, we can and we will find ways around the impossible because Christ will helps us through it all.

Freedom to........................................

Freedom suggests a bounty of ability, an unlimited licence do as we please because we can.  Some of the many guises of freedom have recently been up for debate. Freedom of speech, freedom of belief and freedom of equality. Many people took to the streets in a peaceful defence of our right to these things. As Pope Frances said we not only have a right to these things but an obligation to do them if we genuinely believe it is in the interest of the general well being of humanity. However, what he went on to say (in perhaps a misguided way) was freedom should come with it's own self imposed limitation, that of respect. We have the obligation to say what needs saying, but it should be done in a fashion that does not hurt or set out to offend. If we prod to much in a disrespectful manner, we can expect people to respond. We should not however have to live with violence as a response. Violence solves nothing. Healthy debate in which our freedom to air our concerns can be done intellectually and respectfully.

The trouble with freedom and equality is it has to work both ways. This is a bitter pill to swallow. For while we defend our right to say and believe what we want, we also have to listen to the opposition. We do not have to just listen but if we truly believe in freedom and equality we actually have to defend the oppositions right to say and believe what they want. Again this self limitation of respect for each other and life has to come into play here too.  But we have an obligation to listen, we have to accept and tolerate, no matter how hard this is. We should not and must not seek to silence or offend. We must keep our speech and our listening to reasoned debate. Seeking to place blame or name calling to silence those with whom we disagree is not part of the deal.

Freedom, therefore is not the limitless promise it at first glance appears to be. Equality is not a grasp all the power and step on those who have in our perception wronged us. We have all at points in our lives been entirely hypocritical in saying we believe in freedom and equality, when in reality we mean we believe in the freedom to do what I want and delivering that to the world is equality. We are at our hearts are all selfish beings. But because of this we can not and should not stand in judgement of those who have done the same. We should learn from our mistakes and our discomfort, and afford others an ear and freedom to state their beliefs. We should be prepared to hold together that which we so defiantly defend.

Christmas Wishes

The other week we went walking in the grounds of a beautiful abbey. Well I say "WE", my husband and children went walking, me and my bad knee had hot chocolate in the cafe. After they had come back from searching high and low for the clues in the Advent trail. They joined me for a drink.  Each of them had been given a little tag. On this tag they were expected to write their wish and tie it to the wish tree.  Ours duly made their wishes, and we tied on them on the tree. Hidden among the plentiful wishes for toys and snow, were wishes for things that moved me to tears. Wishes that were not superficial, wishes that deserved to be granted. Wishes for fathers, brothers, sisters to come back. Wishes for people to get better. These children bypassing the the mass media hype for possessions, have a far more genuine need to wish for this Christmas.

At Christmas you are bombarded with images of happiness, joy and perfect families. It is easy to get caught up and forget that many people need and want only "hope".  Hope that life we will be better, families mended, that sickness will be cured, that relatives are safe in heaven and of somewhere safe and warm to sleep and eat.  Many more still mask their internal pain and struggles behind their false smiles of "joy", praying that someone might notice their conflict and help.

Walking many miles to a town they barely knew there was a couple and a donkey. The lady heavily pregnant. They walked the path in the hope of compassion, food and lodgings. All alone, this young couple had no idea if their prayers would be answered. They knocked in hope and were turned away. They did not give in, they persisted in knocking until someone answered. It was not much this person gave them that night but it was enough.

How many people will be knocking on the doors around us this Christmas and will we notice them, will we answer them?

Christmas is about joy, happiness and rejoicing. This young couple were overjoyed with the gift they had that night. The gift of a small baby boy that gave again with the gift of a family. This wonderful icon of Christian life given to us that night, gave more than joy. It gave us hope.

This little tiny boy who lights up the darkest of lives, gave us hope. Hope for a future, no matter how we despair or suffer. This Christmas I wish for hope. Hoping I might be a better person, that I may be the inn that opens it's door and says "YES". Hoping that I might touch the lives of others in a positive way. Hoping that I find a stronger faith in the gift that is given this year. Hope that I will not forget to remember among all the happiness that others suffer.

We should open our hearts to hopeful happiness when we receive Christ on Thursday morning. That we start with welcoming this infant child and grow with him throughout this year.

To all of you who read this blog, may you have a very Happy Christmas, may your day be filled with blessings.

A little unexpected

Earlier in the week my attention was drawn back to Our Blessed Mother as we celebrated the Immaculate Conception. This is the first year when my youngest understood what we were celebrating at any level, and I was faced with a superfluous flow of questions. All of which I deflected in the hope that the sermon would answer them for me, fortunately this was the case.

All though this is an important celebration and there is lots to be said, it is not the Immaculate Conception that has been holding my thoughts all week. It is a combination of this and this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2UrAoh76o ) that has got me thinking. Christmas starts with a little baby. This little baby was not expected, planned or convenient, yet here he was not just a life on miraculous human scale but a divine miracle too.

As much then as now, unplanned children were a challenge, more so when out of wedlock. It is a daunting thought when you discover you are to be a Mother. You have a life growing inside of you, even more of a shock when the timing is not great. A whole ream of thoughts go through your head, am I good enough, can I do this even when others think I can't, can I provide, can I love.  Despite all of these challenges and questions, God has chosen you for this life. To grow it and nurture it, he maybe understands more of you, than you do.  It is a lot easier now to decide the time is not right for you, than it was back then. In the loneliness of making a choice that affects not just her, but her husband to be Mary said "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word."

I have been through three pregnancies, each time I have had doubts as to whether now is right. However, one thing I have always been sure of is that little life is a miracle, A miracle that will challenge, frustrate and  fatigue me, but will also bring me so many blessings too.

Life has it's curve balls, it has a habit of stopping us in our tracks with inconvenient little miracles. It might be hard to take on the challenges God throws in our footpaths sometimes, but I guarantee that not only will he guide you and hold you through them, he will reward you with many blessings. Christ came to us in so many unexpected ways and  grew up to be crowned a humble King of peace. He came not with the power and planning we value so much, but came to challenge that. Faith is a challenge, it is not planned but it is the greatest gift you will get this Christmas. It is love, hope, grace and life everlasting.

The waiting game.

Here we are roughly half way through advent. We are waiting for the coming new life that brings God down to earth to live among us. Our blessed mother seems to take this wait much more graciously than me. I am impatient and by the time I was as pregnant as her, I was chewing at the bit. I wanted to meet this exciting new life I had created. Ahead of the arrival my growing new life was the adventurous unknown, being a beached whale not so much.

Here we are on the cusp of a new life, exciting and unknown. We might know the story of by heart, we might think we know what is coming. However as we wait, reflect and listen each year to the coming Christ child we are different. A whole new years worth of life and experience that affects how we listen and respond to the coming new life. When I was a child I was eager for the arrival of Christ, for the advent calender to end, for the feast to come and ultimately the presents to be opened (one year I even managed a 2am stocking opening after going to midnight Mass). Patience really never has been my strong point. However I have got better at it. While the child deep inside me is still desperate to celebrate, decorate and feast, the adult in me wants the time to go a little slower. I know that the expanse of waiting gives us time to prepare for the coming, for it is never as we expect it. 

We expect the story, the food, the family, the tree and the presents. We now expect God to arrive as a vulnerable child. What we do not expect and sometimes do not even listen to is how this vulnerable child arrives in our lives this Christmas. We need to prepare not just our houses, but our hearts. This time is a blessing, because receiving new life into your life is not always easy. Those of us that have had children know that as amazing and miraculous as this baby in our arms is, it is hard work over the rest of our lifetime to nurture that life. Christ comes to us as a new life, a small child. His arrival in our lives and hearts, is not just that instantaneous moment of joy, it is that hard slog of commitment and work for the rest of our lives. 

There is much vulnerability in the lives around us. There is pain, fear, depression, poverty and wars. How we prepare and listen this advent, effects how we respond to these and how we see Christ in our lives. The Christ child came to give us the most miraculous of gifts and all gifts are best shared. Now in this time, prepare to listen, prepare to respond and be prepared to share the rest of your life with Christ. 

Lightening bolts on Black Friday

There are events in our lives that change us forever. Small moments, that mean we can not go back or even step sideways, we have to go with the flow. They are often events that are unplanned and strike us much like a bolt of lightening. We are left stunned for a moment, then we move into acceptance.
We find the people we will spend our lives with, we will give life to a new human being, we will find something new to do with our lives. Seconds or minutes of our lives that give us a blessing we are thankful for for the rest of our lives. They are not possessions and they can not be bought, yet they have more value than anything you can buy.

Today we have seen stories of fighting for Black Friday deals. People brought down to animal levels to save a few pounds off of a possession.  What makes us willing to scrap over a tv, a computer and toys and yet give up so easily when it comes to fighting for what is right. There is nothing right about fighting another human being for a possession, when there are people who are starving, when people live in fear and can not go home.

Somewhere along the line we decided that owning lots of possessions was what made us someone. We turned ourselves into our computers and stopped talking. We started to believe that self was more important than community.

When Jesus came, he did not come to one but to all. All who wanted to stop and listen. Maybe we should stop and listen. Listen to the disaster that is coming because we can not see beyond ourselves and our needs. Lightening strikes, it changes lives. Maybe we can be a lightening strike in someone's life and make a difference.