A Multicoloured Fabric

A Multicoloured Fabric

Another coincidence!  Another of the ‘just-then-the-postman-arrived’ variety!

I was just coming downstairs after publishing last week’s post, ‘The Green Cloth’, when the postman arrived with my mail.  On the first envelope I picked up I saw these words:

 I burst out laughing with delight at this perfectly-timed confirmatory coincidence!  How do such things come about?  Are they arranged?  If so, by whom?  A guardian angel?  The Holy Spirit?  I just don’t know.  But I do know that such little moments of delighted surprise have occurred so often over the years that now each one fills me with awe and joyful gratitude.

On closer inspection I saw that the words meant that the envelope was made of recycled paper – and, no doubt, sceptics would say, “So what?  There are now many such envelopes in circulation.”  But this was the first time I had received one … 

Writing about my vision of the green cloth reminded me of another one, this time of brightly coloured strips of fabric, woven together, as in a kettle-holder I made long ago at primary school!  It came to me as I was trying to find a visual aid for a talk I was to give to teenage members of our church Bible class.  I ‘saw’ an interwoven fabric in which the horizontal warp represented different aspects of human life: happiness, anxiety, joy, sadness, etc.; whilst the vertical weft represented different individual human beings.

I included black because it is almost certain that sooner or later each of us will experience a ‘dark’ period.  This could simply be grief at the loss of a loved one.  But for some it could also be a time of depression or addiction, fear, loneliness or chronic illness etc.  Each person’s ‘life fabric’ would be different, some with very little black, some with a lot.  The brighter colours represent various degrees of well-being and happiness – times of contentment, creativity, confidence, close relationships, and so on.  Some horizontals would affect everyone at the same time, such as war or peace, prosperity or austerity. However, personal reactions to the common situation would differ.

Meanwhile the vertical strips are in separate colours, to emphasise the differences between individuals.  Each is weaving its way over and under whatever horizontals it has to meet – but, I feel, always upwards towards the top, symbolising the soul’s journey towards God, with whom it is always connected – regardless of whether or not its owner has any religious faith!

Now I know that this is far from being a perfect analogy, and I am aware that my agnostic friends would dismiss it as “bonkers”!  However, I want to include it in my blog because I am only too well aware of how easy it is to become depressed and discouraged by the daily news of violence, cruelty, poverty, hunger, natural disasters, climate change, and so on.  Not to mention the present political chaos produced by Brexit!  But each of us can gain comfort and renewed strength by praying for guidance through the present bewildering situation, and for the determination to do something positive to help others every day, in however small a way…   

To end with, here are two of my favourite Bible quotations:

Jesus said: I have told you all this so that in me you may find peace.  In the world you will have trouble.  But courage!  The victory is mine; I have conquered the world.  (John 16, v 33)

Paul wrote: I have been very thoroughly initiated into the human lot with all its ups and downs …        I have strength for anything through Christ who gives me strength.   (Philippians 4, v 12, 13)

The Green Cloth

We believe in The Holy Spirit who is the ‘invisible go-between’ connecting us with God and other people, and making us aware of their needs.                                                  

                                                                                 (St Aidan’s Church, Bamburgh)

The Green Cloth

One gloomy winter afternoon I was due to deliver the church magazine to Mary, a widow in her late seventies.  However, as I had to walk a friend’s dog before darkness fell, I phoned Mary to tell her to expect me a little later than usual.  This she seemed to accept in her normal cheerful way, so I was surprised and concerned when, on my arrival at about half-past four, she said reproachfully, “I was beginning to think you were never coming.”

Looking tearful and exhausted, she led me to her small back room where a coal fire was giving out welcome glowing heat.  “It’s been a bad day,” she sighed, sinking despondently into her armchair. “Last night my best friend Ella passed away.  We’ve been friends since we were in our teens. I was her bridesmaid. Oh, how I’m going to miss her!”

With tears in her eyes she told me the details of Ella’s last illness, and how she and Ella’s husband had stayed with her until the end.

As I listened to this outpouring of sorrow from Ella’s small, lonely, desolate friend, a sudden wave of compassion swept over me- and simultaneously I had a vision of a roll of bright green cloth.

  It was so bright, and somehow insistent, that I gasped and blurted out, “Mary, I don’t know why, but in my mind’s eye I’m seeing the colour green, so vivid that I feel that I just have to tell you about it.”

Astonished, Mary wiped her eyes and sat bolt upright.  “Green!” she exclaimed.  “That was Ella’s favourite colour – so much so that it was a joke between us.  We used to go to Glasgow to shop for clothes.  Her husband would always say, “For goodness sake, get a different colour this time.  I’m fed up seeing you in green!”   But Ella could never resist something green, so when she arrived home he would groan, “Oh, not green again!”

By now Mary had managed a faint smile as she continued to reminisce fondly about the shopping expeditions she and Ella had gone on together, and somehow the atmosphere had changed in that little room.

Where had that consoling vision come from?  I don’t know, but am only grateful that I was able to be instrumental in bringing Mary a tiny degree of comfort in her grief.

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul,

 And sings the song without the words 

And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard

 And wild must be the storm

 That could abash the little bird 

That kept so many warm.

                                   

              I’ve heard it in the strangest land
And on the chillest sea,
Yet never in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.


(Emily Dickinson)

Essays

                                                        Essays

I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.                       (Psalm 16, v 7)

 Meet Michel de Montaigne!  Born in 1533, he was the inventor of the Essay as a literary form.  The word ‘essay’, from the French ‘essayer’, meaning ‘to try’, indicates that the writer is trying to formulate and then express his/her thoughts on a particular subject. 

In 16^th century France a civil war was raging between conventional Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots. There were frequent outbreaks of the deadly plague.  At the age of 38, Montaigne, a qualified lawyer, gave up legal practice and withdrew to his country estate, where he began to write his essays.  As the ‘religious’ war raged on, he found solace and inspiration in his library with his collection of works by famous classical Latin and Greek scholars.  He often wove quotations from Plato, Cicero, etc into his own writing. 

I once visited his chateau, and was thrilled to stand in his splendid library, where the rafters still bore several of his favourite quotations. Before leaving, I took a little memento of my visit by plucking a small sprig of the ivy which was growing wild on the estate.   

That evening there was a little coincidence!  I had carefully wrapped the ivy in wet tissues and placed it in a plastic bag in my suitcase.  Just as I was about to put the book of Essays beside it, I opened the book at random – and was immediately astonished to read a footnote with the English translation of a Latin quotation: ‘The ivy grows best when it grows wild’!

Back at home I planted the ivy beside the low wall in our front garden.  It was not long before the wall was covered in what our family referred to as ”Montaigne’s ivy”. When, twenty years later, I moved to my present home, I took a cutting of it with me. I planted it in a large flowerpot, having wound it round a wire fish which a friend had given me (symbol of the early Christians).  By then I had filled over fifty notebooks with ‘mini essays’, many of them about startling coincidences which I had come to think of as blessings, as ‘spiritual food’.  In writing about them I was trying to assimilate them into my own personal idea of normal everyday life.

Six years after my visit to the chateau, I found myself in a terrible dilemma.  The Scottish teachers’ biggest union, the E.I.S., had declared strike action, trying to force the Government to award us a long-overdue increase in salary.  This was desperately needed if well-qualified graduates were to be attracted to the teaching profession – to the benefit of all pupils.  I remembered only too well how tight our budget had been when Bob and I plus our three children had relied on his salary alone, forcing me back to the classroom two years before we had planned. As a member of the E.I.S. I was obliged to come out on strike - although I hated the idea.

My predicament was made worse by the constant memory of a pair of merry brown eyes!  They had belonged to a little girl who had played the recorder in a children’s music club at the local church. I remembered how they twinkled at me as she happily played a simple tune.  Since then her life had been difficult.  Her father had died very suddenly of a heart attack and her mother had become mentally unstable, with frequent visits to hospital. Now the girl was a teenager, and in one of my French classes, preparing for her Ordinary-Level exam.  She needed a pass in a language as part of her college application form, but I knew that her chance of success was very slim without constant attendance at school.  I could not bear the thought of those brown eyes clouding over with disappointment if she should fail, due to my absence.

What was I to do?  Bob was devoted to his pupils, but was adamant that a strike was now essential.  He was now in his third year of cancer treatment, and I did not want to upset him further by refusing to come out on strike with him.  Day after day I wrestled with my dilemma, praying, “Please God, show me what I should do.”

Then one morning, in the very early hours, I suddenly sat up in bed, knowing that I had been given the answer.  Words from Shakespeare’s Hamlet were ringing in my ears: ‘This above all, to thine own self be true.  It then must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’

Despite everything, I felt a sense of inner peace as I arranged to leave the E.I.S., join another, ‘no-strike’ union, and return to the school…  When, months later, the exam results came out, my brown-eyed pupil had failed by 1% - but on appeal, based on her written classwork, her mark was raised to 50% and I was given the lovely task of telling her the good news!   

Teachers did get a rise in salary, but much damage had been done to personal relationships within the schools.  The whole episode had been extremely traumatic. Never before having been someone to ‘step out of line’, I struggled to justify my decision - to myself.  Once again, I felt the urge to express my thoughts in writing, hoping that by so doing I could then reach a better idea of my own identity. The result was the following – not so much an Essay as a Fable!

“We are agreed, then”, declared the Lynx majestically.  “Meat is what we must have, and Meat we shall get.  No longer will they fob us off with Scraps fit only for their pitiful tame Cats and Dogs.   No! – Creatures such as Ourselves must have Meat”.

He glared at the company of Wolves, Foxes, Bears and Wild Cats assembled in the bleak Winter Landscape beside the old River Bridge. “I take it there are no Questions before we Act.”

“Ahem… if I may speak”, ventured a thin, mangy Urban Fox.  “From my recent forages around the City, there does indeed seem to be a shortage of Meat.”

“Enough!” roared the Lynx.  “You have been deceived!  Of course they have plenty of Meat both for Themselves and for the fat Creatures they keep in their Zoos.  Where is their Respect for Us?”  He growled.  “For far too long they have chosen to ignore Us Powerful Creatures in our own Land.  Alone, one pathetic weak Creature like you, Urban Fox, cannot succeed in finding Meat.  But UNITED, we have Limitless Power.  Look around and consider our cunning Brains, our far-seeing Eyes, our mighty Sinews, our sharp Teeth and Claws.  We will besiege their City and if they do not agree to give us Meat, we will threaten to eat their Children.  Then they will be Forced in their Terror to give us Meat.”

All the Carnivores roared their Approval and began to move towards the Bridge.  There was a sudden flash of Blue.  A small Kingfisher alighted on the Keystone of the Bridge.

“STOP! STAY THERE!” commanded the mighty Lynx.  “Are you Friend or Foe?”  He growled menacingly.  “Are you a SPY?”

“I was perched in yonder Thorn-Tree while you were making your Speech”, replied the Kingfisher calmly. “But I was not Spying.  I was Hunting.  You are all quite right.  Creatures such as you should have proper Respect and proper Meat.  But as for myself, I require a different sort of Food, and I hunt for it in a different way.  I …”

A flash of Blue – a sudden Splash – a flash of Blue and Silver.

“An odd Creature!” growled the Lynx.  “Not one of us.

 Now, Brothers, - Forward as One!”

Light as aFeather

                   Light as a Feather

This painting by a six- year-old girl sums up what I am trying to do in my blog!  In its innocence it tallies with today’s anecdote of a little coincidence which brought me joy. 

The story is about a bubble!

“Ah”, you may be thinking, “She’s in her second childhood and she has ‘lost her marbles’ – so now it’s bubbles!”

Well no, not really - but you can judge for yourself…  At first glance, the story may seem to be of very little substance. Yet it contains the important topic of surrendering one’s own will to God’s will, as in the words in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’.

This is an idea which many secular people – and even many church goers – find totally unacceptable. Often I have heard the response: “Surely we have been given free will!  I make up my own mind about how to live, without recourse to thinking about God – especially as I don’t even know if there is a God!”   If this is your attitude, please temporarily suspend your disbelief!

                  

              As I woke up one Wednesday morning, I remembered with some alarm all the things I had to fit into that day: emergency dental appointment, dog-walking, lunch, French class, shopping, cooking.  Coping with all that was going to be tricky!  To calm myself down I reached for a book which I kept by my bedside: The Sacrament of the Present Moment, by Jean-Paul de Cassade.  Based on the words ‘Thy will be done’, the book is about the joy we can experience if we surrender our own will to God’s will, trying to follow His guidance every moment of the day.  Opening it at random, I read:

‘The only condition necessary for this state of self-surrender is the present moment in which the soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every moment of grace like a floating balloon.’

Being physically somewhat heavy, I chuckled at the thought of my soul floating light as a feather as I made my way downstairs for breakfast.  But it worked!  This image stayed with me, keeping me calm, even when the phone rang just as I was about to set off for the dentist’s surgery.  It was my elder daughter Sally, with a brief message.  She apologised for being too busy to stop for a chat.  (Like mother, like daughter!)  We both laughed as I advised her just to float through the day, ‘light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child’.

Two hours later these words were unexpectedly reinforced by a delightful little coincidence. 

I was hurrying towards my car.  Across the road from me two women were standing chatting.  One of them had a pushchair in which sat a little boy of about eighteen months.  Suddenly, between the three of them and me there appeared a beautiful bubble, floating slowly along the middle of the road.  Astonished, I looked to see where it had come from.  The little boy wasn’t blowing bubbles, and the two women were too engrossed in their conversation.  Nobody else was in sight!

As I gazed at it in awe, laughing with delight at the coincidental timing of its mysterious appearance, the wee boy too caught sight of the lovely bubble as it floated gracefully past, gleaming iridescent in the sunlight.  Staring in wonder, he silently pointed to it with a tiny index finger.  I too pointed towards it, smiling at him as we shared this delightful, innocent little secret.  As I drove off, I waved goodbye and he gave me a tiny wave in return.  Still amazed, I gave thanks for that inspiring ‘moment of grace’ to which we both had responded that morning in Crandleyhill Road.

A Timely Map

        I know who sent the letter – but who sent the map?

Tang Wing and my mother smiled at each other as he carefully passed the baby into her arms.  They could not speak one another’s language, but it was obvious that she loved children and was very keen to give his grandson a cuddle.  He had flown over to Scotland all the way from Hong Kong to see baby James before his parents took him even farther away, to Canada.

Marianne and Alan Lau had been my next-door neighbours for over two years.  Alan, a civil engineer, had found work here in Ayrshire, while Marianne, Tang Wing’s daughter, had worked in a local bank until the birth of their little son. I enjoyed hearing about their earlier life in Hong Kong.  Marianne told me that she was never afraid when a typhoon made her tall building sway.  She would just go to bed and get rocked to sleep!  Alan said that, because of all the high-rise buildings blocking the view, he had never seen a complete rainbow until he came to Scotland.

Now they had decided to move to Canada.  They sold their house and prepared for the long flight over the Atlantic.  But because the new owners wanted to move in immediately, ten days before the Laus’ departure date, I had offered them temporary accommodation.  Fortunately, I had enough room, not only for the couple and their baby but also for Tang Wing, giving him the opportunity to enjoy his family for these few precious days.  One evening we were even joined by another young Chinese couple and their little girl, friends from Hong Kong who now lived in Liverpool.  I relished the sensation of being the only European at my dining- table!  Communication was partly in Cantonese, partly in English and partly in a very basic sign language, especially when my mother paid us a visit, attracted by baby James! 

At the end of this lovely family week Tang Wing had to travel back to Hong Kong, via Glasgow and London. Just as Alan was loading his suitcase into the car boot, in preparation for the drive to Glasgow Airport, the postman arrived.  Amongst the mail was a very unusual envelope, made from some kind of map.  I did not recognise the handwriting on the front.  Inside I discovered a thank you letter from my friend Janet’s daughter Jill, whose wedding I had attended two months before.  She apologised for taking so long to thank me for the wedding present. 

But I was not annoyed in the slightest.  Instead, my jaw was dropping in astonishment as I unfolded the envelope in order to look at the map.  Holding the envelope the correct way up, and reading my name and address in the rectangular space provided, I saw that the map was upside-down.  When I turned it round I read at the top: ‘MAP SHEWING (sic) THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION carried on by the steamers of the PENINSULAR & 0RIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY’. Red lines indicated the various routes taken by the steamers to their destinations, starting from London.  Immediately under my post code was Hong Kong!

  What a marvellously timed coincidence!  I had never seen a ‘map envelope’ before then, and have never seen another one since.  Yet again I had cause to ponder on what I call “The Golden Network” which links us all together in an awesome, mysterious way.

 What had caused Jill to delay writing to me and then post her letter when she did?  I myself have often experienced the guilty feeling that I should have written or telephoned to a friend much sooner than I did.  Something always seemed to prevent me from doing so, something other than mere laziness or fatigue. Yet when the recipient finally got my letter or phone call they often remarked that it had come at a very appropriate time.

Who had thought of making an envelope out of a map?  Why did Jill choose that envelope?  She did not know that I had Chinese visitors.  So many unanswered questions!

All I can think after experiencing such a moment of joyful amazement is ‘Deo gratias‘  (Thank you, God!’)  and then often ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ (‘O Mighty Mystery!’)  Why the Latin?  I don’t know. Probably because I feel in the presence of a greater reality, an awesome presence which I can only sense but am far too small to understand.  I therefore subconsciously choose words which somehow seem more appropriate to the special occasion.  But in this particular instance I was also reminded of the beautiful words in Psalm 139:                                                                                

If I take the wings of the morning                                                                                          and settle at the farthest limits of sea,                                                                                        even there your hand shall lead me,                                                                                    and your right hand shall hold me fast.