The beauty of this world depends on your flourishing

Am really loving being in Balymoney with my Mum.  One enters a bubble universe in which the garden is the centre of everything.  Garden centres become havens of flowers and soil, which are then replanted in bigger pots, or shady spots perfect for their growth.  My mother is frustrated at how pot bound plants from the garden centre are, roots entangled and repeatedly shows me a victim, tangled roots almost bare of soil as if demonstrating a torture victim for crimes against humanity. 

She takes these cramped life forms and frees them, water, fresh soil are lavished and then she monitors their progress.  Such kindness is only for a certain time. If, after all due care has been shown, a plant does not thrive she makes a call and they get short thrift.  The plants seem to sense they live on the line and put incredible effort into growth and petals. 

I myself have no interest in plant life and routinely kill everything that comes into my sphere.  Not deliberately but by total neglect – even watering.  But living in my Mum’s universe I begin to see the nurturing that is going on every day in a spiritual vein.  All is done to create growth to encourage progress and much effort expended to this end.  Combined with a rigorous monitoring and checking of leaves, soil for new shoots.  Infestations are fought tooth and nail, and minor discolouration of leaves is a major cause of concern.   Even tiny progress is celebrated and the previous wilting specimen that perks up is congratulated and smugly appreciated. 

I enter a world that is totally foreign to me but sense that these rules apply to all aspects of our own life on this planet.  Would that we daily examined ourselves for growth, new shoots, infection etc and were more aware of our soil  and the effect of environment  on the end product, us.  Learned from the day before what leads to the betterment of our soul or to its degradation.  Worked to make an environment for us all that calls out for achievement and excellence.  Consulting honesty on progress made or deterioration in our lives. Because nothing stays still in the garden of our hearts.  We grow and we die, that we cannot change.  But everything in between is up to us.  May this find you not pot bound, free of infestations and filled with the water of life.  The beauty of this world depends on your flourishing, I have no doubt of this.

A salve to their hurts

It was a drawing class and you were excited by your first nude.  The art college had arranged for a sitter and the entire class of art students were ready for this new challenge.  I remember being amused by your description of the reality of that first session.  Into the art room walked a large rumpled middle-aged woman whose flesh folded in creases, varicose veins in abundance, cellulite tricky to catch on paper, puckered like her upper lip.  What a shock you all had from the much-expected smooth pink stained cheek with velvet youthfulness on display.  A real lesson in drawing and in life that day, two hours of detailed depressing preview on aging for those just beginning their youth.

I have happy memories of you sitting on the carpet, leaning against your Dad’s knee as laughter ran out in the home in St Austell.  Family should be like this, I thought all the faces filled with smiles and huge gales of laughter.  More tales shared, music ever present and food, abundant tasty food.  Your Mum weaving everyone together with her smile, letters, visits and love.  Do you remember how she screamed in delight when a son or daughter appeared on the path outside the house.  Arms held wide open as if to greet and thank the universe at this magical spectacle. 

You moved to London and had two jobs.  Even this did not dampen your enthusiasm or serve to exhaust you.  Youthful energy drove you on and when you moved to Northern Ireland with a bunch of friends we delighted in your company.  Having you close by was a treat we took for granted.  Your generosity was constant and how many lovely meals did we have from your hand.  You bought my sons, toddlers, tiny cute judo outfits and they delighted in wrestling you to the ground.  Your home a designer’s dream of grey and chrome and the air full of fresh ideas, business ventures, painting and friends. 

Then your own kids arrived in abundance four bundles of love who gravitated to your side and I remember you lying on the floor covered in small toddlers and babies clinging joyously.  Jostling for the best position.  I watch as you have continued to draw people to you, kindness is such a rare commodity in this world.  So not surprising to find you, even now, years later with a large extended family of friends, neighbours and associates. Your home is fortunately large enough to accommodate all these people. 

I sense the load has grown as of late and the glow of kindness is still there but a price has been paid.  Is it ever so that gentle kindly souls are burdened beyond endurance?  I reckon all of us, on rare good days can cloak ourselves in the array of kindliness and goodwill.  Smiling benevolently at this world, wishing all in it well.  However, certain rare individuals seem to have kindness imprinted to their core, like a stick of rock.  Even when worn down, weary to the core they continue to impart love and service to those around them.  It is such a privilege to know such souls and they remind me of that high standard we should all aspire to.

“Should other peoples and nations be unfaithful to you, show fidelity unto them; should they be unjust towards you, show justice towards them; should they hold aloof from you, attract them to yourselves; should they disclose enmity, be friendly to them; should they poison your lives, sweeten their souls; should they inflict a wound upon you, be a salve to their hurts.”                                     

Baha'i Writings 

Raised Eyebrows and Demented in Dubai

Was in Dubai airport on route for South Africa this summer and, apart from finding Emirates Airways great for providing a plentiful supply of food in the plane,  I discovered that if you have a long lay over (mine was nine hours)  the airline also provides food vouchers.   I took advantage of the vouchers to eat my way through the long night hours at the airport.

 

After looking at all the expensive crap for sale at the airport I gradually grew tired of all this commercial excess. I discovered that in Dubai airport there are free showers in the ladies. Immediately, I hastened to a supermarket to buy toiletries and then spent probably two hours in the shower. Travelling makes you feel so grubby and this was the perfect way to renew body and spirit.

 

Refreshed, I then noticed a weird thing about women's eyebrows in the airport. It may have been tiredness, fatigue can make you see things in an odd way. After all, there is a reason they use sleep deprivation to torture and break people!  Women seemed to have done crazy stuff with their eyebrows here.  They look as if they have been shaven off and then drawn on again in ludicrous positions on their face.  It can be forgiven in the elderly, after all mistakes can happen but this seemed too common and widespread to be explained in terms of creeping senility.  No, this appears to be deliberate.  The eyebrows are square and horizontal as if underlying their brows or shaped like demented brackets over the eyes.

Perhaps this is thought of as an artful way to draw attention to a perceived asset?  The more I encountered the more it felt like every female in the airport had contrived to frighten a tired and sleep deprived Colette.  This was surely the way madness begins.

  

I can remember wandering the corridors of Dubai airport in the early hours finding each weird eyebrow feeling like a physical assault from zombie creatures.  I began to want to scream, “What the Hell is going on!”  Now, well rested and at home I can look back with vague amusement that it disturbed me so much.   

Thoughtful bits

I have no energy to write so I shall merely quote others!

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honour and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech
Stockholm, Sweden
December 10, 1950

“Think about what you thought college would be like, and what you expected yourself to be like. Now look at yourself. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that things totally didn't turn out like you expected. This process will repeat itself ad nauseam throughout your entire life.” 

Adam Savage (Host: Mythbusters): Sarah Lawrence College, NY

“Remember that despair is never the solution. Remember, hatred is never an option. Remember that hope is not a gift given to us, hope is a gift that we give to others." 

Elie Wiesel

Lost in the Trees but grateful

I went to a talk on trees here in Malta this week.  It was interesting to hear and learn about what is happening here and to listen to people from Malta passionate about protecting their environment.  Inspiring to be surrounded by those who really care in a world where it seems so many don’t have time to.  Not, that the rest don’t care, it is just that everyone seems to have more than enough on their own plate as it is.  So I was delighted,  that the room was packed with over a hundred, all there to make their feelings for their environment clear. It was with reluctance I left, slightly early, to make my way home by bus.  Proceeded in the dark, to catch the wrong bus heading not to Sliema and home, but in exactly the opposite direction.    So after a 45-minute bus journey (it always amazes me that on a small island,  picture a square with a side of 12 km, journeys can last so long) the bus came to a halt in the darkness of an isolated village.  The bus driver turned the engine off and then turned to me in the empty bus and said in an exasperated tone,

“Where exactly do you want to go?”

I told him where I wanted to go and he told me that I was an hour from where I should be.  Despair must have filled my face because he was suddenly anxious to help.  I asked if there were taxis anywhere around and was even more disturbed to find that there were none at all.  This was a pickle, indeed. 

He started the engine of the empty bus and told me that he would take me to Rabat and there might be taxis available there.  I was shocked that he would go out of his way, bus and all to take me closer to home.  He dropped me off and I was able to catch another bus homewards.  By this stage, it was dark and the only other person on the bus was a Canadian woman.  We started talking and she turned out to be a financial advisor and photographer from Canada who works from her computer here in Malta for a firm abroad.  A lovely person and we exchanged mobile numbers before we parted.  As I waited for the final bus home another young Maltese teenager told me she was studying for her final exams, she wanted to be a chef.  It was sweet hearing her discuss her plans to have her own restaurant one day.  It is impressive how hopeful young people are and how passionate about their futures.  When you reach my age, finding the right bus home is enough of a major challenge for the day! 

But as I staggered up to my flat exhausted and falling asleep from the long day at work, I was suddenly grateful for it all.  Grateful for the many who came to the Tree meeting, thankful to the benevolent bus driver, happy to meet such warm and likable travellers on a cold lost night and aware that every moment of life is special.  Even the absolutely exhausting ones.

Proof of God in Chairs

It was a small gathering in our home of around a dozen people and the discussion for debate was the existence of God.  My youngest son had become bored with the whole tenor of the conversation and was finding it hard to control his temper.  It is a general rule, I’ve found when discussing religious subjects that if heated arguments develop it is not worth continuing as the outcomes rarely lead to enlightenment.  They usually end with a fall out of hurt and aggrieved feelings.  In my experience it is not wise to tell a friend that their nose is exceptionally large.  It will be taken as truly offensive not an objective assessment.  Worse still if you tell someone their child is misbehaving, they will rise to their loved one’s diffence and hate you for a lifetime.  But on a sliding Richter scale past personal slights, insults to their offspring comes challenging religious views.  These classify as 9.2 on the Richter scale of damage fall out.  Only the foolish, brave or stupid expose themselves to such danger zones. 

So it was with some concern I noted the rising voices and heated tones as the discussion developed.  Susan, a rather large lady was an agnostic and had been belittling the Christian and the Islamic Faiths with some fervour.  How could any sensible person believe such twaddle.  As most of the rest were religious people from a wide range of backgrounds, hackles were not surprisingly rising.  The small flat was packed every seat filled and we had brought in plastic garden chairs.      There is an advantage in uncomfortable seating, visitors are not likely to over stay their welcome.  The quiet Quaker gentleman to her left launched into a detailed metaphysical proof of the existence of God.  Halfway into his piece Susan leant over and sneered

“Who are we kidding here?”

My youngest son, Daniel had had enough.  There was no escape in this tiny flat from such challenges, he just had to endure what came and went.  There were no private spaces to withdraw to and obviously he’d passed his own personal limit of patience.  He asked Susan,

“Do you want me to prove to you the existence of God?”

Coming from an adolescent in obviously bored tones this silenced even the loud Susan.  But not for long she recovered quickly and extending her arm to him said, challengingly,

“The floor is yours!”

Frankly, I was more than a little concerned.  Daniel has many qualities but subtlety was not one of them and I knew we had entered dangerous waters with a rather articulate adolescent thrown in the mix.  He’d had enough of Susan dominating the evening and was determined to put on a good show.  Pushing himself out of the stool in the corner he walked to the middle of the room and looked at everyone around him soberly.  He then dramatically lay flat on his back on the floor and stared at the ceiling in silence.  There was an uncomfortable but dramatic silence in the room and it filled with all the tensions of the religious disputes that had dominated the evening.  Those who had been offended had time in that short silence to nurse their hurts.  It was an angry silence not a nice one.  I wondered what on earth was about to happen.  Suddenly, he stood up and said to Susan,

“The reason you don’t believe in God is because you don’t feel Him.  You are trying to understand Him but you can’t.”

Susan started to speak, but Daniel held up his hand,

“Let me finish”, he advised

“It’s like expecting the chair you are sitting on to understand you.  It can’t because it is only a chair.  So when we try to understand God we are like a chair trying to grasp what a person is.  It is beyond us.  But we like the chair can feel things.”

Susan had been silent long enough and interjected with her sarcastic cry,

What exactly can the chair feel?”

Daniel approached her and pointed to the splayed legs of the plastic chair beneath her and said,

“The chair cannot understand you but it can feel you, look at the way the legs are bending.” 

here he dramatically pointed out the straining plastic to all in the room.  There was a horrible intake of breath as the significance of that remark was digested.  Mute horror followed, but Daniel was in full throttle and took the silence as appreciation of his point.  We all stared in consternation as Susan’s face blushed a crimson colour.  He elaborated,

“It means the chair knows you are sitting on it, well not knows, it feels, responds to your weight, right?”

Susan blinked twice and looked at Daniel with growing discomfort.  He took her silence as agreement,

“So even though the chair cannot grasp what kind of person you are, it knows exactly what weight you are, because it supports you, all of you.”

This was becoming painful in so many ways I cannot begin to bring to life here in print.  Daniel however was well into his Attorney for God’s defence mindset and extremely focussed on the argument in hand.

“So even if we cannot understand God, we might be able, like the chair, to feel Him?  Right?”

Susan sat, appalled by the turn of events and yet like us all, strangely gripped by the theatre of it all.  She was still blushing in her role as the magician’s assistant and not at all sure where this was heading.

I wanted to start serving tea and coffee, or press a fire alarm, anything to break the growing tension in the room but sat as horrified as the rest, spell bound by just how awkward this all was.

Susan for the first time, that evening said nothing, just nodded at Daniel, as if playing along would lesson the present pain.  Then out of the blue came a small voice from Susan, more of a cry than a statement,

“But I cannot feel Him!” She looked at only Daniel and there was a desire there, a genuine desire to be understood.  There was a truth in that cry and my heart missed a beat.  Gone was the aggressive argumentative woman and in her place was a gentle soul, bewildered at the turn of events.

Daniel spoke quietly in response,

“The reason the chair feels you is because it is under you, the reason it can carry the weight is because it bends.  If you want to feel God you must want to be near Him, and you must bend.”

A magical moment in a very long and uncomfortable evening.

blank

I used to have lists of things to do, written on crisp white sheets in a fine jotter.  Then as each job was completed I'd score it off with satisfaction.  A list of accomplishments to mark the passing days.  Being a productive a measure of my purpose in life.  Progress tallied on each fresh page.  but now I spend ages searching for a pen, I had a second ago.  If only I could find my glasses I'd stand a better chance.  My new skill seems to be able to make things disappear instantly.  Vital pieces of paper, phones, purses can all be magically transported.  It's not restricted to material things either.  My thoughts too have begun to delete themselves, like a hard drive wiping out sectors at a whim.  I've begun to doubt myself, forget why I've entered a room and names have evaporated as well.  I am being positive about the whole affair.  I choose to think it is all about reaching a stage of detachment.  Removing oneself from all without and even that within.  Perhaps, I'll come full circle and will end up being the crisp blank sheet I once wrote on.