Lazarus

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

“Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

“Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said,“Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

- John 11.32-44

Goodbye Ralph.

This morning we scattered some of Ralph's ashes at a field on a familar walk in Chalfont St Giles that Ralph loved. We wanted to remember, celebrate and say goodbye to our baby Ralph. We wanted the send off to be full of life, just as our Ralph was till the very end.

Words will never express how much Dave and I loved Ralph. He wasn't just a dog but our baby, our family. Our lives aren't the same without him. We miss you, Ralph.

Ralph taught us more than we ever taught him. He wasn't a perfect, obedient dog. He was strong-willed, full of energy, and he knew what he wanted. We loved his sense of fun and mischief. He was amazingly clever and resourceful. He could open doors, find lost treasure, and read our minds sometimes. He was cuddly and sweet at times and independent and introverted at others. He was full of character, full of joy and life. 

Ralph loved everything about life. He loved being outside and especially loved the grass and rubbing himself in it. He loved people and other dogs. Every day was a new adventure for Ralph. It was inspiring, uplifting and humbling for us. Personally, Ralph was full of an unbridled joy and love of life that I so often lacked. Nothing phased him - no dog bites or injuries ever made him flinch. He was an anchor for me sometimes. We were so proud of our Ralph.

We are devastated that Ralph, who was only 2 and loved life so much, is now gone, that his life has been cut short. Ralph was doing what he loved most when tragedy struck, playing with his great friend Mishka, exploring and smelling his way around the world, running free. He was happy till the end. He lived a happy life. 

We feel so blessed for the time we had with Ralph, all the memories and stories and lessons we learned. We were blessed to have had him in our lives. Thank you, Ralph. We love you, we miss you, and we say goodbye to you. We will never forget you, and we will always love you. 

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Thank you, God, for our Ralph.

Thank you for the joy he brought us, the lessons he taught us and the time he had with us.

We feel it was far too short, but every day of our adventure with Ralph was such a blessing, and every blessing - every good thing - comes from You.

Thank you for the gift of Ralph, our furry and enthusiastic little friend and companion.

Thank you, God, for our Ralph.

Amen. 

 

Borrowed words

"Lately, he thought a lot about the story Father had told them the night before the trip to Kabul, the old peasant Baba Ayub and the div. Abdullah would find himself on a spot where Pari had once stood, her absence like a smell pushing up from the earth beneath his feet, and his legs would buckle, and his heart would collapse in on itself, and he would long for a swig of the magic potion the div had given Baba Ayub so he too could forget.

But there was no forgetting. Pari hovered, unbidden, at the edge of Abdullah's vision everywhere he went. She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent at the house, silences that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell. Some nights he dreamed that he was in the desert again, alone, surrounded by the mountains, and in the distance a single tiny glint of light flickering on, off, on, off, like a message.

He opened the tea box. They were all there, Pari's feathers, shed from roosters, ducks, pigeons; the peacock feather too. He tossed the yellow feather into the box. One day, he thought.

Hoped."

- 'And the Mountains Echoed', Khaled Hosseini

Memorial

There was a time
When I felt the dust
Your boots kicked up on my skin
And Your voice sang in me
Like a whisper.
But now you hide
Behind dim rooftops and the noise
Inside
And your face is one of many.
There was a time
When Your words were echoes
Of my scribbles in the silence
And my tears fell on Your fingers
Caught and bottled by You.
No more now,
When the rain and the sun soak through me
Drowning out your songs.
I used to see Your blood
In every leaf and tree,
Every smile of a stranger
Shadowing the scream of another,
I smelled Your scent in mine
Back when I loved You.
Now your blood fades into the red
Of lipstick, scars and short dresses,
Wars and wounds worlds away
From nails and sacrifice.
Now you slip through the sand
Of a love with no name
But my own,
A memorial of who I was when
I was Yours.

Living vs. existing

Lightbulb moments are few and far between for me these days. I guess I should be grateful for this one, though it was in truth not just sobering but a deeply unpleasant realisation. 

In a training session today, my colleagues and I were encouraged to brainstorm what we would need to live and not just exist. Our trainer turned over a page on a big flip chart with her pen poised to receive ideas. Within a second - not an exaggeration - a chorus of voices chanted, "Money." It was immediate. Apparently a no-brainer. Little conversations started around me about how important money was, chuckles and eye rolling indicating that everyone needed more money. "So, enough money, then?" our trainer said, writing 'Enough money' down on the flip chart. People laughed. "I never have enough money," was the general bantery consensus, the oh-so-obvious agreement between the group. I was speechless. I had wanted to say 'Purpose' and felt wrong-footed, incredulous.

Within the next few seconds a flurry of responses compounded my feeling. Sleep seemed to be a major contender in the living-not-existing hierarchy of needs. Food was another one. I was relieved when the masses agreed on love, family, friends and social life. Surely relationships are vital in living and not merely existing. But then clothes and make up went on the list. Cigarettes and alcohol followed shortly. When I eventually offered 'purpose' to the trainer, she enthusiastically wrote 'Purpose and occupation' on the board to the tune of a silent and distracted majority. Not necessary to live and not just exist, so it seemed to my contemporaries.

I thought, maybe people are missing something here. Maybe they've misunderstood the question, and instead they're thinking, 'What do we need to exist and survive?' Though then I'd be hard pressed to understand why clothes and make up are necessary. No. I think they were responding to the same question I was.

I have to be honest. It's been a while since I felt how I did this afternoon. The sense of isolation and incredulity that I used to feel when I was in high school, trying to relate to my classmates who would brush away my musings and repeat, "Melanie, you're so deep," or "You think so/too much." I felt wholly different and separate, I couldn't relate to these people who were meant to be my peers. I was taken aback. I felt like they were a different species, to be honest. 

Thus the lightbulb moment, the humbling and sobering realisation. I am not one of them. No matter how hard I try to fit in or understand, how hard I kid myself into believing that I find Christians and churches too churchy and insular, that I'm more at ease with 'the real world' and 'normal people', that I can have a laugh and a joke and fit into their ways of thinking. I am not like them. No matter how hard I try to fit in, I will never be able to honestly accept in the depths of my being that the meaning of life is nothing more than money, clothes, make up, and alcohol. I will never be 'of the world', for as long as I am 'in' it. I will always be sitting there in brainstorming sessions like today's, thinking incredulously, "Purpose, anyone? Legacy? Contributing to society and making a difference to someone other than yourself, for something greater and higher than yourself? No? Okay. Never mind then."   

I realised that I had forgotten this a bit. Taken it for granted. Thought that I was part of this society, this world made up of people who think this way. But I am not. We who have met God an chosen to follow Jesus' footsteps will always be different, marked out, called to and driven by something else. At the end of the day, there's no getting around it.

I have a confession to make. I felt judgmental initially. But in the end, what I feel most is sadness. It makes me sad that some people honestly think that clothes and make up are what makes life worth living. It depresses me that when it comes to the crunch, they think that is what makes them get up in the morning. Those things wouldn't get me through half a day. I feel despair at the ways that lots of people in my generation think, where self-fulfilment is the only lasting motivation. The inevitable consequences of commercialism and a lack of a sense of belonging to something greater than yourself. I couldn't do it. I couldn't live my whole life purely for money, clothes, make up and booze. Could you?

So, all this to say, today I was hit with this realisation: You are different. You're meant to be. Don't kid yourself. You're a Christian. Own it.

The image of God

I have learned a lot about the image of God in my first month as a care assistant for the elderly. Most of the residents suffer from Dementia and are in varying stages of deteroriation. I remember helping to feed some of the residents on my first day, and thinking about what being alive means and what it means to have the image of God. Some of our residents are immobile and don't have the ability to communicate. They are made comfortably in recliner chairs. I remember thinking about how they appeared catatonic, or in a sort of coma. But they had all the bodily functions, and could eat, drink and swallow. They were still very much alive, even though they appeared not to have any mental capacity left.

It made me think about how a human being is still alive after many of the things that we equate with quality of life have left. The ability to speak, to make relationships, to enjoy hobbies, to express one's hopes and dreams. A person stays alive when all of these things that we traditionally equate with personhood fade away. The image of God that is within them - eternal, everlasting - can never be diminished, no matter how much the person is reduced by sickness and old age.

I learned fairly quickly the importance of treating the residents as people with all the glory and worth that they ever had. Everyone has this because of what God has put inside them. So I learned to talk to these residents as though they can hear, as though the characteristics that are so evident in the photos on their bedroom walls, the details of their histories, and stories about how they used to be, are just as evident as they ever were.

A simple but powerful thing.

I see the image of God in people being forgotten here sometimes. All the residents had hopes and dreams and great and ordinary lives. Like you and me. Easy to forget when someone can't hold a conversation and forgets how to walk. But not so easy to forget when you look into their eyes and see the same thing that we all want at the end of the day - to be respected for the light that God has put in each and every one of us. The light that can never be put out.

The fragility of life

On Monday, I started a new job as a care assistant at a care home for the elderly. It has been an exhausting week learning new procedures, faces and names, and realising anew the privilege of being a carer and being part of such a vulnerable and intimate time in individuals' lives.

Today, I also had my first 'episode' in what feels like a very long time. It had been such a long period of stability and contentment that I had wondered whether depression was a distant memory. During these 'episodes', all my thoughts and emotions scramble together like a sudden attack, a chaotic mess of disjointed painful noises overlapping in my mind. I am left wracked and unable to figure out what to do. Lost and alone. Then I come out of it, and have to figure out where to go from there. How to pick myself up again.

The numbness is subsiding as I write. I am now struck by the fragility of life. We go out of our way to ignore it, to pretend it's not there. To go through the motions of life, managing well, self-sufficient and successful. I think it works for the most part. And then something hits. Setbacks. Illness, death, pain. Something happens to throw everything out of kilter, and we realise again that the walls we construct around us are made less of sturdy brick but more of panes of glass, glued together to the best of our abilities, but so easily shattered and torn down by the storms of life. Human beings are so fragile. Our lives are so breakable. I am seeing this more and more every day, especially since returning to nursing and care. I am learning to accept this more and more in myself. Everything could change from one day to the next.

Life is a strange thing. We could lose everything in an instant. Yet we believe and act as though what we have and who we are stands forever. That we are infinite, invincible. An illusion easy to live by.

Many of you will know the Serenity Prayer, famously adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous. The original Serenity Prayer is attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. With no wisdom or conclusions to offer, I end this post with this prayer.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.