On emptiness

"And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce." (Soren Kierkegaard) 

For the past few days, I have been overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness. It has been intangible, impossible to put into words. It has been like a shadow hanging over me. Strange that nothingness can have such a domineering presence. It is hard to blog about it now.

Nothing in particular has happened. I have not been ill, or depressed, or in pain. Life is going at a steady pace, rolling by with the every day. There have been no particular tragedies or drama. Things have been ordinary.

Kierkegaard famously said, "The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing." I have been thinking about Kierkegaard. The poet of emptiness.

It is possible to live life unanchored. Drifting. To go along with the current without stopping to think. It is possible to lack connection to anything. To people, to nature, to God. To be empty inside, without thinking of how to fill yourself up. To be incomplete, and to feel it.

Now and then I find myself in this place.

A dear friend of mine came to visit yesterday. In talking to her I realised that for longer than I can remember, I have lacked that sense of connection that allowed me to say: I feel nothing. I feel empty. I feel far from people and far from God. I feel unanchored inside. I feel bored. I said these things to her yesterday. In doing this I realised things I had been insulated from in the vaccum.

The truth is, I lose connection now and then. It is a lonely place to be. It is a place that keeps you alone.

I live a middle-class life. I have a husband, a job, a dog. I love them all. I live in a house that I am happy in. We pursue stability and we have found it. We have friends and a social life. I have hobbies and I engage in them.

I have been looking around and inside myself these past few days. I have been thinking: This is it.

Is this it?

I know what the emptiness inside my soul points to. This isn't it. This can't be it.

"To live is to feel oneself lost," Kierkegaard said. To feel lost is to seek after the One in whom we are found. Without this awareness, we are nothing. We float along the tides of life, seeking the things we think we lack. We look for a house, a car, a job, a salary. We look for comfortable friendships and comfortable relationships. We lose ourselves because we lose what it means to be in debt and in ransom. To be saved by our Maker. To be married to Christ.

As St Augustine put it, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

I know these things are true. But what to do with the knowledge? This is the human condition. We know what to do and yet cannot do it. We realise we are wrong yet cannot save ourselves.

In the vacuum it is hard to reach after Him. It is hard to feel anything or do anything at all.

All I can do is pray for God to help me. And I know He will.

Grief pt. 2

Last night, Dave and I enjoyed a long awaited movie night. We watched 'I Am Legend', a film which I had been wanting to see with Dave for ages and which I had watched for the first time when I was a teenager. My memory of the movie was fuzzy, outside of brief themes and outlines, and the feeling that it was sad and dramatic and amazing.  

There is a scene in 'I Am Legend' when Sam, the lone protagonist's only living companion, a wonderfully loyal German Shepherd, is attacked by the infected while fighting them off her master. Holding her to him in her last moments, the protagonist sees that she, badly wounded and weak, has become infected and is 'turning'. When the transformation becomes complete, a stoic but heartbroken Will Smith is forced to choke Sam to death with an embrace. Sam dies, and without his only friend, he is more alone than ever.

In hindsight, before last night, I did remember that there was a really sad scene in which the protagonist's dog dies. I remembered but I didnt think I might not be able to handle it. But I couldn't, really. I sobbed and sobbed and images and memories of Ralph alive and Ralph in a body bag on that horrible night flooded through me. And for the first time in months, I felt the agony of losing Ralph afresh.  

I wonder when grief ends. A few days ago, my friend found a photo her daughter had taken of Ralph in 2012 and posted it on Facebook. Dave was sad that day. He missed Ralph a lot. I did too, but I felt alright. I didn't feel the stabbing pain. I was able to smile and hold Mika and I remember wondering whether this meant that I was over it all. That even though I thought of Ralph often, wondering what he would do in a certain situation, how he would get on with Mika, I no longer felt the ache of loss. That I wasn't grieving anymore. I wondered if it meant that I was okay now with his death, which left me feeling mildly guilty about moving on too, if I am completely honest.

When does grief end? Last night, I looked at Mika and I held her, and I missed Ralph, his smell and his coat and his wilful, no nonsense nature. I felt the tragedy of it all and how much we had poured our lives into his. I just missed him, and wished I had never taken him out that day.  

I love Mika so much. She is so different from Ralph in every way. I couldn't have asked for a sweeter, more loyal companion. And most of the time, life is full of Mika adventures and the hole Ralph left in my heart is veiled and dull. But maybe some grief never ends. Ralph's death was horrible, unfair, random, tragic, and we loved him. It is right that we should still feel it all sometimes.

Maybe grief will always be this complex, this mysterious. Changing and masking itself in new forms, hiding till it gets forgotten, then reappearing with a vengeance.

And maybe it will be a while before I can watch scenes where dogs die.

An open letter to dog owners of the world

Dear dog owners of the world,

As a fellow dog owner and lover, I expect a semblance of shared experience to exist between us. A feeling of mutual understanding, an unspoken knowledge of the ups and downs, the funnies and not-so-funnies, of having a dog in your life. The rolled eyes and laughter of understanding when a dog jumps up and gets too excited, for example. The knowing nod and smile when a dog strains against your lead to get to a dog on the other side of the field, dragging you along in a clumsy half-run.

I have never disliked going to the vet with my dog. Never have I felt inconvenienced or ashamed. I have enjoyed the experience of getting professional help, meeting friendly receptionists and staff, seeing people smiling at my dog and bonding in silent ways or over pleasant small talk with other dog lovers. Until today.

Fellow dog owners, no one likes to be judged. Especially when you feel like you haven't been given a chance. Maybe you and your canine friend have always been perfect, poised and contained. Maybe you have never needed to train your dog or rein them in, and you have always sat there, graceful, composed and statuesque, with no problems and creases to iron out between you. Maybe. But I doubt it. I doubt very much that you are unlike every other committed dog owner I know, who loves the idiosyncrasies about their dog, adores their strengths and acknowledges their weaknesses, and has to bow to the powers of time and patience and perseverance to get the whole dog-human relationship right. Unless there is a superior canine ownership club that I have not yet heard exists.

This is Mika, dog loving friends.

You may have noticed that Mika is a Staffie. In fact, at the vet today, this seemed like the only thing you could notice. You looked past her excited frenzy from going to the vet, full of smells and other dogs and animals, and the faint trace of treats and food. You looked past her gentle and calm demeanour when she was sitting between my legs, her natural state when settled, looking up at me with those adoring eyes, ready for a rest and a stroke but unable to contain her excitement at this new adventure. You looked past her eagerness to scramble off the lead and towards other dogs to have a smell and say a friendly hello. All you saw was her stout, muscular Staffie body, her occasional protective growl when dogs walked past me, which I tried every time to root out, holding her firmly and safely. All you saw was her strain to get off the lead, and the hyped up headlines full of drummed up hysteria screaming out: "Staffies kill people", "Staffies eat kids", and lots of other tragic tales that are really about abusive, neglectful, irresponsible upbringing and lack of training.

You looked at Mika and you judged her.

Dog owners, I don't know if I need to labour the point that Mika is not a man-eating killing machine. I don't know if you would believe me. I don't know if there is any point telling you that we rescued her from being put down by clearly irresponsible and neglectful owners, from a known rough neighbourhood, who had not speyed or vaccinated or wormed or fleaed Mika. That she is the sweetest, more affectionate, loyal and loving dog, and she has exceeded all our expectations of her. Everything I tell you could be swept away by the arbitrary labels that come with breed. For Mika could have acted the way she had and been a cross breed, as was true with Ralph - who was universally loved and doted on at the vets, despite acting so similar to Mika. If she was a golden retriever or a poodle or a Yorkshire terrier no one would have bat an eyelid. I have seen quite a few yappy and aggressive Yorkshire terriers around this area.

Instead, I was told by two separate people that I had a "handful", and by one incredibly rude and presumptuous lady that she was "terrified". This lady scoffed at me when I told her Mika was fine at home, and when she had entered the vet and looked at Mika the first thing she said, completely unsolicited, was "I'm glad I didn't bring my cat."

At first it was quite fascinating to me, canine fans. Many a time I had sit there with Ralph and I can say with certainty that it was a completely different experience. People did not drag their dogs away from him, for example, or hide them in thinly veiled fear. They saw that he wasn't scary or dangerous - or maybe they just saw that from his colouring and body shape. Not so with Mika.

Fellow dog owners, I am assuming that under the layers of preconceived ideas from the media and hearsay, you remember what it is like to have a dog who needs work. I don't believe that no dog needs work, really. Every dog is learning to be a better companion, and every dog owner is learning to be a better leader. I want to level with you. We have had Mika since Saturday, and we are getting to know her better every day. I believe I have picked up on a few things that we need to work on already, and we will. We will love her and train her and guide her in the best ways we can. And we will see her as she is, with all her flaws and her amazing strengths. For example, Mika likes to sleep in our bed, and she is wonderful at sharing the bed and burrowing under the duvet to give us space. A flaw and a strength!

Friends, I know that Mika's growling is bad and needs to stop, and I know that she can be overexcited, and these are things we have training strategies for. What I don't have a strategy for is that you will judge her before you know her. You will judge her unfairly. That upsets and angers me. I am sick of the fact that Staffies are feared without being given a chance. Because it's bad owners that create 'bad' dogs. Any dog of any breed could become aggressive given enough neglect, abuse and irresponsible ownership. I thought that much was obvious. Maybe it isn't.

In America, pit bulls are arguably the equivalent of Staffies in terms of being the marginalised breed. A dog rescue worker in the documentary 'Shelter Me' states that 90% of the time when pit bulls in America are seen just walking on the streets, they are reported as 'being aggressive'. An awful statistic.

So I end this letter with a request. Please give Staffies a chance. Give every dog a chance. Wipe the slate clean and forget everything that you've heard about how this breed is aggressive and how that breed are known to kill. How this breed should be kept away from kids and that breed should be locked away. Every dog has a different temperament. Every dog can be trained and loved and helped to be the best that it can be. They are dogs, not wolves. Dogs can be domesticated and can live alongside us. That's the way it works. Dog loving friends, as a dog owner, you should really be more knowledgeable about dogs. It's a basic requirement, isn't it?

Yours sincerely,

Mel, lover of all dogs and of Staffies in particular.

2013

I recently received a Christmas card from our dear, dear friends (love you, Listers) with the words: "Your honesty and vulnerability shows great courage." Having a husband who is within blogger fame naturally makes you think about your own blog, what it is, what category it might fall into, and other demographic-related issues - but my friends' words made me think about my blog in a new light. I think my blog is a channel for me to be honest and vulnerable. Nothing more, nothing less. And with that confession in mind, I wanted to write about some of my musings and reflections on 2013, some things I learned and others I struggled to learn. 

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2014!?

Every year I am amazing at the passing of a new year. Time passes so fast, the years and dates roll by, and what once seemed a lifetime away seems to come in the blink of an eye. When I was a kid I used to think of the 00s and dates like 2014 as though there were sci-fi universes full of flying cars and mind-control technology. Yet here we are, at the start of another year, after the rollercoaster of 2013 - coming into a new adventure, so similar from the last year but so pregnant with possibilities. Life goes on - life in all its chaos and pain and beauty and power. We are here to live another day, to grasp the hours with all our might and make the most of it all. A strange mystery and minor miracle, being alive.

This too shall pass

I am 25 years old and this year I think I really came to terms with the fact that I will likely live with depression for the rest of my life. It has been a gradual realisation, calmer and more accepting. Not cynical, not angry, but looking at the world with tempered eyes. It is part of me, like some people struggle with back ache or bone problems. It will come in bouts, peaks and troughs, sometimes brief and sometimes dragging through what seems like endless shadows. Sometimes I will bounce back, every bit the fighter as I always wish I was, and it will quickly feel like none of it happened. But sometimes I will be in the depths, and all that I will see and feel are the waves and the choking. I will feel like life was always like this, and I will wish that life was not life. 

This year I have dipped and risen up many times. It hasn't always been related to circumstances, and it hasn't always felt the same. 2013 was the year when I learned that the depression that is part of me will come and go. It will change in its expressions through time, as I change, and it will pass, it always does. It is part of me. But the dark periods will always end, no matter how prolonged or deep and desperate. Life will bounce back and burst full of joy and beauty, full of normality and peace. There will be rainbows as well as rain. 

This is what I struggle to remember - that my life is more than my depression. That my light and my dark come hand in hand. 

Love and grief 

Our baby dog Ralph was run over a train in November. He died, it was traumatic, and we loved him. This year I learned about grief in a way that I hadn't experienced before. Grief was its own monster, raw and powerful, a master of stealth attack. Sometimes it still grabs me, and the ache in my gut pulses, like it never left. I learned how it feels to lose something you love more than you thought possible, to see their absence in everything, a gaping hole of your regret that you took him to that place at that time, that you didn't do this or say that or give him this. Your nights wondering what might have been. To feel your heart rip in every move, and the tears which burn as they surge out of you but never stop.

I have said this before but I think that you grieve in proportion to the amount that you love. For a while I was scared. There were times when Dave would come home late or he wouldn't answer his phone, and I would be pacing around the house in a frenzied panic and in tears, praying that he hadn't had his life taken by a tragic, unexpected accident. There were moments when I thought that I could never love someone as much as I loved Ralph again if I was ever going to survive this life. But even in those moments, I knew that I would never stop loving. We loved Ralph so much. He was so special to us, and I regret nothing about the love and care we tried to give to him. I wish we had loved him more and given him more. We were blessed to have had him.

I think Dave and I have come to terms with Ralph's death now. If not completely, then almost fully. I think of him often. I miss him. To my hope of heaven I add another hope. One day I will see him again, happy and healthy, made whole. It will be as though none of this ever happened. 

Slow burner

2013 saw me start a new job and move towards what I consider my calling to be. With that has come challenges, a new working environment with new colleagues, a demanding role, and a gradual settling into new team dynamics. It also saw our move to Chalfont St Peter and our deepening of friendships built at church and at small group. I have spent so many hours doubting the point of relationships. Burdens and baggage make trust in people difficult for me. At the start and even middle of this year I thought I would never make 'real' friends. That it was the end for me, and I had had my share of close friendships from the past. Now, I was too broken and busy, too encumbered by social conventions and facades, to invest in a real way in new people. Especially with my history and my health problems. No way. 

I am humbled and a bit ashamed, really. Because we have made friends. Great friends with whom we share the everyday ups and downs of life. I have been honest with them about my story and my struggles, and they are still my friends. They are not 'weird' around me, they have shown me that they love and appreciate me, and they still want to share life with me. 

Looking back, I realise again that I am a slow burner. Only now, 6 months into work, do I feel that I have got to know a few people a bit better and settled into a comfortable dynamic with them. It takes time for me to make friends and to build relationships. What I need is patience and a willingness not to give up. A realisation that the type of friend I want and need is someone who is in it for the long game. It might take longer, but it is worth it.

Make love not war

I have never really been part of a church for longer than 2 years at a time. From the time that I became a Christian at 17, I have moved churches every 1 to 2 years. I have never really felt like I really belonged to a church. I think this has been to my detriment. Many of you will know that I have a anti-institutional bent when it comes to my faith in churches. I have been angry, disillusioned and extremely antagonistic at times to church structures, politics and rules. It has been something which has rocked me to my core, given that Dave is called to be part of the church as a leader. Most of the time these are churches that I would not naturally align myself with, and do not feel a part of as a result.

I am still on this journey. I have so many questions - not just about church and theology but about God and his nature. I am by no means anywhere near resolving most of them. 

But I realised that recently I have mellowed. I no longer feel militantly angry at church and everything that 'they' do. I no longer feel I need to declare war. I have realised that I have met some godly, kind and amazing people who work for and belong to Gold Hill, our current church. I feel humbled by them, loved and affirmed by them, and supported by them in a way that I would never take for granted. I love them.

I feel humbled by my husband and the commitment he has to the church and the people in it. The kindness and grace and godliness he shows by not 'slagging off Christ's bride'. 

Nowadays, I can see the good in an imperfect and broken system, led by imperfect people seeking to follow God's will. I feel like I can align myself with these people, these lovers of Jesus, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I admire them for being better than I could ever be, these brothers and sisters of mine.

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So there. These are some of my thoughts on the second day of this new year. To all of you reading, I wish you every blessing and all my love for 2014. May this year be better than your last, and everything you want it to be! 

'It is not good for man to be alone'

Dave and I are currently doing a marriage course with an organisation called Family Life. Every two weeks or so we go together some material in a book called 'Together'. It has been such a wonderfully helpful and life-affirming experience for us - I highly recommend this to any couples who are looking to build on their marriage, which really is an art!

Last night we had a catch up session with our two amazing leaders. It was one of the best evenings I have had for such a long time. We were able to be honest, trade stories, find wisdom, laugh and seek God together in such an authentic way. We were so blessed by this time.

The topic we worked on was unity in marriage and how to deepen our sense of oneness. As part of the session we looked at Genesis 2:18-25 and God's introduction of Eve into Adam's world.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. 

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

(As an aside, the feminist in me would like to point out a couple of things we learned and discussed before I go on. The Hebrew for 'helper' translates to 'opposite against', an equal who supports the man who needs help. 'Suitable' means 'being like another', matching him and complementary. So the term 'helper' isn't a term to indicate inferiority. The same term is used of the Holy Spirit on occasion. Just wanted to get that out of the way.)

I was really struck by God's reflection, "It is not good for the man to be alone."

We wondered, was Adam happy? Was he lonely? In original creation, before sin and ruin and any sense of the world being broken, when Adam was in perfect unity with the world and God, it is hard to imagine that Adam was deeply discontent or unhappy.

Arguably, Adam wouldn't have known anything else. He wouldn't have known what it was like to not be alone, in charge of the animals with no 'helper suitable for him'. He would have been content in a perfect relationship with and trust in God.

Yet God declares that things are not good, it isn't good for Adam to be alone. God knows Adam better than he knows himself. He knows that he needs someone else.

What struck me beyond all this was that God acknowledges that living with God and without people isn't enough. We are made for relationship with each other. It isn't enough to just be in relationship with God, we must be relating to other people.

But the truth seems to go even further than this - this isn't just true for us, in a world overpopulating and teeming with people to relate to. It was true for Adam, in perfect creation, at peace with himself, the universe and his maker.

People need other people.

When I was younger, and now in my more melancholy moments, I used to think that being a hermit and being at one with God would be enough. That it would be better for me to be alone - it would be a lot less messy and less harmful for other people. As long as I could be with God, in a good, fully open, submitted relationship with him, then that would be enough.

I was challenged by the study last night. Because I realised that God doesn't want that. It wasn't part of His original design. God wants us to be in union with other people. We are not supposed to be alone, no matter how much we are satisfied by Him.

God made us to need Him and to need each other.

And God knows us far better than we know ourselves.

The importance of being earnest

I was having lunch with an amazing lady I know from church this afternoon. We talked a bit about Christmas preparations, Christmas cards, presents, and so on. I mentioned that we liked to write proper messages in all our Christmas cards, rather than the usual "Dear x", "From y" drill.

It got me thinking about honesty. The reason I still write Christmas cards, and cards in general, is that it gives me a chance to do something which I wish I could do more in everyday life - to be honest in telling the person how important they are and how much they mean to me. To be able to thank them and tell them I love them.  Things that we would struggle to say face to face because of social convention or awkwardness. Things that are very true but that we often leave unsaid, to our and others' disadvantage.

When I was sending this lady an email afterwards to thank her for how wonderful she was, I was struck again by how important I think this is. I wish I did it more and more fully. I wish I could be more honest and authentic in the everyday rhythms of my life.

I think for some people, this can be the difference between life and real life. Encouragement is so rare in this unpredictable, uncertain world, full of tragedies and blips. Things are so complicated and the good can be so hard to hold onto.

Dave and I had an argument yesterday. In the course of it he said, "Why didn't you tell me this a week ago? Have you been feeling this way all this time? Why didn't you just tell me about it then?"

Reflecting on this now, I wish I was more honest. I should have been honest about how I felt, rather than keeping it inside, only to ruin. It would have been a step towards overcoming a problem. As in the case of 'thank you's and 'I love you's, I should have been honest in this situation of conflict and misunderstanding. I was afraid it would tear down, but it would have built up.

I guess there is a reason why honesty is disarming. Why the truth can be so affirming and life-giving. Why being authentic is something that most of us strive towards.

So here's to being honest and authentic.

Grief

Grieving is a strange process. Till very recently, I wasn't able to write anything about Ralph because I just didn't have the words. Everything was images and a big ball of memories and emotions that just wouldn't fit into letters and numbers, no matter how hard I tried.

Grief is funny. Some days I am fine and I feel nothing. I am able to go about my day, immune to Ralph's absence, thinking about him without heaviness of feeling. Accepting and living. Other days my mental space is full of Ralph, flooded with memories and ache and loss, and the etetnal ball in my stomach feels sore and raw, leaking tears and longing. There is no warning, no preparation for which times come when. I have to accept that I don't know when I will be 'over it'. When missing my baby will take over from missing my baby. Words fall short.

There is no cure for a hole in your heart and a hole in your life. No matter how many tears I cry, thoughts I conjure and words I say or write, our Ralph is dead. Nothing can bring him back.

All this has got me thinking about how some experiences bind us. Love is one of them. Death is another. I have found that grief is a leveller. Most people have felt it. Most people understand. Most people know what it feels like to have no solution to the black hole and all the things in your life that remind you of it, all the things you just have to learn to live with, until the cup fills up again and time rolls forward.

You grieve in proportion to the degree that you love. And nothing in the world could have made me love Ralph any less. Until a few weeks ago I don't think I had lost someone so close to me. I have lost all my grandparents but I regret to say that I was not that close to them. Not in this way. They were not part of my life like Ralph was. He was part of everything and in everything. Adjusting to life without him feels like starting again.

And I understand grief in a way that I hadn't before now.