Love lift us up where we belong

It’s been a challenging month. I’m not going to give a litany of woes, but I have experienced an even wider range of emotions than usual – I don’t recall having felt jealousy before, and I didn’t know I had such loving concern for the dog until he was attacked and hurt. An image that has really helped has been of me curled up asleep in a slightly cupped palm, lifted above all that has been threatening to overwhelm me. I’m pleased with myself – I have mainly stayed focussed on my primary task of loving my children and checking how they’ve been doing. And today things feel more hopeful. It looks as if I will still have paid work in a couple of months, so will be able to pay an increased mortgage (when I sort it).

Last night I reflected for the millionth time what a great decision it was to join One Voice choir – my soul soared as we went through “the storm is passing over” and “lovely day”. For the first time I rehearsed “love lift us up where we belong” and so was reminded that this is what I choose – to be lifted above the fear, by love, to where we all belong.

Parable of the cake

I expect I could write lots of parables about cake. Here’s one to start with.

A girl wanted to make a birthday cake for her Dad. Her Mum wanted to support her, but wasn’t feeling very generous towards the Dad as there was lots of financial anxiety abounding. She showed her daughter a recipe that the mum knew would make a cake but not a very large one. The girl made the cake only she was a bit distracted and used the wrong flour and it came out like a biscuit. She asked to make another and so the mum went out to get new ingredients and a second cake was made using the same recipe but again turned out like a biscuit. A third time the mum went out to buy ingredients and on her return showed her daughter a better recipe requiring double the ingredients. The cake it produced exceeded all expectations and everyone was happy. The girl had it reaffirmed that her mum would do her best to help her realise her dreams. And the mum had learned that generosity always pays, that fear and meanness cost more in the long run.

Empathy

I’m a big fan of empathy and the day I stop feel empathy is a worrying one indeed. It’s not without its pain tho. The worst moments of my life have been when my children have been hurt and I have not been able to protect them from it. To begin to imagine a person’s pain and not be able to alleviate it is so very hard.

I’m glad I’m not God. I’ve said before I don’t believe in an interventionist God, and I wonder what it’s like, when there must be so many people all at once experiencing such devastation - to see those you love feeling despair and doubt and not being able to do anything to help. Does God weep alongside that person? Feel massively frustrated? – or is that not God’s style at all? Does God hope and trust that the person will find inspiration from those around, and that those around will be inspired to do the reassuring and comforting that God can only do through people?

I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s right to trust, to hope, to love and that I may not be able to fix another person’s pain but I can remind them again and again that they are loved beyond measure and that love ALWAYS wins.

I insist?

For months and months I have been trying to encourage someone to do something and tried every tactic I know – encouraging them to look at why they didn’t want to do it and what they were afraid of if they did; reminding them that I believed they could do it; staying in with them whilst they struggled with it.

And then someone with more authority insisted, and they did it. It’s tempting for me to then see this as a failure on my part and review how I do things.  I have wondered whether my desire to be liked has interfered with an ability to insist on something getting done.

But then I remembered what my goal always is, which is about empowerment rather than insistence. Maybe they just needed a nudge from someone with more authority – maybe it isn’t all just down to me, and maybe I don’t need to change how I go about doing things. So no, I didn’t get what I wanted at one level, but maybe that isn’t what matters most.

When parenting, the times I feel happier are when we negotiate what is to happen rather than I say what will happen.  However I’ve noticed that I struggle much more to apply my empowering style as a parent, often I just want and expect the kids to do something. So I seem to do a lot of insisting – but there is often resentment. We sometimes have a discussion as to why I’m insisting on something (usually cos I want to protect them from the harm of too much TV/sugar/hurting one another etc), but mainly I just get cross. So I still have much more to learn, and more patience to find J

Of course it’s a metaphor

When I’m in a generous mood, I sometimes pick up other dog poo that’s been left lying around, whilst I’m picking up my own dog’s. I don’t like doing it AT ALL but feel it means there’s one less bit of poo in the world that my children might wade into (and trying to clean that up is detestable). I much prefer the metaphorical contribution I try to make when I try to help other people with the crap they have going on. It’s not my responsibility, but again if I assist, there’s that little bit less that my kids might encounter.

I realise I have a different take on people and their crap – dog owners who don’t pick up strike me as lazy, arrogant, irresponsible and self centred. You’ll be pleased to know I have more sympathy for people who by not dealing with their own issues means others fall foul of them (ooh I like what I did there!)I guess having UPR means I know we’re all doing our best, and sometimes the stuff we face is so hard that we simply can’t deal with it, we don’t have the resource, the experience, the emotional space or energy. It is still my responsibility and mine alone to look at the crap I’m carrying and not inflict it on those around me. But maybe part of being loved is that people decide to look beyond that when I can’t quite manage it. Shit happens. Here’s hoping the day soon comes when we all take responsibility for it.

Be prepared

I took to heart the Girl Guide Motto and often have about my personage a whole host of potentially useful items. Sadly my wonderful purple coat seems to be reaching the end of its life – maybe I’ve once too often overstuffed its capacious pockets, as I never like to be without snacks, tissues, entertainment for the children as well as the things other women may carry in a handbag such as purse, phone keys etc. Now it’s falling apart at the seams perhaps it’s a cue for me to not worry so much about the “what ifs” and trust that I can be resourceful no matter what. My girly once used some soil at a train station when she needed paint in a hurry – there is always going to be stuff should ever I need it.

However, I’m making a journey tomorrow and snow is forecast. Whilst none of us knows what is ahead, sometimes we can be aware of possibilities and plan accordingly. So I intend to re-stock the glove box that was stripped of its choc supplies in the last unexpected emergency. I’m even thinking of taking a torch, just in case. Sometimes I suspect I hope to ward off disaster by being prepared – if I take action then I can shield myself from future regrets. But we never know do we, what might come next, and I could spend my whole life in a state of anxiety about how I might cope if crisis hits. So I guess I strike a balance – I’ll be sensible, but I also know that no matter what, it’ll be ok (especially if there are Maltesesers…)

Harry Potter

Spoiler Alert!

We’ve had a lot of Harry Potter these last couple of weeks – and it was a bit too much for me at times – I just bawled during the last film – so much loss, and the futility of fighting when we could just be getting on with loving each other, building one another up instead.  But – and here’s the spoiler – I’m sooooooooo pleased that I was right to believe in Severus – none of us can be written off as all bad – all of us have the potential for so much good even when we’ve been hurt and we go around acting as tho we're mean. None of us know what the other person is carrying, what they have been through, what their actual intentions are. We might guess, we might doubt them, we might not like what they’re doing – but the only one we know is ourself and we’re the only one we have any say over.

It’s been a really tough week, the 3 of us trying to come to terms with things we have no control over. But one moment I’m really pleased with was a seemingly rare occurrence of decent parenting amongst all the shouting. I posed the question did we think Harry Potter would have been the same person if his parents had not died? A fab discussion ensued, including a great contribution from my daughter about a paralympian who would not have been so except for her alarm clock not going off one morning. We mulled over parallel universes, and how sometimes we might not wish something had happened but that all we might be able to do is make the best from it, and that that best might actually turn out to be something quite good.

Harry had a lot of love for others and was surrounded by love from others - even those he loved who had left him, he still had that love within him. And it triumphed. ‘Nuff said.