Month: November 2020

Tis the start of Advent. Well it is in the Celtic Calendar and I have started my Lean Towards the Light this Advent & Christmas Book Celtic Advent book. Even though this has not yet come up as one of the thoughts in it I felt that over this Advent season was a good time to be looking at the past year. So I’m looking at – Loss – today and I’m going to follow this up in a few days with – Gain – as I journal into what I have gained over this period.

We’ve all experienced lots of loss and change this year. Those “prophetic words” of Rest, Renew, Resore, etc seem a long time ago, and I think many of us rested for a bit and then tried to get on and do. We did not do as the Cormorants do and rest until we are ready to fly again.

I was thinking through what I’d lost this year – my income from Airbnb and from the writing workshops I used to run; with my husband working from home I’ve lost my lunchtimes to just hangout; I’ve lost the volunteer work I used to do up at the Castle (now home to I’m a Celeb); at the begining of lockdown I lost being able to ride, got back in the saddle for August and Sept and then feel off and bruised my ribs; and the plays and productions I used to put on in church, with lockdown starting just as I was bringing together a Psalm Sunday play; I’ve lost out on earning money doing things with local schools, and had 2 paid events that had to be cancelled in June this year; I’ve lost the freedom that comes from the times my husband goes away with friends and when I can get away on writing retreats or visits to friends.

What do these things say to me I thought? What have I lost most of all?

It is the praise. It is someone saying I’ve done well – whether this is from my riding instructor and friends I ride with; from Airbnb guests who give me a good review; from those who attend writing groups who have had a good time and tell me; from the pupils and the staff when I run a fun workshop that we all enjoy; from staff but also visitors at the Castle who would tell me what a good job I’d done. Yes my husband is great at saying thank you for his lunch and supper, but he never notices if I’ve cleaned, and only notices that I’ve made the bed since I hurt my ribs as I need his help. Ok so Airbnb guests didn’t notice that I’d cleaned but they would give a 5 star rating for how clean it was.

I don’t miss the Airbnb, what I miss is the compliments, the telling me I’ve done a good job. I don’t miss the money from the writing workshops whether adults or schools but I do miss the fun I had with the people but also the thank yous. I miss being told I’m good at something, miss achieving, miss that buzz of running a group, of meeting new guests, that nervousness of getting on a horse. I miss the adrenaline buzz.

In journallingthrough this the other day the phrase popped out was “I want something to be bothered about“. But it made me wonder how much we all resist resting and resetting because we have to take stock, rethink, wonder what we have been doing and return to a place of finding what are passion is and what we can “be bothered about.“

So we do need to stop, to think about what we do and why we do it, so that when we do restart we can do so with a passion. So I know I need to be something that will involved that nervous adrenaline buzz. For others it will be something different, but are you willing to stop and ask yourself what is the bottom line of why you do what you?

In 1968 the Bee Gees sang “It’s only words and words are all I have” which made it all sound so simple. But words mean different things to different people. The first holiday my soon-to-be husband I went on showed that. We were in the Peak District and he suggested going for a walk. We had walked before around our home town but those had been to the tea-shop to cake and a long natter. Once in the Peak District his “walk” meant something totally different. What he meant was “all day hike” but myself and my kids were expecting a gentle stroll really.

Here in the UK Wales has just come out of lockdown and England has entered it. One of the big controversies is over “non-essentail good” and how people interpret that. Also what do you see as “essential“?

Garden Centres are still open but bookshops are closed. Supermarkets are open but they have closed off their clothes sections. My florist can’t open her shop but can work from hom. I must say I would have included “car screen wash” until Saturday when I needed some. One man’s non-essential is another man’s essential.

Now take it a stage further – I’ve just read “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge in which she talks about “insitutionalised racism“. I am now reading “God of violence yesterday, God of love today” by Helen Paynter in which she calls institutionalised racism “institutionalised violence“, which is much harder hitting, I believe. Both women are talking about the same thing but using different words. The above examples are of using the same words to mean different things.

So often what we say we don’t mean or we think we know what we mean but don’t have to vocabulary to express it. But also we don’t slow things down enough to either explain what we mean or to ask what is meant by. I would have had a much better time that first walk we did together in the Peak District if I had said “when you say ‘walk’ what do you mean by it?” I believe there would have been less upset if the Government had said what they meant when they said “non-essential” but also I think the media when they recieved the story would have been doing a public service if they had asked “why have you picked these things are non-essential?” and “what do you mean by non-essential?” But no one does. The media made a mountain out of a mole hill and the government stayed quiet. I got upset with my soon-to-be-husband and he got upset with me being upset with him! As we all do when people are upset with us!

I wonder too if Helen Paynter can get away with calling racism violence because she is a white middle class woman talking about God but Reni Eddo-Lodge would not have been able to because she is a black woman talking about her experiences? Sometimes it is as much the speaker as it is the words used that we filter what is said though. So maybe next time we think we’ve heard something maybe we need to be bold enough to ask what the speaker meant by that and also to question the cultural lens we are looking through.