For a while, but definitely since the “Unite the Kingdom” marches in London on Saturday, I’ve been wanting to write a post with my thoughts around it. Then this morning I read this great piece by Messy Nessy about the 13 Things they’d found on the internet recently and the first one, the Truth Window, jumped out at me.
A truth window is an opening in a wall surface, created to reveal the layers or components within the wall. A small section of a wall is left unplastered on the interior, and a frame is used to create a window which shows only straw, which makes up the inside of the wall. The possible vulnerability of a truth window to moisture intrusion is sometimes raised as a concern.
For me it is that idea of being able to see what something/someone is made of and this idea of being vulnerable that I found exciting and interesting and much needed. We all need to know what is really going on inside people, inside ourselves, and be willing to be vulnerable both by what we show and what we see. Too often all we see, and all we show, are those outer walls that we have build and thickened and made strong because we think it makes us safe when it is our vulnerability with each other that truly makes us safe and truly makes us united.
I hope as I share on here and on my Substack I show a little of my truth window, my vulnerability. But also I hope I am willing to notice other people’s truth windows and see what they are really made of inside and not what they have plastered themselves over with in the hope of staying hidden and supposedly safe.
I’ve been pondering this overuse of the phrase “we are family” or “our community” or even “finding your tribe” because recently I was hurt by that usage of those phrases expecting more than was to be given. Then we went to see Ben Elton, the comedian, who is a year older than me and on a similar wave length. He went on about how when we were young community meant those people in our location that we had to get on with whether we liked them or not. I would say similar for family – a group of people we are related to by blood that we have to tolerate whether we like them or not.
I have been in churches where there has been great emphasis on “we’re all family” then we move away and that whole connection ends. The same with work families. Once one leaves the connection is gone. It is a business relationship working towards a purpose not that tolerating and supporting relationship. This is fine but we must be careful not to confuse the two.
I was chatting to someone about this and we think it is because everyone is so busy and so disjointed . For instance if I leave a church or work then I get involved with something else then I become too busy with that to keep up the relationships, and those I’ve left behind are too busy too. It isn’t that they don’t like me but they don’t have the time.
These supportive/business transactional relationships are about finding places we feel safe from the others, those who disagree with us, but we’re all so busy we don’t really connect. Yes when we write we say profound things and sometimes we all do share our hearts back and forth. But we are all too busy doing the connecting to have time for the depth too often.
I am blessed with my life at the moment because even though I’m busy it isn’t too structure. I have time to hang out with those small handful of people who I can share my life with, and who also have 2-3 hours or more just to “chew the fat”.
I was lucky to spend 3+ hours with a friend the other day. We talked about loads and both of us as we came to the end said “now I understand what I’ve really been wondering about” and “I’ve change my mind on that point of view”. We have time to challenge each other because we have made time to put in the hours to hang out.
Maybe we need to use different words than community, tribe, family? Or maybe give those words different meanings? If we all listed the groups we are apart of then we could be honest and say things like “I love writing with you one Saturday a month/every Tuesday fortnight” or “I love chatting about Bible stuff and God once a fortnight/once a month” or “I love your regular post on WordPress/Substack/Facebook” then follow it up with “but that’s as far as our relationship goes”. Be honest enough to say “I’ve got lots of other things I love doing and people I love being with and areas of live I want to explore so once every month/week/fortnight/occasionally and only in this specific area”. Perhaps that would let go of the disappointments.
So taking it back to the group where I was hurt it would have been great for the leader to say “it is awesome the things we are sharing over this period together. Make the most of it because I’ve got a busy life and I suspect you have to. You also all live miles apart. Enjoy this but don’t be sad when it finishes because finish it will” would have been much nice than to talk of us all “finding our tribe” and being “family”.
It is a bit like when on the radio a DJ will end a phone call to a random caller by saying “love you, bye”. I think it makes the words “I love you” become trivial too. And I think that’s what is happening with community and family.
Perhaps, if we were honest about the lack of depth in some of these online or business type relationships and groups it would give us all time to find those few special people that we can share deeply with, that know enough about our lives to poke us when we’re out of order, to hold us when we’re hurting and hiding it. I think we all need people we can trust to hold us when we’re trying to hide our hurts but that takes time to get. That is not the same as someone who responds to a blog post or even that we meet on Zoom for a group or even those we meet in groups monthly.
So let’s not get confused with family and tribes and communities and expect them to fulfill our needs. Maybe I’m saying this to myself!!!
And also let’s leave time for our families even when they annoy us, push those buttons, don’t meet our needs. Let’s not forget them in our busyness to replace them with some other online community.
After writing yesterday’s post I got thinking about how this year Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday [or visa versa] and what that could signify or how it could be brought into something tangible.
So yesterday I talked about how Valentine sacrificed himself for love and really that is what Ash Wednesday starts to ask the Christian Church to look at; 40+ days of moving towards and preparing our hearts towards Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. So there is a time of repentance, a time of reflection, a time of being still and just being. I wondered what that would be like in our relationships, especially our married ones.
Do we ever really take time off to repent, to reflect, to just be still as couples? We give flowers, chocolates, cards, presents, go out for meals, have holidays together, but do we really do what is encouraged from Ash Wednesday – and really delve into those relationships?
So concentrating on the Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day connection – how often do we take any regular time out to look at our marriages, to be honest about our marriages, to really repent and really forgive for the hurts we’ve given and received over the however many years we’ve been together?
But then I do wonder if even as Christians we do that whole repenting, pondering, etc stuff of Lent in a superficial way. Or is that just me??
Conwy Beach – October 2021 – 7.35am – taken by myself
I had been planning this blog post in my head for a few days as I am learning how I need a special day when I can honour and remember those who have gone before me. Then Sunday on Facebook was a post from a friend that appeared to be saying that a mutual friend, someone who had supported myself and my husband through a time of grief, had died. Then Monday there was an email from another friend to confirm that this lovely man had had two or three heart attacks on Saturday and had not recovered. It is a reminder that death comes suddenly to anyone and seems poignant that Nigel is the first person I will mention in this post and the most recent to leave this world. He was an amazingly pastoral person. I can still picture him keeping a straight, kind face even as our puppy drank his cup of tea whilst he was praying for us, or crawled on the back of the couch behind him and rolled downwards into his neck. Those are my big memories of Nigel. And even as I pray for his family – wife, children and grandchildren – I can still smile at that memory from nine and a half years ago.
My first death that really affected me was also my first suicide. He was my boss and we went to the funeral as an office group. No one knew why he had taken his own life so we sat with pints on the table and talked of the good things about him, of which there were many. Pat taught me that people are more complicated than the novels I was reading.
My youngest death was a lad whose parents had asked my boyfriend and I, both of us in our 20s, to be the “responsible adults” at Simon’s 18th birthday party. We were very honoured. The next time we saw his parents was 10 days later at Simon’s funeral. At 18 and one day Simon had gone off on his brand new motorbike with a friend and been impaled on a lamp post. He left me with a memory of seizing every moment because of never knowing what is round the corner.
Around this similar time my grandmother died. But I had lost her around twenty years ago when she had endured a major stroke and never really spoken again. With her I learned that grief is complicated and can arise many years after the loss.
My sister’s death was more complicated but that was the relationship her and I had; complicated. But for fifty years of my life she stopped me from being an only child. I miss having a sister though I am not sure I miss her per se. Again a lesson in how complicated relationships are.
I miss my friend, Felicity. Tthe more I delve into my own writing around Welsh Medieval history the more I wish she was still here to read what I was writing. It was with her that I explore historical novels and authors that we both adored.
Our friend, Jon, took his own life just after my sister died. Even though I still have time being cross with him for his decisions I can still laugh at silly dinner party conversations we would share which would drive the rest of those at the table into frustration. One that comes to mind today is of us in fits of giggle talking of how those who built Stonehenge managed to get the stones from Wales by strapping sheep together into fluffy rafts and placing the stones on them to drift across the Bristol Channel.
I cannot end this list of names without mentioning my father-in-law. Another one who chose to take his own life but even still I will remember him as the man who welcomed me into his family, when I started dating his son, knowing that because of my age and that I already had two teenagers I would not be blessing his son with children that would carry on the family name, and of how he publicly called my two teens his grandchildren.
I am not going to list all those that I have lost because there are many and I do not want to forget any. Friends, family, colleagues, and more besides who left this world in many different ways – suicides, heart attack, cancer, accident, old age, and other ways. These today are just a snapshot of my life as well as theirs.
Each person that I have know, those mentioned by name and those not, have affected my life in many different ways, and still do even today. I’ve learned so much from those I’ve known, about life, about myself and more. Even though I grieve for the fact that they have died before me I am grateful that they were in my life for however long or short the relationship, however deep or trivial.
So I will continue to allow people close to me even if it means there could be pain in ending because life and people are too rich to not walk with for however long. This is my post to honour them
Aspirational Adventures 