unexpected – Aspirational Adventures

It Should Be This Easy

I’ve just been reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated from the Japanese to English by Polly Barton. It is much more than a book about a serial killer and food. It is a book about misogyny supported by other women, about finding one’s true self, of breaking with the norm; a coming of age book but by someone in their 30s.

But the page I am going to share comes towards the end and it is when Rika’s best friend takes her to an end of Ramadam meal put on to help Japanese people learn about Turkish culture.

It is these two pages where the women read from the pamphlet that stuck me

I’m not sure how well you can read it – maybe photographing pages from a book and editing them with a small dog sleeping in the crook of my arm isn’t the best way of doing it but …. well here it is.

I wasn’t sure where to go with these when I thought of this post last night but knew I wanted to share but then this morning the Vicar I work with phoned me up for a chat about a couple of people we know but then we moved on it trusting God and the importance of knowing one is forgiven and how there are many Christians who don’t fully believe that. As we said this hinders them not just in their Christian walk but in how others perceive Christianity to be.

Now I know this pamphlet the women are reading is about Islam but I think this is what God is like in Christianity too. But like way too many religions how we out work the love of God become a rule rather than a love based.

I’ve missed it off that first page but it is when Rika says “…It is enough if the people who can do it do it ….”

And then on the following page Reiko says,

“… God … won’t take joy or satisfaction in the sight of suffering. Which means, you don’t have to go through everything alone. You don’t have to always be growing as a person. The far more important thing is to just get through every day.”

This is what, I feel, we need to keep remembering as Christians. Firstly that God loves and forgives us, that God doesn’t take joy in our suffering, that we need to remember that God is with us so we don’t have to go it alone. Also that God has put precious friends in our way too so it isn’t just us and God, but us and God and our friends, family, those who support and encourage us with no string attached.

Too often in Churches we see rules – of having to go, of having to be involved, of having to be a part of, of having to pray, of even having to be nice to people, and of having to “grow” in God – when, especially after reading this, I think God wants us just to get through every day – and if possible in peace and knowing we are loved and forgiven.

And as happened with the unexpected phone call, God so often has some unexpected plan to help us on our journey if we are willing to stop striving and be willing to let God lead us – which only comes through trusting and believing.

Curve Balls

So as I told you in my last post I’d been told that I’d been told not to drive. Today I got confirmation that my driving days are over. Thanking God that I had lens replacement surgery 13 years ago and so my vision forward is fine and I can still read and write. But now it is official that I can’t drive again. I’ve been thrown a curve ball

in the sport of baseball, a throw in which the ball curves as it moves towards the player with the bat:

something unexpected and difficult to deal with that changes a situation:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/curveball

I must admit I never knew the baseball term, curve ball, but the other definition is correct. Though really it doesn’t feel difficult to deal with . It just feels something to deal with that is unexpected. Yes it does change my whole situation and make life very different. I will no longer be able to get in the car first thing in the morning and go to a deserted beach. But I do have a friend who used to be a bus driver who is going to help navigate getting to far flung places. The other day I did get the bus to the beach and realised what an advantage there is. I could get off the beach at one place. Walk for a couple of miles and then get on a different bus further a long the beach. I didn’t have to go back to where I’d started and get my car.

I love this quote from Jon Stewart ….

‘the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life,

is that there is no core curriculum.

the entire place is an elective.’

-jon stewart

Found on I don’t have my glasses on ….

I think too often we expect to be able to choose that core curriculum, make those decisions on what we want our life to be. In many self-help books we are told this is what we should do – set goals, make place, know where we want to go or we won’t get there. And ok yes there is some truth in that but I think we always need to be ready for when life takes us off that core curriculum, when an elective is chucked in front of us, when we have to dodge or catch that curve ball. But too often when those things get thrown at us we react badly because it is not what we wanted, not what we think we deserve, not what we think should happen in our lives that we are struggling to control.

So not being able to drive was not my plan for my life at this moment in time, but then, as I explore writing my memoir tales, a lot happened in my life that, even though I let happen, even orchestrated, it wasn’t really what I wanted. The awesome thing now is that I can lean into God, trust God let me know and full believe that they know their plans for me which is to give me a future and a hope – and that hope only comes, I believe, through my trust in them.

At this junction I can choose whether to have hope or whether to be in despair. I choose hope.