Keri's stuff :-)

Blackberries

I was going to write something a couple of days ago about the blackberries.  On my walk to work there are hedgerows with hundreds and thousands of green blackberries (you know what I mean).  Two days ago I found one that had already turned black, and was out of reach of all but the most agile dogs, so I braved the thorns and picked it.  I ate it all the way home.  A little tart, but YUM!  So I was looking forward to ambling home and tasting all the rest of them once the green turned to black in a couple of weeks.  Then, yesterday morning I found a tractor on the walk to work.  Not just any tractor, but one equipped with some great hedge-trimming-beast of a rear end that was chomping its way through the lovely (albeit very overgrown) hedges!  So much for my plans!  Maybe the moral of this story is that I need to appreciate the little I have now?  You don't know what you have until it's gone?  But I did know, and I did appreciate!  So maybe it's just that I should always remember to stop and eat the blackberries before some dirty great tractor gets there before me.  Ah well.  k.

Henry in the shower

For a couple of weeks I have had a companion in the bathroom (there is a drought and a heatwave at the moment in the UK, so "Save water, shower with a friend!" and all that).  Anyway, his name is Henry, and he is a spider with a span as big as Maggie's hand (Maggie is 1) who lives in a hole behind the toilet.  Despite my initial efforts to persuade him that there are better places than a hole behind the toilet to live in, he has remained.  Every morning I see him out of his hole next to the loo, and by way of greeting I tap my foot a couple of times, and by way of answer he runs back into his hole.  This worked fine until yesterday morning, when I tapped my foot, he ran out towards me waving frantically.  Not at all the required response - I thought it a little rude, actually.  However, just to teach him manners (perhaps he is a young spider) I reiterated my greeting with an old toothbrush, which had the desired effect.  But I did wonder if perhaps it was getting nearer the time for Henry to move on.  The trouble is that he is so quick, and I don't have a chance to use any other means to convince him of greener pastures.  

Last night when I got home, I got a big surprise.  Not only had my toothbrush tapping failed to teach Henry manners; it seemed to have made them worse!  He had decided to graduate from a hole next to the toilet (I could have told him there were better places for a spider to live) to my bed!  Talk about cheeky!  Enough is enough, and I decided that Henry's Big Moving Day had arrived.

Without wanting to startle him from his precarious (my word, not his) perch on the duvet, I went and got the biggest glass baking dish I could find from the kitchen (after all, he is a very speedy spider) and, together with a big green bit of plastic, gently persuaded him that a trip to the wilderness (aka the rubbish bags outside) was in order.  Apparently it was, and I closed the door before he could argue with me.  Cheap way to win an argument, but it worked on this occasion. So I hope he's ok, and that someone else, somewhere else has a little more luck with his manners. :-) K 

... case and point ...

So.  Cows.  Staying in the fields where they should be, not in the marshes where they shouldn't be.  Closing gates.  Yeah, all that.  

Yesterday after putting that post up I walked to work, and on the way I encountered cows - but cows in the marshes, not cows in the field.  Someone, somewhere didn't follow the rule, and noone knew any better, so they got out.

They were gone when I went home, so I guess the farmer found them and sorted it all out.  Just a funny coincidence! K. 

Rules about cows

I walk to work through fields and parks, some of which have cattle and horses grazing in them. There are gates to go through, paths to follow and offerings to avoid.  For the sake of the city-dwellers amongst us, let's recap the the unwritten Rule of walking in the country:  "Thou shalt leave a gate as thou foundeth it," (or something).  But every time I wonder whether closing or leaving the gate open is the right thing to do.  Sure, I myself can follow the rule, but what happens if the person before me broke it, and now I'm leaving a gate open that should be closed?  Or closing a gate that some well-intentioned city-dweller shut when the farmer is really about to drive his stock through it?  The success of the Rule hangs in every single person obeying it, at every single instance in time.  (I do realise that in this particular example, two wrongs do make a right, but we're not going to go there today). 

The Rule in this example can at best only maintain; it cannot correct or improve on the status quo.  For correction to come, more information is required: we need to know what the farmer actually intends, and then we can use our gate manipulation abilities in accordance with that intention.  This made me think about rules in general; they do really only work when everyone follows them all the time.  In sixth form in NZ, you don't sit a national exam, it is entirely internally assessed.   Each subject is given a certain number of each grade to award based on the previous year's school certificate results, and these are then allocated based a student's relative standing within the class.  The top three students in biology get 1s, the next eight get 2s etc.  Before very long we realised that the quality or work we did in that 6th form year wasn't going to change the grades that were given out: if we none of us did any work, there would be the same number of 1s and 2s awarded as if we all worked like crazy.  So we discussed the theory of all of us not working, thus getting an easy year at no lasting expense.  Of course it doesn't work like that - all someone has to do then is a little bit more work that the others, and they secure themselves a fantastic grade that they perhaps don't deserve.  These kind of ideas can only work when everyone follows them all the time.  As Yossarian says:

A yellow house

When I was in St Johns, Newfoundland with Chris, we wandered around the battery houses (so called because there are a lot of them close together; think battery hens) on the side of Signal Hill.  These houses are great - they are painted bright colours, and have all kind of ingenious contraptions designed to make living on the side of a cliff possible, if not yet terribly practical.  One of these houses stood out, and not just because it was painted bright yellow.  At the bottom of the staircase was a notice that read: "Never confuse education with intelligence."  A good warning, and one worth further consideration.  We have all met or all know (or can all imagine) people well educated but lacking intelligence. 

  

I think I have a good memory.  I am good at memorising lists of things, strings of numbers, music, etc.  Revising for exams was, for me, predominantly an exercise for the memory.  Other people I know take another approach, that once a concept is understood - properly digested and broken down - then there is no need for further memory, as a problem can be thought through and worked out from the knowledge of the concepts.  While the purpose of this little note today is not to discuss different learning techniques, I am convinced that the better method is the latter - it is better to know well what you are talking about, than to know well what someone else has said on the subject.  This could be an example of the difference between education and intelligence, as intelligence and useful knowledge is only gained by the understanding of concepts; and even though just memorisation may have gained me the higher exam grades, in the long run I am the one worse off.

Once upon a tree ...

... there was a branch, and on the branch were leaves; familiar shaped green leaves.  But the branch was not happy, and the tree was not happy either.  Every summer it watched the trees around it have small buds, which were followed before very long by white flowers.  Then, a little while later, the flowers would wither, but the small green apples underneath them got bigger and bigger and redder and redder.  Soon all kinds of people would come and pick the apples, taking them to make jam, or pies, or just to crunch into on the way home. The tree watched the other apple trees, and all the time wondered, "When will it be my turn?  When will I get the buds and the flowers and the apples? When will people come and enjoy me?".  The tree wondered for a long time - years, in fact - because every spring, its buds didn't come, and every summer, there were no white flowers on its branches, and every autumn noone came to pick apples from it.  Still, every year, the tree wondered, "Perhaps, this year ...", but every year it was disappointed. The tree tried to be cheerful, but underneath it stayed very sad.

One day late in September, a boy and his mother were walking in the shade beneath the trees.  This was a particularly sad time for the tree, as the other trees were covered in apples, but it had already begun to lose its leaves.  The sad tree overheard their conversation as they picked rosy apples off the other trees.  "This is my favourite place, you know," said the boy. 

(The tree could understand that - the fame of the sweet apples had spread far and wide.) 

"But it's not just because of the apples," he continued, "The apples are nice - sweet, juicy and crunchy - but my favourite part is watching the maples turn.  Every single year, they have fantastic colours - the glorious reds, the fabulous yellows and the extravagant oranges - it fills me with such joy to see them.  They are so beautiful; they make me so happy."   The tree looked at its leaves - those familiar, fingered leaves - stretched its branches a little higher, and smiled.  Be who you are -  because there's nothing and no-one quite like you.  Enjoy who you are - because you may be certain that other people do (even if they're not good at telling you)  :-) Just a thought, K. 

Courage

A long time ago I remember riding to church in Howick, and just as I was getting to the bottom of the last hill (and there are quite a few on the way!) I had a thought.  If, as some old proverb tells us, forewarned is forearmed, then prophecy must be the weapon given, and needs to be handled with the same care and skill as any other weapon.  The value of foretelling and the care required in its application is perhaps obvious, and so the simile with a sharp weapon is fitting.  But last week I read a comment which said that the role of the prophet was as much to forth-tell as to fore-tell.  The latter we know; and though I failed to find the former in a dictionary, the explanation given was one that I believe fits.  To forth-tell is to speak into being - to bring forth, to cause to be born, to give rise to, to provide that which was lacking in order that what has been fore-told may occur.

If a thing has two parts necessary for its operation, one cannot be more important than the other, because the lack of either will cause failure.  Take, for an example, air and fuel in your car.  The car will not run without fuel, the fuel will not burn without air, so if anything happens to either supply, the quick jaunt down to the shops does not happen.  Both of them, equally, are important.  Now, as a second example, consider a warrior who is skilled in handling his weapon, coached and fit and ready.  If, in the confrontation where he is needed, he lacks the courage to fight, his cause is as easily defeated as if he had neither skill nor sword.  Remember the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz? 

So, finally I come around to the title of this little idea.  Prophecy has two parts - the inspiration of fore-telling to open the door, and the strengthening of forth-telling to enable us to pass through it.  Encouragement is a soft word that covers a truly vital action: supplying courage to another.  Courage is a tough, strong concept, but somehow encouragement has become something undervalued and weak.    Prophecy is there for our equipping and strengthening, and as well as for our encouragement; what good is strength without courage?  So as a salute to those out there who know how to impart courage to others; thankyou for what you do.  So too, a plea to all the rest to see encouragement for what it is - the giving of something strong and valuable and vital - and to encourage you to see where you might perhaps encourage someone else.  It's amazing the difference a breath of air makes to a fuel ignited; it's amazing how easy it is to give, and how priceless to receive.  How satisfying to see the cowardly lion cowardly no more.  Go on, give it a go.  Find something to say that will build someone up, then stand back and hear them roar.  Just a thought, K.

I want to be fatter

"Do what you can where you are with what you have." Theodore Roosevelt

I've been challenged recently about being fat.  Or, more precicely, about not being fat enough.  Now before any of you make comments that will embarass us both, let me expand a little.  F.A.T - faithful, available and teachable (my apologies - I don't know who said this originally, the acronym is not mine), and I know I need to be fatter.  Teddy said that we can do what we can, where we are with what we have.  When I see a problem, I want to fix it, but my ability to act depends, according to Teddy, on three things.  What can I do?  Where am I? What have I got that could help?  So often in my thinking the bottleneck is that I don't have enough, when perhaps I could be more effective by looking at other aspects of my f.a.t.ness.  Like, what is my position?  Am I positioned so as to be available to help when the need arises, or am I boxed in by my plans and so busy that I forget why I'm here in the first place.  Is busyness getting in the way of business?

Secondly, maybe I need to reasses what I do have and how it could be used.  Faithfulness in the small tasks with the few resouces that I have already been entrusted with is key, before I can possibly do bigger with more.  I need to think more about 'my' meaning relationship, instead of 'my' meaning possession.  The things I call 'mine' are mine only in that I have a relationship to them - my house is the house I live in, not something belonging to me.  Perhaps, then, my time is the time that I live in, and not a thing belonging exclusively to me by right. 

And lastly, I need to be ready to be taught, and to expand what I can do.  There needs to be a relationship between learning and application, but it is a balance, not a tension.  It's not good to have a lot of one at the expense of the other - but it's better to have lots of them both rather than less of either.  Balance, not tension.  Don't take from one to give to the other, just get lots more of both. (cont...)

A little idea

Once upon a time there was an idea.  When the idea was born it was very small, but it was nourished and protected and before very long it began to develop.  When the idea was big enough to think for itself, it asked the man: "What is happening to me?".  The man replied, "You are a little idea, but don't worry, I will make you grow."  And so the idea grew, and a shape emerged.  The idea looked around itself at the world.  It saw many things that were beautiful, and many things that were broken.  It saw joy as well as sadness, and pain and misunderstandings.  "What can I do about the things I see?" it wondered.  "I am just an idea."  But still the idea continued to grow.  A little while later, the idea heard the sounds of people laughing, children singing, and in the distance someone crying out for help.  "How can I answer them?" thought the idea.  "I am just an idea, I have no voice to speak with."  Yet still the idea continued to grow, until at last a day came when the man came to speak to the idea.  "Behold," he said.  "I have made you, I have formed you, you know me and I know you.  You are my creation, my own idea, nourished and fed, sheltered and grown by my own hands.  Now you are grown, you are free."  The idea thought about this for a while.  "Thankyou," it said.  "Thankyou for giving me eyes to see, ears to hear, hands, feet, a mind and a heart to love.  I think that I have an idea of my own."  The man smiled.  "I thought you might," he said.

Communication

I am continually amazed at how many means of communication there are.  Just think - a slight rise in the voice at the end of a sentence means it's a question.  A slight lifting of one side of the mouth shows contempt. When my brother's telling a joke or playing a trick, he purses his lips trying not to smile.  A tiny crease next to the eyes can show amusement.  No to mention the myriad languages, and the range of media from speaking to writing to dancing to singing to art and poetry and mime.  So many methods, so many things that aren't spoken.  Communication apart from words is so crucial that we find it difficult sometimes to tell the true meaning from an email - the 'tone of voice' is missing, so we use emoticons and smileys to try and communicate more richly.

We have to revert to smileys because communication is more what the receiver receives than what the supplier supplies.  It's only what makes it across the great divide (the sar-chasm) between my idea and my friend's opinion that can be called a part of the conversation.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts with words, gestures, smileys even, nothing can cross the breach.  But there can be times when, in a small and seemingly arbitrary event a great deal is communicated.  One example happened to me a few years ago. 

I had an idea in my head for a drawing - something encouraging to show people (at that time, myself mostly) that movement happens: that the things I struggle with now, I will conquer one day.  Though some issues seem huge and towering above me now, one day the view from the top of that cliff with be further and greater because of the height that has been ascended.  To show that when you conquer unbelief, the reward is attaining faith, and so on.  This is what I imagined: (push the read more button below...).