think deeply, speak gently, love much, work hard, give freely and be kind

Someone sent me a chain email today - these are things that I usually do not read but on this occasion I did. Here it is reproduced and adapted in to something more 'Sue shaped'!

'The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.
Old age, I decided, is a gift.I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. I sometimes despair over my body, the wrinkles, the stretch marks and the saggy boobs. And often I am taken aback by that older person that lives in my mirror but I don't agonize over those things for long.I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, or my loving family for less grey hair or a flatter tum.
As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've be come my own friend. I no longer chide myself for an impulse buy or for eating a bar of chocolate, or, for that matter drinking an extra glass of port! I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon, before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70s; and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love... I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is a comfortable fit over a curvaceous body, and will splash about in the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the ‘beautiful people’ …they, too, will get old one day.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the import ant things. Yes, over the years my heart has been broken but broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning grey, although you would never know amid the blonde streaks my hairdresser so lovingly put in my hair, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into the lines on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself harshly anymore but I do make myself responsible for my own actions. I've even earned the right to be wrong but not to judge others.

So, to answer your question, I like being older. It has set me free and I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day, buy port and chocolate and trashy novels. I shall think deeply, speak gently, love much, work hard, give freely and be kind.'

Sing for Joy

Copied below is a blog by Ruby Beech. http://www.methodist-presandvp.blogspot.com/

Ruby is the Vice President of the Methodist Conference and, more importantly, one of the people whose life Joy had touched. Joy and her husband Philip used to run a Youth Club and Ruby was 'one of their girls' (Philips words not mine!)

Sunday, 10 February 2008

Sing for Joy
Yesterday morning found me back in Mansfield for the funeral of a wonderful godly woman, Joy Johnson. We had visited her back in October when I went “home” to the Nottingham and Derby District and had a lovely few hours with her. Joy had contracted ovarian cancer in 2005 and eventually this spread with the bone cancer giving her the most pain. She died peacefully on Thursday 31st January.We arrived early at Bridge Street Church and this banner on the wall caught my eye. It seemed so appropriate as Joy had been a music teacher and after having her own children had carried on working with children and young people in churches and schools to spread the Christian message through music.For me Joy and Philip had given real support and encouragement in the early years of my Christian life when I was a teenager. Joy was so calm and so loving, a very special person.The funeral was very moving and many a tear was shed. I found that singing “All for Jesus” was particularly poignant for me. I had not sung it for years and then I had sung it twice in a few weeks – the previous time being at the memorial service for Rob Frost. What a lot I owe to so many people who really gave their all for Jesus.My prayers are with Philip and their children Wesley, Iothe and Matthew and grandchildren Isaac and Seth and all those who mourn this amazing woman who gave her All for Jesus.

Joy...

Joy's life with us drew to completion last night.
She slipped away peacefully about 10pm.

I know that we have no need to fear death and this last event in our lives leads us to something richer...but on the other hand, when we have loved deeply and received love, especially when this love has been lasting, the grief and pain felt is extreme.

'If we live, we live for the Lord;

and if we die, we die for the Lord.

Whether therefore we live or die,

we belong to the Lord.'

Romans 14:8

‘Joy’ to the world…

Joy is my sister and she is dying of cancer. She has lived with cancer for some two and a half years but now has a brain tumour that is inoperable. She has come home to be with her family as she waits to ‘go home’ and be with her Lord. She is one of the most gentle, faithful and gracious people I know.

When we are told that someone we love is terminally ill, thoughts seem to drift to the significant moments of our relationship with them – the times of shared joy and shared pain, the disappointments and the successes, the achingly happy moments as well as the achingly sad.

My happiest moments are the girly chats about our respective lives which would include everything from grumbles about our children and our husbands to giggles about the antics of the various livestock we had as pets - hens, ducks, rabbits, dogs, cats – you name it, between us, we had it.

It was Joy that brought me to faith.
It was Joy who gave me money when I was broke, who gave me tissues when I shed tears, who encouraged me when life was tough, who hugged me when I was lonely.
It was Joy that rejoiced with me when she learnt (3 times!) that she was going to be an Aunty.
It was Joy who danced with me when I was accepted for ordination training.
It was Joy that taught me something of the depth of God’s love for everyone and that where ever love was, then that is where you found God.

The sad moments are those when our relationship was strained…when events of life brought pain and a rift… yet still she reached out, always meeting half way, always offering a way back, always displaying grace in such measure that it was to become my yardstick by which I could begin to understand the measure of God’s love for myself.

And she lies in bed… she tells me that nothing is wasted, even in our brokenness, nothing is wasted and we are to be a blessing to each other…even in this seemingly darkest of times, she lies in bed and once more washes my feet… once more offering me a foretaste of the heavenly banquet waiting for all people…
I held her hand, kissed her forehead fully aware that I was in the presence of God…the pain I feel at moment is deep within my being, both bitter and sweet, sweet and bitter. Bitter because of the loss that is not far away now and yet sweet because of the hope of what is ahead is also not far away now…

Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

In the beginning, darkness...

Last week, Becca and I walked between the Corrymeela Centre in Ballycastle and Ronnie's house just up the road...just a few hundred yards. No problem one would have thought...except it was around 8pm and the sky was pitch black, and it was windy, and we could not see a thing, and we heard strange noises, and we clung onto each other in fear as we took each step up the road....it was scary and I do not mind admitting, I was glad to reach the safety of Ronnie's home because this encounter with the darkness had frightened me. It got me thinking about the darkness and how mostly, we are no longer afraid of the dark because most of us literally do not live in literal darkness in this part of the world anymore. The reverse in fact - we complain because we can no longer see the stars at night because of light pollution.

I have recently be reading a small volume by John Hull, a Professor of Religious Education in the University of Birmingham (In the Beginning There was Darkness SCM 2001) who has totally changed the way I read my Bible and think theologically about 'walking in the light'...you see, John is blind after being sighted and so has had to re-think the world through eyes that no longer see as most of us see and also enter into conversation with the Bible in a new way...God created darkness as well as light and that the darkness was part of the day and is not abolished or separated by the light but that there is a relationship between the two - and God saw that it was good.

As we light Advent candles, I wonder how many of us think of the darkness as being blessed by God as something good and therefore not something that is to be feared.

Handbag!

I was in-between appointments so took the opportunity to walk down Regent Street and into Oxford Street in London where I rubbed shoulders with those, who judging by the bags they were now carrying, had very damaged bank accounts and those, who judging by their behaviour had damaged minds and were finding life difficult to cope with without alcohol or drugs. I walked into a very well known department store and witnessed a young woman buying a handbag...no ordinary handbag, but a Louis Vuitton handbag...a bag for which she paid the equivalent of what would have been for me one months' stipend. I heard her comment on the length of time it took her to save for this purchase, so it was not something that was done on a whim, but something that she had longed for and planned for.

Just around the corner from this department store, there was a street trader selling almost identical bags for a smidgen of the price - fake of course.

It got me thinking about what we were 'selling' in terms of church... do we encourage people to desire the gospel so much that they will hunger for it, putting aside other things in order to grasp it, or, are we so frightened of falling church attendance that we sell the gospel cheaply on the market stall equivalent...

Requiem Mass

My eldest daughter, Katie, came home to stay a while which is normally a time for celebration and gravy dinners, of laughter and shopping, of shared secrets and girlie stuff but not this time. She came home for some TLC because she had just said goodbye to her friend at a requiem mass. Her friend had been diagnosed as having leukaemia and three weeks later, she had died. This was a great shock to Katie, who like many of her generation have been brought up with hospital drama's in which almost everyone gets better, and even if they don't, death is managed and beautiful and everyone gets to say goodbye and make up their differences...but this experience of death was not afforded to Katie who carried guilt about the usual things surrounding death...did I do enough...did I visit enough...if only I had done this, that, the other...and to compound the matter, of all my children, Katie is the one who finds the harder side of life difficult to cope with.

As Katie shared her feelings about the service, even though she was upset, she was clearly able to articulate the difference between this funeral service in which most of those attending were Christians from the Roman tradition, and funerals in which those attending did not have any faith. It left her with a sense of hope as well as a sense that death definitely was not the end.

Yet Katie, a child of the Manse, would not describe herself as a committed Christian...not that she has deliberately chosen to rebel against any form of faith commitment. Again like a great many of her generation, faith is something that has just past her by...become an irrelevance...something that Mum does as a job.
I was struck by the great sense of responsibility that I, you, the rest of Christendom, carry in making faith relevant to the 20-somethings of this world. That is a heavy charge to answer if we fail to do so.

Facebook...

I have been recently introduced to the benefits of the social networking sites which have recently become very popular, and have registered with Facebook. Before I knew it, I was launched into a virtual world where people poked each other, threw hot potatoes at you, super-poked you, spanked you, invited you to cocktail parties and a whole host of other 'virtual' activities, some of which have more merit than others if you get my drift. I have had graffiti written on my wall, been spanked several times (deservedly some would say!) and been contacted by people I had forgotten I ever knew. I now have a large network of virtual friends, who clearly do not require as much attention as the real life versions - just a poke every now and then. I have also been pleasantly surprised and intrigued that my daughters friends want to be my friend too and have quickly been blessed with 'Mummy Sue' as a term of endearment. The downside of this is I am now party to Cyber conversations and learning things about my children and their friends that I would be probably safer not knowing!

I have also been utterly amazed and bewildered at some of the things people will publish about themselves...will they live to regret this in a few years I think to myself, particularly as prospective employers are now frequently using these sites to do a little research on applicants. I guess this is the fast moving IT life we now inhabit and in which we shall all have to learn new rules about.

I wonder if Jesus had this problem when he made friends?

I wonder what the theological equivalent is to a 'super-poke'?

I wonder where cyber space actually is and whether or not there is a cyber heaven and a cyber hell?

I wonder if all this wondering is good for me.....

Swing Low - Shosholoza!

Last night I had dinner with two Methodist students and their partners. Nothing strange about that except that these are pre-ordination students training for ministry in the Methodist Church and I am arranging a placement for them in Cape Town, South Africa, one of the most beautiful countries that I have ever visited - except for Yorkshire of course. These students and their partners are very nice people - kind, gentle folk who mind their p's and q's and will be no trouble what so ever to their placement host.

Now, we all know that there is a very important rugby match coming up on Saturday when England take on South Africa in the finals of the world cup.

Having read what their placement host has to say about the this match, particularly his prediction for the result, I am beginning to wonder about the wisdom of sending such innocents half way across the world in the care of a person who clearly lacks sound judgement. I shall enjoy sending him an England rugby shirt as a gift when we win...just as a reminder!

Happy Birthday!

New life has come to this house....on the 8th October, Dora our Patterdale Terrier, presented us with three puppies:

- Abraham (Abe for short, dark velvety black and a real bruiser),

- Polly (the colour of chocolate, quiet and gentle) and

- Peggy (fat as butter with a dark stripe down her back).

I would just like to wish everyone who shares 8th October as their birthday, many happy returns.

Anyone want a puppy....