Baa, baa, black sheep

So tonight, I had no wine, instead it had to be the remnants of the ‘Winter Pimms’ from Christmas. Despite being gorgeous, it is potent, so although I should be marking GSCE mocks and writing reports, instead I am feeling moved to pontificate on all things holy and good.

Christmas came and went as it is apt to do and it was wonderful. I’m not using the word ‘wonderful’ in a lazy, meaningless way, it was truly the ‘best’ holiday I have had, perhaps in living memory. I fell in love with life all over again. In many ways, I feel I now understand the language of ‘new birth’ and ‘redemption’ for the very first time…(brace yourself for the cheese) I laughed a lot, drank a lot, eat a lot and slept a lot, but beyond that I found hope in the madness. 

For an exceptionally long time, I have felt like a “woman on the verge of HRT”. Chest pains were becoming the norm as I raged and fumed my way through life. Although kids, housework and teaching can all be draining, it wasn’t these that were making me so unhappy.

To be blunt, the crucial things that kept me awake with silent screams were:

1.     No-one from any church ever came to find out why Vox left the ministry. Of all the church leaders we ever knew, not one had the balls (or the vagina) to have that brutal conversation. To ask the questions that needed to be asked and to poke around with a big stick of love.

2.     No-one from our Christian families ever asked why Vox left the ministry. My mum liked to tell people it was because he didn’t like the idea of doing funerals…who does may I ask?

3.     I began to lose all faith in church leadership and no-one noticed.

4.     I began to lose all faith in God of my youth and no-one noticed

5.     I was trying to imagine what it would look like to raise my children without ‘Presbyterian’ faith, and no-one noticed.

That pretty much sums it all up. Obviously they can all be deconstructed further, but when it came down it, I was angry with an awful lot of people. I was “a’bitchin an a’hollerin” and feeling very let down. Early December, I had reached the point of no return, Quakers seemed like a possible solution.

 Until…Eh…Now I have to say I’m the first to mock, scoff and throw things at people who open the Bible like a lucky dip and choose a treat…

But seriously, one night, I went to bed early and had a little cry. I have kept a Bible beside my bed for years; beside my rabbit’s paw and hockey stick. I can truthfully say I had an uncontrollable urge to read it as I lay sniffing in the darkness. (I should admit at this stage, I never read my Bible, therein being the root of all my problems no doubt).  I couldn’t even bring myself to turn on the light so I downloaded a free flashlight app for my Iphone first (I really did!) so I could read the Bible in the dark.

I prayed before I opened it that if God was listening/ cared/ was real etc he would show me without a doubt. (I am cringing as I type this as it is SO not the sort of stuff I say, I have no language for it all).

I opened and immediately began reading from Ezekial ch 34 v11-16.

‘ I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. …. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

Those words shot through me, it’s so obvious but I felt like it was a massive reassurance that I wasn’t as lost as I thought I was. I have heard the sheep metaphor probably a million times but somehow, that night by the light of my iphone, it was instantly real. Recognisable and exactly what I needed to hear.

It wasn’t the Rev Jim Bob’s job or some other lay worker or friend, to rescue me from the precipice that only sheep seem to find themselves on. The only parties involved are God and I.

I wanted God to find me again, so perhaps that meant I read into those verses what I wanted them to mean, or that I manipulated them out of context. I don’t really care. All I know is I slept well that night and I’m starting to find joy in faith again. I believe God came into my room and held me as I sobbed.  I can’t walk away from it all. I would end up mentally ill, dribbling in a Belfast Health Care Trust (that’s for another day…)

So back to Christmas; I haven’t had an epiphany quite like that in my life before ever. It was my nativity moment. Now I still don’t know what my theology is, I’ll probably never know again. Innocence lost is hard to regain, but I’m hanging in. Rich Mullins’ ‘Hold Me Jesus’ is more than ever the anthem of my life.

I felt at peace this Christmas, I am freed from worrying about the destination of my children’s souls and freed from the rage that I had that responsibility in the first place. I still rage at the plight of thousands in Haiti, my little moment doesn’t answer any of that. I have no answers for why cancer kills three year olds or why some people die lonely and alone. It is all so much bigger than me; we all have different stories, journeys and paths. Who am I to judge?

“I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep or another.’ Ezekial 34 v 22

Infallible truths or comforting metaphor? Either way it’s heavy stuff and I’ll take another look.

Hush, be still…..

So I’m thinking of becoming a Quaker.

Well at least, I’m praying about becoming a Quaker and waiting for the voice of God to speak in a way that He is seemingly inclined to do to Quakers. I’m totally opposed normally to ‘putting fleeces out’ but I have asked God to let me meet a ‘Friend’ if this is a path I should lead. As yet, I’ve held of sending an email to all my colleagues, asking for all their Quaker anecdotes, in the hope that one of them will suddenly ‘out’ themselves over a breaktime scone.

In many ways this whole experience has let me see how incredibly alien churches are. I have read the Northern Ireland Quaker website too many times, but in reality, the thought of just turning up on a Sunday morning, where people  do -who knows what – is currently much too daunting (hence my need for answered prayer.) 

I have ordered some of their books and am going to explore by myself for a while. What I like about their doctrinal basis is their admission that  ”words are not up to the job.”  Here you can browse the page that gives me tingles, and I’m talking a full physiological response. My heart aches with the resonance, I love there is a group of people out there who think like me and have all found each other and have already written the books I have wanted to read for years. 

I have been floundering in a quagmire of doubts; doubts about the big stuff and I have slipped far from my evangelical, reformed, fundamentalist beginnings -dislocating my hips and smashing my face in the process. What fascinates me the most is that there is still room for faith, redemption and hope even when my faith in the infallibility of one book is seemingly gone forever. 

Tomorrow morning, I will get up and go to my Presbyterian service. I’ll be quiet, leaving the singing and swaying to others. I’ll pray, hope and have faith that there is a better way. (for me at least)

Nothing New Under The Sun

I have told six people about this blog, and not that I like to compartmentalize you all, but I particularly love the way you all have varying shades of colour and texture in terms of your faith and morality. “I can sing a rainbow” wouldn’t be in it.

I’m not looking for debate or even any engagement; blogging is an outlet for my own neurosis. It’s exceptionally easy to rant in the privacy of my own home, free from the fear of offending anyone. I can lie to myself; I expect it’s much harder to fool myself when half a dozen people are distant observers.

Rick and I have mused on many an evening, how wonderful it would be to facilitate a group called  ‘In vino veritas’. It would involve lots of interesting people, sitting around, saying very interesting things, drinking wine. Our tongues would dance, our souls would be liberated and an overwhelming sense of The Divine would flood our senses.

My sincerity is mixed with a large dose of facetiousness; the utopian dream is always ruined when we start listing who would want to come? Who still has a social life? Who’s too pretentious or who’s not pretentious enough?

And all too soon, the dream crumbles and we remember that the two of us, me in particular, would be bored listening to people being aroused by their own intelligence.

(I do see the blinding irony that blogging is one big pretentious jolly where I can say as much as I want without interruption; I never tire of my own wit and intelligence.)

Whatever form ‘In Vino Veritas’ would take, it would end up being yet another forum where the same generic characters would take the lead, shape discussion while others were entertained or irritated in equal measure.

Sound familiar?  ‘The old, old story, it is ever new….’

Family ties that bind

I’m not going to drink tonight. My head hurt this morning, forcing me to take two paracetamol while getting the kids their breakfast. Not the best start to the day; my parents then arrived and stayed for seven hours, so really for all my big talk, I’m back to sipping tea and eating ginger snaps. 

My parents rarely stay anywhere for seven hours, life itself exhausts them. The mere fact that they sat in my house, watched movies with my kids and were fed nice food, constituted a busy day. Dad surrendered around 3pm and fell asleep in situ. Mum, on the other hand, all credit to her, successfully taught Daisy how to knit. This has been an ambition of Daisy’s for a long time, so watching her delight, was actually as monumental as that first day of cycling without stabilizers. We’re knitting a scarf for her baby doll; it really is thrilling.

I managed to recover from only two moments of potential meltdown with my parents today. The first arose when Mum was explaining how unfriendly some people are in her new church and I agreed too forcefully, that ‘yes, churches were horrible, painful and difficult places.’ She looked at me mortally wounded, as though she were a puppy that had been kicked into touch. I quickly retreated and laughed it off, passing her another halloween rice krispie bun. 

The other moment was when Vox announced that he didn’t have a problem with ‘The Big Bang’ theory. I nearly swallowed my own tongue in horror  as I heard him justify to Dad, why it was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. As  a child, science books were bad. Dinosaurs never existed. God and God alone created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, 4000 years ago.

Disagreeing with Dad can be greeted in two ways; stoney silence or vicious and irrational personal attack. Today, thankfully, it was the former. Silence: Rick’s profanities hung in the air, fermenting slowly. The character assassination will happen at a later date, but at least for today, we are intact. 

It is odd to have to call a 6 year old into the kitchen and explain the dynamics of a 31 year old struggle, ‘Granda likes to think he is the boss and that is why he is encouraging you to defy me, he wants to know that he holds pre-eminence in the Great Chain of Being.’ She gets it totally, she’s seen me annihilated enough times, to know that a whole array of ugliness lies under the happy families facade. She accepts it though as a reality that can’t be changed and with the blind enthusiasm of a child, disagrees, challenges and argues with him without any of the fear that paralyzes me. 

God help him the day he breaks her spirit, hell hath no fury like a mother scorned!

“Wine is bottled poetry’ -Robert Louis Stevenson

Boxes of red wine, with little taps, are definitely the way forward. 

The thrill of nipping into the kitchen at any given hour and taking as little or as much as I want, is really rather thrilling. I have to confess, if it wasn’t for drink driving laws or the fact I am responsible for two relatively small people, I could be merrier than I should be, more often than not. Everything is better with a little warm glow. Sex, prayer, marking coursework, housework…..

I have no doubt I’d be a better teacher, if every lunch time with my brown Allison bap, I was allowed a quick dram from a hip flask; just enough to dull the pain of boredom but not enough to make me believe I’m the funniest damn teacher to ever walk the corridors. I know my limits.

My mother told me not to trust the ‘devil drink’, she may have had a point. But it’s winter and the nights are long and I need some veritas in my life.

Four Seasons in One Day

Wham, bam, thank you Mam, it’s half term, I’m drinking red wine and thinking it’s time to relight my fire. It’s been too long since I indulged my rants and give them cyberspace. Tonight, I feel suitably confident to climb once more upon this merry horse.

 I’m very much enjoying the most recent offering from The Black Eyed Peas, ‘I got a feeling’ and find myself humming, dancing and strutting through the house, aka the very middle aged  and sweaty Fergie.

Surely Spotify has revolutionized our lives in a way that no other recent technological advancement can boast?

This morning, I admit, only  Westlife would do, as I tidied my room and needed something kid friendly with limited sexual references. Saturday night partying preparations allow for greater hype so Justin’s ‘Sexyback’ is always perfect for giving me the confidence to put on yet another layer of smoky kohl eyeliner.  I would never have bought these songs,  spending money on music always seemed so pointless, there was always something more pressing, more immediate that needed some cash flow. Now, thanks to Spotify, I can listen to all the shite of the day for free. 

To further make my point, my other half recently owed me a massive favour (another story for another time and place) and purchased tickets for the Backstreet Boys, enough money was spent on the tickets, so at least Spotify saves me pissing any more money up the wall as I catch up with their back catalogue for free. 

I can have so many colours and moods in one day, even since I’ve started typing,  I have changed moods and now Greenday is satisfying my demand for something purer, more spiritual and infinitely better. And most gloriously, I have not spent a penny on Itunes; how and why can it be allowed? 

Keep it coming Spotify, I love you- in vino veritas! X