Summer Lovin

Summer has been fun ……

Winter is coming, warm socks, merino from ‘House of G’ and many other homely comforts like my grey paisley hoody and matching warm ugg-boots.

But I rage against it. I don’t want to go there. Ahhhh flippin heck. Some of the things I feel or think about, like winter coming, seem very small and unimportant in blog-land-life. But I guess it’s the small things we do that seem to make up the walking of this life that we do. Maybe not writing about the washing but boy if I don’t get a load done (if it gets rained on), I’m frustrated and my day hasn’t gone as completely perfect as I’d hoped.

The small things, however silly or insignificant, do make up this ragamuffin life I’m living. Some of them make up who I am and explain why I’m the way I am. Things like – I need to have the dishes done before I go to bed or out for the day, simply so I don’t have to do it when I get home! Also something about me is I like to get my clothes sorted out for the next day, or for the wedding I’m going too, well inadvance. Mostly just the day before. It makes things run smoothly. Why do I feel the need to write about this? Who knows. It’s what makes me, me.

I love things to look forward too, even a movie. I check movies that are coming up, so that when the girls are away, I can see one. Ma and I saw 18 movies together last year when she would come once a fortnight to visit. What a cracker! I really like the toilet paper rolling down one way, paper closest to the wall. I like my cushions looking tidy on the couch, I don’t care about other peoples mess or tidiness, but I enjoy my own little tidy-habits for me.

A bit more about my summer-lovin:

Swimming – the ease of it for kids and the fun, refreshing release it gives.

Fresh juicy peaches ….. called something like ‘lady coconut’ ….. even the name melts my taste buds.

I’ll miss you summer salads. Eggs, pine nuts, cocktail tomatoes, avo. I’ll miss you all.

My array of skirts, leggings and summer shoes. Jandals and shorts. All that stuff will soon go away.

I won’t miss the sweating or the rain.

I loved going to sledge track – a walking track with water holes along the way, I loved going to Splash planet (Napier) and to Wellington to see an exhibition with the girls and friends for a fun adventure.

I loved waking up seeing blue sky, having my washing dried by lunch time, drinking diet coke and icy cold water. I loved my birthday parties, my brothers coming to visit, growing my virgin garden with success.

It was a good summer. As the wind settles in and the temperature is dropping, I am fearful. Crazy but true. I am fearful for what winter brings – the coldness, the chill around the cold old houses that people live in here (including my own), what the wintry times look like without being able to check via a time machine. Mostly I feel a dual fear. It’s not big but it’s there. What does my future look like – so bright I’ve gotta wear shades? Hmmmm. And how will we survive another cold winter?

I guess the things I loved about last winter are good – crock pot meals, fire wood supplied, long socks, new winter boots, ugg boots no matter how ugly they look. Traditions whether it’s summer or winter.

In these somewhat small and seemingly silly ‘thin places’ of myself, I can wrestle or I can breathe. I can calm myself and my silly ways down and recall that He is with me wherever I am. I hope I can train myself more to hear that still and small voice that whispers sweet nothings in my ear: You are OK. You’re going to be fine. Winter shows the starkness of the trees without leaves, so you can see things more clearly. Winter is fine. I am in the Winter and the Summer. I made them all. I adore you and your funny little ways and I am helping you in all of that.

My friend Anna told me one day many a year ago, to picture where God was for me. Where is he standing near you? Behind, beside, infront? What is His stance – holding your hand, reaching out for you? What is he saying?

He doesn’t just speak when I receive treats in my amazing letter-box (it has a name now amongst my friends when it delivers amazing surprises), He doesn’t just speak when a huge load of firewood arrives. He seems to speak when I’m shifting a whole load of firewood, or when a friend bikes round to help late one night. “I am with you little Sarah”, as the friend works with me showing that I’m not alone.

Funny thing is I didn’t even expect a friend or necessarily even think I needed someone to help. But when they came, spontaneously, it was beautiful.

Notes i've loved to remind me of some important things, again from Joan D Chittister, ‘Scarred by Struggle, transformed by hope.

It is true that the Jesus who lives in us died but did not die. But just as true is the fact that we have all known resurrection in our lives as well. We have been crucified, each of us, one way or another, and been raised up again. What had been bad for us at the time, we now see, was in the end an invitation to rise to new life. The invitation was to a road, we now admit, which we would never have taken ourselves if we had not been forced to travel it. Looking back we know now that this hard road was really the journey that brought us at least one step closer to wholeness in a world in which wholeness can never exist.

Hope is not some kind of delusional optimism to be resorted to because we simply cannot face the hard facts that threaten to swamp our hearts. People do die and leave us. Friends do leave and desert us. …… But through it all, hope remains, nevertheless, a choice.

We can begin to build a new life when death comes. We can reach out to make friends with others rather than curl up, hurt and angry;, waiting for someone to come to us. We can allow ourselves to love again, knowing now that love is a prize that comes in many shapes and forms. We can let go of a finished present so that what is about to happen in the future can begin.

Hope and despair are not opposites. They are cut from the very same cloth, made from the same material, shaped from the very same circumstances. Every life finds itself forced to choose one from the other, one-day at a time, one circumstance after another. The sunflower, that plant which in shadow turns its head relentlessly toward the sun, is the patron saint of those in despair. When darkness descends on the soul, it is time, like the sunflower, to go looking for whatever good thing in life there is that can bring us comfort. Then we need music and hobbies and friends and fun and new thought, not alcohol and wild nights …… The worst thing is to dull rather than displace the pain with the kind of joy or comfort that makes us new. “Give light”, Erasmus wrote,” and the darkness will disappear of itself.”

Despair shapes an attitude of mind. Hope creates a quality of soul. Despair colors the way we look at things, makes us suspicious of the future, makes us negative about the present. Most of all, despair leads us to ignore the very possibilities that could save us, or worse, leads us to want to hurt as we have been hurt ourselves.

Hope on the other hand, takes life on its own terms, knows that whatever happens God lives in it and expects that, whatever its twists and turns, it will ultimately yield its good to those who live it consciously.

Hope sends us dancing around dark corners trusting in a tomorrow we cannot see because of the multiple pasts of life which we cannot forget.

“To turn and to turn”. Shakers hymn

Jacob did not defeat his opponent. He simply survived the struggle. We become what we are, in other words, but we do not do it, in most cases, in any kind of linear progression. We go from one struggle, to another, becoming as we go.

Maori saying: Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall always behind you. Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on inside. It is about becoming open to the God of newness. It is about allowing ourselves to let go of the present, to believe in the future we cannot see but can trust to God.