Diary of a Pandemic - Day 11# -Hugs

In the 90’s when I was chaplain at a tertiary education institute, the Student Services team and I decided to offer a ‘Hug Day’ to lift people’s spirits in the middle of a dreary winter. After first asking permission of course, posters were put up and fliers sent out, with pictures from Kathryn Keating’s  ‘A Little Book of Hugs’ showing two polar bears  in a whole range of hugs, from the intimate hug on the book cover to the ‘A’ frame hug, the ‘side-on’ hug and so on. People had plenty of guidance about what was and wasn’t okay, and, for a day, there was a lot of laughter and appropriate, consented hugging – it was a hug[e] emotional boost!

But now in 2020, with Covid-19 spreading, many of us are having to practice physical distancing and can only hug those in our bubble, unless our bubble-mates struggle to share touch, or avoid close physical contact because of earlier trauma or cultural conditioning. And, if we’re on our own, having a pet can help fill that need for close contact, but not everyone is in that position. What do we do if we’ve no-one to hug?

We can use our sanctified imagination. While some may be wary of the imagination I think it’s fair to say that we’re already seeing the positive fruit of the imagination of musicians, songwriters, poets, comedians, artisans and ‘ordinary’ people within their four walls, as they create resources to lighten the global mood a little, while we bob along on these seas of uncertainty.  

So, if you’d like to give this a go, let me ‘talk’ you through this imaginative hugging process.

Find a time and a place where you’re not going to be disturbed. [ put your phone on mute!]

Choose a favourite pillow or large cushion. Take a few slow, deep breaths.

Invite the Loving Presence to be with you.

As you hold your pillow/cushion in your arms, think of someone with whom you feel completely safe or who lifts your spirit. It may be an absent partner or a child, an old friend, or even Jesus.

Close your eyes and imagine that person is here with you now … gently draw the pillow/cushion nearer until it is comfortably close … hug for as long as you like. You may even want to dance …  speak … or sing … or just be quiet, resting in the knowledge that you are loved, and held and secure.

When you are ready, take a few deep breaths and open your eyes. Spend a little time in quiet reflection before re-engaging with your surroundings.

You may even like to write something about this experience – or share it with someone whom you trust.

May you know you are held in the love of God – always.

Diary of a Pandemic: day 5# - framing and reframing

Many of us may be struggling to adjust to the 'stay-home' orders,  introduced as a measure to restrict the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Apart from the super-elderly who have lived through war-time deprivation, it's the first time we've experienced anything remotely like this  - and naturally there are different responses and different ways of naming what's going on by those in authority who are asking their people to co-operate in a desperate effort to slow down or even stop the disease's shadow covering the earth.

What do we make of the terms being used in media and common conversation [held at a safe distance or over the phone/device of course]; terms like being in 'lockdown', 'quarantine','confinement'?

I don't know about you but initially the terms all raised my anxiety as I went to my unfortunately common default setting of imagining  'worse case scenarios' and thought of non-compliance being met with  potential violence, large-scale sequestering of the sick , and solitary confinement being used as a punishment!

But, in Psalm 73 - today's Psalm - we see how easy it is to be overwhelmed if we let ourselves think only of the negative connotations - even if evolutionary biologists might say we're hard-wired to react and respond to risk to enable the species to survive. It's only when the psalmist 'goes into the sanctuary' of his well-established relationship with a faithful God, that he gleans some perspective and can begin to see that there is another way of framing things that can be life-giving.

Another way of framing things.

Lock-down - words like security, safety, and focus come to mind; a time when it's possible to draw aside from the 'madding crowd' for a season, to 'pull up the drawbridge'  and reconnect with ourselves, with others [on the internet or with physical distancing], with creation and with our God.
Welsh poet William.H.Davies wrote these lines to open his poem Leisure [1911]:
               What is this world if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'
Well, now we have the time to stand and contemplate what is around us and what is within us.

Quarantine can speak to us of protecting ourselves not just from a nasty virus, but from anything that can undermine or even poison our well-being.
Do we really want to binge on box-sets of violent TV dramas until this situation eases?
Does watching non-stop updates about the spread of Covid-19 soothe our soul or deepen our anxiety even further?

Confinement in common current usage is associated with limiting freedom in some way. But in many cultures it used to refer to the period [sometimes up to 30 or 40 days] during which a woman and her baby recovered from child-birth, established feeding and were cared for by those closest to her. How many of us are secretly breathing a sigh of relief that we can legitimately step back from the hectic pace of modern life, take better care of ourselves, and deepen our relationship with those with whom we share this extraordinary time.

Even though it's thrown us all, maybe  there's an invitation to us to see this unexpected and unprecedented event in our personal and global history  as a period of gestation with huge potential to give birth to what has been growing within us for a long time - a reclaiming of who we really are, what and whom we really love, and a re-examination of who we think God is.s

Then, when we emerge we will bring with us a different way of seeing, a  readiness to continue to spend quality time with God 'in the sanctuary'of our hearts, and good news for all of creation.

Diary of a pandemic - day 2# NZ lockdown

I have nothing profound to say.

There are countless others with words that seem wise, but my mind needs to empty a little bit, stem the onslaught of statistics and stories and dis-ease modelling and 'what if's' and create some space for stillness. 

I am sitting upstairs in my writing spot with a tall kauri tree outside my window, watching it wave in the breeze. It is older than I am, a home to trilling tui, fantails, clumsy kereru, the occasional tiny grey warbler and sparrows. We will become better acquainted in the weeks ahead as I listen to them sing, and see them sit safely on the branches outside, a world away. 

Like it or not, I'm one of the 'vulnerable' - in my early 70's - it's a stark reality for many of us who don't consider ourselves 'old' that we're among those who may be most affected by the invisible menace which has already irrevocably changed so many lives around the globe. 

But it's time to pull my mind back from the thought of so much suffering and focus on the moment for that is all I have, all any of us has, this precious moment in which we live and breathe.

I look outside: the pavements are empty - no children from the local childcare centre walk in wobbly pairs down the road, high-viz vests barely containing their energy; no people hurry between businesses or doctors' rooms and pharmacy. Far fewer cars and only the occasional truck goes past - somehow they seem quieter, slower than usual.

There are moments of absolute silence, so unusual for a city street.
Within the space of that silence my mind moves to the words of 14th century anchorite and mystic, Julian of Norwich:
        All shall be well, and all shall be well and 
        all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian could only say this in the midst of hard times because she knew God's presence and love, and trusted that we are all held by a love that will not let us go.

May I hold onto this when I feel overwhelmed or anxious.
May we all come to that place of deep confidence and improbable peace no matter what lies ahead.

Balance ...

taken by Sue Pickering 2004

We visited this neolithic monument  Pentre Ifan, in Wales in 2004 and since then it has often reminded me about balance, particularly as I've tried to do justice to the various people and things that matter to me, and to express what I am called to do or be over the years.
But as I age the picture has begun to speak  to me about the precarious nature of life: as our planet struggles to survive, as friends become unwell and die, and as my own capacity to do what I've always done diminishes. It would be easy to despair - to allow it all to overwhelm me as I attend or conduct yet another funeral for a someone special,  as I watch the increasingly urgent calls for climate action, as I look at my 1 yr old  grandson and wonder about his future, and as I try to extricate myself from the expectations of others and of myself. 

Today though, as I was reflecting again on this picture, a new perspective of Pentre Ifan emerged, a way of looking that  has to do with being upheld by the three Persons of the Holy Trinity :
Lover, Beloved and Love itself holding me - holding each one of us - with perfect poise and deep strength from everlasting to everlasting.

And that brings me hope - may it bring you hope too.

Rock pool revelation

I hadn't intended to go down to the rock pools
but a basket of time arrived like a gift
which I received with welcoming hands

like a child
I walked from rock to rock
not 7  or 17 anymore but 71
so more aware
of the need for care
and relieved to reach
the exposed beach
and the pools
that called me in my youth
and call me still
to be
still...


it's far too easy to glimpse,
it's far too easy to glance
and then rush on
instead of settling and letting
the shadows clear and
the depths reveal themselves
as eyes adjust to the slanted light

and then it will happen ...
the slightest movement will catch our attention
and draw us to the path of a tiny cat's eye snail;
a curve of kelp will waft away
and show the kina,* shiny-spined,
cramped in a crevice;
a glass shrimp's antennae will dance to and fro;
and hormosira banksii - a name from my youth -
will offer its brown beads for popping!

be called
be still
look into the wondrous rock pool
of your own inner being
and let yourself find and be found by
the One who made you.

* kina - the Maori word for sea urchin

INSTEAD OF GOING TO A MEETING

Instead of going to a meeting
I bring in the washing:
sun-warmed, 
wind-freshened
smelling of possibilities. 


Instead of going to a meeting
I pick silver-beet
satisfyingly squeaky,
grown in deep soil
just as I am, 
just as we are.



Instead of going to a meeting
I gather camellias
old-style-speckled with deepest of pinks
and pale, white petal blush,
beautiful, vulnerable
just as we are, 
just as God is.



Instead of going to a meeting
I begin a new life …

a little moth

Years ago while I was studying in the UK for a year, we went as a family to a nearby stately home
in Kent. I was grieving for my mum who'd died a few months earlier and I was missing my young cat
whom we'd had to leave behind. I was full up with the home's information and objets d'art, when  
something touched me to the core and days later prompted my very first attempt at 
writing a poem - here's a portion of it:
         

          I came across another cat
          curled in silent, sunlit sleep.
          Tabby and white and warm,
          her fur invited my touch.
          I could not hold back 
          My hand reached out 
          For God was gently lying there
          Beneath my longing hand.

I remember it so clearly because I felt quite shocked at what I'd written -  and 
initially if I shared it with anyone I'd replace 'God' with 'Love' - until I accepted  
that what I'd written in the first place was the truth for me: it was the first time 
I had seriously considered what 'God being present in all things' could look like in 
everyday life; it was the first time I experienced the Spirit enabling me to recognise
the Loving Presence in other living, breathing creatures - if I knew how to look!

Since then a lot of my time and work has been focused on helping others recognise 
God in the everyday and every so often a new glimpse of this truth comes to me 
like a 'top-up' to remind me that no matter our circumstances God can reach us. 

One such reminder came late in the evening a week ago, when  I was sitting on the bare floor of my beloved's study, overwhelmed by the mess around me. He'd decided quite late in the day to remove some decrepit carpet and replace it with some  'rescued' carpet which he'd had waiting in the garage for a rainy day! Our bed and bedroom was heaped with books and boxes, there was dust everywhere and I was physically sore after trying to lift and shift heavy items until the floor space was clean. I would have gone to bed if I'd been able to climb in!

I sat on the floor for a while as he went to find a piece of equipment. In that quiet moment I noticed a fluttering against the lamp shade, and then, as I watched, a small moth - about 2cm in wingspan settled on the heavy desk beside me. I glanced at it, and then I looked again - checking for its feathered antennae [the only thing I know about moths] and then I REALLY looked at it, letting its beautiful simplicity seep into my soul.

Its velvet brown upper wings and subtle orange lower wings, were delicately marked and spread ready to take off again into the evening. I was thankful that I slowed down long enough to notice its  surprising beauty, because it brought a measure of calm to my frazzled soul and energized me sufficiently to help my mate when he got back. It felt like a little gift from God - just what I needed when I needed it! 

The beautiful moth's presence reminded me of a line in Alana Levandoski's  Christ hymn. In this graced blend of word and music, upheld by Alana's chant, four poets explore Colossians 1:17 : 'He[Christ] is before all things and in him all things hold together.' 
One poet, taking as her starting point a drive along a Californian highway, highlights Love's imprint on every aspect of creation : 
          'even the small soft moth on the window of the rest area's dingy                         wash-room, unaware of our existence,  its russet wings traced with                   intricacies of grey, owns an intrinsic excellence'.  
[You might want to listen to the whole chant yourself; you'll find it on on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGe5wJBDjoo.]

If we stop to 'take a long, loving look at the real' as Jesuit Walter Burghardt said, 
we make ourselves available to God's Spirit of creative communication and we are 
so often blessed as a result.

Tabby cat? A flight of birds? A wrinkled hand on an elderly man? A snatch of music?
How will God reveal more of God's Being to you today?
And will you be still enough for long enough to notice?