Bringing heaven to earth

I'm really enjoying listening to Rob Bell's book, Sex God, on my iPod. The chapter headings invite you to find out more:

Chapter 1 - God wears lipstick.
Chapter 2 - Sexy on the inside.
Chapter 3 - Angels and animals.
Chapter 4 - Leather, whips, and fruit.
Chapter 5 - She ran into the girls' bathroom.
Chapter 6 - Worth dying for.
Chapter 7 - Under the chuppah.
Chapter 8 - Johnny and June.
Chapter 9 - Whoopee forever.

Now, I know some of you are wondering what on earth chapter 4 is about. Well, you'll have to read the book!!

I think the story that Rob shares below is wonderful:

'I have a new hero. Her name is Lil, and I would guess she’s in her late fifties. I met her earlier this year when she introduced me to her daughter, whom she was pushing in a wheelchair. Early in their marriage, Lil and her husband decided that they would adopt two children. As they became familiar with the family services system, they learned that there were kids in the system nobody wanted. So they went to the local adoption agency and asked for the kids with the most pronounced disabilities, the most traumatic histories, and the most hopeless futures. They asked if they could have the kids nobody wanted. Over the past thirty or so years, they have raised well over twenty children, raising their biological children alongside their adopted children.

When Lil got to this point in her story, she reached down and patted her daughter and said, “This is Crystal. She’s twenty-seven years old but will be about six months old developmentally for the rest of her life. She can’t talk or walk or move or feed herself or do anything on her own. She will be like this, totally dependent on us, until the day she dies. And I love her so much. My family and I, we can’t imagine life without her. She makes everything so much better.”

What is Lil doing?

She’s bringing heaven to earth.

Music that inspires - 4

Toss The Feathers is a traditional Irish foot-tapping folk tune that has been performed in a number of contexts. I love this popular version by The Corrs with all of its energy. It always thrills me to see a group of musicians really enjoying themselves. What must it have been like to have grown up in the Corr household in Dundalk, Republic of Ireland? Andrea, Sharon, Caroline & Jim learned to play a variety of instruments and were often present at the pub gigs of their parents, Gerry & Jean. What a family! I hope you enjoy this clip performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 1999.

Spring is getting earlier!

I took this photograph at the Sandy Smith Nature Reserve, just west of Chicksands in Bedfordshire, early this afternoon. The photo is not good, but it's my first lesser celandine of the year - one of my favourite plants. Soon there will be bright green & gold carpets of these members of the buttercup family lighting up local woods and ditches.

It was also one of William Wordsworth's favourite plants, abundant in the Lake District where he lived, and he wrote three poems based on it, including one which begins:

'There is a flower, the lesser celandine
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain
And, the first moment that the sun may shine
Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!'

You can find a stone commemorating Wordsworth at St Oswald's Church in Grasmere. Everyone knew how much he loved the lesser celandine, so they thought it would be a really good idea to carve one on it. All well and good....until the person engaged for the task did a carving of a greater celandine....which is actually a member of the poppy family!!

Other wildlife on the reserve included a male muntjac deer; a disturbed toad (!); kestrel; sparrowhawk; pair of stonechat; meadow pipit; skylarks (singing); a wonderful 'charm' of about 30 goldfinches.

Quotes for living - 3

Erma Bombeck once wrote about what she would do differently If I Had My Life to Live Over:

'I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have eaten the popcorn in the "good" living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace. I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed. I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage. I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life. I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I wasn't there for the day. I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime. Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment, realizing that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more, "I love you's" and more "I'm sorry's" but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute....look at it and really see it....live it! And never give it back.'

Broken

At our service this morning we played the following video featuring Jude Simpson's poem, Broken Open. Listen to it and see if it doesn't move your heart.....

Sensual Intelligence - 3: Your Nose

I've had some bad experiences this week. The worst one was the fruitless time spent trying to unblock a drain. I won't frighten you with the details. A kind soul loaned me some rods with various endpieces that help you to screw, scrape and squish the stuff, but I couldn't manoeuvre them more than a few feet down the pipe, so it's an ongoing situation. The other bad experience has been today's attempt at decorating. I loathe decorating and all of the energy drains from me even thinking about it. But Carole and I have set to, and managed to give the ceiling a couple of coats of paint. At least it's a start! One of the worst common factors about unblocking drains and decorating is the smell - my olfactory senses have been well-and-truly assaulted this week!

It made me think that it was about time that we thought about another of Tony Buzan's group of amazing facts regarding our sensual intelligence, and what more appropriate than thinking about our noses! I find what follows absolutely incredible...

• Your nose has 5,000,000 olfactory receptors: each one has its own gene.
• Over 1,000 giant protein molecules are used by your receptors to decode smell.
• Your nose can distinguish 10,000 different odours.
• In ways that no scientist has yet been able to explain, your nose can detect one molecule of 'smell' in one part per trillion of air!
• Your olfactory nerves are unique. One end of each of them is exposed to the outside world. The other speeds the impulses directly into your brain, providing an instantaneous communications link between the two. The things you smell can bring about deep and powerful emotive responses. This is because the minute your brain is aware of a smell, it sends the information directly to your emotional centre. This is in part why aromas are so closely associated with sexual arousal and the powers of recall.
  

As always, Buzan suggests some exercises for heightening our awareness of the different senses. Here are some of his suggestions regarding our sense of smell:

• Regularly give your nose (as well as the rest of you!) the treat of trips into nature. Inhale through your nose as all animals do, rather than through your mouth, as most people do. Sniff the rain. You think it doesn't have it's own aroma? Yes it does!
• Learn to distinguish the scents of different flowers.
• Smell has become one of the least used senses. Reverse this trend! Experiment by placing flowers around your home, and by using perfumed candles in chosen rooms or when you are having a bath. If you have a garden, plant it to create scent treats.

I've got another suggestion, too. A group of people who have trained themselves to distinguish between a number of different smells are mycologists - people who study fungi. Lots of fungi are distinguished by the odours they give off. So there's something you can have a go at next Autumn...toadstool sniffing!

Stuck in a rut?

I'm informed that there is a sign in a wild region of Alaska that reads, “Choose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it for the next two hundred miles!”

It reminds me of the occasion, one cold winter's day, when I was driving a tractor and trailer, loaded with bales of hay and bags of concentrate, for a flock of sheep.

I was making my way down a muddy farm track, the tractor winding its way through the fields, with just a couple of deep ruts to guide me along. In the tractor cab with me was Liz, the farmer's daughter. I was in my late teenage years and hadn't been driving tractors for very long. When I got to the field where the sheep were, I found that I couldn't get myself out of the ruts. Every time I turned the steering wheel the front wheels of the tractor would turn but would just continue down the rut at that angle as the back wheels drove them. I tried again and again, getting increasingly frustrated. Several times, Liz offered to have a go and said that she could do it, but I waved her offers away, determined to prove that I was up to this simple task. In the end, I admitted defeat and, now sure that it was impossible to get out of the ruts, vacated the seat for Liz.

You have to understand that what happened next is a bit embarrassing to recall and share with you!

Liz sat down in the seat, leaned forward and, with her right hand, unclipped the small metal bar that joined together the left and right sections of the brake pedal! ...I hadn't even realised that there were independent brakes for each of the back wheels!! She sat back in the seat, revved the engine, jammed her foot down on the left wheel brake and let out the clutch. The left wheel remained where it was - immobile - the right wheel turned, spinning the tractor around the axis of the left wheel and, a few seconds later, we were out of the ruts and heading over to the feeding troughs where the sheep were waiting for us!!

Hmmm.

When we're stuck in a rut it's often a good idea to let go of our pride and listen to what someone else is saying...it might make all the difference!

And sometimes we just have to decide that it's time we put our foot down, and do something about it!

It's not always that simple...but sometimes, actually, it is!