Twenty three years ago, I married a beautiful young woman. Twenty three years later and on the other side of the world, I still can’t quite believe how lucky I am.
Blessed beyond measure.
Twenty three years ago, I married a beautiful young woman. Twenty three years later and on the other side of the world, I still can’t quite believe how lucky I am.
Blessed beyond measure.
My dear friend Chuck just posted his thoughts on Valentine’s Day and I was prompted to write the following comment.
We are called upon to love each, full stop (or period, as you say on your side of the Pacific). That means no exceptions and that’s the hardest thing about our faith; we are called to love all, regardless of who they are and what they have done. Not just our loved ones and the nice people but those we visit through prison ministry, those who cut us off in traffic and those whose theology is different from ours. Most of all, we are called to love those who we most abhor, revile, reject, denounce and exclude. Let’s turn Lent on its head and, rather than giving something up, let this be a time where we all take something on and try to love the unloveable. In doing so, we may just catch a glimpse of Him.
I am blessed to have known all sorts of love in my life. Of late, I have resolved to try my best to love all I come into contact with. I fail abysmally every day but each new morning I resolve try again. How can I not when I receive the very same grace myself?
The stomach virus that has been doing the rounds recently has finally struck Wendy and I but thankfully not the kids. With us both confined to bed and couch respectively, I thought I’d do a brief catch-up on what’s been going on in the last month or so.
The local wild turkeys tempted fate by obligingly coming within range to assist with our seasonal cost reduction exercise.
While I am rarely on top form at 0500hrs, I was blessed one morning to witness the most wonderful sunrise – a rare moment of beauty, peace and tranquility in a crazy couple of weeks.
Through the keen ears of friends, we learned of an old but remarkably well-kept Honda CRX for sale at a price we could afford. While not quite what we had originally planned to get, it has proven to be popular with the girls’ young male friends and pretty reliable once we’d worked out the quirks.
Two weeks ago, we spent three evenings in a row at Robyn and Maisie’s prize-givings and Ariella graduation from her polytechnic. Immensely moved to see our girls embrace their education and grasp opportunities in a way I never did.
After a good few months of discussion, research, planning and preparations, we have launched a farm stay bed & breakfast business. As well as building a website and Facebook page, we have erected signage at the gate…
…and on the main road…
…received our first batch of rack card brochures from the printers…
and had a good friend and accomplished snapper help us with the publicity photography…
…just in time to take a wedding booking for January and welcome our first guest yesterday evening. In between all that, we have found time to enjoy the almost daily spectacle and glory of stunning sunsets…
…knock up some portable yards to help muster our sheep and heifer…
…search all possible hiding places for Christmas presents…
…spent time making some wonderful rainbow decorations…
…and put up the Christmas tree and arrange the nativity.
Depending on which account you read, Mark Twain or a Commissioner of Education for the State of New York or Abbie Hoffman once said that sacred cows make the best hamburger. While a pithy soundbite like this is full of fun and easy to recall, it doesn’t have half the charm and depth of ‘The Calf Path’, a poem by Sam Walter Foss, which tackles the same theme far more eloquently. I came across the poem whilst reading Julie Ferwerda’s Raising Hell, which explores and questions the notion of hell in Christian doctrine.
The Calf Path
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way.And then a wise bell-wether sheep,
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep;And drew the flock behind him too,
As good bell-wethers always do.And from that day, o’er hill and glade.
Through those old woods a path was made.And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because ’twas such a crooked path.But still they followed – do not laugh –
The first migrations of that calf.And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.This forest path became a lane,
that bent, and turned, and turned again.This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load,Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.And thus a century and a half,
They trod the footsteps of that calf.The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare;And soon the central street was this,
Of a renowned metropolis;And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.Each day a hundred thousand rout,
Followed the zigzag calf about;And o’er his crooked journey went,
The traffic of a continent.A Hundred thousand men were led,
By one calf near three centuries dead.They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;For men are prone to go it blind,
Along the calf-paths of the mind;And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.They keep the path a sacred grove,
Along which all their lives they move.But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!Ah! many things this tale might teach –
But I am not ordained to preach.
Flicking through my emails this morning, I came across one alerting me to a comment on my last post from my fellow blogger Ian McKenzie saying:
‘You have definitely come a long way from that flat, “a mere drunken banker’s stagger from Canary Wharf.” It looks great.’
The words struck a chord and, searching back, I was stunned to learn that Ian was quoting from a post I wrote back in 2004 entitled ‘A step towards another life’. I wrote back to Ian to say how touched I am that he continues to read and staggered he could recall a post that I wrote eight years ago. Rereading that post brought me up short, for I had forgotten how deeply embedded the wish for what we know have was within me back then.
Canary Wharf from Mudchute Farm
We live in London, a mere drunken banker’s stagger from Canary Wharf and the new financial heart of London. We are lucky enough to have a ground floor flat with a small south-facing garden… As a child, I grew up in a home where in the back garden, my Dad grew a fair proportion of the vegetables we ate. Although this was done partly by choice, it also helped to supplement the far from stellar incomes of a self-employed engineer and nurse… Although I don’t remember playing a very active part in the actual market gardening, I do remember being captivated by John Seymour’s seminal book, The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency. Seymour’s plain economic yet evocative prose made the backbreaking and often thankless life of a smallholder seem simple, achievable but most of all, enviable.
Limehouse Link tunnel – part of my 50 mile daily commute in London
I have long held the desire to have a less frenetic and immediate life, hoping instead to ‘downshift’, as it is now called. Recently, SWMBO and I have discussed a variety of ways in which we can bring this about – ultimately, to find a way in which can spend far less time in traditional work environment – nine to five, stressful work, long commute, little family time – enabling us to spend more time together working in, around and maybe from the home. Over the years and months, various bouts of online research and reading have brought us to the point where we are now seriously looking at a number of ways in which we can make this idea a reality, whether at home or abroad.
Leaving London for New Zealand
Although I am by nature a serendipitous optimist, I am no wearer of rose tinted specs and I am realistic enough to know that a corporate salary will be a necessary evil for a while yet if we are to affect such a change.
Eight years later, we have moved 18,000 kms to the other side of the world, I have traded a corporate salary for a public servant’s payslip and the family have swapped a small inner city flat in London for a house on four acres of land in rural New Zealand.
Our lives have changed in extraordinary ways: we have challenged our own notions of who we are, slowly and steadily reversed circumstances we once thought would crush us, visited places of stunning beauty and met wonderful people some of whom have become our closest friends.
In doing so, we have confounded those who confidently predicted failure, shed a good deal of the baggage of our past, trusted the leading we felt and committed to an unknown future with a determination we never knew we had. Though there was I time when I would have scoffed at the thought, we are certain we were called to live here and that we are meant to be where we are for however long He will have us here. God has truly blessed and humbled us – we strive to hold it all with open hands so we may share that blessing with others.
The full post from 2004 – thank you Ian for reminding me I wrote it!
Again, I find myself I appreciating guest blogger Scott Miller’s open and frank sharing about his faith on Tony Jones blog. He articulates much that I can empathise with in a clear and simple manner.
If I could talk to my 17-year-old self, I would say that I still believe that God is at work in my life, but maybe not in the same way that a 17-year-old understands. I would tell him that I still experience the authority of scripture, but I don’t find that authority in the words of scripture, but in the Event to whom scripture testifies. And I would say that I have not substituted human reason for revelation, but realize that I can only understand the revelation in human, fallible, finite ways, and that it is a mistake to think that anyone’s theology is every entirely adequate to express the revelation of the Infinite.
But above all, I would tell my gnostic-leaning 17-year-old self, it’s more important to be a true follower of Christ and actually act in Christlike ways than it is to have what you think is the correct theology. Ideas matter, but real, living human beings matter more. Don’t forget Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 13:1-3:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love I gain nothing.
via Theoblogy
“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do”.
– Ann Lamott, quoting her priest friend Tom, in ‘Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life‘.
Reading this a few moments ago pulled me up short; a more succinct reality-check statement would be hard to conceive. I always appreciate Ann Lamott’s writing; when I read her stuff, it’s like I’m listening to a sister who has seen a lot more and done a lot more than me – and cares enough to share the lessons.
Seeing her quoted always makes me sit up and pay more attention as she invariably polarises folk and provokes debate. In this case, the quote appeared in a open letter about LGBT and faith issues at play in the current US political race, itself quoted in Scott Miller’s guest post on Donald Miller’s blog.
Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger—there was no room for them to stay in the inn.
There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, but the angel said to them, Don’t be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David’s town your Savior was born—Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
Suddenly a great army of heaven’s angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God:
Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!
When the angels went away from them back into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us.
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and saw the baby lying in the manger. When the shepherds saw him, they told them what the angel had said about the child. All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said. Mary remembered all these things and thought deeply about them. The shepherds went back, singing praises to God for all they had heard and seen; it had been just as the angel had told them.