Future = present shock

Dan and I went to see a film last night at the cinema  - Looper, a sci-fi future dsytopia type of movie, which we usually, strangely, quite like. But this whole "entertainment" left me feeling a bit yucky, not only about the film but the human condition in general.

For one thing, the ads that came before the film felt to me as though they were advertising a life still surely years ahead of ours. Three of the ads were for computer games - all fast moving, fingers brushing screens, "How many people would YOU kill, to save one?", large-jawed men bearing giant guns. Horrible. Another was for a better-than-ever smart phone with a screen going right out to the edges. Two seemed to be telling complicated stories that left me baffled as to what was actually being advertised.

Then the film itself... it told the story of a young man living in 2044, - and life by then is like the world of Blade Runner, depressed, frightening, streets broken up with trash lying around everywhere, everyone on drugs... - and how gangs in the even further future have hijacked time-travel machines, are kidnapping their targets and sending them back in time to be shot dead by their hired assassins in that time - including the "hero" - whom we see shooting many of these hooded, tied-up victims as they appear from the future. One day, he finds that the victim who appears is his own future self, who manages to escape... sounds like a good story, and it is clever, but... Are we humans really set to descend into this kind of violent, hopeless, threatening future? And if not, why are so many films made with this kind of story-line? Are we that depressed about the human trajectory? Or is it only the movie-makers who are?

Many parts of our world are already like it to some extent, though, and many people do live in fear, and I am just thankful I live in a generally safe country, in a time of peace. (Another thing to thank God for!)

I came away feeling like I wanted to go off into a forest and kick through piles of leaves and breathe in good clean country air, watch birds, and feel the peace and wholesomeness of nature. Get away from everything man-made, which is apparently devolving into slim, shiny black and silver rectangles with curved corners and HD screens that suck us in via our finger tips, bigger cars, taller and sleeker buildings, cynicism and mutual distrust, and guns. I don't think I like the way the human race is going...
I sound so old, I know...!

My fantasy of the future is to live in a stone cottage on Dartmoor, by a stream, growing food and raising chickens, (with a Baker to kill and pluck them of course, and a Florence too!) - reading books by an open fire, - not on my own but with family, and friends close enough to see often, maybe a pony to ride, Frodo of course... sigh...

But maybe the future will be something in between. I wonder what God thinks of the way our race is going. I wonder at what point he will intervene. I hope heaven will be Dartmoor, not a shiny steely city...

"From Surviving to Thriving" (thanks Gwyn!)

This is a re-post from a friend, Gwyn's, blog: she worked with us in Uganda for five years and returned to the US earlier this year - stopping off to stay with us for a few days on the way. She is quoting it from a website called expatwomen.com. It seems to me that these are very helpful suggestions. I should have read them a year ago! Some I have discovered for myself and others not so much...:

From Surviving To Thriving

Here are my five tips to help move you from surviving to thriving as a repatriate:

1.	Follow Your Joy.  If there was ever a time to take care of yourself, it is now. Each day, ask yourself what will bring you joy and do it. Your joy path shall be sacred and nothing shall hinder you from fulfilling it each day. It can be as simple as spending five quiet moments in silence, taking a walk or calling a friend, but you must set aside time for this as a non-negotiable.
2.	Pace of Grace.  Maintain a pace that is sustainable as you acclimate to your new surroundings. Do not go chasing after the wind. You may have an unlimited number of choices for entertainment and activities, but withhold from signing up for everything until you have your bearings secure. Be an observer while you settle-in. Rest. Be easy on yourself and on others in your family.
3.	Refuge.  Regardless of whether you are single or have a family, you need to have a refuge to return to. Create a sacred center within the context of a physical or emotional/spiritual place to be your refuge or resting place.
4.	Make Local Connections.  A clever strategy whether you move home or abroad, is to always befriend at least one local person, find one local place and find one local activity where you can connect locally to help you during your first year. Focus on finding at least one of each when you repatriate: you can always add more later.
5.	One Year.  Prepare yourself for at least a one-year adjustment period. It may take longer, but the one-year mark is a good opportunity to reevaluate what else you might need to make your new home, truly feel like home.

Autumn

After writing a bit desperately about the change of seasons this time last year, I have to admit, I am feeling a bit excited about this autumn. I realise that it is quite good fun that the world changes around me every few months. And as opposed to last winter when I might be excused for thinking that winter and darkness had come for ever... this year I know that Spring will definitely come, all is temporary... 

 

 

Rocky Road - not only an ice cream

Looking back over the year and a bit since we left Uganda, it feels like it has been quite an up-and-down experience.  

We have so much to thank God for and we feel so much more settled than even a few months ago. But we still feel different somehow than the people around us who have not moved back from abroad. (Does everybody feel different though from everyone else?) And the other day, I had a little flashback to standing at my kitchen sink in Uganda, feet bare on the cement floor, looking out onto the rampant green and shocking pink bougainvillaea, with a sunbird hovering, bright sun-filled sky above, and I thought, I will never stand at that window again, I - am - not - going - back... And a little pang or twinge of sadness washed through me. 

But my rational mind doesn't really want to come back to Uganda. It's just that it was our home for eight years, it was familiar, and warm. 

But I do feel as though I have a life here now - people come round, phone me, I help with things, we have a church we love, I know where to shop... It really does take time, and time just has to go by until the things we need to have in place around us slowly build up and develop.

Recently some friends who live just around the corner from us, who were also formerly missios, in Bolivia, hosted us and two other returnee families for a bring and share meal, - one of the couples is very recently back,  and still feeling quite raw and new I would say. Our friends who hosted returned about six years ago. The fourth couple returned six months ago. Each of us had a different set of circumstances: for example, one couple returned to their old house and church, whilst we were new in the town and had to find a church, one couple bought a house on a visit before they moved back, one got their children into schools successfully from abroad, one (us) didn't!, (but boy did we try!), one bought all new furniture here in England, one brought everything with them from abroad... We all tackled our return in different ways. But for all of us, it has been a rocky road. And still is, to some extent.

Thinking back, just the feeling of being new, and not knowing how to do simple things, is trying. Especially if you lived abroad long enough to feel pretty confident in your country of residence. And not knowing your way around the city. And not having your support group whom you have depended on for a long time around any more. Starting over, in every way.

And really, it is just a matter of time. So, you have to be patient, and give yourself a lot of grace. 

 

The man who fell to earth and me

Today Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a capsule, 24 miles above the earth, right at the edge of space. He free fell and then parachuted down to earth, taking ten minutes. There were apparently many ways he could have died attempting this... (?!) He was breaking a fifty year old record by jumping from this height down to earth.

NOTHING could induce me to be remotely interested in doing anything anywhere close to this. Nothing could induce me to do a bunjee jump. I wouldn't even really want to jump off the high board at the swimming pool come to that.

However, if I think the thing is worth it, I will do it even if it scares me. Like, preaching to 800 Ugandan students and staff at community worship. I was scared stiff then. And like, moving to rural Zambia for two years, not really having a clue what it would be like. So maybe I shouldn't paint myself a coward. I just don't want to waste my fear on unnecessary pastimes, like, jumping off high places...! I have plenty of things to be afraid of without looking for novel ways to try out that feeling...

When we were still living in Uganda and thinking ahead to moving back to England, I felt sick with fear about some aspects of the move. I was really scared of leaving Crosslinks, my employer and support and safety net for fourteen years - mainly because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get a job and therefore an income. I was nervous about how financially we would get through the nine months before Dan's job at Redcliffe started. I was scared about what schools we would get the children into, and so scared of them ending up in oversubscribed sink schools with bad behaviour and poor results. I was also worried about what house we would find to live in. I was a bit scared that Dan would hate living in England and resent me for it. So, just a few small things like that.

But, I wanted to move back to England, and Dan and I both felt that the time was right. I read and reread a Bible passage from Ephesians Ch 3:14-21 especially the verse which says, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God." I kept telling myself that if I really knew how much God loves me, then, why would I be afraid about anything?

But I still grew more and more nervous as the move approached.

Before going to England we visited the US for some time. One day in July, we were in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, canoeing and camping with Dan's parents. Right after that holiday, I was booked to fly to England, ahead of Dan and the children, to begin setting up home there. I was tight with nerves on the last couple of days. But on the day we were due to leave the Boundary Waters, I was sitting on a rock at the edge of our campsite, overlooking the lake, praying, and soaking in the beautiful scenery all around. Suddenly I noticed a bald eagle, sitting majestic on a high pine tree, surveying the outlook, from one side to the other. He looked out and down over the whole scene, and had probably been aware of me there the whole time. It struck me that the eagle was like God, watching out for us, overseeing us, all the time, while we are mainly unaware that he is even there.

That picture of the bald eagle, king of the wilderness, stayed with me and was a comfort for quite a while. But I lived on my nerves for months until it built up too much and my body rebelled.

So I am in the process of trying to tackle this problem, anxiety. Why would a Christian who has believed in God for forty five years and who has seen God provide for her and give her a fantastic life and a wonderful family, who is in good physical health, who has friends and hobbies, why would this person suffer from anxiety? I think in the case of our move back to England, there was a lot to be anxious about, but still...

For now, I am definitely coming out of the other end of the tunnel. Practically speaking, the last piece of the scary puzzle was put in place last week - when Alex took his grammar school entrance test and got a good  high pass mark, so that he is guaranteed a grammar school place for next year. Such good news! So  - for now - there is nothing left to be afraid about (apart from global warming).

But I feel I am beginning to move in the right direction in any case - I wasn't even all that nervous about Alex's test, which I took as an encouraging sign. I have had some really good conversations with various different helpful people, which I might write about another time. The list of One Thousand Gifts (I've got to 69...!) and the lessons about thankfulness are a big help. I do think and pray and hope that I am making progress.

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Do you know that feeling when you finish a book but you keep carrying it around with you and re-reading a random page because you enjoyed it so much?

This book has been like that for me. I would say it is a book that has changed me - which I'm not sure I can say of many books. "This book will change your life" - but usually it just doesn't quite do it. But this one is different.

Ann Voskamp is a mother of six and married to a Canadian farmer, and she went through a tragedy as a young girl. She grew up into a stressed, anxious, Christian woman who knew this wasn't quite right. And through a dare she was given, to list one thousand things she thanked God for, accompanied by a lot of just looking around at the world, writing, talking to God from her laundry piles and kitchen sink - she found the key to Joy, which is, Thankfulness.

As I said before, I have started my own list... I thought I would give you a few of my favourite quotes from this book, which I thoroughly recommend to all of you!!! It is just wonderful.

" From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story. Satan, he wanted more. More power, more glory. Ultimately, in his essence, Satan is an ingrate. And he sinks his venom into the heart of the heart of Eden. Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave." p 15.

"The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live...He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything." p 34 quoted from John Piper.

" "A nail is driven out by a nail; habit is overcome by habit." Erasmus said that... I look down at the pen, this pen I keep wielding, one writing her way all the way to one thousand. This pen: this is nothing less than the driving of nails. Nails driving out my habits of discontent and driving in my habit of eucharisteo." p 49

" This, I think, this is the other side of prayer. This act of naming grace moments, this list of God's gifts, moves beyond the shopping list variety of prayer and into the other side. The other side of prayer, the interior of his throne room, the inner walls of his powerful love-beating heart. And I see it now for what it is. this dare to write down one thousand things I love. It really is a dare to name all the ways that God loves me. The true Love Dare. To move into his presence and and listen to his love unending and know his grace uncontainable." p 59

Well, I had better not go on and quote the whole book... By the way, Ann Voskamp also writes a blog which is like a continuation of her book:    www.aholyexperience.com

Here are a few of the things I have on my list already:

Seasons are all very well but

When I remembered the joys of sunshine and warmth on your skin, when summer started (not that it ever came to much!), when the light grew brighter and I realised how much I had missed it for all those darker months, I already began to feel a teeny worm of dread for the winter to come, the one that lay ahead. So I was taken by surprise when, as the air felt suddenly cooler and leaves began to blow around, that I was actually a bit excited about the change of season. The Bramley apples growing again in our garden, mulberries on a massive tree in the college grounds, leaves turning to red orange and brown, pulling cosy scarves out of the drawer ... OK change is not so bad after all.

But, there are a couple of things I could do without. One is the horrible cough and cold which all of the family have got. I seem to have it worst at the moment. My voice has gone away to nothing. And I am coughing like a dirty old man. My throat is itchy and sore at the same time. Poor me!

The other annoying thing is the way our car steams up. I have noticed it is worse than other cars, and I have discovered that Renaults have a quirk in the air conditioning which means that water gets stuck in it and makes the car fog up. Last winter we kept a towel in the car and had to wipe the windows down every time we got in. This year I have bought a dehumidifier for the car, which is like a fat cushion which absorbs moisture - so far it has worked well.

But, in the spirit of counting a thousand gifts, this post is not going too well... Later in Ann Voskamp's book "A Thousand Gifts" you find out with her that we have to thank God for the "ugly-beautiful" things as well, knowing that all of it is God-given and that he has a plan and loves us. So said with gritted teeth, "Thanks for colds and thanks for fogged-up windows... but yuk!"

A couple of seasonal things I have listed though:
Purple bobbles of blackberries and red ovals of rose hips growing in the tangly hedges.
The Cathedral bells ringing in the dusk from the heart of the city.
The sound of wind caught in an oak tree in an autumn lane.