Playing with Fire

This week I have been for one of those box ticking exercises inflicted by the NHS - a health check.  I have a suitably bruised arm from a fairly novice blood taker, and an instruction to walk more - despite being in the "active" category which apparently very few are!! Madness.  Didn't need any encouragement - I swam at 8am and then went to Knightshayes to walk.  The kitchen garden is always the best bit - lovely shapes and the fragrances of herbs.  The weird and twisty shapes.  The bright dahlias and sunflowers lifted my heart.  Quiet trees and needle strewn paths and an avoidance of the honey pot of the tea shop!

Afterwards, I helped my friends in their project of a garden: I was their bonfire warden, after telling them last time that I wanted to be the one to light the fire:  I left too long between visits so the fire was a damped down, smouldering ash heap with blackened stumps but a heart of glow and embers.  My job to wake the dragon!

Fire. Warmth, light, danger, safety, flickers of orange dancing up around green mottled wood. Feeding it air and fuel to awaken it. 

The hissing and crackling as green leaves and fir branches went on.  Explosions of sparks from the giant fire cones - nature's fire lighters, resinous and eventually alight and blackening.  I couldn't stop staring into it's depths as the tiger flames hungrily curled into the green wood. White smoke curled and billowed up and out, drifting across the grass. Ashes swirl around the firepit.  

Standing and watching, feeling the warmth on shorts and bare legs, sign of the spirit, life and unpredictability, holiness and an edge of challenge.  And because I am overthinking as I write, what I actually thought was "other people invite you to a barbecue, here it's me being barbecued"  It was a shame we didn't have chocolate biscuits and marshmallows to toast - it was reminding me of being a guide, and building fires to cook on - going home reeking of woodsmoke and happiness.

Tarka Trailling

 

Yesterday I kicked myself out of a cosy-duveted bed to walk in North Devon.  I think I drove on auto-pilot, fuelled by Tesco chocolate milk from the meal deal I picked up as I had a couple of small glasses of red wine the previous night and that is more than enough to make me feel fairly seedy. Enough not to want to make a packed lunch at 6.30am.  

Parked up in the train station carpark at Barnstaple, the lure of a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich called to me.  It's been a tough week.  An old friend from St Leonards died from kidney and lung failure - I found out, by text, at work. And a long term friend is slowly losing a brave battle with cancer.  Steadfast friend that I am, I find it hard - it's the August that does it - the same month as I lost another friend 6 years ago.  Memories!

Fuelled, and fortified and very slightly more awake I walked up to Fremington Quay.  North Devon is like Cornwall - full of holiday folk ; Tarka shared his trail with a huge rush of bikes - families with little kids on bright bikes, elderly folks on electric bikes, and lycra clad men who thrashed past at speed.  

And the occasional walker. I passed one flagging couple as I walked back and we had a little banter about tea and cake - his knee looked dodgy but I hope he made it as the cake is very nice.

It set me up for an epic battle with the weeds, grasses, and most of all the brambles of Kathy/Peter/Morag's overgrown "secret garden"  A very warm battle, indeed but so mind altering in a good way.  Hard work digging out a border with good company and a very huggable labrador who likes to share her beautiful blonde fur with me.  All over my navy shorts!

It's the time of year that nature goes spectacularly to seed.  Weeds and wilds.  People are like grass - they don't last.  Not forever.  Not on this earth anyway.  Not for now.  But in nature I know nothing goes to waste.

Gay Lego and why we need other people

 

Back in June I bought my first set of lego for many many years.  Diverse, respectful of Trans and non white heritage, beautifully striped, neatly made, it has sat on my shelf with the figures all orderly and sat on their right coloured stripes.

It feels like a brave and happy thing.  I don't see being made in God's image as a problem to be solved, or something that I need to hide or cringe about anymore. If Exeter had had Pride this year, I  would have donned a purple "Christians at Pride" T shirt and joined in, or been a steward if allowed to volunteer.  What an incredible transformation those words are from the person who would have argued that God's will was singleness.  I still opt for singleness, but know that this is a happenstance, a chosen option, not a forced decision because of who God has made me.

Yesterday my lego got rearranged. First the figures waved - that was the total extent of my tranformation.  My spiritual director, delighted at seeing the completed set, which she had first seen as heap of little plastic shapes tipped out on her table, moved the black lady to the pink spot.  And vice versa.  I felt slightly uncomfortable. Change very rarely comes at my hand!

"Leave it on your shelf" she said "your visitors will play"  Not just the visitors but the homeowner. It occurred to me that transposing the colours and the wigs would be far more fun.  

And so it is.

At work, I make tiny modifications, ususally when prompted.  Today, doing church felt awkward, happy, strange and encouraging - singing - weird - talking over tea and excellent sticky pastries to celebrate our vicar going on maternity leave.  I'm still trying to work out where an overthinking, friendly person who would prefer to blog and to read fits in. But in all contexts of my life I am very slowly and hesitantly learning that as much as I need other people maybe they also need me.