Jack writes

 

It's a long time since I wrote anything so, as I am going to visit one of my long-standing friends to take her an item she couldn't carry because of the weight, I can kill two birds with one stone.  

Now, the vicar has been worrying about my sanity of late.  It all started last year when she gave me  a forty-two piece wooden jigsaw of a lot of penguins.  That blasted jigsaw just about put me in the nut-house!  It took me three hours to complete it.  Then somebody else gave me a thousand piece jigsaw.  I spent weeks and months struggling with it and if I had any hair I would have pulled it out, but then gave it up as a bad job.  Well, Christmas came again again and guess what my reverend so-called friend put among my pressies?  That's right another jigsaw.  Two hundred and fifty pieces this time and it was a map of my local area which again has me in tears.  I did tell her not to buy me a jiggie for Christmas but did she listen? NO!!!.  So, enjoy this post as it could be a long time before I get enough sanity back to write another one.

When we first started our phone calls (after I lost my wife of fifty three years)it was a ten minute chat, but sometimes now it is forty five minutes.  She will keep butting in when I am in full flow so I blame her for the length.  But we laugh a lot and I hope the vicar enjoys our morning chats as much as I do.  Some of the long words I say may not be quite right but she gets enormous pleasure when she corrects me.  

I hope you are all in he best of health and that the good Lord is taking care of you.  I hope I can write again soon (the vicar is the editor so she gets the last word.  She also gets the last word if I text.

Keep smiling

Jack

PS.  This is the vicar getting the last word.  Jack will read and enjoy your comments but cannot reply to them.

HAF

 aka How about February?  What is planned?  What is hoped for?

First of all, I shall be very busy leading worship.  My dear Friend E has gone on a cruise all around the coast of South America, lucky lady.  This means Plan B comes into operation meaning I have one Sunday "off" per month.  Unfortunately when I saw another friend M in Brigg I thought she looked rather ill, so I'm stepping in to take her service on the "spare" Sunday this month.  I've also got a funeral booked and am speaking at the funeral of someone with whom I have been friends since we met in the sixth form fifty seven years ago.  And there's a couple of midweek things I am needed for.

The Mermaids aren't swimming at the moment but we are helping to make up jigsaws ready for a special event in May.  I am useless at jigsaws.  The other Mermaids can confirm that.  

I've planned three meals out but there may be more.  One is  to celebrate the Silver Wedding Anniversary of a couple I married.  That is a very special joy.  

Jack is coming today to do a couple of small jobs.  He's threatening to write a blog post.

I'm still in my Hibernaculum Project.  My new mindset on winter has been very successful.  I won't say I will be sorry when spring comes but I won't be dreading next winter.   

Candlemas

 

Candlemas is tomorrow but many churches will mark it today.  It’s the day when we remember Jesus’s first visit to the temple when he was just forty days old. 

Candlemas marks a gentle turning point in the Christian year.  It was an end to the seclusion following his birth and the start "getting on with life".  And we see the faithfulness of  an old man and an old woman.   Simeon and Anna each saw hope fulfilled in this child.  There isn’t the noisy joy of Christmas with angels and shepherds and magi but rather a quiet joy showing their trust.

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

 But Simeon went on to say that the child would bring great change and would cause his mother to suffer. His words remind us that this light will reveal hearts and bring both joy and cost. Candlemas invites us to reflect on how we carry that light.

(If you want to read the story, it is in Luke, chapter 2, verses 22 to 38)

 

Over!

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November.

Unless a leap year is its fate,

February hath twenty-eight.

All the rest hath three days more,

excepting January,

which hath six thousand,

one hundred and eighty-four.

 Brian Bilston 

Yes, I know I've used this before but I still love it!

Oomph

Oomph, or rather the lack of it, has long been at the heart of my problem with winter.  It's the season when my when my Get-Up-and-Go goes on holiday  It's not that I have nothing to do - far from it! - but I can't work up enthusiasm for doing any of it.  

But the surprising thing is that it is all OK.  I didn't feel guilty, I just didn't do much!  I didn't worry about it, I didn't let it get me down.  I just listened to familiar audiobooks and did my knitting and enjoyed meals I had previously batch cooked.  

I think that my hibernaculum project has "given me permission" to be like this.  I don't need to judge myself.  I have time to love myself.  I can tell myself "This too shall pass" but I don't need to speed it on its way.

I don't know why I wrote about the lack of oomph in the past tense: today is another knitting and audiobook time.  Hope you too are having a contented day.

A word I knew already!

 

"The gifts of winter" by Stephanie Fitzgerald has introduced me to some wonderful new words but today I want to think about a word I knew already.  Self.

I didn't expect to find Self among her "words of winter" but there it is.  At first I just skimmed past it but I found I had to go back, re-read and think.  

Dr Fitzgerald suggests that winter is the season of the self.  She calls us to consider self-love, self-compassion, self-connection.  It's a time for us to give ourselves permission to focus on ourselves and to permit ourselves to be authentic.  We can get caught up in the busy-ness of life but the slower rhythms of winter give us the opportunity (as I mentioned yesterday) of making sure our bodies and souls are in harmony.

Father, thank you for making me just as I am.

Thank you for my uniqueness and purpose.

Help me to value who you created me to be

and to use my life to honour you.  Amen.

A word from Japan

Yutori, as "The Gifts of Winter" tells me, is a Japanese word meaning space or room to breathe.  

Winter is a good time to slow down, forget rushing (especially when Christmas has been and gone) and appreciate the world around us.  That sounds like the very essence of winter in my hibernaculum.  It's a time of very deliberate slowing down and making sure my body and soul are comfortable with each other.  

The Japanese even have the concept of yutori education, with more integrated study time and less curriculum content. The aim is to balance intellectual, moral, and physical education.  

Another word

Finding lovely new words has been one of the joys of this winter.  I wouldn't have the time (or maybe even the inclination) to relish words in the summer.  And Stephanie Fitzgerald's book "The Gifts of winter" has introduced me to another word, trygghet.

Trygghet is a Swedish word and it's about a feeling of safety and security, especially when the weather outside is "challenging".  Coming in from weather like that it's lovely to give a deep sigh and relax.  Yesterday was a miserable rainy day here and I was so glad to shut the front door and settle in front of my (electric with flame effect) fire.