Is that you, Pastor?

When I got a Facebook message from our Pastor, I was a little surprised. When he said that he was in the Ukraine, I was even more surprised. When he started asking for money, the cerebral alarm bells became deafening. This is how it panned out ...

Next time I won't request verification so quickly, after giving me a totally fictitious address, the scammer blocked me before I could tell him that he needed to get on his knees and repent :-)

Bringing it home

When I bring home a photograph, I bring home something that has accurately mapped the shapes, colours and light that I saw earlier - arrangements of photons, stored up and measured out with a mathematical precision that has its own corpse-like beauty.

Lying on the mortuary slab of the computer screen, the photograph looks like the scene I saw before, but it has no life - it sits there silent and still; life reduced to numbers.

It's the work of a taxidermist to bring apparent life to dead creatures: It's the work of a photographer to bring the appearance of life to the maths of dead photons.

Back inside

Today we went to visit the reopened Christchurch Art Gallery. This is one of those buildings I love as a building; the art adds an extra dimension but the building itself is somewhere I just love to be. I think it has something to do with the ribbed facade; it's like being inside the body of something alive, looking out on the rest of the world. And alive it is with people young and old scuttling about enjoying the space.

There were some interesting exhibits, including this sweet landscape made from coloured sugar (the picture shows only a small part).

And the yellow room which provides a transition space or just a place to sit if you need to recover from sensory overload.

But, as I said at the beginning, whatever the exhibition it's the building that always attracts me and, after five years of being closed for repairs, it was good to get back inside.

The pie transporter

So, there I was today, sitting in Oxford's "Sheffield Pie Shop" and tucking into to one of their, rather tasty, apricot pies when I had one of those strange flashbacks to the mid-1960s. In the wink of an eye, I traversed 50 years of apricot pie eating to arrive at the classic apricot pie - Lyons Individual Apricot Pies.

These are the pies that started a 50-year addiction to apricot pies. These pies were so special that each one came wrapped in its own cardboard box and, despite the advertisement, cost 6d each, by the time I discovered them. The cunningly shaped corners ensured you never got one with broken pastry and the tangy filling was always discoverable on the very first bite.  There were other flavours, of course, including apple and strawberry, which sometimes substituted when the apricot pies were all sold out. But the apricot pie was the best - until they were discontinued in 1968. They were replaced by a round pie, the Harvest pie, which was only a 6/10 pie, unworthy to succeed the octagonal beauty of the original.

In case you doubt my claims on behalf of this pie, just type "Lyons individual fruit pies" into Google. This search will yield over 300,000 hits - 47 years after the last one was sold! These pies, which pre-date Google, the internet and even solid state computers are still being discussed in awe-filled terms, in 2015.

If you ever ate a Lyons apricot pie, then visit the Sheffield pie shop and be transported back in time ...

Content not to be haunted

A friend commented that, he tried to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack him at once.

It got me wondering, why do we feel the need to take (cope, handle, tackle) a day? Why does a day become an obstacle to be overcome, and several days seem like an impossible hurdle? Of course, as with my friend, health issues can make getting through each day difficult. But I wonder if sometimes our expectations about what each day should be like, are too idealistic, too demanding for our situation. Didn't the apostle Paul say that he had learned to be content whatever his condition? I wonder, when things get too much, if we are actually finding ourselves a little wanting in the 'contentment' department?

Many years ago, I made a conscious decision to try and cultivate contentment. Initially, I was concerned with possessions - I wanted to learn to be content with less; to live more simply. It wasn't easy to shift the goal-posts, it wasn't easy to detach from want, and less easy to let go of what I was already holding - even in an emotional sense. I don't think I was entirely successful, but I do now lead a simpler life.

A few years back, I got sick in a debilitatingly permanent way and, over time, another shifting of goal-posts occurred - a shifting of expectations about my senior years. I had to learn to be content within the limitations of my health. That didn't mean laying down and waiting to die, but it did mean not expecting too much of tomorrow. If the day turns out well, then I can grasp it and wring as much out of it as possible but, if it turns out to be a bad day, then I need to work with that; to go with the flow. As far as I know, this is the only way to embrace contentment in the midst of sickness and uncertainty.

Mentally planning tomorrow can upset contentment. If I plan tomorrow in anything but the most general of ways, then I set myself up for discontent should the day turn on me. Those who practise mindfulness or other meditative techniques understand the importance of the present moment, the 'now' in which we live. My diary contains plenty of future events which may or may not come to pass, but 'now' is the only reality; everything else, including all those future events, is imaginary - until and unless they become 'now'.

I like 'now'. Right now, I am being a writer. As a writer, I am feeling no more sick than the healthiest of you. Right now is good and I intend to experience every drop of its goodness while writing this and listening to Brooke Fraser. But, even if I were on my sick bed, it would still be for 'now'. Now is not tomorrow. Tomorrow is not 'now'; tomorrow is a dream; a spectre.  By living 'now' as fully as I am able, I can embrace contentment and prevent several days ganging up on me and haunting my life.

That sinking feeling ...

... when you are first told that one of your children has had a car accident, is only slightly tempered by the fact that it is their own voice that is breaking the news. Even so, it is another reminder of how tenuous our grip on life actually is - we like to pretend that life can be 'managed', that we can sanitise it from interruption - accidental or otherwise; that in short we can be 'safe'. It's a myth. Living is risky, sometimes dangerous. Even something like a sightseeing helicopter flight over a glacier can never be totally 'safe' (one crashed earlier this week).

Anyway, we got the call and a couple of anxious hours later child walks through the door looking a bit worse for wear, but still standing, still walking. Thank God.

Annette and I drive to the crash site to secure anything that may have been left in the car, and we find an unrepairable wreck. A list of things to be thankful for quickly begins to emerge:

• We are thankful that he was able to walk away from the mess and wasn't carried.
• Thankful that it wasn't the cast iron power pole that brought the car to a halt.
• Thankful that in crossing the road, he missed the oncoming traffic and that no one else was hit or hurt.
• Thankful that falling asleep at the wheel wasn't the result of hard partying, but from working 16 of the last 24 hours as a hospital nurse. 
• Strangely, I can't even feel mildly upset about the loss of the car; just thankful that it did its job of holding together well enough to protect the driver. It was a good car.

Life is very precious, abundant in its generality but unique in its individuality. There are no guarantees - every day is a gamble; a new hand of cards. Sometimes the only way to beat the odds is by knowing when to fold - please don't drive tired.

Counter-intuition

When I was first told that I could expect my life to be shorter than I had anticipated, my reaction was to think about how I could cram in all the things I still wanted to do with my life - before it was too late. Now, five years on, I have come to realise that this 'cram in as much as possible' attitude is quite wrong. Life is much too short to rush through it.

It's a quality versus quantity thing; yes, I can cram all this stuff in, but does that make my remaining years better? Short answer; "no". Slightly longer answer, "no, it just makes them busier". Life really is too short to rush - even without a deadline. Rushing causes us to miss so much of what is happening; we need to pause, mid-stride, to feel the moment, to enjoy the act of moving and sense the wonder of being alive. And, yes, to us 'busy doing stuff' people, that is totally counter-intuitive.

Last evening I dawdled on the way home from the office. There was no other traffic, the sun was shining and the beauty of the countryside that I pass through several times a week was calling for my attention. I cruised the road between the trees, enjoying the dappled sunlight, looked up at the ever-changing parade of lumpy green hills on my right and the endless vistas across the green of the Canterbury plains on my left. I rode the switchback road as though it were a fairground rollercoaster experienced in slow-motion. I thought it wonderful, I thought it beautiful, for truly it was both of those things, and I wondered at the good fortune that had brought me here and has allowed me to call this place 'home' for over twenty years.

This morning, I met an elderly, one-eyed lady. She spoke about her long-dead husband, and how she worked the farm on her own when he had gone. She told me about the kingfisher that lived up the track and the birds that come to her garden when she is hanging out her washing. She told me how she speaks to them and how she is sure that they have started to mimic her voice. "I'm probably a bit daft", she said. That's when I realised that I was speaking with someone who had learned to live in the 'in between' spaces of life. She was HAPPY in a way that many of us seek and fail to find.

These gems of happiness are found in the in-between, mid-stride, spaces. They are hidden beneath the surface, they are the things we miss when we are in a hurry. Life is much too short to rush; dawdle some, discover some of the 'happy' bits of life.

Budge up!

Annette and I were never naive enough to imagine that being a parent stopped when the fledglings left home. But, since the nest emptied a few years ago, we have become rather accustomed to 'home' being a somewhat tranquil refuge to which we can both retreat at the end of a busy day or week.

That tranquility was interrupted at the beginning of this year when our son needed a roof over his head while he finished his nursing degree. Next weekend our youngest daughter joins him as the tenancy on her flat has come to an end and a replacement is not available. And so we find ourselves having to squeeze up our 'spread-outedness' as we loose our last 'spare' room. (Please don't ask to come and stay for a while - unless the floor will do.)

No, being a parent doesn't end when they leave home and, being a parent still comes with responsibilities. So, we squeeze up and make room, not only in a physical sense but in a relational sense too; for these returning children are not the same as those that left a few years back. They return with a maturity that they didn't possess before (and some lingering immaturity that we wish they had lost). They return with new habits and traits born of their recent freedom. Their expectations are different and have a validity that often challenges our own. There is a lot of making room to be done.

So, the cars are out of the garage. The garage is now 'storage' and the oldies must remember not to walk about the house in their underwear in the mornings. So much for 'retirement' :-)

The more things change ...

Sometimes I look back and marvel at the way things have changed in my lifetime. Take mobile phones for example - they have woven themselves into the fabric of how we do life. With a short text message, we can tell others why we aren't where we were supposed to be or arrange an impromptu meet-up across the other side of town. As a result, our social arrangements have become more spontaneous and tentative in a way that would have been unimaginable half my life ago. I like it.

So, there we were having lunch when Annette says, "why don't we check out a Suzuki Splash while we are in town?". So, I pull up Trademe on the phone and sift through the list of Splashes for sale. "Here's one that looks interesting," I say, showing her the pictures of a low mileage metallic black Splash. "Let's go and look," she says, so off we trot to the car yard.

This is the point where I complete the title with "... the more they stay the same." Second-hand car salesmen. Yes, they are nearly all still 'men' and they are just the same type of men as they have always been; jovial, instantly friendly, ready to rattle off the exemplary merits of  any car you happen to be looking at, all the while assuring you that it will be perfect for your needs and the price is the keenest it's ever been. We will, of course, be lucky if the car is still on the lot after the weekend - even though I've seen it listed for at least two weeks now!

It's been quite a few years since I last danced the car-yard tango and today it just fills me with amusement at its predictability. I'm not going to play or try to trip the guy up; it's not sporting and, in any case, I quite like this young chap doing his car salesman spiel with a broad Mancunian accent in a car yard half a world away from his birthplace.

The car checks out and we return to talk about a trade. He makes a call on his mobile and, without seeing the trade, offers me a price that sounds fair. We shake (yes, they still do that) and the deal is done.

For all the changes I've seen in this wonderful, wild, world that we live in, some things really do remain the same, like second-hand car salesmen and the excitement of getting a new set of wheels.

An old monarch

It's been a week for long-lived Monarchs.  On Wednesday, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning British Monarch. Also on Wednesday, only nine days into the official start of spring, I came across this beauty sunbathing amongst the blossoms.

Monarch butterflies usually live for only two to three months and it's far too early for this one to be from this year's crop.  Most likely it's an over-winterer - a late autumn butterfly that has hung out in a cluster waiting for spring. Because their metabolism slows in the cold winter months, they live for much longer than the summer butterflies, waking ready to mate and lay their eggs. It must be a good day for old Monarchs.