posts

It seems i have entered the age of separations. It makes me realise how little I understand about people and that life has its problems for everyone. I have a pretty good case for feeling hard done by over the last couple of years but I really don't know that I am. I am just working things out same as everyone else. I can see my state of mind often by what I listen to.

Times is tuff playlist
Gold in them hills - Ron Sexsmith
I will not be broken - Ben Harper
Blessed Assurance - Chris McClarney
Most music by Bon Iver or Cat Stevens

Times is better playlist
Valentino - Diane Birch
Home - Edward Sharpe & the magnetic zeros
I need a dollar - Aloe Blacc
(& prob still Bon Iver)

All in all I have very little to say but I think I am gonna go make a playlist x

why winning matters

I am in no way a natural athlete, I lack co-ordination and my eyes look in 2 different directions at the same time. As such I have never valued winning as a matter of self-preservation, and i get annoyed on sports day that winning is so important most likely because my sole aim would be to not be noticed and certainly not thinking about winning. I was wrong - winning matters, grim determination in defeat is better than laughing, not trying and conceding without a fight.

In trying to work out what has happened over the last few months I have had to fight a battle that has to be won on so many levels. I believe that when God promised all things work out for good that was not for this world but the next, that in this world God promises not to make our lives easy but only that he will hold our hand through what we do have to go through. God has been quiet and Rach is not yet through this but whatever happens I WILL win, and God will still be a good God. I will listen for God coughing in the background and I will see the small flicker when it seems dark. I have had lots of people recently asking me how I can still have faith to which I say that this is the first time I have needed it so to lose it now wouldn't show much fight. I look forward to life being more straight forward, but i will take the desire to win in life from this, as well as so many other things, some good, some maybe less so but winning or at least genuinely trying to matters


Anyhow I should get back to my manly evening in, with a glass of port, a bubble bath, a book, Downton abbey!


adieu

Book club

 I've been reading more lately & just finished Shogun about feudal Japan (I am a geek) the book is awesome but in it they treat death as a method to cope with guilt & shame. Jez wrote to me about it and how we deal with guilt & got me thinking. 

My sister also wrote a blog recently about how native American cultures deal with guilt and how they are about restoration rather than just guilt or revenge or getting even like prison, Spanish inquisition or death etc... They have to restore relationships as a priority rather than living on in guilt.The main consequence of sin in our culture is guilt which is not a biblical response and can often be self indulgent and lead to no actual action. A biblical response is to say sorry, repent and rejoice. mlk said something like 'the only contribution I make to my salvation is the sin which god graciously takes away'. The point is not to run round intentionally sinning but given that we know we will sin, it is far more liberating to live in forgiveness than in guilt. We live with guilt and inadequacy rather than resolving the issues or more straight forwardly giving it to God. Forgiveness is a full stop rather than a comma. (i gotta confess i just thought of that sentence and am pretty proud of myself!) I love how different the Japanese culture is though & how you can see truth and biblical principles in different cultures. makes you check which of your own beliefs are biblical and which are cultural I wonder if guilt and revenge are for more cultural than we think?

Gimmie a year and I spect I will have read another book to scribble about.

http://growandbegrown.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html (My sister's blog on said topic, although given she accounts for about half my readership it may be i slightly pointless link!)

hangover

It's been a while, I don't think I am gonna make much of a regular blogger! When Rach is well maybe I will blog a more natural light hearted blog, for now I find blogging too much leads me to wallowing & over thinking so apologies but this is another blog about our journey with mr cancer.

Rach is off to London for 4 weeks to have a bone marrow transplant & it will take up to a year to recover from this, the side effects are pretty grim but the alternative is grimmer. It is a frightening time but this blog is about it's hangover, the way it will change us after it is done (I have no idea in fact but this is what i think / hope it will). You can have a say in what hangover you get and set the tone for it while you are going through stuff by setting habits in behaviour and thought. While Rach is in hospital I shall be mostly in Eastbourne looking after Noah so I will obviously get through it as Noah will need me but I want to rise to it & not just survive it.

A friend said that once this time was done I would soon return to how I was. That actually made me quite angry as I don't think is, or should be, true. I am changed already and mostly in a permanent manner. The issue is which of these changes are positive and which are negative? Over the next 2 months I need to feed and encourage the positive and obviously limit the negative. Rach won't be ill one day and we need to live like that not fragile or cautious. I know people who's hangover from illness and suffering can take longer to recover from, and be more damaging than the illness /suffering had ever been. I know I will be more confident, have a better understanding of life & be far more decisive as these things have been essential to surviving thus far. Clues to spot over the next few weeks as to how I am coping will be - have I been running? Has anything been washed? (including me) Have I used up all my dominos pizza vouchers? If I can achieve these I think my mind is probably coping if not I am probably not. I intend to not just get through this but to continue to use to it to our advantage in any possible way. It will not only fail to destroy us it will make us!!

Hobby

I need a hobby I have interests but not sure if they count as a hobby. Not sure why i need a hobby but I'm always jealous of people that have one. Any ideas? current potential hobbies include...

• Music - I tinker on the guitar but don't have the time to as good as i use to be alas maybe i could learn the piano??
• French - a productive aim but i feel i bit of a plum doing it on my own zut alors
• Writing - I enjoy it but think it takes a lot of doing before you know if you are good at it or not
• TV - does this count if it's the History channel?
• DIY - I should really make this my hobby but it wakes Noah up & I'm a bit crap at it
• What else do people do?? cycling? running?

 I am clearly spreading myself too thinly maybe a hobby is too precise for me and I should sort of do all of the above without really mastering any?? Own a guitar, a French dictionary, a book, a TV and a screwdriver and then just relax?? Couldn't choose so did none is probably not great I will focus & I will achieve all by next blog!!

Shadows are darkest when the sun shines brightest

*last blog for a bit on Rach and cancer*


It's an uplifting thought that as things seem bad that's only because there is a lightness to contrast with it. If you only knew bleak then bleak would not seem bleak it would appear only normal, but good might also appear bleak with nothing to contrast it too. I must have known joy to understand what suffering is. Without the contrast of the two the joy would be lost. 

I read the first half of Job this week and it has affected me how passionate Job was when everything got taken away, sounds obvious but he didn't rationalise or try to stay calm, he cried out for God to end his life, he got angry. Then rather than accept duff advice politely, he argues passionately and aggressively for what he knows to be right. He is not passive. It is sometimes great to be placid - I'm good in a crisis, I don't get too emotional - but It's important to be driven and to get angry sometimes. To never be arrogant but also to never think yourself too small in your own eyes with regards to your opinions and thoughts. I am confident that Job was more appreciative of all he had after losing it, suffering and then having it returned but he didn't just sit back and let it happen, he got angry then he got appreciative. He understood blessings more because he also understood loss.

I don't blog often but I think I am going to start to move on from the subject of suffering as it makes me sound a bit depressed which all things considered I'm really not. I can chose in the brightness to look at my shadow or to look at the sun. I've probably spent too long looking at my shadow, time to look into the sunshine x


To end today here's an excerpt  from a quote my sister put as a comment on my last blog (full quote still there)

"My hope for the future comes from my experience in the past. I really understand that I’m a survivor. I have exercised my adulthood to the point that however stretched it was, it did not break…there is in me the drive to live, and to live well, but most of all the drive to live to the best of myself. Hope is God’s grace today, it’s not a buy-off about tomorrow."


 quote from Joan Chittister

oh for a typewriter

If I had a typewriter I would at this point be dramatically screwing up my work and throwing it behind me to start a redraft titled 'lessons learnt from Rach's cancer' to be written then screwed up again in a few days when I realise that I have to relearn things or have in fact learnt nothing. given that my ramblings are on the interweb this will instead be 'lessons learnt - part 2 - not sure what yet' I feel less and less under pressure to learn from this time, and more and more to just get through it is my objective. I want to sift through its remains after and pick out the good buried in this situation but day-to-day my ability to think constructively is getting harder (particularly as I currently have tonsillitis & Rach is having a week of intensive tests)

Rach's chemo came so close to working but stopped just short of killing the cancer which now is growing again. I don't want to have a babyish faith and doubt simply because life has got tough, I know God is good, I know bad stuff can happen to good people, I know, I know, I know but I really want a more audible voice from him at the moment, and I think like a kid getting angry with their parents saying crazy things they don't mean it doesn't mean that kid doesn't love their parents only that they are trying to outwork a relationship that they don't yet have the capacity to express, or understand something they thought to be one way but have now discovered to be another. Yes God is good, but no my concept of good isn't the same as his. God is not as predictable as I expected as a child. I believe God would rather tantrums and anger from an honest heart than someone putting a blindfold on so they can't see God wasn't what they thought. The bible is full of people wrestling with God (I'm not actually doing that much of this but I probably should be) and he seems to like the people that do it (Jakob, Moses, Jonah, etc...)

The Doc says this will be a lot tougher than what we have been through so far, quite how this could be possible I have no idea.  I do know that I have changed for the better over 6 months (I'm glad I was bald to start with though as I have also been stretched beyond belief) I am determined not to ever lose perspective of my life and its priorities nor to waste this opportunity to slow down and appreciate Rach. She's an amazing blessing that I am so grateful for her

some thoughts

as man stares into the abyss he finds his true self. To never have the abyss in front of you is to miss out on what you don't want and what you do want, a life of banality instead of one of challenge, understanding and hope. People ask how i cope with Rach being so ill and i always reply that there is simply no alternative but I know there is. I guess my true self is a blind optimist and this is my most effective defence.

 Rach's recovery is like driving out of a forrest and finding that there is a path out that is slowly becoming firmer and will eventually become a road. It is still a bit craggy at the moment and is not as smooth as many seem to think. We know she will make it but the smooth road is in the distance. I am helped daily by a few recurring thoughts, some are genuine and some have to be trained into my head.

1. This is for good - I wrote this up in 'there's gold in them there hills' but i have to remember that we are the lucky ones (I don't mean i'm happy with it as it sucks just that I know this ends up good, like in a good film where the plot has to go pear for the end to be better)
2. Get on with things - there is a limit on our time and there are things that if we want to do them, should be done (I'm going for stuff like 'learn French','visit Japan', 'read and finish a book by a Russian author' I'm not meaning anything too hedonistic)
3. Prioritise - people throw so many cliche's around and will always say they don't put their career first but actually the lure of power, money or just wanting people to 'hey you are good at your job' is something of a niggler and only creeps up on you so you don't always see it coming.
4. Focus on compassion for others above the need for compassion for yourself - hey if i could get this one to stick and make it my stock response i think it'd be amazing but this situation is really helping me learn this.

Scrub that

Ok all is well!! Last chemo today (prob) I will do another entry when I can work out what I'm thinking other than soooooo happy x will summarise in next few days

baking and waiting

Only 3 chemo's left for my good lady wife then I get to be ill and have her make me stuff. I'm honing my bread making skills in the mean time as I was told it is good for developing patience and perseverance. So far these have usually been learnt most by eating the bread which often weighs a ton and definitely requires perseverance to eat but i am improving for shizzle.

I'm actually loving it so much that I want to open a bakery, just a small one and currently it would have to sell only one type of bread as that is all I have ever made but I love the idea of a little home bread shop. Hey maybe I should buy an old ice cream van and trundle around town selling bread, coffee and tea oh and maybe a few newspapers (not the fascist Daily hate mail of course) I could do a morning run like a grown up paperboy- a  paperman even. Now to choose a name and most importantly a tune that the van would play when I enter a street so people would know I was there. In the evenings I could still sell the coffee but do puddings too?? Just an idea but if anyone wants to go halves?

I can't believe Rach has more chemo today and can't believe there are 2 more after that. I don't feel angry but I do feel generally numb. I think it's a coping mechanism and I think it is good as it means I can get through this but it can make me feel like I lack emotion. 3 doesn't sound a lot and I know we are so far through this but when 1 chemo was more than we had ever been through together and each one is harder than the last it feels like the end is still far enough away that we have a big fight left. We had some good days and even a date this week and that helps so much but there is no quick fix and no way I can do this for Rach which as a guy is frustrating. Anyhoo this post is largely because I haven't done one for a while and wanted to share my baking masterplan, that is obviously my main priority!! xx.

Sleepy time

I have never been so tired as i was this last few weeks (hence the lack of blogging), i was left hankering for 3 things 1. Rach to be well, 2. Noah to feel loved and looked after and 3. sleep

I've not had much time lately (what with Rach's cancer, her swine flu, her line infections, time in hospital & Noah having a bug) and have felt tired. Thing is I pretty much always say I'm tired, as I think do most people as such I guess being tired is not really the interesting part, far more interesting is why someone is tired. I for once actually have an excuse for being tired but I think I need to make up less excuses for sleepiness generally and accept if I am going to feel tired then I need to be tired because I have eeked out all I could from the day. Ending it exhausted from activity of body, mind and soul rather than simply because I have been awake for ages or that I've allowed boredom to sap my energy.

A Chinese proverb is that 'man grows tired by standing still' and I think activity rather than lethargy can be far more productive. I love running and cycling but I don't have the energy to do them much except that of course after running I have truckloads more energy than when I left. You are unlikely to get out of life much more than you put in.

 one day when Rach is well I want to be one of those annoying people that don't seem to rest that are always doing something productive and seem so not be sleepy for it. Rach has been so ill with the chemo lately and so upset that my previous blog about finding gold in the hills of her suffering is being fully tested. I don't always feel it, but i have to believe it will work out for the better. I have to believe i was made well enough to stand up through this and keep Rach (and Noah) going at the same time. This is all pretty serious I am thinking next entry I'm gonna make inane and mindless!

there's gold in them there hills

Certain topics are easy. Most of my blog entries so far have been things that I know or things that if I get wrong I would hardly regret phrasing badly or wishing I'd talked about something else. Talking about Rach and about the cancer that she is fighting is too hard to put into words. Her blog deals with it more eloquently and more powerfully than I could hope to but here is a brief attempt from a very small distance to start thinking about how I am feeling & how I am hunting for the gold in the hills of this cancer.

Firstly i'm genuinly not angry either with God or with the situation. I am lucky, I think my life is fortunate, I have so much that I don't want to lose things rather than having so little that I am desperate to have things not material things but life, happiness, family etc...

Secondly, be careful what you pray for!! Cancer is never something you would want or pray for obviously, but if i condider what i have prayed for (improved marriage, financial security, an appreciation of my friends and a knowledge that i am appreciated by them) it is hard to think of a quicker and more direct answer to these prayers. It is however unquestionably the hardest most horrible way to learn these things. Perhaps in future i will add a caveat to my prayers with regards to how they are answered by God.

Lastly for now, I feel like God has been pretty quiet, I kind of expected to wake to an 'I love you' from him every morning and I haven't heard it (audibly) but I  know God will never leave me nor forsake me. I will hang in there and squeeze out every ounce of faith and trust that I stored over a lifetime with God. I know I will look back and see that where I was thrashing about thinking I was drowning, I was in fact wearing a life jacket that wasn't even fraying that was certainly not coming off. I will not sink, be left or forsaken!!

I don't feel like I've learnt all the lessons available through this so far, but as my dad pointed out I only need to exist and get through each day there will plenty of opportunities to learn when Rach is well. I love her and realising how much is the best gold i have found, maybe without having head off into the hills I'd never have known how much, maybe i should be grateful? Bruised but grateful.

God has entrusted me with myself

God would be disappointed with me if I tried to be Moses, if I tried to be Billy Graham or for that matter if they tried to be me. God is not going to say to me on the day of judgement 'why couldn't you be more like them?'. He may say 'why didn't you try to be more like yourself?' I hear that on the radio & it got me thinking.

He has entrusted me with myself and made me with handcrafted genius. I love the idea of creating stuff & I like to think if i was going to design myself i'd change a few things (personality here, looks a bit there etc...) essentially accepting God did a good enough job but thinking there were one or two areas he (or i) could do with tidying up a little. God is not shocked or surprised by my flaws, he made me with them! Not excusing when I do stuff wrong but seriously my biggest flaw is that i think more about my flaws than i do about the positive. When you surf (as I have a whole twice!) if you look at your feet you fall over but if you look up you surf (sometimes). If you look at your weakness' you fall over, if you focus on God & the bigger picture you surf.

God has entrusted me with myself to be myself and make the most of myself not spend my whole life trying to make myself something else. I heard a preacher once say that when God called us to be salty he meant us to taste more of our flavour (personality etc...) like when you add salt to food but not to taste of just salt (as in all the same) The good thing about being yourself is if you do it right it shouldn't require any effort. I want to be a better person, i want to be more pro-active and get more stuff done but i also want to be satisfied that i am in fact ok, that i am in fact well-crafted, and that, as i am with no effort at all i am in fact accepted, loved and good. Effort beyond that will help more of me come in to focus. God wants us to wrestle with him to know him more, it takes effort to help the poor, to do my job well, to be a good husband, dad, friend etc... but these are things that can flow out of a confidence in who i am, who i was made to be and the potential of who i can be. To do these things well i need to first appreciate that i am firstly accepted, loved & good

be as you wish to seem

I've spent part of today marking year 8 tests on Jesus, I think part of me only expects the keeno's and the christians to do well in this test as it involves a fair amount of memory recall (name the disciples...?? I have to look up the answer every time to check which ones are and aren't, not Luke apparently)  There are definitely a number of both in the class, Keeno's excused, the Christians in the class can't be deemed better than each other simply based on this test or any other test for that matter. It is so easy to think that Christianity boils down to an ability to know the facts and impress (I've been told this is wrong for so many years but I still don't listen). I know that study helps me to understand, but what does God want? A genuine heart, and worship in spirit and truth that doesn't always get it, or worship that gets 50/50 in a recall test? He wants genuine-ness!! (is that a word?)  I also understand that it comes down to grace but no matter how many times i'm told my nature prefers the concept of earning grace than just the free variety. I have to continually remind myself of my acceptance by him based on him not me.

Mike Yaconelli used to point out that Jesus' disciples spent so much time with him and knew him so well but still had no idea who he really was or what he was going to do. I think my blog has so far basically just promoted being dim and lost but hey hum maybe I can deal with that, I think Jesus wanted wild eyed childlike excitement not dull studious correct answers. I don't want to look clever or seem to know stuff, I want to be genuine and have that as how i seem.

What d'ya know?

I often think how impossible someone living in the Victorian era would have considered space flight when even planes weren't invented, but I think then how if I go further and accept only things of which I have seen or experienced up to today then I too would doubt space travel having a) never been to space b) never met someone who has been to space and c) never really understood why having been there ages ago we don't keep going back?? Things can be real without my having experienced it and things can turn out for good without me understanding them at the time or even after the time. My point is a lack of knowledge and understanding needn't be something to fear but something to embrace. The unknown is bigger than me and since I generally feel so limited I would rather wisdom and knowledge didn't have to dumb down for me but stayed safely out of my grasp!

 Socrates (via Plato) said "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" It seems like a good place to start but when people say 'things always turn out for best' it can sometimes seems a more comforting prospect than not knowing or celebrating the not knowing. Personally knowing i know nothing is a comfort, it takes the pressure off having to work everything out, of needing to understand everything and having to appear together. I can BE together and confident in accepting a lack of knowledge and control by dealing with each day as it comes on a day to day basis. If you make the correct decisions in the moment then the longer term ones will be steered more effectively to where you want to go - If I chose to spend time with my family, to pick up my son when he cries the long term effect is a good relationship with my family and a son with a sense of security. If I analyse, over plan and think through what i should do I miss the moment and long term do harm rather than good. 


Having a goal / aim in life is important but making the right decisions as you go is a far more effective way of achieving those goals than stressing each day that you are missing out or missing your calling. It's a cliche to say no one knows what the future brings but its not actually true, some things can't be predicted or happen when you didn't want them to and some things wont happen without a long term strategy and determined approach but with things that are important you make them happen over time by making the right decisions at the time not wallowing in pity from the last poor decision you made or looking so far forward you don't see what is happening today and enjoy it. On that note I should probably stop blogging and play with Noah!! Bye for now...