Oh muted world (diary of blocked ears, day 4)

Oh muted world... I miss the sounds of nuance, subtle inflections during conversations, the heady whispers of secrets shared and the lowered voices intoning information. Though I’ll admit it’s generally better to dim the gigantism of children’s voices that echo in our small home lest the echoes reverberate in my head (I have endless patience right now... I wonder why?)

But still the birds sing and I can hear them, muffled may they be through my imperfect hearing. Still the air holds songs of jets and engines high and low and I can trace them though not as accurately. Loudest yet is my own heartbeat and breathing as though my own self is larger than life. This irks me somewhat. I prefer my presence to be felt but not overbearing. Here in my muted world it’s all about me and this makes me uneasy. A small lump also sits in my throat - perhaps resident to remind me of tears not shed (though many have been this past year) and yet so many are waiting, such is the depth of my grief so often hidden and obscured by banter and comedy, busyness and feigned candour. To pause seems akin to death as reality pierces my heart over and over. 

But still the birds sing, their tune a joy and a wonder in this bright sun, easing the pain of a thousand years I feel. Tribute to the breaking spring. No toiling or spinning here, a reminder that all shall be made new and of a larger love still at work in everything. 

More horizontal epistles (of mild rudeness)

I was thinking about friendship today.  Friendship and adulting.  The tiniest things can really make all the difference.  For example, there are certain thresholds you cross in order to cement a friendship; things I think as grown ups we take for granted.  Adulting is a fantastic occupation but requires enormous strength (for me at any rate).  I was at a dinner party hosted by a friend the other day and we were introduced to a new associate who we didn't know well but wanted to get to know more.  We shared the cooking and participated in conversation and then sat down in the lounge for after dinner drinks and more chats. Now at this point I have to share that my friend is the type of person who likes to present a pristine image of calm, warm, mildly perfectionist demeanour.  Everything has its poise and place.  She is a *lady*.  When it was time for our new associate to leave we got up to show them to the door but as we did my friend let rip a rather large, bubbly-sounding fart (the perils of chick peas in my humble opinion).  The grown up thing occurred in that we all pretended we heard nothing and I kept it together, which, for those of you who know me the most, is a miracle in itself, and continued to wish our new friend a good evening.  A win for Mim.  For now at least.  However, like a brewing flatulent itself, after they'd left I turned to my friend, gave them a big hug, thanking them for such a lovely evening and while they were still in my embrace I couldn't resist any more.  I whispered into their ear, "I just want you to know... that I totally heard *that*", at which point my friend collapsed in my arms and let out a big sigh, "ohhh nooo I'd hoped no-one heard..." Quite how anyone could have missed it is beyond me.  Triumphant adulting. Furious giggling ensued afterwards.  Adulting suggests that we pay no attention to these digestive pyrotechnics for the sake of courtesy and politeness.  Friendship bends those rules.  We crossed a threshold that evening and have been close ever since.  

Horizontal epistles

Lying on my side looking out the window from my parents' bedroom I have occasion to marvel once more at the sky and the landscape in all its youthful beauty as spring emerges.  It feels like a it's been a long winter but this is more an internal situation.  The sky is a patchwork of cotton balls and grey-white blankets and although it's mostly cloudy it still feels bright.  This view never tires.  I've observed this patch of sky for 39 years as it arcs over my childhood home.  It's been greeted by all the things that stirred my heart and made me fall in love with the sky: planes, microlights, helicopters, hot air balloons, airships (yes, even those rarities), birds of prey and thunderstorms.  This is the stuff of dreams and adventures.  And I'm here once more to rekindle that fire in my heart and my stomach. 

Well, truth be told, I'm here because I'm unwell and life has had to slow but I'm taking advantage of this time of respite and recovery.  I'm also taking a little license by using a title familiar to any Adrian Plass lovers.  I'm no Andromeda Veal - or Adrian Plass for that matter - but the title amuses me and is apt during this era of bedridden lurgy. 

During these past few days the precipitation seemed to glisten as it fell, like some sparkling gems were falling.  It turns out it was sleet falling in the faint sunlight.  Spectacular.  Even if it snuck in a little wintry shower during my springtime celebration.  But this is April and according to Dad it's normal.  Trueness: it snowed heavily on my grandmother's 80th birthday (April 8th) in 2008.  I love these little memories and anecdotes on weather. 

Dad kept a daily record of the weather and temperatures here from the 1960s all the way up to the early 00s, when, after another battering from a stormy season, his weather box finally gave up the ghost.  'Twas a sad day and we have tried to hook him up to the latest gadgets but he opted to retire from this long-haul hobby.  But if anyone wants to know what the weather was doing "on this day, 1977" Dad is your man.  Well, for this part of the world anyway.  My love for weather and the sky comes from him I suspect.  The utter geekdom about planes and aviation is something else entirely. 

Apparently I could draw planes before I could write my name.  This continued into my teenage years when I flew solo in a light aircraft before I had passed my driving test.  Some might say I like to do things the hard way.  I say, well, yes... but isn't it also about carving ones own path?  Pioneering.  I don't know.  Look at the sky.  It does its own thing and we are affected by it all.  We can predict and forecast but never get it correct every time.  That's sort of how I see life.  Roll with the unpredictable.  It builds resilience. And makes for a good adventure.  Probably why I opted to learn to fly hot air balloons.  How do you steer a balloon? - any way the wind blows (cue a well-known Queen song).

Choonz

Music is life. I’ve decided to blog again and maybe share a few songs I think are anthems for the moment. Not necessarily indicative of any political mood but more my own mood. Just for funzies. If you want political or sarcastic see my other blog “Rabadashtheridiculous.blogspot.com”. Name refers to a Prince from C S Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy who made a mockery of decorum, gentility and public office, made some bad choices and ultimately the people (assisted by Aslan) deposed him. But enough of this.

Choons: right now I’m totally into Harmony Hall by Vampire Weekend. Usually I’d see the name of the band and think “whaaa?!” and wonder if it’s trying to appeal to a certain teenage demographic and so steer clear since I am most certainly not in that age category. Props go to Stephenie Meyer for making vampires mainstream and, well, a little lame, not to mention synonymous with teenage angst. Nice work, Music Producers. Somewhere in the hallowed halls of record production there’s clearly a department whose sole job is to find a suitable name from a vault of cookie-cutter boyband-sounding ham-fest names that they pluck these crazies from. I can imagine the board meeting. “You fellas have a great sound. We want to market you well so let’s give you a name that’ll appeal to the mainstream market of hormone-fuelled adolescents. Any ideas?”

Terrible band name aside though, this is a chooooon!! Harmony Hall!! I highly recommend it. Even if you feel a little guilty listening to a band who are likely idolised and fantasied over by kids a third of my age. Dangerous though. Stick this in your Apple Music or Spotify and they’ll start suggesting other tracks from “similar” bands. I threw Spotify a curve ball though. Created a playlist with this, then ACDC tracks, then a bit of T’pau etc. Mwahahaha..

Eclectic.

Yeah, music is life.

Words are back

Wow. We had a Prayer Vigil on Good Friday night from 7pm till midnight but it didn't feel like 5 hours. Kids showed up to stay for an hour and left after 2. More kids showed up than I had ever imagined. The Prayer Wall and the Prayer Tent were firm favourites for them. One parent was so overcome by the profound creativity of her son that she was moved to tears. I could understand why: There were some crosses made out of ice lolly sticks, some 3 inch nails and paper crosses on which to write your prayers. He took one of the lolly crosses and pierced it with a nail (which was no mean feat.) On the paper cross he drew a picture of Christ, pierced holes in his hands and feet, wrote "Jesus Christ crucified" and "I died for my world" and then stuck it onto the nail itself like the spear piercing Christ's side. Incredible. When we joined together on the hour to read through an Iona Prayer and some scripture he offered to read the passage. At the age of eleven and having not read aloud for over a year he bravely stepped up to read the 21 verses, with a little assistance for the words that were too demanding. He also stayed the whole 5 hours till midnight. I cannot adequately describe this experience, only give snapshots of some of the things that were going on in that place.

Who can say where time went that evening. Hours felt like minutes. We joined together for Iona Prayers then went to our other stations for the rest of the hour (prayer wall, prayer tent, meditations at the cross, mission zone, Bible zone, Passover scene, or simply the pews) and yet time passed so quickly that before we even realised it the bell was chiming the hour once more. Unbelievable and yet strangely believable.

Heaven touched Earth and none of us are the same. All my anxieties melted in that place. There were battles going on for sure - those who were more perceptive to that stuff could sense it. Felt like a raging storm within me had died down. One man prayed a prayer that those who had been grieving for too long could move on. That prayer pierced me through and through. I came away and wrote in my journal how if I could pray one prayer it would be that my words would return and all the things that come in the way of my inspiration would be taken away and that I could write objectively about the wilderness time. I basically wanted the pain of loss to ease, the huge obstacle of anger about where I am to be removed and all the anxiety about my life and my future to ebb away. Words returned. I have a new understanding about myself and I can look with new eyes upon the world.

Yesterday I was gazing out the window as the sun sank lower and saw the weather front that was forecast to bring wind and rain on the horizon. But it didn't appear to me to be 'just weather'. I was in a ship on a sea of inky blue and the bank of cloud on the horizon was an island getting closer. I remembered how much I love the sky. It was a swathe of blue/grey with a couple of horizontal beams of thin cloud. Edging closer I knew I would see it arrive before the sun set but it brought no fear or gloom in my heart to know that the clearer skies would soon be covered and the still air would soon be stirred. It was more like an excitement of anticipation. Strange that the imminence of cloud and rain would not make my heart sink like the sun. New eyes.

I am tired, of course. I had only 4.5 hours sleep that night, to be awoken at 5:30am in order to reach the church by 6 to commence the final hour of prayer. I then had a full day's work. And yet I did not feel at all groggy or wasted like I normally would. I accepted that I was tired and therefore had a limit to what I might be able to endure and so was more relaxed. My colleagues noted this also. Other days would have seen me irritable and a little spaced, but not yesterday. The other-worldly strength seemed to reign within me. It spread as well. One pilot who knew what I had been doing asked, partly in jest, whether I would pray that the radio in his aircraft, which had been playing up for the past few weeks, would work okay. I said I would and he left to fly his student. He came back a couple of hours later and informed me that my prayers had worked and that the radio worked fine for the whole flight. Incredible. Prior to this the radio had been working so badly that the other instructors had to take a handheld radio with them in order to communicate with Air Traffic Control. It would switch itself off, reset its frequency unprompted and automatically go to the emergency frequency, sometimes mid-sentence. But not yesterday.

I am excited by what God is doing here right now and looking forward to seeing the results. This vigil has changed us, unified us, blessed, commended, challenged, cleansed, purified. It seems silly that it should surprise me how amazing God is, but I guess I just needed a change of focus to bring things back into perspective again. We are in different times and no matter frustrating I have found it being back in the same village, doing the same things, seeing the same people day in and day out that I have done for the first 26 years of my life, it is not the same and I need to remember that. Objective eyes. These are what I prayed for and ultimately what helps me bring my world to yours.

Who stole my words

Hey
Long time no write. 3 months in fact. Steadily becoming less opinionated - or at least less vocal about my opinions. The wind has been removed from my sails. Life has become intense once more. Can't understand this life. One minute I'm in a country that I love, the next I'm back at a place that's far too familiar to me, surrounded by all the things I thought I'd left behind. Words at a loss. Everything that felt real and inspiring to me is suddenly not what I thought it was. People are not who I thought they were. High hopes are dashed. I'm chasing my tail once more. Seek purpose in the familiar things, but inside there is this craving for more - an unsettled aching for an adventure denied me. No, this is not "the grass is greener". It's a true deep and spectacular longing to escape the old patterns, the old ways, old habits before they consume me entirely. I refuse to succumb to the lure of familiarity. That pioneering spirit is within, wrestling to break free. There is that sense of 'Calling' to be in this place right here, but who is called - I mean really? I'm not even sure there is such a thing. Did I just settle for the next best thing? There is a sense of place here, I'm aware of that. But so much emphasis should not be put on one small thing lest it fails - and it will do quite spectacularly. So I return to routine, allow my senses to be dulled and wait for something extraordinary to happen to me. Lightning bolt of inspiration? Or someone to walk in with a machine gun to end it all? Grim thought.

But at least the words have returned.

Tracks de Jour

If there was a sound track to my life the songs that would currently be playing are:

Anyway, by Martina McBride
Illustrates a great many sentiments within the desert of the past year and a sense of hope for the future that I now feel. Also something I really want to share with another friend of mine who is going through a bit of a rough patch (whether he acknowledges it or not)

Jesus, Take the Wheel, by Carrie Underwood
A classic anthem that I end up humming along to every time I'm about to go for an interview or lead the youth in an activity, acknowledging that there are no solo flights in the Kingdom. Also played as part of a thanksgiving for getting me through this past year.

Stained, by Android Lust
Something I picked up from NCIS Season 1 that's totally unique, classified as Alternative but I'd put it more like electronic-emo. It's totally wacky and completely addictive. Not so sure about her other tracks. Anyway, it symbolises my desire to become more adventurous in my musical downloads and expand my tastes, growing an eclectic collection that strays away from the Christian Muzak that dominates my iTunes.

More Than a Feeling, by Boston
I watched The Men Who Stare At Goats the other day and while I was vaguely amused by the story and zany humour (it was like Three Kings meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) I was totally hooked on this one anthem played within the movie. It takes me back to when I worked in the bar at the airfield and the skydivers always put on their skydiving videos that always had some awesome tracks - one of which was this one. I totally need to find it on one of my CDs and upload it to iTunes. I'm sure I've got a copy on one of those freebie CDs you get in teh Daily Mail or whatever. That and 'Don't Fear the Reaper'. Sweet.

I'm sure there are a bunch more. My life is played out in a million different songs. I haven't even begun to mention the classical ones. John Rutter's A Celtic Prayer, for example. Beeeeautiful. And I will get around to the Christmas greats of old. But you don't need to know all those for now. You're probably listening to the same ones I am.