Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.

I've been crying and praying on and off most of the last hour or so...
Please come back.
But nothing.
All is straw.

Message to a friend

Someone sent me a lovely message and this was my reply. I just wanted to reproduce it here, because it expresses how I am thinking at the moment about missing my faith...

"What I miss is quite simple, it is the presence of my faith in my life and the extra dimension it brought.
I felt secure and loved by a wonderful creator and overwhelmed by a God who became man and died for me.
I had what was for me a relationship with that God- and let no one deny that.
I miss that at times terribly and my birthday brought it out.
Just because a person was once in love with a cheating man who they thought was in love with them, does not mean once they find the truth out, the loss of the love they believed was there does not hurt.

Every now and then this surfaces...and lately, probably because I've been in pain and tired and emotional, it has surfaced with a bang.
But I know feelings do not facts make and as much as I want God back, I know that my wanting cannot make him any more real than Santa.
That hurts like heck at the moment, but sometimes, I have found, I have to let things hurt so I can work through them to the other side."

I cannot just take God back, make myself believe because I don't.
I want to believe as I did before but I can't.
So I just have to work through my hurt and come out the other side, a heathen, as I believe the term is, one of the great unwashed.
And it hurts to know that is how I am thought of, but it is, I guess, what I now am.

Thank you for all your support, my dear friends, I am sorry that it has not succeeded.
*hugs* to you all...

Pity Party

It started because I decided to look back at last years blog to see what I was up to...
And read this... (post 255, 16th Sept 2005)
Funny, the tune was going through my head again.
And I read on, through the months that followed and suddenly saw how far away I was.
And thought of this time last year- of having a "Happy Birthday" thread in OBOB and being part of something that now I am so far from.

Martyrdom by pinpricks
Can't remember where I read that
Rumer Godden?
But pinpricks, continual, persistent, can be painful and hard to
endure.
How difficult to hold back the words, the retorts, the anger!
Leave me alone!
I just want to be alone and live my own life, my way.
But he looks on, smiling at my weaknesses
Look through the forest, work your way through the maze, ignore the
pinpricks, the dross, the padding and go to the heart of the matter.
That God is love.
Active, real love.
The love of God will defeat the pinpricks, the dross, the
superficial.
It will pull the mighty from their thrones and raise the lowly.
It will fill the starving, send the rich away empty.
If love is not there, He is not either.
Remember!

Where did that go?
Why did it go?
And a forum without a birthday thread reminds me I am a branch cut from the vine that has withered and died inside...

If I could turn back time and become just 21 again....

So this is my little pity party
Mourning the loss of my faith
Because it is a loss
It was a positive thing for me
It helped me and made me grow

Well, there may have been negative bits too, but tonight all I can see is loss and I'm weeping.
Boy I hate these hormones...
I want God back.

9/11

Some events imprint themselves on your memory.
Aberfan was the first such memory for me, even though I could have been no more than 7 or 8.
My father had worked down the Merthyr Vale pit during the war, the pit which produced the dust which went on the tip which slipped and killed a whole generation of children.
I just remember it being a dark dark day, my mother crying, my father going to take things needed to a depot.
And being aware that if I had gone to school that day in Aberfan, I would not have come home.

9/11
Coming out of the lecture theatre to be told "there's been a terrible accident"
Only hearing accounts till I got home then watching in tears and horror as people fell to their death, were crushed by the falling towers.

For what?

No words to answer, just Max Boyce's poem on Aberfan.
Wherever we are tomorrow, let us bow our heads and remember all those whose autumns came too soon.

Aberfan
A shy fragile leaf now greens
In a bright and plastic room
On tender stems it offers forth
To cast its earthen womb
Fed by a valley's tears
That watched it leaf and grow
To tell of ones that sleep the night
In Aberfan below

One day those sleepy flowers
Will leave that sunsealed land
And wink away the night
That no one understands
To tell us why that summer fades
In a single afternoon
And why that day in Aberfan
Did autumn come too soon.

The life that I have

The life that I have is all that I have...

Words that rang through my head this morning as I did some reading.
Try as hard as I can, I just cannot believe in an after-life.
That is scary.
Because one day, inevitably, I will die and be no more.
Buddhism suggests meditating upon death as a preparation for it- but they too believe in something continuing after death.
Which I cannot.

Should that make a difference?

The next line of the poem reads...

The life that I have is yours.

If instead of looking for a physical or mental continuation of my life, I give my life and the love of my life away now, prepare for the death and separation that will come and then live joyously with those around me, then death will not be the end of the life that I have lived.

And what better way to do that than by following the path of those wise men and women who have touched so many through the years?

"Unless you forgive from the heart..."
"Love your neighbour as yourself..."
"Go and do likewise..."

Just a thought.

Moans and groans

I had a virus infection about four weeks ago and it has left me with an "inflammatory arthritis" or so the doctor put it so nicely yesterday.
Should be gone in another month or so (didn't like the "or so" bit.)
Meantime, I take some anti- inflammatories, have a whole load of bloods done (yikes!) and suffer in not quite silence for the next few weeks.
I'm not looking forward to my return to work on Monday like this, and I have a peer group meeting and have to cope without my wonderful old ward...
I'm in self pity mode big time.
Added to which hubbie has had a crisis (no details, but extremely worrying and stressful) son1 keeps bursting into tears because he wants a girlfriend like son2 and son2's affairs of the heart are causing me more stress than the rest of them put together.
So I felt close to packing up shop at the begining of the week.
Putting an answerphone message on my life.
"I'm sorry, Cath is not available at the moment, she has left the planet in a cloud of angst."
But I would never do that, too much pain and heartache.
Nice to think of a thought-less stress-less place to be sometimes though.
A day out might even be nice...

OK, moan over.
Today we are going to a bird sanctuary and I will take more photos to bore people with and hopefully have two mminutes to sit and enjoy the atmosphere without son1 sounding off in one ear, son2 in the other and hubbie in the third...

Oh and the pic was an icon I saw in a Church in Abergavenny.
Taize icon.
brought back memories, so I took it with me in my reclaiming quest...

Summer Holiday2

We've all been on our Summer break.
To Yorkshire, to a beautiful cottage.
It had its high points and its not so high points...
Like the power kept cutting out and the lack of privacy not apparent in the advert.
And the weather
And the children, who were demanding and dissatisfied by a great deal of what went on.
T was his usual self, totally focused on himself and his needs and proud of the fact.
"What do you expect?" he answered at one point, as I attempted to haul my aching body round York in an attempt to find the one shop he HAD to go to...
Two hours later, found and rejected as being "ridiculous" for not having the product he "needed." An ice cream helped distract, as always and I had the chance to wander through the rambling shambling passages of York and sit in awe at the wonderful structure that is York Minster.
Mw was quieter than usual, worried about his gf, wanting to speak to her, be with her as she went through a difficult time. But he relaxed gradually and his witty and sharp banter kept up my spirits as my body continued to ache and complain.
M drifted along, above it all, taking T out for walks and drives in turns, reading his books and greatly enjoying the railway museum.
Me?
I took great pleasure from the little things I could.
The brook at the end of the road.
The views.
Meeting an internet friend and his fiancee.
The rabbits playing in the fields by the cottage.
The wind on my face while riding the "pirate boat" with Mw in Scarborough bay.
The views of the Moors, the purple heather, the silence.
Sitting on the couch with Mw snuggling in, watching Shrek2 and listening to him laugh...

Things of incalcuable worth and joy.

Reclaiming Christ

When I was little and growing up, I remember a period when feminists were seeking to "reclaim the night." Looking at taking away fear and dread from the bogeyman who dwelt there, terrorising women into not going into the night and making it once more a place of joy and delight, a time to explore, to allow the mind to expand with the vastness of the sky and the distant lights of the stars.
Today, as I read A N Wilson's book on Paul, my mind expanded and the phrase came into my head "reclaiming Christ." Now Wilson, like others, is not a believer of the historical view of Christ as my old church used to see him. He sees the gospels as being the growing churches interpretation of the life of Christ and feels we will never have a truly accurate picture of the Christ that really was.
But does that really matter, I muse to myself, if I can try and reclaim some of the teachings that still echo in my heart?
It's no use trying to talk with real life people about this, they see only my rejection of what they hold dear. But when I read, as I still do occasionally, the writings of Carlo Carretto or Jean Vanier or Brother Roger or Mother Teresa, these incredibly wonderful people I see that they were driven by something that I want to reclaim, even if I cannot really believe it.
I'm so far away from where I was once, when my life just twirled around Christ.
Is it possible to reclaim that while not believing it?
Is it possible?
Can resurrection mean something vital still, though not once what it did?
Time to muse and ponder.
Perhaps reclaiming Christ means to live Christ, to live resurrection...
Who knows?
I can try though...

When you forgive your enemy
When you feed the hungry
When you defend the weak
you believe in the resurrection

When you wake at peace in the morning
When you sing to the rising sun
When you go to work with joy
you believe in the resurrection.

Belief in the resurrection means filling life with faith
it means believing in your brother
it means fearless towards all...

Carlo Carretto, Blessed are you who believed.

Summer Holidays

So I was on the phone to a friend and she suggested that I join her in a 50 mile sponsored walk. Being in a somewhat manic mood at the moment, I responded in the affirmative with this being the outcome. So I now have 3 months to raise £500 and get into shape for a 50 mile walk in 2 days in the foothills of the Pyrennees, to raise money to take disabled children to Lourdes with our Lourdes group.

So why is a committed atheist doing this? Perhaps my posts back in April about the Lourdes trip (Lourdes1- Lourdes7) will tell why. Despite not believing in the events that took place there, nor in the God that those go there pray to, I believe in the positive effects that taking such children away as a group and giving them the love and care that they need can bring...

So in practising I am incuring the wrath of Tom. Today, we went to Cefn On Park (pics above) so I could walk my mile. Tom was irate and trailed behind muttering about how I shouldn't do things for other people, only him and how hot it was. In the end he told me it was so hot, he wished he could destroy the sun.
"You'd be dead too then" I informed him.
"I DON'T CARE!!!" was the impassioned response.
Recognising by this that our son1 was strongly moved, I probed into why life had got so troubled once again.

The non arrival of a game he was expecting was the trigger and it needed much coaxing and Socratic type questioning to arrive at a point where he would let the sun live.
That and an ice cream helped.
And now he's back happily playing on a game- for the next ten minutes or so...
And I am increasingly thankful that weapons of extraordinary power are out of his hands...

And me, I'm gathering up my energy to do another walk...
So, please, if you know any millionaires, point them in the direction of my site and ask them to send some money to help send some children to Lourdes.
And keep me and my poor legs in your thoughts. They're complaining already...

Busy week

So this time last week I was in Antwerp at a truly joyous celebration of the love that two people have for each other. And Tuesday I was in Glasgow. And today I am recovering from a Ball last night.
Add in to that a busy couple of days in work, emotional turmoil between colleagues and children and you have one busy week.
But, as always, it came and went. Time marched on unstoppable. And in cyber land, feelings were hurt, dramas enacted, rules discussed and pondered and enforced.
And I felt increasingly disconnected from this strange virtual world where seemingly small things take on such huge proportions and my world, where I am ant like amongst the important virtual Christians, who stomp round and trample without thought of who they are crushing with their words and actions.
And who seem so strangely disconnected themselves (with notable exceptions) from the words of the Christ they follow.

And last night, Martin fixed me with his beady eye, inbetween his usual pattern of behaviour and reminded me that I was to come and see him to chat.
I laughed.
Still atheist, I told him.
Made no promises either.
No words of his will convince, from him will come nothing new, all that may happen is a fracturing of friendships.
So I smiled and accepted the Sambucca offered and left him in Martin universe.

And now it is morning and I am wide awake and M snores peacefully and T roams the house in his morning fashion.
Another busy day to face.

Faith 2

Hebrews 11.1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

What do I now hope for, now that I no longer believe?

Having read this thread on CF, in particular one or two of the posts from Christians, it is as if I have become colour blind to God.
The things they say make no sense.
Once I used to say those things, think like that, believe with all my heart and mind and strength, yet now, it seems like so much straw.
So what do I have faith and hope in?
Those I love, those I cherish, those I trust.
Those real living breathing people that I have surrounded myself with, who work with me and live with me and love with me and laugh with me and cry with me.
And one day all shall be dust.
No substance in my future, just an end to me and my conscious presence in this world.
No gates of paradise to walk through, no beatific vision, no happy ending of the Last Battle for me.
Some may wonder how I keep on living with this thought.
Why not end now, walk away?
Well, I don't want to, I have too much to do, my boys to see to, my clients to listen to and hold through their despair and their dark nights. Who would see to them and who would put on Tom's cream, calm his fears, laugh at his jokes, soothe his troubled brow?
But I retain the right to walk away at a time of my choosing if ever the going gets too much and I have nothing left to offer, no family or friends to fight for, to give to, no skills left for those who need it.
And I can live with that knowledge of the finality and inevitability of death.
It is real for me, as surely as day follows night follows day, that one day I will be no more.
And as reality, I prefer it to the stories I used to live with.
The story of a creator who consigns people to eternal torment for following the wrong path, for foolishness, for silly human pride and weaknesses that we all posses. Who listens to the wailing and gnashing of teeth, but who does not respond for all eternity.
Thinking this through and saying it out loud makes me unspeakably sad, because this is not how I used to see the Lord, the one who was my Lord, my God, my all.
But my vision has altered and there is no way back.
There is no substance now in the things I once hoped for and no evidence of things unseen.
Just me and reality going forward, till I get as far as I can go.

"And build a Hell in Heaven's despite."

So, mission accomplished.
Or so I should feel.
But as I originally thought, there are no winners in this, only losers.
The victorious side full of guilt that the other side must now be suffering.
And I feel like a worm, though I know the way I went was right and true and the only way I could have gone.
And tomorrow now comes into view, impossible scenario, with no answer and no solution.
Different modes have played out in my head, if I say, if I do, if I suggest...
But finally control is not mine and I have no answer, nothing to say or do, no suggestions that will undo an horrific past and a nightmare present.
I can try and offer a little balm, but on the open sore that is her soul, what good will it do?

Love was misused
And no pill, no potion, no magic words or therapy, no CBT, no analysis can give sufficient love to ever overcome that memory of the misuse.

The CLOD & the PEBBLE
William Blake

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattles feet:
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.

Try to stay calm and controlled, now...

I'm doing my best.
When sometimes something happens that appears to be unjust, but you only have the one side, it is easy to go like a bull at a gate and charge and end up not helping.
So I am trying to stay calm and in control, gritting my teeth when I see the triggers and not respond.
I've done the right thing up to now and will wait a couple of days to see if anything happens, letting it all flow gently over me.
The heck I am!!
The flow is surging over me like a storm crashing on the rocks, alternating anger and fury with moments of waiting, which makes being calm and collected all the more difficult.
And I can see why this is a hard decision to take from one sense, but my instinct, which I trust, tells me something is not right and I will not rest until I can at least get others to see that.
But whatever happens, someone will get hurt, of that there is no doubt...
:-(

And it focuses me onto other issues that I too need to address, that run too deep to think of now, too close to the bone to open and explore.
Calm and collected, one thing at a time.
Do not risk losing more, too much has been lost already.

So, as I muse on life I think I need to muse on something that is food for my spirit.

To muse that love is enough, despite all that goes on around, to overcome the crashing of the waves on the rocks, the uncertainty of what is right or wrong, the waiting and the tension.
My hand will not tremble, nor my feet falter from this path...


Love is enough

by William Morris

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass'd over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

Love's the sweetest thing...

Two contrasting women
Both bearing the same name
Sitting, talking, crying, thinking
Of things past and present, of loves and losts
Of aches in the heart and in the mind

I sit and absorb and reflect and wish the majic was majic indeed
To spread and make light the burden
Not within my power
Nor in my basket of potions and pills
No heartease, no memory spell
To remove the dark side of life and replace it with the light

All I can do is all that I do
Listen, reflect, ease where we can
Hold when needed, push when stuck
Absorb the rage, the hate, the anger
With a wry smile and a shared tear
With hope that riding the waves with them will work
And that none of us will fall
before the end is reached

And that the hatred shown past
will be wiped out
by the love shown now
and that finally
all may be well
and all may be well,
and all manner of things may be well.

Sleep sweetly my friends....

Post from Nov last year elsewhere:

Things I need to do...
Awake all night in pain
I must go to the doctors next week!
My friends have all confidently and independently decided it's a gastric
ulcer and it's certainly not all in the mind, so I better go and get it sorted.
I can't cope with the lack of sleep any longer!
Also in one of those awful hanging on by a thread state of minds.
Trying to stay well away from topics that may just tip me over, because
I've been at the end of my tether before but never discovered what happens when
the tether runs out..
Do you plunge screaming into the abyss?
Because that's what I forsee and I don't want that at all
Hence the need to avoid certain discourses
But too much is going on in my head (lack of sleep is not good) and the
thread is getting thinner and thinner
And perhaps confronting the problems might put them to bed forever, instead
of snapping the thread
Perhaps
Help...

But the thread snapped...
And today I so wish that I had gone away and stayed away.
Because this abyss is not where I ever wanted to be
But now I'm here, I'm trying to make the most of it.
The sheer walls either side make it somewhat hard to climb out, but I can see a way forward and I can see a chink of light.
And I have kept walking towards it and the light is getting stronger.
I can't verbalise it all very well, but I think I can live it.
Well, some of it...
Kindness, compassion, empathy and care seem to be the motto
They can defeat much, not all.
Cannot defeat the worst that humankind can do to each other, but they can gently brush the edges of the horror and make things a little more bearable.
Perhaps bearable enough not to give up the fight.
My hope...

New York seems a distant dream...

Matt is lying on my bed listening to the Waterboys as we chat.
NYC seems a distant dream and we both wish we were back there, probably for different reasons!
"So peaceful!" says Matt- I know he is thinking of lying in Central Park under the trees in the shade with a gentle breeze cooling us off as he reads his books and birds scatter around us...
Me, I want to see all those things I couldn't with him- the museums, the art.
Stand in front of a beautiful Madonna and child, that still hold me, still move me, despite what I now believe.
Gaze in awe at the love of mother for child frozen through time on a canvas and wonder why this child has won so many hearts, so many lives over the years.
And think of the words that child was reported to have said, his acts that spoke louder than words.
When he bent to the ground, the crowd standing round expecting condemnation, a good stoning, he wrote instead in the sand.
What did he write?
Perhaps the name of each, and their hidden sins, crimes of the heart known only to each one.
Sins laid bare, for all to see, in the light.
And she who was stood there, exposed, scarlet letter on her chest, she was spared and forgiven.
Go and sin no more...
But forget not your sin, for it is part of who you were
And being forgiven, forgive much and understand much, so that others might too begin to see...

The message still resonates within...

Friendship

BEING YOUR FRIEND
Being your friend, I do not care, not I,
How gods or men may wrong me, beat me down;
Your word's sufficient star to travel by,
I count your quiet praise sufficient crown.

Being your friend, I do not covet gold,
Save for a royal gift to give you pleasure;
To sit with you, and have your hand to hold,
Is wealth, I think, surpassing minted treasure.

Being your friend, I only covet art,
A white pure flame to search me as I trace
In crooked letters from a throbbing heart
The hymn to beauty written on your face.
— John Masefield (slightly
adapted into the second person)

I found that at jfk in a book of poetry that I bought
Beautiful and expresses how I feel about the many friends I am so fortunate to have, in both virtual and real life world. The beauty and love of my friends is something that powers me on when days become difficult and burdensome: the encouragement of my mad but loving co-workers, the shared joy found in small miracles with T with my Lourdes friends, the empathy and laughter of friends from the net and so many others, some old and longstanding, some new but deep in my heart already.
In friends I am rich indeed!
Thank you all of you from the bottom of my heart...

nyc

My bodyclock is totally gone! I woke at 3am here, bright as a button, while Matt snored peacefully. Our time here is gentle and relaxed, wandering in Central Park while watching sparrows peck at our feet, with museums and sights intersperesed at a gentle pace.
And manga- Matt found a bookshop stuffed full and is determined to fill his case.
Every now and then we speak of Tom.
I had not realised how much Matt felt pressurised by him, how much he hated being always at Tom's beck and call. How much, deep down, I felt that way too. We sat, the first night, opposite each other, sharing thoughts and feelings about it and looking for ways to go forward, so that we all have more space to breathe in a house that at times feels like a fortress inside, with people barricading themselves away to protect their fragile hearts. We sit, Matt in his room, me in mine, dad downstairs, hiding from the whirlwind that Tom can become, from the hours of unrelentless barrage of words and anger.
There has to be a better way...
I promised Matt to look with him, while realising one thing that we cannot do
Change Tom..

Would I have him any other way?

I would not ask that question, it is an impossibility, so best not considered. I love him, however wearing he can be and I want what is best for us all...

So time to think as we continue here and time to go and wake Matt up, ready for the day!

All my bags are packed...

...just got to get through today in work, then it's off to Heathrow tonight and nyc tomorrow.
Really nervous now, taking Matt so far away.
Usual separation anxiety!
But at least Tom's skin is a little better, although they've referred him to a specialist for his face, which is terrible still...
And when I return, it's another long hard slog till the next break, in August.
I feel I'm leaping from break to break at the moment and it helps...
Mustn't leave such a long gap next time.

So nyc- during a public holiday
Not my most inspired decision!
Let's hope all goes better than my last two trips.......

See you soon!

When I am an old woman..

..I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves..."
(Warning by Jenny Joseph.)

I have an awful feeling I'm already at this stage.
Or maybe I have always been an old woman.
My dress sense would have made Michael Foot look positively elegant
My eye for colour strange in the extreme and my ability to do my hair reflected in the fact that I can never let it grow beyond an inch or so.
So here I am, short, fat and scatty, losing my glasses and watch and passport
And vague in the extreme...
("What time are we flying?"- "Um...sometime Saturday morning..)

I wonder Mikey has hung on to me as long as he has, he certainly has a well worn look of a man whose patience has been sorely tried.
Even moreso now I have performed this ultimate betrayal of losing the thing that once pulled us so close together...
I still regret it on many levels, especially on this human relationship one.

He still just smiles sweetly at me and tells me I will get my faith back, of that he has no doubt.
My protestations that I am equally sure of where I am now are met with typical Mikey stubborness...
But life goes on. Matt has failed once more in cookery to produce anything edible and the dog rejoiced as it meant she had a whole load of salmon. The cat seemed content too. Tom's skin has improved with all the hard work of creams four times daily and hopefully we'll continue to keep it clear. And job share partner has her interview tomorrow and I suspect will get the job, which will leave me up the creek without a paddle...
So as well as a watch, my glasses and the passport, I'll be looking for a paddle too...
And the happenings at CF continue to entertain, stimulate and produce deep sorrow. I am trying so hard just to let the feelings ebb and flow, take them as inevitable parts of the loss of my place in the society I once inhabited.
And with each rush of feelings, my ability to let myself feel the pain is growing. Instead of fighting it or distracting, I sit and hurt until it goes.
Which it does.
And feel for those whose hurt does not go and whose pain remains.
Shadows in the past become more ghostly and less in their ability to torment and frighten...
Out of every difficult situation, a chance to grow occurs.