Difficult Decisions

I have helped several people in the past downsize with varying degrees of success, now it is my time,  fortunately I am not having to downsize enormously, and in part it is good, I have never been a hoarder and getting rid of stuff that is excess to requirements has a kind of cleansing feel to it.  So son has taken a leaf out of RevRuth’s Son #1 book and is selling a load of stuff that will otherwise just stay in boxes in the attic on e-bay.

The greatest difficulty is deciding which books to keep and which to find new homes for.  I have got a new bookcase for the study which will fit better than my existing ones, but it is one replacing three, although I think it will hold most of the theological books I really want to keep.  For many years I kept my childhood library until we moved into a flat with no storage and the children passed the age that they really wanted to continue reading them, with a great deal of difficulty I picked a few to keep and gave the rest away, but how I wish I hadn’t.  Hubby on the other hand has currently put an embargo on me buying a new bookcase for the living room, maybe I should get rid of his books to make room for mine, but even that idea is something that I cringe at.

The other stuff is easy; it isn’t to my taste any more; the significance in keeping it is no longer there; it will just have to be dusted; there isn’t going to be room for it and I wont miss its going.  But books that is an altogether different story.

Why is it so painful?  What is it about getting rid of books that tugs at my inner being so?

40 Years Ago

I remember being woken – in what my memory says was the middle of the night – and being herded into my parents bedroom with my brother (I don’t remember my sister being there maybe my parents decided she was too young, she was only 2).  That was back before the days when people actually had televisions in their bedrooms but they had moved the television from downstairs up there.  All four of us climbed into their big bed, something that usually only happened on birthdays and we watched transfixed as the Eagle landed and after what seemed like an eternity first Neil Armstrong and then Buzz Aldren stepped out onto the moon.

It is probably the clearest of my early childhood memories, I was 5 at the time, I really was one of the children of the space race.  We believed that by 2000, never mind 2009 trips to the moon would be common place, that people would be living on the moon, that mars would have been visited to see for definite if that planet was the home of friendly or hostile aliens.

As I look back today the reality is completely different, it has been decades since the last one of our species stepped foot on the lunar surface.  Space travel for average individual is still the stuff of sci-fi; despite having an international space station in orbit around this blue planet colonies away from the pull of its gravity is still a long way off; and while probes have journeyed passed the moon we still haven’t.

Disasters such as Apollo 13 no doubt slowed things down, but today as I think back it seems as if we have not just slowed down but almost ground to a stop.

The events of 40 years ago pointed to a bright new future, a future of new discoveries and new frontiers, what happened?  Maybe the dreams and hopes of a 5 year old were always unrealistic after all no one can deny the fact that the space race did indeed change the world.  The technology that got us to the moon is now part of our daily lives just not in the way an excited child woken in the middle of the night envisioned.

Brush, Roller or Pad?

I confess I am a pad person, smoother finish than a roller, quicker than a brush.

Now those of you who don’t do your own decorating might be wondering what I am going on about, and even those of you who do might have only just heard the penny drop at the mention of decorating.  For that has been the activity over in the new Rectory the passed day and a half.  Study is now fully painted, in the aforetwittered, ‘Dusted Damson’ and ‘Mulberry Burst’ although there are some bits that need touched up, struggled with the window as I was too low off the steps and too high on them!  Lounge is also painted ‘Overty Olive’ a risky choice but has worked very well indeed.  Paint colour for kitchen picked although not begun yet, still debating over the colour for our bedroom, and dinning room, while the other bedroom that needs painted will be a warm beige, I think.  Good news is that I didn’t need one of the pots of ‘Dusted Damson’ so the refund for that will pay for the bedroom paint, this moving is an expensive business.

Thankfully the church are paying for decorators to do the hall, stairs and landing.

The Sound Of Silence

You would have thought that taking a trip to the countryside it would be the sound of silence that would deafen you … anything but, instead we were deafened by the sound of:-

• cows and calves mooing including a very noisy cow in labour
• sheep bleating as if they were trying to compete with the cows
• bees who seemed to have lost their volume control
• low flying fighter jets
• shepherds whistling on their dogs
• not to mention the quad bikes they were on … the shepherds that is not the dogs
• cat’s crunching the rabbit they had just caught
• oyster catchers calling out with their own internal loud speakers
• flies being zapped by the blue electronic thing
• and the hedgehog snuffling – okay he wasn’t that nosy but he was nosier than any other hedgehog I had ever seen.

It would have been quieter in Glasgow’s Central Station, although nowhere near as peaceful and the noise not half as calming, and i wouldn’t have seen the very quiet roe deer.

Good Day

That was yesterday, a good day, one of the best in fact.

A joyous time spent with good friends, wonderful weather, excellent food.

Evening spent having fun at my last Quiz Night here at St Mark’s.  It was all down to the last round, the scores before it began meant that anyone could have won, however the Flying Angels came out triumphant.

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

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Books, Charles Dickens

After reading ‘Mister Pip’ a couple of months ago the Book Group decided that it was time to return to one of the Classics and Great Expectations was the most natural choice.

While most of us had previously read it, none of us had read it within the last 20 years or so, which meant that each of us discovered things about it which we had forgotten.  We were all delighted to have been reacquainted with Joe, Herbert and Wemmick and even Jaggers, Miss Havisham and Magwitch found favour with us this time around.   While we all agreed we had all met at least one Estelle, Biddy and Mr Pumblechook in our lives, and in fact the later even managed to get himself into the sermon on Sunday, something which no doubt if he was real and had known about he would have been highly delighted about!

The moral tales and lessons scattered liberally throughout the book created much discussion and despite the characters individual failings come the final page there was only one person who we universally found disagreeable, namely Orlick.  We also decided that was down to Dickens writing and he was the only character who never saw the error of his ways and redeemed himself.

The humour and descriptive way of Dickens writing make even a long book like this easy to read, so all in all, if like me it is a long time since you picked up ‘Expectations’ then you also like we did might enjoy revisiting Pip’s story.

Ordination

Last Night it was off over to Lenzie for the ordination to the Presbyters of Moira Jamieson.

It was a joyous occasion on a glorious summers evening and the church was packed with friends, family and the congreagtion of St Cyprian’s.  After the service people crammed into the hall and spilled out into the church garden to eat and drink of the bounty that had been provided.

On of the nicest things about it was the number of priests which turned out for the occasion.  In recent years numbers have been low for such occasions and it was good that so many of us were there to offer that visible symbol of the shared nature of priesthood as we laid hands on her.  It was also warming to see the local Roman Catholic priest there supporting a woman being ordained priest.

Moria will serve at St Cyprian’s the congregation she comes from and also down the road at St James the Less, Bishopbriggs.

May God always guide and bless her.

72 Years On

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Amelia Earhart

As a child one of my heroines was Amelia Earhart.  She was of course the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928 and 4 years later became the first female to cross it solo.  Her last, uncompleted journey was to fly around the world with her co-pilot Frederick Noonan on this day she sent a message that she was low on fuel, that was the last that was ever heard of her.  Nothing was ever found of the plane last reported as being somewhere in New Guinea in the South Pacific.

The world is a very different place some 72 years later, her achievements have passed into the mists of time with the ability for anyone to fly around the world, if they have the money, without much planning or consideration that they might be embarking on a dangerous journey.  Yet still a lot of what she believed in has not been achieved, equality is still not a reality, however I believe that Amelia can continue to be an example for those who fight for it, whatever that equality they fight.  Amelia didn’t proclaim equality with mere words but went about doing it.  She didn’t complain about a glass ceiling, instead she got into a plane and smashed through it proving that a woman was just as capable as any man.  Although she was vocal at times she most definitely believed that actions were stronger than words.

Her determination, courage and belief that she wasn’t restrained by her gender has inspired and no doubt will continue to inspire me.   I think it is sad that she is rarely remember.