Friendship Ponderings

We're just back from a lovely holiday in Lanzarote which my other half has already blogged about here so I won't mention the holiday but I've been thinking and pondering about what I read on holiday. I've been wading and I mean wading through John Ortberg's 'Everybody's normal till you get to know them.' I've been reading it for ages and am finding it hard going, never having read anything by him before I can't decide if it's me or the style of the book or what but it has got easier to read and it has challenged me in the area of friendships.

He talks a lot about community and what it means to be in community, how to be in community effectively, how to have meaningful relationships, how to be close to people without getting hurt and that's where it has struck a chord with me. You see I have lots of friends (382 on facebook) lots of people who I can meet up with, have a coffee with, chat about this and that with but Ortberg challenges us to have around us a couple of people who know us very well with whom we are able to have unveiled faces, to be accountable, to be honest and to share the sticky stuff of life. Don't get me wrong I have Mr B and he is fab but over the past few months (maybe even past couple of years) I have felt a sense of wanting to have a friend with whom I can be that close and honest to share the hard stuff and find a listener still listening. At uni I had a couple of friends like that but ended up getting hurt and now I find there's no one around me who I see regularly with whom I can build that kind of relationship and maybe deep down I'm afraid of getting hurt again so spend more time by myself and in chatty chatty friendships as opposed to deep friendships. It's something I need to think and pray about: do I need that kind of relationship/friendship, is my thinking about it a sign that it is something that is missing from my life, how do I go about building that kind of relationship either with someone I'm already friends with or somebody new, do I need to stop being so busy and using that as a mask to finding and building meaningful friendships?

Hmm deep thoughts for a Friday evening, can't help but think I'm probably not the only person in the world thinking these things and that gives me hope.

Is this middle age?

I've always prided myself on being young at heart; I try to be trendy, I shop in trendy places, I do young people type things, I love loud music and hitting thirty appalls me but recently I've noticed a change.

Time was, when at uni I would spend time with my friends chatting, watching TV, going for a drink, going out for tea, shopping for clothes now with these same friends I find myself going to visit garden centres to look at plants!! And today I have planted a vegetable patch in my garden and I'm dead proud of it and excited about all the home grown produce I'll hopefully be eating this autumn (providing the slugs don't attack!) Here is the evidence to prove the hard work.

I'm worried...this must be middle age...someone help me please!!

Chocolate O chocolate

This year as I was still putting on weight and not eating very healthily I decided to give up chocolate for lent and eat fruit instead and I have done very well indeed. I've bought fresh fruit and natural yogurt from Tesco and every morning I've made little fruit salads for Stephen and I to have in our packed lunches and I haven't really missed chocolate at all.

However yesterday Stephen's parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and they had been bought a chocolate cake which I had to eat to keep the in laws happy and .....I didn't enjoy my sliver of cake at all, could barley eat more than three mouthfuls - this could be a disaster or it could be a good thing only time will tell if i am able to return to my chocolate eating ways again or if this is the beginning of a whole new chocolate and caffeine free me.

A Lifestyle change may be needed

Have come home from Nexus, a bible study group at Church, totally fired up to sort parts of my life out and encourage some change so thought if I blogged about it, it would help set the wheels in motion.

Keith who is a retired minister who is part of our Church was speaking on Praying the Celtic Way and The Monastic Ideal alongside Desert spirituality. He is part of a dispersed community called the Order of St. Cuthbert and he was talking about the principles we can learn from Monasticism - it was pretty stirring stuff. Perhaps because I've been feeling gentle promptings from God lately about the amount of time I commit to spiritual disciplines/quiet times and about my work/life balance from all directions and this was like God was saying 'Ok Hannah, I've been saying it quietly now I'm going to shout louder so you pay attention.'

Keith used three key words to sum his talk up:
Withdrawal - into the desert
Encounter - with the Holy
Vocation - the call of God to ministry in the world.

We discussed withdrawal in four key areas: prayer, study, work and mission. Keith described work as being that which we do which we fell obligated or obliged to do and which consumes our energy and which if we're not careful can remove us from walking a way of prayer and withdrawal from God. This was like a hammer in my head! I spend all my time rushing about being a workaholic teacher, trying to cram in Church things like rotas and PowerPoint's and actually all of it means that I'm having a spiritual cash flow problem - giving out more than I take in and I know this has to change. I've already begun to think of times in my diary that I can block off to devote to prayer and study but I also think another side to it is going to have to be giving up the things I do because I feel I have to, when actually God hasn't necessarily called me to focus on them.

Some of it I guess ties in with my exploring my vocation within the Anglican Church and how that relates to me as a teacher but also on another level to my need to be helpful and to be 'busy' just for the sake of being busy!

I know it's going to be tough to put into practice but I do feel a conviction that I need to give this area of my life great priority at the moment and so I'm going to go with that.

Greetings Cards

Being of a slightly creative persuasion I sometimes make my own cards but rather too often lately there's no time so Ijust buy them. Now this would be fine except for the fact that all the cards in shops just don't appeal to me or say what I want to say.

Take for example my dad's birthday, now I don't really have a close relationship with my dad we've not lived in the same house since I was five, we don't live anywhere near each other, we may see each other twice a year at most but still as his daughter I feel it's important to send a birthday card and one that says dad. Admittedly I was late in remembering to buy a card this year but even so I went to three shops and all the cards that said dad on were all soppy and gushy about how dad's are amazing and helpful and lend you money and do things for you or drink beer - now my dad does none of those things, he likes red wine and he likes his garden but why can you not find a card that simply says 'happy birthday with love'

Is it too much to ask?!

A significant week

Most weeks seem to me follow the same old pattern of work, sleep, food, laughing, church, meetings and maybe the odd eventful or exciting thing.

But this week two events are happening which may in the future alter the life of Mr & Mrs B. The events themselves may not be that significant when they occur but feel significant contemplating them. On Tuesday Mr B is going to ring Lancashire Constabulary to apply for an application form to leave teaching and join the police. On Thursday I'm going to have my first meeting with a vocations advisor to consider my future in Christian ministry.

Both events are new, challenging and also exciting. As well as scary. It's at times like this I'm very grateful to be a Christian, at the start of a significant week where Mr B and I are setting off on a path not before travelled, we go knowing that there is One who has prepared the path for us, who will hold our hands and guide us as we go down the path and who knows what's at the end.
Here's to a significant week!

The Creative resolution

I just remembered I had 4 resolutions and I haven't mentioned my being creative resolution: in a word I haven't!!!

Bother not doing at all well am I?

Perhaps I should have made my resolutions more achievable like:
watch lots of Ally McBeal on DVD
check my facebook regularly
clean my house often
declutter my study
teach children for five days a week
enjoy the new series of Grand Designs on TV
Get annoyed at the people on superskinny versus supersize (don't you just love the term 'supersize'?)
Go to Church every Sunday

All of which I've done - easily!!!