We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa

i had no intention of posting about 9/11, given that it is not my story to tell but somehow i am here wondering how to put it together my thoughts for this day.


ten years ago i was woken by my small boy with a story about a plane flying into a building, it must have all happened at about the time i had fallen asleep the night before so i was late to the story. it made little sense to me but i didnt stop to think, i had to get the boys to school and it was on the other side of the world. i did stop to think eventually and the horror was something i could not truly imagine or assimilate so i moved on, saddened but not changed in any real way.

at the time people advised us to cancel our upcoming trip to malaysia, less than three weeks away but i felt that "it" would never happen to me and if it did i wouldnt know much about it so we took the trip. i still feel that way, my fears are more personal than the fear of terrorism, they are tied to my circumstances and change from day to day. people talked of the world never being the same again but the events of that day have made no difference to the way i move through life.

for a number of weeks now i have sat in church on a sunday morning and felt that it is time to talk about my faith here on my blog but what to say? i cannot make any logical argument for God and i fear that my hypocrisies make Him look bad but in these last ten years, as americans have grieved and healed i have walked my own path of grief and healing and the belief that a power bigger than anything else i encounter is looking out for me has been comfort and inspiration. i wont say it has kept me going because nearly all of us, religious or not, keep moving through life for the simple reason that the other choices are unacceptable.

i have seen no answer for the niggly bits of my life but to keep walking and when i could integrate them into my life i have tried to use the teachings of Jesus to help me navigate. even if i have achieved nothing else, the diversion of trying to emulate the perfect human specimen is a relief from life's mundane aspects.

i watched a documentary this evening, the one deemed by at least one journalist to be the best 9/11 programming out of the many hours that will be shown this weekend. it interviewed 5 survivors every year or two since the attacks. each one of those survivors suffered anger, self pity and guilt but made it through to a sense of joy and privilege in being alive, they were each angry at different people but they all came to a position of forgiveness.

i like my spiritual life to be moulded by my own understanding in combination with biblical teaching and the example of some people i regard as God's mirror but whichever way you come by them gratitude, forgiveness and hope would seem to me to be the keys to real life and those five courageous individuals that i "met" tonight should give hope to us all because if they can survive such a monumental event and go on to live, then so can the rest of us and that is what i aspire to, not survival but life.

i must be making progress. i put a load of washing in the machine this morning and it was a painful process. that would be normal, right? :)

i have a torn muscle in my back. the pain is UNBELIEVABLE, UNBEARABLE & UNIMAGINABLE.
for those who commented and didnt get a reply, i'm sorry.

i'll be back when i finish the codeine diet, hopefully by then i will also be dressing myself

love to all
xx

What is the most important thing you have ever lost?

I saw this question at Beautiful World (Bindi) and decided to take up the challenge of writing a post. The question was originally asked by David McMahon of authorblog and the time to answer might be past but here we go anyway:

I was a childbride, unpolished in character and not lacking in faults. I was sometimes bitchy, mean spirited, complaining. I was caustic at times and short tempered. I shouted at the kids and I procrastinated. I was disorganised and easily distracted from the task at hand. I didn't put my shoes away, I forgot to pay bills, I didn't cook enough food or I didn't put enough care in to it.
And I lost the respect of my husband.
He stopped talking to me and I lost companionship. I unwittingly undermined him with the kids and I lost a co-parent. He didn't want my company and refused to go out so I lost the opportunity to go places, to see things, to travel. I didn't have a willing companion for going to the movies, for eating out, for concerts or the theatre. I lost the richness of life. I lost joy. I lost intimacy. I lost love.
I lost the respect of my husband.

My babble .......and "Babel"

I love film but for various reasons I don't get to see as much as I'd like to, so if I'm shockingly out of date by saying I watched "Babel" last night, so be it.
(it was a Golden Globe winner, features Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt &Gabriel Garcia Bernal)
It's a brilliant film. Terribly depressing but outstanding. It begins by showing snippets of four stories and as the film progresses we learn that the stories are interconnected. I like that structure, I also liked that the stories themselves and the factors linking them were all totally plausible. I liked that each character spoke his or her own language, (so parts were subtitled) It captured atmosphere beautifully. And I liked Brad Pitt.
I didn't like that it was a story, four stories actually, of pain and tragedy, stories with difficult endings or no endings at all.
I guess the reason why I didn't like it was the same reason I did. (aren't we all full of contradictions?) It's totally true to life.
Don't see it if you are having a bad day, like nice neat closures or want a happy ending.
Do see it if you want to be challenged and engaged, if you like a clever storyline or exotic locations. Or if you like Brad Pitt :)

OOLF: when I wrote my post "Blessings from a Garden" I forgot the flowering Gum out the front.....she's gorgeous.

Can Evil be Defeated through Suffering?

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I had been thinking a lot about God. One of the questions that has been swirling round my head ever since is this one: Can evil be defeated through suffering?
This idea was mentioned in the doco I watched about the miracles of Jesus, it is part of the Jewish belief system and it immediately fascinated me.
It reminds me of the " if you enjoy it it must be a sin" type philosophy but is there any truth to it? and is there any biblical evidence for it?

These are my thoughts alone, and anyone who has an opinion is welcome join the (so far one sided) discussion.

I started by trying to think of relevant bible verses:
"turn the other cheek"
"do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
"the last shall be first" and " a soft answer turneth away wrath" all came to mind. They don't talk specifically about suffering or about defeating evil but they do give a general picture of moving softly in the world. They are about a gentle response to persecution and a gentle response would have to be the first step in making sure that a nasty situation doesn't escalate to something more evil.
There are more reasons for suffering than persecution, though and eventually I realised that I should look at God's posterboy for suffering...Job.

Job suffered at the hands of Satan. He lost his children and his wealth. Then he got sick. Really sick. He was angry and hurting about all of this and his friends basically told him it must be his fault. It was all horrible but Job maintained the position that God must have a reason for allowing it. He was angry at God but acknowledged His sovereignty. When all of this had happened God put a stop to the suffering, He defeated evil (the evil one).

Anyway, it all seems rather obvious now but my answer to the question is this: only God can completely defeat evil. He will do it in His time and His way but only He has that kind of power.
Having said that, our response to suffering can be one that promotes the cause of evil or it can be one that hinders evil. If a situation requires us to hinder evil by suffering, or worse by enduring pain on top of pain, then in a small way we can contribute to the defeat of evil through suffering.