Alive

This is a thing that happened in my head while during a one-to-one prayer session a while ago. I don't really know what you might call it - a vision? A picture? A prayer-journey? All I know is that it was real in my head; I watched it as if I were watching a film. Some of it was from my perspective, and other parts were from a camera overhead kind of filming the action. Close-ups and panoramas. 

Just my imagination? Well, yes and no. When someone asked Joan of Arc if the interactions with God were just her imagination she said, 'Of course. How else would he talk to me?' I had driven past a reservoir on the way to this prayer meeting so perhaps it came from there, but I am convinced that God used the tools in my head to tell me something that I needed to hear. 

I had just said, 'My word for this year is 'Alive' and I am anything but.'  The lady praying with me suggested we asked Jesus why I don't feel alive.

This is his answer:

I am cold. I don't know why I'm cold, but I am cold. I don't feel properly alive, and I say so. I feel stifled, suffocated. I long to breathe deeply but I can't. 

I ask Jesus why I am so cold. 

I realise I'm at the bottom of a lake. Not drowning, just sitting. The water is cold and murky, and the lake-bed is sandy and stony. There are a few wisps of weed and particles floating but there isn't much to see. Everything is grey and brown, bare and barren. Only a little light penetrates to where I'm sitting, knees drawn up to my chest. I sit. My feet are covered in sand.

I'm not afraid, just inert. I am not awake, not asleep. It's a half-life.

I realise that Jesus is there with me. I discern a light near me and I realise that it's him. He tells me that I can move if I want to. I show him that my feet and ankles are buried and I say that I can't. 

Jesus gently replies that I can, but I am afraid to push off. 

Jesus sits down next to me until I'm ready to try to move. He is patient and does not hurry me. In time, with his encouragement, I make a big effort and I push off from the stony bottom of the lake and swim through the grey murk to the daylight above. 

As my head breaks the surface I take in huge lungfuls of air. I gasp and cough and laugh with the exhilaration of breathing again after so long underwater. I breathe deeply, sculling with my arms and kicking my legs to keep afloat. Looking round I realise that I am in the middle of a large lake high up in some mountains. The lake is surrounded by hills covered in heather and bracken. The sun is not shining; there are heavy clouds, although it's not raining. There is little to see, barely any colours other than grey, brown, dark purply undergrowth. The only sounds are the splashes I make. 

I become aware that I am still cold. The water is cold and the air is cold. A wind blows. I move to float on my back and I laugh again as I breathe the fresh air but my laughter is a little forced. I look at Jesus, treading water next to me, and he smiles at me. He understands my confusion. I am happy to be able to breathe but I am still not at ease. I smile and turn away and look up at the grey sky. 

Is this all there is? 

Jesus quietly tells me that when I'm ready, there's more to see. 

I'm not ready. This is so much better than the place in the darkness under the water.  There's air to breathe and I can lie back and see the sky and so perhaps I should stay here. Better than before is enough, isn't it?  I splash about in the lake and Jesus stays with me, waiting. After a while he begins to swim towards the head of the lake, beckoning me to follow. 

I am reluctant to leave my spot in the middle of the expanse of water, even though I'm cold. I don't want to be rude, so I swim slowly after him, wishing he would stop. 

We get to the top of the lake. There's a gap between the bottom of two mountains rising above us and water is flowing down into our lake over a cascade of boulders from a source higher up. Jesus holds onto one of the rocks and turns to me. 

He wants me to follow him up the waterfall. 

It's only a trickle, not a torrent of water. There are plenty of rocks to hold onto and easy footholds, but I shake my head. I don't want to leave the lake. I know this lake. It might be cold and murky and dull but now that I have come up from the depths and I can breathe, it's so much better than what I had before that my impulse is to stay here. It feels safe. 

Jesus says there's another lake at the top of the waterfall, and it's so much better. 

I look doubtful. He says there's no hurry. 

Jesus takes a few steps up the waterfall and turns to me. Follow me, he says. 

I really do not want to. I am familiar with the lake I'm in and afraid to leave it behind for the unknown. I do trust Jesus but.. but... 

I climb after him. It's not a difficult climb, although I'm trembling. He does not get too far ahead and he is encouraging me step by step. I am slow and anxious but he is patient. 

Jesus gets to the top of the waterfall and he is standing on the last rock, which is broad and level. As I approach, tiny step by step, he crouches down to take my hand. One more step, he says, and I will be able to peer over the top of the waterfall. I take another faltering step, clinging onto the rock with my right hand and Jesus with my left. My eyes are level with the water and as I straighten, I see a beautiful scene in front of me. 

It's another lake, but so, so different from the one behind me. This lake is clear and reflecting the blue of the sky ahead. The sun is shining and the water is full of silver sparkles. Around this lake are still mountains but instead of the featureless brush and bracken there are flowers of all colours and meadows of lush grass. There are birds and butterflies. A warm breeze stirs the leaves of trees and carries a wonderful fragrance that makes me inhale deeply. 

I am astonished. Jesus laughs at my wonder and pulls me to stand on the rock with him. We gaze around for a time and then he asks me if I'd like to swim. He puts his toe in the water and then he is swimming for the middle of the lake on his back, telling me to come on in. I want to catch up with him.

I dive into this new lake without hesitating. The water is pleasant and as clear as crystal; I can see all the way to pretty pebbles on the bottom.  It tastes sweet and pure, not like the brackish water of the lake that I have left. As I surface in a mass of sparkling bubbles I feel the sun warm on my head and back.  Out in the middle of the lake we stop and float, enjoying the sunshine, the beautiful blue sky, the sound of birds singing, the fragrance of blossom. I don't ever want to go back to the other lake. 

And yet I'd have been happy to stay. I didn't want to be left under the water, but breathing again was so much better than before that I'd have settled for staying the first lake. I was content with greyness, coldness, colourlessness. I was reluctant to follow Jesus even though I knew he could be trusted. I resisted and hung back. 

Jesus tells me that this is what trust is, sometimes. It might not be dramatic and daring or even decisive. It might be incremental, cautious, even fearful. I did climb the waterfall, step by step, without knowing what lay at the top. I may have been hesitant and doubtful but eventually I did follow him. it's not always easy, and he doesn't expect me to be enthusiastic all the time. He is patient. He will hold my hand.

I was stuck in sand, blind and lost deep, deep down under the water, dark and cold.  Jesus came to find me, brought me light and helped me to surface, but he had so much more for me than that. I would have missed out on so much if I'd stayed in the lower lake. I would have lived and breathed but that was all. I would not have experienced the beauty and vibrancy of the upper lake.

He doesn't want me just to be alive.

'The thief comes to only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they might have life, and have it to the full.'
John 10:10 NI

I sense that there is yet more to see, but this is where Jesus has brought me. 

He is here with me still, as I laugh and splash and swim and explore to my heart's content. The sun is warm on my face and I am relaxed and happy. 

Images

Light and water DSCF0268.JPG by Ryudei2442 from Morgefile.com with permission

Sun and sky my own photograph.

Two dates and a dash

I have this one life, and I like it.

I like being alive. I know how fortunate I am to live where I do, how I do, with the people I do, and have the freedom to do what I do. I know that many, many people don't have any of the things that I take for granted. I could have been born in a part of Africa where I had to walk miles for water, and when I found it, it was dirty. I could have been brought up in a place where life expectancy is so short that I'd have died before reaching the grand old age of forty-four. I might have been in Iraq, fleeing for my life because of my faith, or terrorised in Nigeria, or crushed, uneducated and oppressed just because I'm a woman in Iran or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.

I try to grasp these truths and respond with gratitude and humility and to make the most of the opportunities that I have.

I am an introspective kind of person; definitely an over-thinker on occasion. I find myself spending time mulling over things like this - looking around the world and wondering what sort of person I might be if I had been born in Gaza, or in China, or Afghanistan. Or if I'd been in Jerusalem around 33AD, or in Stalin's Russia, or a Jew in Nazi Germany. What would life have looked like? What would it have made me?

Perhaps that's a completely different thing.

I have been born now, into this world, in Derbyshire in the UK and I have the life that I have. I didn't have anything to do with it - I had no choice in where and when I came along.

What even to call it, the fact that I have been born with so many advantages in nutrition, healthcare, education, freedom?  To say that I'm fortunate is inadequate as 'luck' or 'fortune' have connotations of chance and randomness about them, and I believe that God put me here, now, and I know that He doesn't make mistakes. There's nothing accidental about my birth or the circumstances surrounding them. I am also unsure about 'blessing', as I know that God loves those children trekking miles for water, and He loves the people in the vast prisons of North Korea, and He loves them no less than He loves me. I find it hard to believe that the God I know would withhold treasure from one of His children while giving so richly to others. The sun shines on the righteous and unrighteous alike, as they say... and sometimes when I see the simple joy of the impoverished African church in comparison with the apathy and discontent of many Western Christians, I wonder who is more blessed?

Opportunities and so-called accidents of birth aside, I am alive. I have been given the gift of a life - but I don't know how long it will be.

I'm checking the time and the date on my watch, now, and I will never have this moment again. Pff. There, it's gone. And another, and another.

Someone said that life was just two dates and a dash. I want to make the most of that dash.


I get to choose how I spend this life that I have. I make a myriad of choices every day; some that shape my life in a tiny way:

 - Scrambled eggs, or an omelette?  This shirt or that one?

Some that have a more profound impact:

 - Should I commit myself to writing this book, even if it means saying no to other things?  I am out of breath after walking up the stairs; should I do something about that?

Some that affect people around me:

 - Should I offer my help?  Should I stand up for that person?

Some that might have consequences that I may never know about:

 - Can I be bothered to pray for him/her?  Shall I send that letter? 

Split second decisions that can have huge effects:

 - Shall I respond angrily, or calmly?  Shall I pass on that piece of gossip?

I spend my days, and once spent, I don't get them back. A morning spent on Facebook, idly refreshing the page to see what gems appear on my feed next, or a morning spent reading God's word and asking Him what He'd like to say to me. An online quiz entitled, 'Which Tyne & Wear Metro Station Are You?' versus a two way conversation with the Creator of the universe.  Why on earth would anyone opt for the former?

(I am Central Station, apparently. Always preoccupied and in a hurry but more relaxed at weekends. See? That was worth doing, wasn't it?)

I was given a beautiful silver pendant a few years ago with a quotation from Jane Austen's 'A Prayer for Sunday':

"Teach us ... that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes..."

The importance of every day. I've heard it said that what you do in an average day is what you do in an average week, or an average year. Today matters. This moment matters. I won't have another chance to do today better than I am doing it right now.

It's worth putting the Jane Austen quote in its context because she made this exact point:

"Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer. Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable. Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past."

Amen to that. Better use indeed. I doubt whether God was overly impressed that I took two minutes to establish which Tyne & Wear Metro Station I am most like.

It's not all about worthiness, though. I can't live a momentous life every minute. What am I doing right now?  I need to work and I need to play because that's how I was made. I cannot be 'on' all the time. It's about being aware, it seems to me. About being wise, not wasting, making good choices. Doing what I do for the glory of God, even if it's defrosting the freezer or watching my daughter swim. I can live my life in a thoughtful way, or I can fritter it away aimlessly.

I have been amazed and distressed in the last six months or so to hear that so many of my friends and acquaintances have been ill. I can think of ... eight people right around me now who are just beginning, in the middle of, or coming to an end of a course of chemotherapy for various cancers, along with a couple of people celebrating the end of such a chapter in their lives, and someone for whom the treatment did not work. I passed church this morning and noticed that it was set out for a funeral later today.

It doesn't last forever, this life of ours, and we don't know when that second date is.

She lived from this date - that date.

I want to make the most of that dash. It's my life.

At Christmas we had family staying with us for a few days and we ate, drank and laughed. On several occasions we laughed until we cried, and I have a few photos that can start me off again. Laughter is a wonderful, exhilarating, healing thing.  Late on Boxing Day the snow began to fall and the children dashed outside in excitement to roll about in it, throw it at each other and squeal with delight in the wonderland. I stayed inside for a while, thinking only of the difficulties and dangers of driving in the snow, the forecast that temperatures were dropping and the fallen snow would freeze and all the ominous implications. Then I realised that I was indoors feeling grumpy and they were outside shouting with joy.

I put my coat on and my boots and went to join them. Down the road the neighbours were out helping stranded motorists on the main road and we talked, pushed cars, scooped snow and we laughed.

Its all about choices. Little ones and big ones. Too often I only see the choice I didn't make in my rear view mirror.

People are dying in Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Africa. Bad things are happening to people who deserve it no more than I do. People are writing heartbreaking blog posts on how it feels to live when terminally ill - and their loved ones are adding the post-scripts.

When I hear of a ten year old girl strapped with explosives and sent into a crowd, or someone dying of Ebola, cut off from their family, or a friend diagnosed with a tumour, it hurts my heart. No man is an island, remember - we are all part of the main* - and pain and suffering affect us all. But for me, safe in my kitchen, coffee and the internet on hand, all the comforts that I am used to, what should I do?

I have to live life. I have a responsibility to.

I have to try in my limited, complacent western way to grasp what I have been given and make the most of it. Lose the apathy; don't let it slip away.

To laugh and weep and feel and learn and celebrate and sing and love and grieve and see and ask and listen and rest and give and receive and grow.

There's a time for each of these things and so much more.

Notice what there is to be noticed, write it down, because that's what I do.

A million stars on a cold, cold night, whorls of frost on top of the car, a rainbow, the feel of my daughter's hand in mine.

Greenfinches on the bird feeder, an aloe vera plant that gave birth to no less than thirteen smaller plants, a pigeon the size of a football weighing down a branch of the elderly apple tree.

The sunrise - another day that nobody promised me, to add to my collection.

Notice and give thanks. Don't let them just slip away.

Psalm 90:12 tells us that an awareness of the brevity of life makes one wise:

'Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.'

After this life, there is something much better. That must be a comfort for those whose time on earth is full of pain and suffering, and for me it puts things in perspective on the days when my troubles seem big and complicated, but we are here to live until we die. To have a rich life full of the things that we are given to enjoy.  I know that I cannot do all the things I'd love to do but I must cut my coat according to my cloth. I have what I need to live the life I am supposed to live.

I want to live my life, not just watch it passively as it slips away. Carpe diem, I think. While I'm alive - live.

I want to make the most of that dash.





* John Donne, Meditation XVII 'No man is an island...'

Carpet diem

Dear God,

Here's this thing that I thought up when I was little, way before I read that bit about life being a tapestry with light and dark threads. I think that you gave it to me, and it was a lovely thing that I returned to time after time in my head; I still love it today. It comes to mind so often that I've had chance to colour it in and embroider it many times over the years.

I find that with people who know me well I can describe myself using this image: 'Feeling a bit threadbare today,' or 'I need to Hoover....' 

Ha. 

Some time ago at home group we discussed how we saw life in terms of an image; a rollercoaster, a journey, a test...and so on. I wasn't sure I had a picture of what life is like, but I was fascinated by other people's ideas. It seems that so many of us think in metaphors. It came to me much later yesterday evening when we'd changed subject that I did have an idea, and it was the one that'd been with me since I was small. I didn't immediately realise it because it's been part of the texture of my life for so long.

It's this: life is like kicking a carpet.

Bear with me. 

There's this roll of carpet - only about two or three feet wide, sort of like a stair carpet, that I unroll ahead of me as I walk along. Everyone has one. There's some artistic licence here as the carpet never gets any smaller and doesn't start out that big, it sort of magically unrolls in front of me in a CGI sort of way. I do have to put some effort in but it's not actually as hard as actually kicking an actual carpet, if you see what I mean. How hard it is seems to vary a bit. I've had a go at unrolling carpet in my house once or twice and it's not like that. This comes naturally.

It's living. 

I know, you're smiling down at me with that indulgent smile.  Still, I shall press on...

So this carpet has a pattern and everyone's pattern is different - my own is very familiar, even when the pattern changes as it regularly does.  Sometimes it's a brightly coloured, cheerful, intricate pattern, and at other times it's dull, muted, made of dark colours or plain with blocks of different shades.  Sometimes it even has strands of gold and silver in it, shining threads. Sometimes the pattern has a symmetry, sometimes it's muddled up and abstract.

Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.

Likewise the weave of the carpet varies - for a time it's thick, lush and rich in it's pile, and then later worn, threadbare, sparse.  Smooth and then knobbly.  Silky and bristly. Sometimes my toes luxuriate in the softness and warmth and other times it hurts my feet. As I go through life the carpet changes from day to day, hour to hour, and yet I keep going, kicking it along in front of me without breaking stride.

There are times when I'm running, even dancing along, full of songs and laughter, and the carpet is unrolling effortlessly.

Other times when I'm plodding, trudging with my head down watching the way the tears make little dark marks as I walk, and those times keeping it moving in front of me seems almost impossible, but I carry on.

I can never see where I'm going; it's as if I'm unrolling my carpet through space - three dimensional space, where there are ups and downs - uphills and downhills.  Bits of the journey are brightly lit and other bits so shadowy that I can barely make out the shape of my feet taking one step at a time, one step at a time. 

The destination is unknown but I keep walking towards it. There's no stopping; there's no choice. Keep going. Got to keep going. 

It will be worth it when I get there.

The interesting thing is that I'm not alone during this walk - I can see other people unrolling their carpets, too. Everyone in the world has a carpet.

Some are in the distance - a long long way away, and they're obscured, blurry - I can't see much of their carpet so I don't know what colours or patterns they have; I just get a glimpse.  These are the people who I might encounter for a brief moment.

Sitting on a train whooshing past and then I glimpse someone walking their dog in a field beside the track.

Driving past someone in a window of a house.

They're the people who come in to view for a second and then they're out of sight.  I see a stranger and wonder about their life - who are they? What are they worried about? Are they happy?  Their carpet comes near mine just for a moment and then they're gone and I never know.

Other people come alongside for a while - they walk alongside me for a time, or we meet and we overlap, and then they're gone in a different direction. Sometimes I see the same person back again. Sometimes I know that I've seen them before but can't place where...

Then in this journey I'm on, one or two people kick their carpets along with me. They're alongside, and they stay there.  Their carpet is so close that the edges of theirs and mine touch - sometimes they're so close that the edges wrinkle up against each other making a ridge.  But there might be a special person whose carpet fits mine perfectly. You're pretty much in step.  The weave and pattern on the carpets side by side are synchronised with each other. Sometimes you can't tell where your carpet ends and theirs starts, and sometimes they look very different. Sometimes they leave me behind and I struggle to catch up, and sometimes they're dawdling when I want to skip. But they're parallel with me.

There's a special sort of blessing in a carpet buddy.

Because their carpet looks and feels so much like mine communication is easy. There's an understanding. They look down and see what I see. The world is seen from almost the same perspective. They know when the going is heavy and when I'm flying. It's as if they can reach across to me and help me with the weight of my carpet as I unroll it. They can point out the finest of bright threads in the weave when I can see only darkness. Sometimes their presence alongside me brings light to show me there's beauty in the pattern when I've been unable to see.

A carpet buddy is a very special gift. Thankyou so much for mine.

Occasionally it seems as if someone's carpet is nicer than mine.  They seem to have an easier time getting theirs to unroll. Their pattern seems brighter, prettier, more interesting. It seems thicker, nicer to walk on. Likewise, sometimes other people's carpets appear inferior to mine; I'm glad I'm on my carpet and not theirs. I can't swap - I can't even step off mine onto theirs - so I can never really tell what it's like on their carpet, and they can't possibly know what it feels like to be on mine. 

Now and again I notice that someone I was used to travelling with isn't there any more. I'm so used to seeing them there but one day I realise that they're gone. Their carpet has run out. I know it has gone but I still can't tell what's at the end. I look back and crane my neck but I can never see.

I don't know what happens to the person kicking it along as I never seem to witness the exact moment it ends, I just see that it is no longer unravelling. What happened to the person whose carpet it was? Did they realise that it was going to end when it did? Maybe they noticed that the carpet was finally getting smaller?  Maybe it just vanished.  Then what?  I don't know.  Haven't got this bit figured out in my little fantasy. Neither do I know what's at the end of mine - or when it might end.  It seems to me that there's plenty of carpet left at the moment... who knows, but you?

But I imagine. 

I think the end of the carpet might be quite ornate - like something fantastic and awe inspiring from a  Renaissance tapestry.  Or maybe just a bit of brocade and a tassle.  Or perhaps it slowly gets thinner and thinner until it's no longer there?  

But it's what happens when I finally step off the carpet that I want to know about. I know it's not thin air - there'll be ground beneath my feet that is more solid than it has ever been when I've been unrolling my carpet through space. Maybe I'll no longer walk but jump and fly...maybe I'll have a grace that I never had in my life... maybe there'll be a pattern that is so beautiful that it defies description.   

My imagination isn't big enough.

So that's life. It's a journey, yes.  It goes up and down like a rollercoaster, yes.  I sometimes feel I'm in a race, yes. But it's a carpet, unrolling, unrolling. Inexorably leading me somewhere. 

A beautiful, unique carpet that only I can walk on. I've got to keep it going. Can't stop, got to keep going.

Till one day it will stop.

In a heartbeat.

Done. 

But I won't stop, and neither will you. We go on, and on, you and me.

That's when I'll know what's beyond the carpet.  It's going to be amazing.



(Edited and reposted from January 2011)

Images:

TheFlyingCarpet.jpg by Clarita
DSC005231.jpg by dhester
motiveGuilaneNachez.jpg by Guilane Nachez

From Morguefile.com. Used with permission.